Sand & Strings Music Festival needs your help! Please consider the following donation amounts (in USD) and read our story below:

If you donate...

$50 you'll receive two tote bags

$100 you'll receive the above + two baseball caps

$250 you'll receive the above + two T-shirts

$500 you'll receive the above + one limited edition art poster

$1,000 you'll receive the above + two General Admission tickets to next festival

$2,500 you'll receive the above + Sand & Strings two VIP tickets to the next festival

$5,000 you'll receive the above + private solo concert by Charlie Higgins + 2 General Admission tickets for life

$10,000+ you'll receive the above + full band concert by Charlie Higgins & Sunset Station + four VIP tickets for life

Dear friends, family and patrons of Sand & Strings Music Festival,

First, I want to thank each and every one of you for helping to make Sand & Strings Music Festival possible for the second year in a row. Whether you bought tickets and attended, donated your time or worked on the festival, shared valuable contacts, invested money, or simply offered your words of encouragement throughout the process, my team and I are eternally grateful for your support.

This year's festival marked many milestones for our growing community of musicians and music lovers of all ages. We moved to a considerably bigger venue—the Estadio de Beisbol in Sayulita—and expanded our operations to include dozens of local vendors, which in turn involved many more members of the greater Bahia de Banderas community. Our lineup was truly fantastic, with notable performances all around such as that of Spanish singer songwriter El Kanka, two mammoth sets by The Brothers Comatose, first time appearances by Los Rumberos and Paté de Fuá from Mexico City, and of course, an epic closing set by the legendary California Honeydrops.

And you all responded with your dance moves, smiles and tears of joy. My team and I were blown away by the amount of people who approached us out of the blue to say "thank you for doing this" and give us big hugs. We truly feel that all of us working together, from the musicians themselves to the entire logistics and sound crew and everyone in between, created a weekend chock full of memories that will last a lifetime.

Festivals like this, especially at this early stage in our development, involve a considerable degree of risk. That's just the reality of it. We held countless meetings with individuals within and outside of our core team to develop strategies and make improvements with regard to the first edition in 2024, which admittedly left us in a deep hole financially. We felt much more confident going into the second edition given that we:

Unfortunately, despite our very best efforts across the board (the extra hours, sleepless nights, mental and physical exhaustion included), we've ended up with a sizable deficit once again. We are still analyzing the reasons why this occurred, but suffice it to say that attendance was significantly lower than expected and we were grossly misled by one sponsor that we were depending on to offset costs and promote ticket sales regionally.

I think it's safe to say that just about everyone who attended the event March 15th-16th wants this festival to happen again. I would venture to say we NEED this festival to keep happening. It is so important to continue to create these unifying cultural experiences for the future of our communities, and this year we were so amazed by the DIVERSITY of the crowd, which included people from all over North America (Americans, Mexicans, Canadians), South America and even Europe.

Hence, we have created this GoFundMe to pool together our resources and prove just how strong the Sand & Strings community is and how much we love live music. We need your support right now to recover financially and ensure this festival survives another very tough year so we can regroup and rebuild without affecting the festival's strong reputation in the music community. We recognize the enormous potential of Sand & Strings to continue to grow, create more unique experiences and spread joy. So please, let's come together on this in whatever way you can, whether it's by donating or sharing this page with people who you think will understand the challenges we are facing.

Best regards

Charlie Higgins

Founder, Sand & Strings Music Festival