Environment

Live Earth, Roskilde Win 'Green' Music Event Award

by Jarrett Martineau | January 3, 2008 at 10:36 am

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Midem has made the smart move to recognize music events and festival producers that are working to make their events more environmentally sound.

Midem, an international trade show for the music industry, has created a new award designed to honour figures who advance ecologically-friendly live music events.

The Midem Green World Awards will be presented later this month to organizers of the Live Earth concerts, Denmark's Roskilde Festival and Switzerland's Paléo Festival Nyon.

Kevin Wall, founder of the Live Earth event held last July in cities around the world, will be honoured for creating strict environmental guidelines for the concerts, which were held to draw attention to global warming.

The Live Earth events used green power and biodegradable drinking cups and created carbon offsets to counteract the impact of travel by visiting celebrities.

Roskilde, organized by Henrik Rasmussen, is a four-day event that features recyclable drinking mugs.

Radiohead is to take part in the 2008 concert, held near Roskilde, Denmark since 1971.

The Swiss festival, created by Daniel Rossellat, is powered by wind and water energy sources. Held each July since 1976, it attracts more than 200,000 people.

It's great to see that an industry incentive to reduce the
environmental impact of music events is finally being introduced, even
if it's only as a means of recognizing those who are doing their part.

However, despite the fact that music touring consumes a huge amount of
energy and produces a significant amount of waste, the artists, their
tour buses, and their lighting rigging are only a small part of the
problem. In fact, even powering festivals by wind and water sources,
still doesn't account for the largest part of music events' energy
consumption -- the fans.

Radiohead has acknowledged that they can take all kinds of measures to
reduce their own ecological footprint from touring, but when their fans are flying and driving to their shows by the thousands, that's where the real impact occurs.

The eco-evolution of massive music events production should take this
into account and offer alternative, environmentally-sound ways of
transporting fans to and from events. A zero emission Live Earth or
Roskilde would be an amazing experience, indeed.

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