Often, wellness festivals are destinations. Attendees fly to faraway locations while big name presenters are flown in to lead classes and presentations for large crowds of people.

But how do we continue that wellness journey once home?

Rick Plautz, the founder of Rest Fest 2025, knew there was a lot going on in Richmond’s wellness scene, but he also realized that it took a lot of effort to find it.

In 2023, he was inspired to try to create an event to showcase local wellness talent. He wanted it to be like a festival retreat, but a festival centered around wellness that also felt like a day retreat.

“I wanted to provide a platform and a stage for all these beautiful people trying to help,” he says. “Let them find their people. Have music, food, speakers, group classes and have it be alcohol-free.”

It felt like the right moment given the challenging adjustments post-COVID and how much people have been through since 2020. Plautz sensed a mass awakening happening and saw his path as an event organizer.

“Richmond was looking for community after the world shifted,” he says. “Many people had found the bottom of a liquor bottle during COVID, and sober spaces were sorely lacking.”

Trusting his intuition, Plautz invited the first cohort of facilitators and speakers to be part of the inaugural Rest Fest 2024. Many of the people he chose had taught classes he’d attended, classes where he’d received cathartic experiences. His goal was to introduce attendees to new possibilities with the intention that it might spark another pathway to healing.

“It was important to have a runway from the typical wellness offerings of yoga and meditation to more esoteric or niche experiences,” he explains. “Things like transformational breathwork, sound baths, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy presentations, and plant medicine discussions.”

The two-day retreat will be structured with alternating group classes and presentations provided on a first-come, first-served basis. Rest Fest is designed to be a menu of offerings throughout both days, with classes starting at 10 a.m. and going until 5 p.m.

Throughout each day there will be a few musical performances, with a special concert on Saturday evening headlined by Big Fancy and Holy River. In the spirit of a festival, the musical performers and Saturday concert are key elements of Rest Fest.

“They help set the vibe of the weekend and highlight some of the incredible local talent Richmond has,” Plautz says. “Sound and music are inherently healing. Art decorates spaces, and music decorates time.”

The Richmond band, Holy River, often plays grassroots wellness festivals around the country, and the world even, says singer Laney Sullivan.

“I don’t think people realize that Richmond is a hub for wellness practitioners in different fields,” she says. “It’s a very multifaceted healing arts scene with all kinds of different modalities and practices.” She adds that Rest Fest is “doing a good job of showcasing people who live in the community who are doing that work, and have been for a long time, like Yogi J.Miles. We collaborate with him at festivals across Virginia and the DC area.”

She notes that Rest Fest is a festival and a retreat at the same time, which means “it’s a place where they’re holding space for people to heal, which is not a normal festival atmosphere,” she says. “You won’t be around people making themselves sick.”

Sullivan also runs the Fonticello Food Forest, a community garden in South Side, and she says that J. Miles will be teaching free yoga in the Food Forest all year long, every Tuesday at 6 p.m.

Another important aspect of Rest Fest is the vendor community. Local artisans and service businesses related to wellness and holistic health will be placed throughout the venue over the weekend.

“Lastly, community is a very important focus at Rest Fest,” says Plautz. “There will be spaces dedicated to just hanging out and connecting with new people, with a dedicated wing of the venue for connection, as well as refreshing nature areas to relax.”

Rest Fest takes place at The Cardinal in Moseley, a venue Plautz says feels like a retreat destination despite being only 30 minutes outside of Richmond. It was specifically chosen to allow attendees to have a retreat experience and still sleep in their own bed.

Because food is another holistic avenue to explore for those anywhere along their healing journey—and because of how good Richmond’s food scene is—attendees at Rest Fest can choose from Goatocado and Ginger Thai food trucks, while Conscious Table will provide community food options. Libations will be courtesy of Point 5, who will offer craft spirit-free cocktails, Ginger Juice, Carytown Teas, and Ninja Kombucha.

While Richmond has always been a strong festival city, Rest Fest is looking to add to the definition of what a wellness festival can be. Plautz says they hope to attract anyone at any point in their healing journey, young or old, as well as those seeking sober spaces in the community, and wellness enthusiasts looking for healing experiences.

“There are so few options for the exploding sober-curious population—which is a defining trend of Gen Z, along with those in recovery and people that identify with a healthy lifestyle,” he says. “Those people want a genuine experience that’s an extension of themselves but free of alcohol and its associated behaviors.”

In looking for a name for last year’s inaugural event, Plautz knew he wanted it to be catchy, descriptive, and a little bit subjective. He acknowledges that rest can mean a lot of different things to people.

Rest can be restorative, as the body steps down from the ‘fight-or-flight’ responses that are constants of 21st-century life. Because our bodies can’t tell the difference between being chased by a tiger and being cut off in traffic, he notes, an angry email can trigger the same response as being put in physical danger.

“We all get so many micro-aggressions in our daily life, but we’re not taught how to step our body down from those responses,” Plautz says. “Then these heightened states become normalized, causing stress, exhaustion, and other damaging physical symptoms.”

By the end of the weekend, Plautz wants attendees to come away from Rest Fest 2025 having had a profoundly relaxing experience.

“We want to give people the tools to take back into their daily life,” he says. “They’ll leave with a network of healing arts facilitators to call upon, and a community of people on a similar path to connect with in their own city.”

Rest Fest 2025 runs from April 26-27 at The Cardinal at Magnolia Green, 17301 Memorial Tournament Drive, Moseley, Virginia. Takes place from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. For more information and a full list of group class leaders, presentations and musical guests, visit rvarestferst.com.

Additional reporting was done by Editor Brent Baldwin.