Coldplay tour app helps fans plan green travel
Coldplay have launched a free app for fans as part of their pledge to make their ongoing Music of the Spheres world tour as eco-friendly as possible.
Since the Tyndall Centre’s 2021 Super-Low Carbon Live Music Report concluded that fan travel accounts for the largest part of tour-related emissions, the app allows fans to plan low-carbon travel to and from shows, with those who choose green journeys rewarded with a merchandise discount code.
The app – made in partnership with SAP – is available to download now for iOS and Android devices, and will also measure total fan-travel carbon emissions so that the band can “drawdown these impacts via high quality nature-based solutions such as reforestation and soil regeneration”.
Alongside the fan-travel calculator, the app also offers Coldplay-themed games and AR experiences, exclusive behind-the-scenes content, photos and videos from every show, plus news updates and tour information. The band will also stream the full audio of an upcoming date exclusively via the app.
“They’re not just talking about doing something, they’re leading by example”
The Music of the Spheres tour, which kicked off in Costa Rica in March, heads to North America this week before touching down in Europe in July.
Having previously put touring plans on hold to investigate how to make their concerts more sustainable, the announcement of Coldplay’s 2022 tour came hand-in-hand with a 12-point plan for cutting their carbon footprint.
“They’re not just talking about doing something, they’re leading by example,” the band’s agent Josh Javor of X-ray Touring told IQ last year. “I think you do need bigger artists to show other people how it could be possible to change.
“I was involved in the parts I could be, like figuring out how we can try and cut the carbon footprint by staying in the same place and playing more shows. It’s very different from the standard tour where artists do one or two shows and then move on in order to visit as many places as possible.”
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Coldplay to perform free show at Expo 2020 Dubai
Coldplay are to perform a free show in Dubai next week in support of Expo 2020 Dubai’s Programme for People and Planet.
The show will see the band regionally premiere their Music of the Spheres album while highlighting the importance of protecting the planet in line with Expo’s sub-theme of sustainability, and will take place live at Al Wasl Dome on 15 February.
The concert, which will also be livestreamed on VirtualExpoDubai.com, Expo TV on YouTube and Expo 2020’s Facebook page – as well as via Oculus VR – forms part of the world’s fair’s monthly Infinite Nights series, which has previously featured acts such as Alicia Keys and Black Eyed Peas.
The Middle East’s first world’s fair, Expo 20 was originally scheduled for October 2020 to April 2021 before being postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It will now run from 1 October 2021 to 31 March 2022. Fans attending the show must have both an Expo 2020 ticket and a Coldplay ticket, which can be booked from tomorrow (12 February).
“They’re not just talking about doing something, they’re leading by example”
“As a band, we always try to put togetherness and sustainability at the heart of everything we do,” says a statement by Coldplay. “It’s an honour to be invited to perform at Expo 2020 Dubai Infinite Nights for a special celebration of these two themes.”
The group, who last visited the UAE in 2016, previously announced their upcoming Music of the Spheres world tour would have an ‘eco-friendly’ focus. According to frontman Chris Martin, the tour will partly be powered by a dancefloor that generates electricity when fans jump up and down, and pedal power at the venues.
“It’s something that everyone should be striving for,” Coldplay agent Josh Javor of X-ray Touring told IQ last year. “They’re not just talking about doing something, they’re leading by example. I think you do need bigger artists to show other people how it could be possible to change.
The tour will kick off in March 2022 in Costa Rica, which has one of the highest rates of renewable energy generation in the world.
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Ed Sheeran planning to tour in an electric campervan
Ed Sheeran says that he’s planning on touring in an electric campervan for his + – = ÷ x (mathematics) stadium tour, which kicks off in the spring.
Speaking last weekend as a guest on Today’s Sunday Sitdown, Sheeran said his ambition is to be “as electric as possible” in regards to his travel.
“We’re going to try and [travel] on the train or I’m talking to VW about an electric campervan,” he said. “I want to travel to every show as electric as possible.”
Sheeran also recently talked to BBC Radio London about his commitment to environmentalism and plans to “rewild as much of the UK as I can”.
“I feel like I am going to get my head bitten off anytime I say that, as my job is not a hugely sustainable job as I go and play in cities, but I am trying my best,” he added.
“I want to travel to every show as electric as possible.”
The mathematics tour, which kicks off in April next year, will see Sheeran play shows across the UK, Ireland, Central Europe and Scandinavia.
Dates for Asia, Australia and America will be announced in due course, according to a recent IQ interview with Sheeran’s live agent, Jon Ollier of One Fiinix Live.
