Schedule

may 29-31, 2026
the orange peel - asheville

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Festival Schedule

Schedule is subject to change. Check back for the latest updates.

- 4pm - Doors Open, The Community Garden opens
- 4:30pm - Youth Envision Asheville (YEAVL) Art Introduction
- 5-6pm - The Community Garden Creators Conversation
- 6pm - Dinner Break
- 7pm - Shared Roots: Songs & Stories in the Round, featuring Mary Gauthier, Marisa Blake and Shana Tucker, with music journalist Marcus K. Dowling
- 10am - Doors, The Community Garden opens
- 11am-12pm - Fireside Chat with organizer, strategist, and 22nd Century Initiative co-founder Scot Nakagawa
- 1-2:30pm - Modern Biology - music with plants and mushrooms bringing together art and ecology
- 3pm - SPEAK. - award winning documentary screening
- 4:45pm - SPEAK. Q&A with filmmakers Guy Mossman and cast member Sam Schaefer
- 5:30-6:30pm - Dinner Break - VENUE CLOSED FOR SOUND CHECK
- 7pm - Oakland Rising - performances by August Lee Stephens, B. DeVeaux, and NAIMA
- 1pm - Doors open, The Community Garden opens
- 1:30pm - From Concept to Creation: The Game Design Process. This interactive workshop explores how creative ideas evolve into fully realized games.
- 3pm - Spring in Altamont: See a vignette from Rebecca Hecht’s new play, Welcome to Altamont, in collaboration with Street Creature Puppet Collective
- 3:30pm - StoryLab: Build the World You Want. What if you could write the headlines of the future? StoryLab is an immersive creative space where ideas turn into stories—and stories shape the future.
- 5:30pm - Festival Wind Down

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FRIDAY

Brought to you by the creative minds behind Meow Wolf, CalArts and Epic Games comes a new venue-wide interactive art exhibit. Created in partnership with Asheville-based media creators, Impractical Instruments, and the distributed team of imagineers at Brain Collision, with 20 years of insight from creating some of the nation’s most engaging experiences, immerse yourself in The Community Garden. Throughout the festival weekend, attendees will have a chance to explore art that reimagines community services as elements of a living garden.

The Community Garden

Brought to you by the creative minds behind Meow Wolf, CalArts and Epic Games comes a new venue-wide interactive art exhibit. Created in partnership with Asheville-based media creators, Impractical Instruments, and the distributed team of imagineers at Brain Collision, with 20 years of insight from creating some of the nation’s most engaging experiences, immerse yourself in The Community Garden. Throughout the festival weekend, attendees will have a chance to explore art that reimagines community services as elements of a living garden.

Help us kick off this year’s Connect Beyond Festival with the young creators helping bring the Community Garden to life. Through the Youth Envision Asheville program, local youth have spent months building, designing, and imagining alongside artists, mentors, and community leaders—transforming ideas into immersive art while developing real-world skills in technology, storytelling, fabrication, and creative problem-solving. As the first voices to take the stage, these young visionaries will share their process, their perspective, and what it means to reimagine the systems that shape our communities. From learning how civic systems work to exploring how creativity can help change them, their work reminds us that the future is not something we inherit—it’s something we build together.

Youth Envision Asheville: Planting the Future

Help us kick off this year’s Connect Beyond Festival with the young creators helping bring the Community Garden to life. Through the Youth Envision Asheville program, local youth have spent months building, designing, and imagining alongside artists, mentors, and community leaders—transforming ideas into immersive art while developing real-world skills in technology, storytelling, fabrication, and creative problem-solving. As the first voices to take the stage, these young visionaries will share their process, their perspective, and what it means to reimagine the systems that shape our communities. From learning how civic systems work to exploring how creativity can help change them, their work reminds us that the future is not something we inherit—it’s something we build together.

Go behind the scenes of The Community Garden, Connect Beyond Festival’s immersive centerpiece, in a live conversation with the artists, builders, designers, and youth collaborators who brought it to life. More than an art installation, The Community Garden is a living metaphor for the systems that shape our communities—exploring what happens when we nurture the things that sustain us and what happens when we neglect them. This conversation offers a rare look into how art can become a tool for community-building, systems thinking, and collective visioning. Come hear the stories behind the garden—and the people who planted it.

The Community Garden: Creators Conversation

Go behind the scenes of The Community Garden, Connect Beyond Festival’s immersive centerpiece, in a live conversation with the artists, builders, designers, and youth collaborators who brought it to life. More than an art installation, The Community Garden is a living metaphor for the systems that shape our communities—exploring what happens when we nurture the things that sustain us and what happens when we neglect them. This conversation offers a rare look into how art can become a tool for community-building, systems thinking, and collective visioning. Come hear the stories behind the garden—and the people who planted it.

Dinner Break

At the heart of every song is a story—and at the heart of every community are the roots we share. Join us for a special evening of music and conversation featuring acclaimed and award-winning musicians and songwriters Mary Gauthier, Shana Tucker, and Marisa Cristina Blake, in an intimate songwriter round guided by music journalist Marcus K. Dowling. Through stripped-down performances and thoughtful dialogue, these songwriters will share not only the songs themselves, but the stories, influences, and lived experiences that brought them to life. We invite the audience into a moment to slow down, listen closely, and witness what can grow when voices from different paths come together on a shared stage.

Shared Roots: Songs & Stories in the Round

At the heart of every song is a story—and at the heart of every community are the roots we share. Join us for a special evening of music and conversation featuring acclaimed and award-winning musicians and songwriters Mary Gauthier, Shana Tucker, and Marisa Cristina Blake, in an intimate songwriter round guided by music journalist Marcus K. Dowling. Through stripped-down performances and thoughtful dialogue, these songwriters will share not only the songs themselves, but the stories, influences, and lived experiences that brought them to life. We invite the audience into a moment to slow down, listen closely, and witness what can grow when voices from different paths come together on a shared stage.

Music.
Film.
Story.
Art.

Connect Beyond Festival is back for three days of music, storytelling, and immersive experiences at The Orange Peel in Asheville.

The 2026 festival brings together filmmakers, musicians, creatives, and cultural voices for a weekend of live performances, conversations, and interactive installations, including The Community Garden, a large-scale venue-wide art exhibit where attendees actively engage with the experience.

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