Honeyland Festival Announces Impact Plans for Inaugural Event

Honeyland Festival announced its full Impact program for its inaugural festival celebrating Black culture through food, beverage, music and more. The impact initiatives laid out by the Honeyland Festival solidify the event’s commitment to not only celebrate but give back and support the Black community as well. The two-day festival will be held at The Crown Festival Park at Sugar Land, just outside Houston, TX, on November 11 & 12.

For this first annual event, the festival has created the Honeyland Fund, which will invest up to $1 million in grants to support Black creators and innovators and bring awareness to emerging talent in hospitality, events, and cultural industries. The Honeyland Fund focuses on addressing the systemic inequalities and barriers faced by Black creators, Black-led organizations, and Black-serving entities in hospitality, events, and cultural industries.

The call for applications closed earlier this month and the winners will be announced on stage at Honeyland Festival for an exciting celebratory moment. In addition to business application-submitted grants, the Honeyland Fund will also award partnership grants to their non-profit partners.

The festival is also providing resources to those eager to learn about and pursue a career in the culinary and entertainment industries. Honey Crew is a culinary career pipeline program designed to provide under resourced students with educational programming, healthy eating resources, and access to industry professionals. Honey Crew is in partnership with Houston Independent School District and Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), the nonprofit organization long co-chaired by chef and philanthropist Marcus Samuelsson – who is also serving as culinary curator of the Honeyland Festival. This collaboration empowers the competitively selected group of high school students with an on-stage experience and educational opportunity to cook with and learn from the festival’s chef talent.

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Students from HISD Careers in Technical Education’s Arts, Audio/Video Technology, and Communication programs will also be given the opportunity to apply the skills they’ve learned on site by capturing content across the festival to create career-launching sizzle reels. After the festival, Honey Crew students will have further educational opportunities and access to feedback sessions and professional guidance from industry-leading creative companies including Cam Kirk Studios, Obsidianworks, and Endeavor.

Understanding the significance of sustainability and the prevalence of food insecurity within Black and marginalized communities is important to Honeyland as well. Therefore the festival is dedicated to elevating healthy and equitable outcomes for all.

Waste Management: Through recycling, composting, and landfill diversion, we’re minimizing our festival’s ecological footprint.
Reducing Single-Use Plastics: Our Culinary Main Stage & VIP Culinary Stage are embracing eco-friendly practices. We’re using multi-use, compostable portion cups and containers, eliminating plastic waste.
Eco-Friendly Serviceware: We’re requiring all our food vendors to use compostable serviceware, including plates, cups, and utensils. Plus, our Culinary Demo Main and VIP Stages are leading by example with compostable utensils, napkins, cups, and plates for our own use and any samples leaving our kitchen/stage.
Food Recovery for Good: Any unutilized goods, whether from catering areas, food vendors, or items left by attendees, will find their way to local community partners. And those compostable trimmings and inedible leftovers – they’re not going to waste either. We’re using them to feed animals, reducing waste even further.

In partnership with IMG and Live Nation Urban, Obsidianworks, a culture-powered media and marketing agency that speaks to diverse demographics and communities, created and executed Honeyland’s Impact program. Obsidianworks is in partnership with Endeavor owned full-service marketing agency, 160over90.

“In Sugar Land, Texas, where a bitter past once loomed on a sugar plantation, the Honeyland Festival blooms with the sweetness of creativity and joy,” said René Spellman, Chief Impact Officer of Obsidianworks. “Beyond music and culture, Honeyland Festival plants seeds of lasting change by addressing systemic inequities faced by Black creators, it fosters growth, cultivating opportunities for healing. These impact initiatives ensure a legacy of inclusivity, empowerment, and transformation.”

Honeyland Festival lineup

● Chlöe

● Coco Jones

● DJ Mr. Rogers

● Spinall

● Dende

● Houston All-Stars (Scarface, Slim Thug, Paul Wall, Z-Ro, and Lil Keke)

● Inayah

● Jae Murphy

● Jazmine Sullivan

● Kiotti & Keisha Nicole

● Lenora

● Lucky Daye

● Mary J. Blige

● Miguel

● Tay Powers

● Tems

● Tobe Nwigwe

In addition to these initiatives, Honeyland Festival will kick off on Friday with a land acknowledgement and welcome ceremony to recognize the Indigenous and Black history of the land that Honeyland is celebrating Black culture on, and the heartbreaking past this community and other underrepresented groups faced here. This includes the 2018 discovery of a mass grave in Sugar Land of 95 incarcerated Black people from the late 1800’s, and honoring their souls. Executives from Honeyland founding groups IMG and Live Nation Urban, festival curators Marcus Samuelsson and Fawn Weaver, Presenting Sponsor X World Wallet, and Founding Partner Pepsi Dig In will all be in attendance for this important moment.

To donate to the Honeyland Fund or learn more about the festival please visit HoneylandFestival.com. To stay up to date on all Honeyland news and announcements, visit the following channels for more: