Vegan festival-goers can check two must-attend events off their 2018 schedule at the same time: Miami’s beloved SEED Food & Wine festival and Los Angeles’s iconic Eat Drink Vegan festival are partnering up this year for what promises to make Los Angeles a bona fide vegan haven for three days.
Between May 23-26, the two-in-one vegan fest will host numerous events throughout Los Angeles, including cooking demos, yoga classes, a 5K run, nutrition seminars, celebrity chef dinners, and then event-goers can wash it all down with vegan beer and eats at the day-long Eat Drink Vegan festival at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl. This year’s Eat Drink Vegan event will host more than 100 food, beer, wine, and non-alcoholic drink vendors. In addition to the events leading up to the Eat Drink Vegan festival, SEED will host a “Wellness Village” at the day-long event.
Eat Drink Vegan — which started as the Vegan Beer Festival at LA’s famed nightclub the Roxy nearly a decade ago — has evolved into a premier destination not just for lovers of vegan food (and beer), but for vendors from all across the country to showcase their food, drinks, and products at the green market also on site during the event. Last year’s event brought in Portland’s popular pizza maker Sizzle Pie and New York’s Chickpea & Olive, among others.
Produced by Nic Adler, who also coordinates the food vendors at the popular Coachella music festival, Eat Drink Vegan delivers a smoothly organized event; lines are tolerable and the selection is eclectic and enticing. Outside the Pasadena Rose Bowl, it’s got the wide-open feel of Coachella, but without the crowded stages or campgrounds.
The SEED festival started in Miami in 2014 and has quickly evolved into one of the hottest plant-based events in the world. With a series of events folded into SEED that give it a vegan SXSW vibe, it draws an A-list roster of vegan speakers, experts, and chefs for a deeper dive into the lifestyle.
“I want to modernize the way people think about this lifestyle,” Adler said in a recent interview. “It’s not just hippies in a commune (although I don’t mind the hippies), but it is available to you everyday.”
Tickets for the event go on sale on March 1.
