While I was busy covering every inch of the 1200 acres at Rothbury's Double JJ ranch, the Europeans were also getting things going at their own similar-sounding eco-friendly music festival, Roskilde. When I first heard about this festival over the winter, I daydreamed about jetting over to Denmark for the week to camp, listen to music, and, erm, enjoy the local baked goods. Then the dollar decided to peg itself to Mexican Peso and the price of jet fuel went through the roof, and all of a sudden Rothbury looked a lot better. But I still want to go to Roskilde next year.
Springwise, a website that tracks cool new business trends, has been covering lots of green innovations in the European festival scene: bike, wind, and dance-powered cellphone chargers; rentable/reusable tents (including beer can tents); locals-only festivals; and now Roskilde. Here's what Springwise had to say about Roskilde's green efforts:
Trash is always a problem at summer music festivals, and Denmark's Roskilde Festival has typically been no exception. After the 2007 festival, it took more than 500 people several weeks to clean up the heaps of garbage left behind—at a cost of more than one million euros, the festival's organizers say. That's why this year's festival, which took place earlier this month, promoted the slogan "Less Trash—More Music" in its effort to control the leftover garbage.
Special red garbage bags were handed out to festival-goers throughout the course of the four-day event, with rewards in the form of free beer or chocolate milk for each bag collected, along with a chance to win more beer, festival kits, tents or tickets to next year's event. Through a competition sponsored by Tuborg, collectors of the most garbage (1,048 bags!) also won backstage passes to Neil Young's performance. For recyclables, meanwhile, Roskilde provided stands to collect cans, cardboard, drink containers and more. In exchange, participants were reportedly rewarded with cash refunds of roughly EUR 0.10 per bottle, allowing the most zealous of the festival's 67,000 paying attendees to come close to recouping the cost of their tickets. About 97 percent of the cups used at Roskilde's concession stands were brought back for recycling as a result, according to PSFK. Meanwhile, more than 1,600 sleeping bags left behind were donated to the homeless.
As if the music, the sustainability and the rewards for being clean weren't enough, attendees at this year's Roskilde got a little extra free love, too. In addition to the usual wrist band, festival-goers were given a condom (donated by Hanky Panky) and a set of earplugs (sponsored by TrygFonden), too. In Roskilde’s words: “Say goodbye to herpes and tinnitus.” In our words: Follow examples like that, and say hello to a new generation of loyal customers!
There was plenty of other green stuff at Roskilde, too. The festival, which started in 1971, got its first environmental audit in 1994 and has pages dedicated not just to environmental initiatives (start here) but also to climate protection activities. Looks like one worth attending!
I hadn't heard of MIDEM until this press release came along. From the looks of it, MIDEM is a bit like South by Southwest, only with a more international appeal. The 4-day event in Cannes, France, is in its 42nd year and claims that it will draw about 10,000 lucky participants later this month. Those attending will get lots of networking and the opportunity to pick from some 500 concerts. I'm jealous!
MIDEM, like everyone else in the free world, got the green bug this year. Besides taking steps to green the conference, it's also recognizing trailblazers who have already started to green large music events. I'm not sure how MIDEM picked these three, and I'm surprised that Peat's Ridge didn't make the cut (perhaps because this year's event was unfortunately canceled due to extreme rains). Never mind the methodology, these events certainly deserve the credit, and it's very heartening to see that the greening of the music movement is getting so mainstream.
Kevin Wall, founder & CEO, Live Earth (US/worldwide)
What, exactly, did these three folks do to deserve this? Well, according to the press release (lazy man's research):
In collaboration with other environmental groups, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore and his organization, The Alliance for Climate Protection, Live Earth set out strict “Green Guidelines” aimed at creating a “low-impact” event. Carbon emissions were substantially reduced and 81% of the 97 metric tons of waste collected was diverted from landfill sites via recycling and composting efforts. Advertising banners in South Africa, for example, were redistributed to rural townships to make sunshades for school playgrounds.
The Roskilde Festival Society is the largest Northern European music festival, exceeding the population of the fifth largest Danish city and producing the equivalent in waste. Some of their environmental policies date back to 1994, making the group one of the pioneers of the greener festival. All beverages are served in plastic mugs with 97% of the mugs being returned to recycling deposit points. The waste is sorted into 13 different categories and all organic materials are composted and used to refertilise the site. All profits from the festival are then donated directly to humanitarian causes.
The Paléo Festival Nyon is powered by a single green energy source, ‘vivonatur’, which is generated using 100% sustainable wind and water energy from the Swiss Alps. Powering one of the largest open-air festivals in Europe with green energy - over 225,000 festival-goers over a six day period - is a monumental achievement in itself. Paléo Festival Nyon has already won numerous accolades including the Nice Future 2006 prize and in 2007 the ‘Green ’n’ Clean’ title awarded by the organization of European festivals, Yourope. Under its slogan, ‘Respect the Environment’, Paléo also encourages people to sort their rubbish and take advantage of public transport.
Sounds pretty cool. Perhaps SXSW or someone else will start giving out similar awards to US-based musicians/venues/events.
And by the way, Radiohead is playing at Roskilde this year, so if any rich journalism-lovers out there want to sponsor my flight and event ticket, I'd love to go, um...research the greenness of this event. Here's Radiohead playing their most recent album, live!