Sheeran is the latest superstar act to discuss greener touring plans after Coldplay announced a groundbreaking eco-friendly stadium tour. The band’s agent, Josh Javor of X-Ray Touring, told IQ he hopes the tour will become a blueprint for other artists of the same calibre.
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Coldplay sell more than one million tickets in Europe
More than one million tickets have sold for the European leg of Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres world tour, which went on sale last Friday (22 October).
X-ray Touring’s Josh Javor, who planned the ‘eco-friendly’ stadium tour along with the late Steve Strange, told IQ that the on-sale was “insane”.
According to Javor, the European leg has “pretty much sold out” and the team is currently discussing adding more dates.
The 20-date run, which kicks off on 2 July 2022, has already expanded with an extra date apiece at Deutsche Bank Park (Germany), Stade de France (France), King Baudouin Stadium (Belgium) and Hampden Park (UK).
Notably, an extra three dates have been added at Wembley Stadium (cap. 90,00) in the UK, on top of the three already announced.
According to Javor, the European leg has “pretty much sold out” and the team is discussing adding more dates
The world tour – which is mostly promoted by Live Nation, with SJM as the main partner in the UK – is also visiting the US and Latin America (which is completely sold out), taking in 40 stadiums and one festival (Rock in Rio) altogether.
The groundbreaking tour is one of the last projects that legendary booking agent and X-ray co-founder Steve Strange worked on before his tragic passing in September.
“This is something Steve and I have planned for a very long time and because he’s not here to revel in the success, it’s one of the most bittersweet moments of my life,” says Javor.
He continues: “Don’t get me wrong, I’m ecstatic at how well it’s done but the fact that Steve, unfortunately, didn’t make it to see our plan come together brings things down to earth.
“Normally, Steve and I would get to 12 o’clock on the day of an on-sale and we’d be on our second bottle of champagne”
“Normally, Steve and I would get to 12 o’clock on the day of an on-sale and, after selling a million tickets, we’d be on our second bottle of champagne. But, on your own, it’s not the same. My constant thought has been, I wish Steve was here to see this.
“He would be on another planet. He was a member of the family when it came to this band and he would’ve been jumping for joy.”
Coldplay announced the tour earlier this month after a four-year hiatus from touring while they investigated how to make their concerts more sustainable.
The Music of the Spheres tour is bolstered by a 12-point plan to cut the band’s carbon footprint, which supports new green technologies and sustainable, super-low carbon touring methods.
A full interview with Josh Javor will appear in the next edition of IQ magazine at the end of this month.
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Coldplay detail ‘eco-friendly’ world tour
Coldplay have announced their first tour in four years, which will have an ‘eco-friendly’ focus.
The British band previously said that they would put touring plans on hold as they investigate how to make their concerts more sustainable.
Today, they announced their return to the road which will follow the band’s new album ‘Music of the Spheres’, out tomorrow (15 October).
The Music of the Spheres world tour will kick off in March 2022 in Costa Rica, which has one of the highest rates of renewable energy generation in the world.
Dates for the first seven countries have been announced today and include three at Wembley Stadium (cap. 90,000) in London, two at Stade de France (81,000) in Paris and two at Olympiastadion Berlin (74,000).
According to frontman Chris Martin revealed that the tour will partly be powered by a dancefloor that generates electricity when fans jump up and down, and pedal power at the venues.
“I literally really need you to jump up and down. Because if you don’t, then the lights go out.”
Martin told the BBC in his first interview about the plans that fans will be on “kinetic flooring”.
“When they move, they power the concert,” he said. “And we have bicycles too that do the same thing.”
“The more people move, the more they’re helping. You know when the frontman says, ‘We need you to jump up and down’?
“When I say that, I literally really need you to jump up and down. Because if you don’t, then the lights go out.”
The kinetic flooring is part of a 12-point plan to cut the band’s carbon footprint.
The concerts will use electricity from batteries fuelled by fan power as well as solar energy, recycled cooking oil from local restaurants and mains power from 100% renewable sources where available. For every ticket sold, the band will plant a tree.
“The whole show is powered from renewable energy, which is amazing”
The singer admitted they had not figured out how to cut the environmental impact of some parts of touring but their goal for a few years’ time is to have “slightly shifted the status quo of how a tour works”.
“In some areas, there’s still not enough possible, like how do you get people to a venue without consuming any power? That’s still really hard,” he said.
“Or flying – there’s still a lot of offsetting we have to do, because even sustainable aviation fuel isn’t good enough yet.
