trends
RECORD HIGH
Greening the Music Festival Industry
REVERB works with artists like My Morning Jacket to set up REVERB Action Villages at outdoor concerts. The goal is to involve fans in taking action on environmental issues.
Organizations like REVERB and Sustain Music & Nature are helping artists, fans and industry workers reduce the environmental impact of outdoor music By Kendall Polidori
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a problem as trash, Gursoy said. Fortunately, help is on the way. REVERB Organizations like REVERB are paving the way for sustainability and environmentalism in the music industry, says Chris Spinato, REVERB’s manager of communications. “It’s really about reducing the environmental footprint of music and being more sustainable and then engaging as many people as possible to take action,” Spinato said. The nonprofit organization was born in 2004 when environmentalist Lauren Sullivan and her husband Adam Gardner of the band Guster had become sick of feeling bad about the environmental impact of touring and decided to take action. Eighteen years later, REVERB has “greened” more than 350 tours and has supported around 4,800 other nonprofits focused on environmentalism, sustainability, climate change and social justice. The organization also works with artists,
5 TOP SPOTS FOR OUTDOOR MUSIC Based on acoustics, atmosphere, accessibility and the location of the stage, here are The Rockhound’s favorite outdoor music venues. n Red Rocks Amphitheatre Morrison, Colorado n Alpine Valley Music Theatre East Troy, Wisconsin n Gorge Amphitheatre George, Washington n Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater Wantagh, New York n Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena Stateline, Nevada –The Rockhound
PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF CHRIS SPINATO
hanks to a documentary film on the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair in New York, generations of rockers know what a devastating effect an outdoor festival can have on the environment: mountains of garbage rising from a sea of mud. The movie’s message didn’t fall on deaf ears. Today, organizations are working to improve safety, security, cleanup and even sustainability at outdoor music venues and events. They’re still far from perfect, though. According to Dogan Gursoy, one of the editors of the book Festival and Event Tourism Impacts, as much as 80% of festival waste is not sorted for recycling. Since 2000, Gursoy, a professor at Washington State University, has studied how mega events reshape communities and alter the environment. With truckloads of trash and a lack of recycling, major festivals can even change the land itself, he said. In 2019, for example, Lollapalooza concert promoters were charged $645,133 to repair the damage the four-day festival inflicted on the grounds of Chicago’s Grant Park. That year, a rainstorm sent nearly 400,000 festival-goers stampeding through the grass, bushes and mud. It was the highest price tag for a Lollapalooza cleanup since 2011 and involved installing sod, spreading mulch and planting shrubs. Damaged landscaping costs festival heads a lot of dough, but it doesn’t pose nearly as big of
Luckbox | July 2022
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6/17/22 12:48 PM
