Zach Wilson is using music and the arts to bring a wider audience into the conversation about money, opportunity and financial independence. The founder and chief executive of the Lumina Festival, which takes place this weekend, is drawing on his experience in the music industry to broaden ideas of what success can look like. Eugene Dean and the audiovisual production company, Spanish Town Entertainment are helping bring that vision to life, including a closing benefit concert headlined by Grammy-nominated R&B artist Musiq Soulchild.

Q: Why bring music and the arts into a conversation about financial literacy?

A: It’s a way to draw in a crowd that potentially has been left out of the wealth conversation in the past, or may need a different angle to draw their interest. Also, there's so many creatives that need to learn about business acumen, or profiting off of their creativity. In Bermuda so many people are pushed towards the international business space. It's painted as if that's the only way to be successful here. With our theme, “Art of the Possible”, we want to explore not only traditional success but unorthodox success. The creative community is very important to Bermuda, and we wanted to provide some programming uniquely for them, and I think we've nailed it this year.

Q: Why is this something you feel strongly about?

A: Although I've been gone for a number of years, Bermuda is always near and dear to my heart. My family's here. My mother is buried here. No matter where I go in life, I always have to come home. In the past few years, coming more often, I just started to see the gaps and ways that I could serve my community best through my gifts, talents, and my experience. My mom was American so I'm blessed to have dual citizenship, and that came with a unique set of privileges and opportunities. Having an opportunity to work at Warner Music Group and being in an environment where [my peers became] big songwriters, producers [and] music execs, I've been exposed to the art of the possible. I have no limitations of what one can achieve when they're put in the right position and given the tools, along with work ethic. But so many people here have limiting beliefs, and I feel like a big part of that is due to a lack of options. Part of my mission is to build an interconnected network of Black excellence in Bermuda. I've been exposed to unorthodox success. I've seen graphic designers make six figures, cinematographers, creative directors — there's a whole new vein where people are making just as much money as someone at reinsurance by living out their passions in a creative field. I just want to show our people what's possible.

Q: How will the festival showcase that?

A: For the Financial Literacy Summit, we have Dion Walcott coming in to speak. His panel is “Every Creative is a Small Business: Preparing Creatives for Partnerships and Ownership”. Dion Walcott is a creative director. He works for major sneaker brands, so I'm excited for him to come and add his spin. And then we have [internationally recognised Bermudian DJ] Korie Minors and DJ Milhouse, formerly J Cole’s DJ [and now] a resident DJ for Everyday People. The conversation with Korie Minors and DJ Milhouse is about transitioning from a nine to five to being a full-time creative. They both experienced that pivot.

Q: What role does the Solara Music & Arts Concert play?

A: This is year one of our big celebrity music and art concert but I envision this growing into a space where more people, more artists, find out about what we're doing and want to pour into our community. Other events, they bring in influencers and artists. People come, perform, get paid, take some cool pictures for Instagram, and then they're out of here never to return again in a lot of cases. But for us, [it’s about] having every single artist come in and talk to students. For high school students to see a DJ Milhouse and say, “Man, this is possible for me.” I think the social impact part is what's going to sustain us and continue to propel us as we continue to grow the Lumina Festival. [Musiq Soulchild’s agent] Mitch Blackman will speak to students [through the Mirrors programme], DJ Milhouse will be speaking to students, Dion Walcott as well. We just want to expose students to different career options. I know a lot of times we only know what we know, and with me having a different experience, I get to show kids there's more than one [way] to be successful, and these are the examples.

Q: How did Musiq Soulchild become involved?

A: We had e-mailed [Mitch Blackman] some time ago about the initiative, how Lumina is a social enterprise dedicated to bridging the worlds of financial education, culture, and the arts, and just saying how we wanted to use music as a vehicle to ultimately get our messaging out there to raise funds for more financial education programmes on island. They came in and really, they didn't have to do this. Musiq is on tour and very booked and busy, and they really leaned into the initiative. They’re coming here to support the cause of what we're doing.

Q: Does the concert also help fund the financial literacy work?

A: Financial literacy summits, for them to be profitable, the ticket margin would have to be quite high, and with Lumina being an initiative where we want as many people within our community to attend, we've lowered the [cost of the] general admission ticket. Even though we have a charity number [and] this is something we're doing for the community, the cost of what we're doing to operate and build a festival is still very expensive. To help us manage that, our for-profit initiatives pour back into our non-profit initiatives. I can't always depend on sponsors to help with every single initiative that we're trying to build on island. So, using my connections and music as a way to build a bigger capacity event like a concert, allows us to get the funding that we need to pour back into the community.

Q: What kind of programmes have you been able to provide?

A: We launched The Playbook, a financial education programme for Black men. It ran from April to the end of June — budgeting with Sylvia Taylor, investing with Mandela Fubler, and then Cervio Cox [taught about] wellness. That was an incredible ten weeks. I would love to consistently do programmes similar to that. We had 45 Black men, 15 per cohort. We worked with the sports clubs — with Warwick Workmen’s, [Southampton] Rangers and North Village. Why? Because those are places where Black men already exist, and we wanted to have an initiative that really helped to enlighten and educate our people. I wanted to do it in an environment where they felt safe, secure, and open, because the clubs play a pivotal role in our community. [But] doing more programmes like that requires funding, and the bigger the capacity of the concert, the more funds we can have to continue to do these initiatives without depending on foundations and sponsors.

• The Lumina Festival’s Financial Literacy Summit and its closing Solara Music and Arts take place this weekend. For the full line-up and ticket information, visitluminafest.com