“So we know where we still have a long way to go. But in terms of the show itself, the whole show is powered from renewable energy, which is amazing.”
Ahead of the tour, Coldplay will open Oak View Group’s (OVG) Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle – the world’s first carbon-neutral certified arena – on 22 October.
Coldplay’s last tour, A Head Full of Dreams, saw them perform to 5.4 million people across 122 shows in five continents.
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Green Guardians: Resource management
The Green Guardians Guide, spearheaded by the Green Events and Innovations Conference and IQ Magazine, is a new yearly initiative highlighting some of the work being done around the world to reduce the carbon footprint of the live entertainment business.
The inaugural list, which originally ran in IQ 90, features 60 entries across ten categories, selected by the Green Guardians committee, which includes representatives from some of the sector’s most respected bodies, such as A Greener Festival, Go Group, Green Music Initiative, Julie’s Bicycle and Vision:2025.
Following on from last week’s feature on the companies providing PR and marketing initiatives, this edition of Green Guardians looks at how to turn one man’s trash into another man’s treasure.
Resource management
Pitched for You
Both the circular economy and the mantra “cradle to cradle” (as opposed to “cradle to grave”) are what drive Pitched For You, which, in a nutshell, hires ready-pitched tents to festival fans.
During a trip to Africa, recycling fanatic Kieran vanden Bosch was inspired by how many things the local people reused and repurposed, and so on his return to the UK in 2008, he started Transition Resource as a Transition Town group based in Glastonbury.
Under that banner, he set about picking up rubbish and trying to make useful things out of it, in the hope of turning rubbish into resource by creating a need for it.
“I found a lot of tents left at festivals and started Camplight in 2012,” says the serial entrepreneur. “I soon realised Camplight could never actually fully change the problem at large, so that’s why I’ve started Pitched for You, which I’m now trying to find funding for.”
During a trip to Africa, Kieran vanden Bosch was inspired by how many things the local people reused and repurposed
Mepex
Mepex is a Norwegian consulting company that specialises in waste management and recycling. With almost 30 years of experience, Mepex has acquired a unique knowledge base.
Combined with a solid international network and good digital tools, it ensures its clients’ resource-efficient solutions enable them to achieve their environmental goals.
Mepex has a long list of ongoing and completed assignments for both the public and private sectors. It is an independent company run by partners and has 16 employees, located in the centre of Asker.
Those employees have a solid knowledge base and extensive expertise in the fields of waste management and recycling, allowing Mepex to embark on projects for different types of client groups, throughout the waste pyramid – and along the entire value chain for all types of products and materials.
With a strong background in waste management and recycling, Mepex offers a vast array of services including analyses; strategies and measures; implementation; and new circular concepts.
Mepex ensures its clients’ resource-efficient solutions enable them to achieve their environmental goals
Grist Environmental
For those organising a public or private event, Devizes, UK-based Grist Environmental can ensure that it is clean, safe and environmentally responsible.
The company’s specialist event services team is experienced, flexible and unobtrusive. It ensures that all waste is recycled and recovered from events at its specialist materials recovery facility, resulting in zero waste going to landfill.
Grist’s employees regularly manage waste solutions at events ranging from 30,000 revellers at a week-long festival to village fetes for a few hundred people at local, regional and national levels.
From the set-up to the breakdown of an event, the company can provide experienced and committed staff as well as flexible and reliable equipment hire. This ensures excellent customer satisfaction and site cleanliness for the duration.
Supplying a wide range of high-quality, customer-focused waste management packages, Grist’s services are tailored to meet specific client needs and can include everything from litter picking teams and corporate hospitality staff, to portable event toilets and fencing and crowd control barriers.
Grist’s services include litter picking teams, corporate hospitality staff, portable event toilets, fencing and crowd control
Tutaka
Describing itself as a “go-to source for sustainable hospitality,” Tutaka makes sustainable procurement easy by relieving buyers from the hotel, restaurant and event industry of the complex task of searching.
“In our marketplace, numerous audited products and services can be directly acquired. This saves time and brings products into the operations that inspire guests and employees alike,” it states.
The Tutaka platform features such varied products as upcycled, PET, hotel slippers, soap dispensers, aprons from recycled PET, edible spoons, straws made from straw and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it has even sourced ranges of sustainable face masks.
For events and festival organisers, Hamburg-based Tutaka carries links for items such as F&B tokens made from wood cut-offs, organic cotton festival bracelets, recycled polyester wristbands and rentable lanyards.
On a larger scale, it brokers deals for the likes of sustainable festival toilet blocks, solar phone-charging stations, cardboard trash-cans and even cardboard tents.
