Here are four festivals that really take being green to heart.
First up is the Monterey Music Summit, held a couple of weeks ago in Monterey, CA. If you're reading this, you probably think of a different festival when you think of Monterey, but it seems that after 40 years, the town fathers are ready to carry the torch. This time around, they're also picking up the torch of environmentalism. This year's event was billed as "a forum for new thought and inspired intervention regarding the critical political and environmental issues of our time."
I can't emphasize how much I would like to separate environmentalism from politics, but it seems that there are still plenty of people out there who really want to associate doing well for the planet with some sort of political agenda. That said, it looks like it was a pretty good show, and I hope it was successful because they had a great lineup, featuring bands you've actually heard of, including Michael Franti and Spearhead, Ozomatli, Cake, The Roots, and G. Love and Special Sauce.
According to a press release, the festival is offsetting its CO2 by planting 1000 trees on the Monterey Peninsula and generating a full carbon statement. Regular readers know how I feel about offsets, but tree planting--especially locally--is always a good thing and by looking at their carbon production, the organizers undoubtedly tried to minimize their energy use, another good thing. Other steps toward greening included biodegradable products, organic food, and alternatives to bottled water.
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SolarFest is a yearly festival in Vermont that sounds like a good time for you green-leaning types. Dig it:
Plan to join us in our 13th year for two days of great music and educational opportunities. See who is performing at SolarFest 2007 on our solar-powered stages. Check out the 2007 workshop schedule with 40 workshops on renewable energy and sustainable living.
Visit nearly 100 renewable energy and sustainable living exhibitors
and vendors, people whose business it is to provide practical solutions
to the complex problems facing us in a post-carbon society.
Check into the family-focused fun with Frank Asch's
Theatre-in-the-Woods, Kid's Corner wandering minstrels and clowns, and
other serendipitous entertainments. Plus, free walk-in camping on
beautiful wooded acres.
Without doing a full analysis, it sounds like this is one of the greener festivals around, although many music fans probably would prefer a stronger lineup and a little less politics with their music. But at only $25 for a weekend pass and free camping, I might just make the trip up there next summer to enjoy the show. 2008 dates are already out: July 11, 12, & 13. For more info and pictures, check out this blog post.
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A much larger green event/music festival happens every year on Earth Day. The Green Apple Festival, which has now expanded beyond the Big Apple to venues in Chicago and San Francisco, promises over 500 acts at 200 venues. Unfortunately, the website has almost no info about past events or the activities they've taken to go green, but it does promise that this will be an entirely carbon-neutral event. In other words, expect lots of offsets, but given the nature of the festival hopefully we'll see plenty of other greening at the assorted venues, too. The nice thing about a festival like this is that with so many venues involved, we have a golden opportunity to really educate a lot of the decision-makers in the entertainment industry about the mechanisms involved in being green. Here's hoping they do a good job!
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A similar music fest with a green focus in England that has been running since 1994 is running out of cash and might be forced to shut down. The Big Green Gathering, an offshoot of the UK's legendary Glastonbury music festival, has been attracting 15-20,000 people a year to its annual event comingling green living and music. Unfortunately, the festival is organized as a non-profit and seems to have taken that status to heart. After losing money in 2005, 2006, and 2007, the festival organizers are now looking for a lifeline to stave off bankruptcy. While I hope that the festival is able to figure out its finances, the message seems to have gotten through to its much larger (and financially solvent) parent festival. Glastonbury has been notably green of late, and since Glastonbury is about 10 times larger than the BGG, the impact there is much greater. The idea all along has been to take green out of the sidelines and into the mainstream, and while I'm not happy about the the end of the BGG, I think maybe it's a sign that it's served its purpose and it's time to move on.