Scroll down for copy. Click on slides to enlarge. Photos 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 by Brit Liggett.
1. Summer Lovin’ Music
Summer is the season for outdoor music festivals and this past weekend, Liberty Island, New Jersey was the place to be. Right off the tip of Manhattan, concert-goers were wooed by views of the New York City sky line, the Statue of Liberty, up close and personal glimpes of their favorite musicians, and a whole host of green efforts.
2. Eco Headliners Drive the Green
Being a green festival ain’t easy, and requires support from the talent. AEG Live, the concert promoter for All Points West, recruited Jack Johnson and Radiohead to headline, who just so happen to be two of the music industry’s most environmentally conscious acts. “The birth of All Points West coincided with the attraction of those artists – it went hand in hand. Many of the green elements, and how we put them together, was as important to them as it was to us,” says AEG’s Mark Shulman. “It wasn’t a question of why we should do it, but how we should do it.”
3. Riding My Train, High on Music
Eighty percent of a concert’s carbon emissions come from travel to and from the show. To make it easy for concertgoers to leave their cars at home and take public transport in from the surrounding areas, All Points West set up a ferry to shuttle people to Liberty Island State Park from Manhattan. The boat came with a beautiful view of the New York City (you can’t get this perspective from the window of a Prius). Of the 75,000 people that attended the three-day festival, about 70,000 of them took mass transit or the ferry, or a 93% green-transport success rate.
4.Snack and Rock Out
Backstage catering came complete with nondisposable wares to limit waste, and was provided by AEG Live, which also organizes the long running — and eco — Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival in Indio, CA. Among the pleased customers was Metric. Front lady Emily Haines electrified the crowd on Saturday afternoon in a daring little gold romper.
5. Keeping the Fans Well-Watered
Free tap water was provided to anyone who wanted it – crucial when standing out and dancing in the summer sun. Ecologically – and economically – savvy concertgoers brought along refillable water bottles. At $4 a pop, plastic water bottles can clean you out, while persisting in the wastestream for eternity.
6. Avant Green Artist
Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter and expert whistler from Elizabeth, Illinois, makes a point of spreading an eco message. He has a partnership with Reverb, a non-profit started by Guster frontman Adam Gardiner that is dedicated to educating the music industry on becoming more environmentally friendly. Bird uses bio-diesel buses on tour and his crew is supplied with refillable water bottles for use when traveling.
7. Sustainable Souvenirs of Rock ‘N’ Roll
It’s no secret that one of the ways record companies compensate for slipping album sales (drat you, Internet!) is by pushing artist merchandise even harder. At All Points West, the merch booth featured some hip eco-friendly wares. Pictured is one of Jack Johnson’s 100% organic cotton t-shirts. Radiohead t-shirts are made from a mix of recycled plastic PET bottles and organic cotton. Buying one of these shirts supports your favorite musicians and your favorite planet.
8. Eco Soul and Solar Panels
Ben Harper delivered his distinctive blend of soulful beats and dreamy lyrics. As even the most earth-concious musicians will tell you, it’s difficult to be completely eco-friendly. But Ben keeps it green: When he and his wife, actress Laura Dern, redecorated their home, they made sure to use low-VOC paints and eco-friendly building supplies; they also eat mostly organic food and plan on installing solar panels on their home.
9. Get Trashed, Win Prizes
To manage recycling efforts, AEG Live enlisted the help of non-profit Global Inheritance. They brought along their TRASHed Recycling Store, where festival attendees could collect empty plastic bottles and exchange them for cool merchandise, no cash required. A mere 400 bottles could get you a free skateboard deck. Every time a plastic bottle is recycled, enough energy is conserved to light a 60 watt light bulb for at least 6 hours. Global Inheritance founder Eric Ritz estimates that 22,000 bottles were recycled during the festival. The energy saved could power one 60 watt light bulb for 132,000 hours, or one CFL light for 231,000 hours.
10.Vintage Vixens Crowd the Stage
Rocking out with his mad dance beats on Friday was music-collagist Girl Talk, a.k.a. Greg Gillis, a Pittsburg, PA resident. He brought along some of his fabulous, and outrageously vintage-clad friends to show the crowd how it’s done. We love the idea of re-usin’ and rockin’ it, and heartily endorse the idea of heading to a thrift shop before going to your favorite dance-band concert. During the show Gillis threw streams of toilet paper rolls into the crowd. We’re crossing our fingers that they were made with recycled content.
11. A Rollin’ Village Green
At All Points West, booths went beyond beer and merch to include the favorite environmental organizations of the musicians. Jack Johnson brings to all his shows his All At Once Community non-profit partners, who set up their cluster of booths, called The Village Green, where they inform concertgoers of their causes – from Surfrider Foundation to the Natural Resources Defense Council to the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance. Johnson’s volunteers hand out All At Once Village Green Passports, which music fans got stamped for completing green tasks, making them eligible to win a seat right on the stage.
12. Girls Gone Green
Some record labels are jumping on the green beat, too. Sub Pop Records, musical home to Nirvana and The Shins, is the first Green-e certified record label in the U.S.; they purchased renewable energy credits and received certification through Bonneville Environmental Foundation. The Go! Team – seen here with two of the foxy ladies in the band, Ninja and Kaori Tsuchida – is one of their bands.
13. An Energy Efficient End to the Festival
Radiohead played the closing set on both Friday and Saturday, and their mesmerizing light show cast an energy efficient glow (powered by LEDs, or light emitting diodes) across the crowd. Both Ritz and Shulman believe that all these green efforts will extend beyond the music festival. “If you take 70,000 people and put them on mass transit,” says Shulman, “and a small amount of those people start thinking about mass transit in their everyday lives, the impact goes well beyond the day of the event.”
By Brit Liggett