The Tutaka platform features products such as edible spoons, straws made from straw, and even sustainable face masks
Ecofest
Ecofest is a Belgian, not-for-profit organisation that is constantly searching for more sustainable solutions for the event sector. It combines knowledge of circularity and sustainability with hands-on waste management at events.
Ecofest supports event organisers in its implementation of green measures by analysing the current situation, presenting a trajectory of solutions, and making the link between organisation and potential suppliers.
While Ecofest specialises in working with reusable cups and waste sorting, it also investigates possibilities within the whole range of environmental issues – waste, energy, catering, mobility, etc. The organisation’s aim is to raise awareness and change the behaviour of event visitors, organisers and suppliers.
It shares its practical experience through workshops, lectures and “how to” documents. To date, Ecofest has worked with several Belgian festivals, dance events and local authorities including the City of Antwerp and the Flemish waste administration, OVAM.
The organisation’s aim is to raise awareness and change the behaviour of event visitors, organisers and suppliers
Green Box Events
Based in Bristol, UK, waste and recycling specialist Greenbox offers a unique and forward-thinking approach to events waste management. It pioneers the most sustainable strategies whilst keeping events clean, tidy and safe.
The Greenbox team builds on a wealth of experience that dates back to the mid-90s when recycling was first taking a foothold in the events industry. Its specially designed, distinctive and robust recycling stations are renowned for their ease of use and high recycling yield.
The company maintains that it’s what you don’t see that’s most important; through strategic deployment of its teams, Greenbox tackles cleansing issues before they become a problem.
Greenbox operates throughout the UK, frequently in remote areas with limited and difficult access, as well as busy city centres and at high-profile sporting events.
It provides all the necessary vehicles, personnel, equipment and expertise to ensure events are cleaned efficiently, professionally and more sustainably.
The company maintains that it’s what you don’t see that’s most important
Festovers
Festovers’ ethos is to look at all avenues to create a circular economy, which currently translates as upcycling for reuse. Environmentalism has been at the core of Festovers from the start, as the whole idea involves trying to create a more sustainable festival/ events industry.
Festovers’ main work in 2019 was with Truck Festival in Oxfordshire where it managed to collect over 85% of the leftover tents, all to be upcycled.
Every year, more than 95% of leftover festival tents end up in landfill/incinerators. Festovers wants to work with major festivals across the sector to massively reduce that number.
Thanks to Festovers’ hard work, festivals can make a massive dent in their waste. With a good social media presence, the company is also offering a positive impact to the audience, as it educates about tent waste and tries to encourage people to take their tents home.
Festovers founder Thomas Panton says, “Don’t be afraid to make a big change. The future needs big changes, and sometimes leading the way is the best thing an event/ festival or even an individual can do.”
Continue reading this feature in the digital edition of IQ 90, or subscribe to the magazine here
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Environment top of agenda for major UK events
The 1975 and Massive Attack, two British bands at the forefront of the effort to make touring more sustainable, have recently announced headline performances in London this summer.
Festival Republic, whose managing director Melvin Benn has spearheaded various environmental projects at UK live music events, is promoting a one-day event headlined by the 1975 in North London’s Finsbury Park on 11 July – the Manchester band’s biggest-ever show and, according to a statement from the promoter, the greenest event ever put on in the park.
Charli XCX, Clairo, Pale Waves, Phoebe Bridgers and Beabadoobee will also perform at the event, which will be entirely powered by sustainably sourced Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) fuel – a form of renewable diesel produced from vegetable fats and oils lowering the show’s carbon footprint by 90%.
In addition to the 1975’s one tree planted initiative, which sees the band plant one tree for every ticket sold to their shows, Festival Republic will plant 1,975 trees in the park’s surrounding boroughs of Haringey, Hackney and Islington, in partnership with charity Trees for Cities.
Fans are encouraged to bring old band t-shirts to the show for reprinting with new logos, as part of the 1975’s sustainable merchandise range. Other eco-friendly measures include the use of hybrid-powered generators with solar arrays, and a traffic light system to highlight the carbon footprint of food options.
The 1975 and Massive Attack, two bands at the forefront of the effort to make touring more sustainable, have announced headline performances in London this summer
Elsewhere in London, Massive Attack are headlining AEG Presents’ All Points East festival on Sunday 24 May, adding to previously announced headliners Kraftwerk and Tame Impala. Nils Frahm, Young Fathers, Neneh Cherry and Sevdaliza are among other acts performing on the Massive Attack-headlined day.
