Our finances: transparency and insights

The 2023 edition cost about €2.800.000 (all amounts are exclusive of VAT)

At the bottom of this page we have split up the costs for each edition of the festival since 2017, and mentioned the yearly income. When all expenses are met, what is left is either loss or profit, which is also noted (balance / accumulated balance).

To give you an idea of what things cost, here are some examples from / up until 2023:

• Our stages and structures cost us €130.000 in building materials alone;
• Throughout the entire production we work on-site in container offices. From the same company we rent shipping containers to store materials and fridge containers to keep food and drinks fresh, altogether €85.000. Half of that amount are transport costs to get those things to our remote location;
• Fuel and generators during the festival costs €50.000 – not included is the electricity bill for the power we use from the main grid for the rest of the year;
• The installation and service of compost toilets costs over €40.000;
• With support of Turismo de Portugal, over €140.000 has been invested in the land regeneration project since 2020. The area around the lake is public land, belonging to the town hall, which we are turning into a biodiverse, public park;
• Safety-wise, 24h medical service and security teams during the festival cost €92.000, while improving the permanent infrastructure of Barragem das Nascentes relating to fire and crowd control has cost us €60.000 so far;
• Since 2017 we have spent €100.000 on shade structures covering 70% of the campsite, 26.800m²;
• Being able to shower and have water available all over the festival site has cost us €105.000 and counting (we had to build +4km of underground water network from scratch).

These costs only represent about 15% of the overall annual expenses.

Waking Life is a project realised by 10 people working full-time, 150 people working part-time, seasonally or during the festival, and an additional 500 volunteers. Nobody makes a lot of money from this work. In 2023, the total staff cost was around €670.000, including taxes, social security, and other wage-related expenses. This excludes all other crew and volunteer-related expenses such as travel, food on site and ticket refunds, adding €253.000 to the budget.

Note: almost no one was paid throughout the first three editions and most crew payments only started in 2022.

The 2023 revenue was about €2.400.000 (all amounts are exclusive of VAT)

To pay for our expenses, we rely on income from:

• Ticket revenue;
• Bar revenue;
• Tipi and shuttle revenue;
• Commission on food shops;
• Grants, funding and donations.

Waking Life was initially funded by around 50 people – friends and family. Everyone who put money into the festival and the land project did so with a full understanding of the visions and values underpinning our dream.

The initial funds helped us manifest the first edition of Waking Life in 2017. Outstanding debts resulting from that edition, and the one in 2018, were paid with money from incoming revenue. We arrived to a more or less cashflow positive situation in 2019, the last edition pre-Covid-19…

Then Covid-19 happened. European festivals went on a two year shutdown, some running costs continued, revenue did not (except donations we got from you folks during The Space Between : ) 2022 was the first summer post-Covid, Waking Life sold out, and we managed to recuperate some losses.

In 2023 we changed the date to early June for several reasons – a key one being the risk of being shut down by authorities when extreme temperatures occur in July and August, and June offering much healthier and sustainable conditions (both to the community and for landcare). This date change came with a transition year and a decrease in sales. We also had to increase the ticket price as inflation pushed up the cost of nearly all materials and logistics by over 20%. Add mounting rent, energy and general living costs, and people needing to make budgetary priorities.

As a result, we didn’t meet our financial needs and, despite careful budget cuts pre-festival, still made a hefty (estimated) €400.000 loss on top of the accumulated losses of the previous years. Yikes.

Deciding the ticket price – the festival production cost per participant:

• The 2023 production cost was €2.800.000;
• The 2023 ticket price was €250;
• The actual cost of WL23 at 5000 sold tickets (as sold in 2023) was €560 per paying participant;
• The actual cost of WL23 at 7500 sold tickets (as sold in 2022) would be €370 per paying participant.

So, if with 7500 sold tickets the production of Waking Life still costs us €370 per paying participant, it means that the general ticket price of €250 doesn’t cover it and we need to earn at least an additional €120 per person (just) to break even.

Here’s how that goes:

We don’t want to increase the ticket price, but at the same time no one seems to be keen on a higher capacity. We want to keep prices of food and drinks democratic, but we also want to increase the amount of organic and locally sourced products and need to take into account rising logistics and staff costs. Your support at the bar is a vital part of our revenue, but we don’t want to check your bag for drinks each time you go from campsite to lakeside either. One answer lies in creating new revenue streams such as some food stalls owned by Waking Life, but this is a slow process that requires investment as well.

Nobody said it was easy, but the money needs to come from somewhere : ) Not just enough to make ends meet (and continuing to exist in a state of precarity and risk), but enough to become a financially stable association that can develop and give back to the Waking Life project, including its entire community.

Waking Life is independent and free from corporate sponsorships. Participants won’t encounter commercial advertisements from (un)recognizable brands at the festival. The whole vibe we’re trying to create is a departure from default world oppressions and modelling a different kind of symbiosis with one another and the space around us. While we are not excluding the possibility of collaborating with companies or ngos in the future, this would first require a good vibe match and the deciding factor for such a collab would be a solid alignment in our vision & ecosocial mission.

Waking Life invites people to enter a fluid space in themselves, to ask the questions: What do we cherish? What uplifts us and what beats us down? What gives us purpose? These questions lurk behind the bushes planted, the bamboo arches, the delicately placed subwoofers, the sweat dripping from a dancer’s chin. Almost every moment is an invitation to deepen, or to shift, or to reconsider something of substance – even if we often realise this long after the festival ‘ends’.

In any case, while financial sustainability is crucial, sooner rather than later, amassing money is far from the end goal here. It’s using some people’s money, to give a bunch of committed, creative people some of that money (living resources) and materials, to give a bunch of other people (as well as themselves) an incredible death-bed-memory experience, infusing the collective body with music, possibilities, quantum realisations and one hell of a memorable ride that makes life feel bewilderingly wonderful.

While it is tricky to precisely figure out the amount of income Waking Life brings into the Cratosphere, in 2022, participants and crew all together spent an estimated €450.000 in local establishments, while the association spent over €250.000 in local stores. Together this makes a (direct) injection of €700.000 into the local economy.

The calculation of Waking Life’s own local investment was made by adding up all payments that were made to local suppliers and businesses between September 2021 and September 2022. The calculation of crew and participant spending was made by counting an average (conservative) amount of €10 pp in local stores over 3 out of 6 festival days. We added the hotels and airbnbs in the region, booked at 80% capacity by Waking Life participants, as well as their budget spent at the event itself at food stalls owned by Crato residents (based on their receipts).

Many countries are experiencing a Ghost Town effect in rural villages, with culture, tourism and work opportunities disproportionately shifting to bigger cities. Local businesses get a significant boost in earnings during the festival production months, via food, materials and various miscellaneous purchases, while thousands of people visiting the neighbouring areas before, during and after the festival contribute to the economic health of the area, without overexploitation of local resources.