Asheville festival puts student creativity front and center

Student-made video game blueprints, cyber decks and storytelling pieces took center stage at The Orange Peel as Asheville’s Connect Beyond Festival put Buncombe County youth work in front of parents, educators and local leaders.

Middle and high schoolers in the Youth Envision Asheville program spent months building multimedia projects that began in December, then brought them to downtown Asheville for the three-day festival from May 29-31. The work was not presented as a finished showcase only; festival organizers framed it as a look at the process itself, including collaboration, experimentation and the adjustments students made when ideas changed.

That approach made the youth segment feel less like a school display and more like a test of what Asheville’s arts infrastructure can still do for young people. Connect Beyond, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts-and-ideas festival based in Asheville, said its 2026 theme was The Community Garden, a venue-wide interactive art experience meant to serve as a living metaphor for the systems that shape communities. The festival said it has brought people together in Asheville since 2017.

Youth Envision Asheville, or YEAVL, was created by Connect Beyond Festival, KL Training Solutions, Impractical Instruments and Slay The Mic Multimedia to give young people paid learning opportunities, creative skill development, technical training and production experience. At The Orange Peel, the youth program was scheduled at 4:30 p.m. as Youth Envision Asheville: Planting the Future, followed by The Community Garden: Creators Conversation at 5 p.m., giving attendees a direct look at how the project came together.

The rest of the weekend carried that same mix of art and civic purpose. The lineup included a screening of SPEAK followed by a question-and-answer session with filmmaker Guy Mossman and cast member Sam Schaefer, performances by August Lee Stevens, B. Deveaux and NAIMA, and Shared Roots: Songs & Stories in the Round with Mary Gauthier, Shana Tucker and Marisa Blake. Other programming included a fireside chat with organizer and strategist Scot Nakagawa, Modern Biology and StoryLab: Build The World You Want, a youth workshop focused on newspaper design, film storyboarding and social storytelling.

The festival’s FAQ said events were scheduled one at a time with a dinner break between afternoon and evening programs, and weekend pass holders could access all events unless otherwise noted as VIP. Doors opened at noon each day, passes were pay-what-you-can and no one was turned away. Large bags and backpacks were not permitted inside The Orange Peel, a small but practical reminder that even a festival built around imagination ran on the rules of a real downtown venue.