The Bristol-hailing band have been vocal on the subject of touring’s environmental impact, commissioning a team of researchers to look into how the live industry can reduce its carbon footprint, performing at the Extinction Rebellion climate protest in London, and pledging to tour Europe by train.
The eco initiatives employed by Festival Republic, the 1975, Massive Attack and others will form part of the discussion at leading live industry sustainability gathering the Green Events and Innovations Conference (GEI) on 3 March. Tickets for GEI 2020 are available here.
Tickets for the 1975’s Finsbury Park show go on sale at 9 a.m. on 31 January, priced from £52.50 plus booking fee for general admission, with VIP options also available.
Massive Attack tickets will come on sale in due course. More information can be found here.
Photo: Begoña/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0) (cropped)
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Danish festivals go single-use plastic free with Tuborg
Northside, Tinderbox, Roskilde and Green festivals are tackling plastic waste in collaboration with Danish brewery Tuborg, introducing new, reusable plastic glasses to the events.
Each year, the four festivals dispose of over two million plastic bar cups. This year Northside (33,000-cap.), Tinderbox (55,000-cap.), Roskilde (85,000-cap.) and touring concert Green (20,000-cap.) will only provide sustainable, reusable plastic cups, developed in cooperation with Tuborg.
The new glasses are made from polypropylene and can be washed onsite in Tuborg’s mobile dishwasher until worn down. It is expected that the glasses will endure 25 uses before sending the material back to the supplier for recycling.
At Roskilde, festivalgoers will pay a one-off charge of 5 DKK (US$0.8) for a cup, receiving 1 DKK ($0.2) back upon return. The rest of the cost goes towards paying for the washable recycling system.
The initiative was developed in conjunction with Danish environmental organisation Plastic Change, which has acted as an advisor to Tuborg throughout the project.
“This year, Tuborg is literally making life a little greener at festivals”
“This year, Tuborg is literally making life a little greener at festivals,” says Christian Sveigaard, marketing and sponsorship manager for Tuborg. “It’s a great day for Tuborg and a giant step towards reducing unnecessary plastic waste through a more circular business model.”
“The project is an important victory in the fight against unnecessary disposable plastic,” comments Henrik Beha, founder of Plastic Change. “It will also change the use-and-throw-away culture, which is one of the core challenges of the growing plastic waste. We see it as a big step forward that will undoubtedly inspire others to go in the same direction.”
Peter Woods of Down the Drain Group, the promoter for Northside and Tinderbox, says the festivals are expected to lead the way with environmentally friendly initiatives, given the audience they attract.
“I am particularly proud that we as an industry can stand together and take shared responsibility, when it really counts,” says Woods.
The introduction of recyclable plastic cups follows a string of eco-friendly festival initiatives around the world this year, including the single-use plastics ban at Glastonbury and ID&C’s new green wristbands, made from recycled plastic and bamboo.
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Eco-friendly event wristbands “big hit with fans”
UK-based provider of wristbands and lanyards, ID&C, has launched eco-friendly festival wristbands made from recycled plastic water bottles, in response to increasing demand from customers.
ID&C‘s new range of wristbands and lanyards is made from a recycled polyethylene fabric, produced from recycled plastic bottles. The eco bands come with duplicate print on both sides and a bamboo barrel lock, which is made from 50% less plastic than standard barrel locks.
As with standard event wristbands, for security reasons the recycled wristbands cannot be removed once the lock is fastened to the wrist.
According to industry estimates, roughly 23,000 tons of waste is produced at UK music festivals each year, but only a third is recycled. Festival organisers are now making increasing efforts to reduce the amount of waste produced at their events.
Plastic drinks bottles will not be on sale at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, with festivalgoers encouraged to bring reusable water bottles. The festival had already phased out plastic cutlery and plates, as well as single-use plastic cups and plastic straws.
“It is a tough challenge as our products have to be strong and secure, but we are always developing new ideas with the aim to provide a full range of alternative greener products”
An Association of Independent Festivals initiative has seen 61 festivals commit to making their events free of single-use plastic by 2021.
“Reducing the levels of plastic used across festivals and events is an ongoing challenge for any event organiser and we want to contribute to lowering the impact where we can,” says Matt Wilkey, company director and co-owner of ID&C.
“We have been continually exploring ways to become a more eco-friendly company. It is a tough challenge as our products have to be strong and secure, but we are always developing new ideas with the aim to provide a full range of alternative greener products,” adds Wilkey.
“Our ongoing initiative is to develop a range of products that are not only recycled but are also fully recyclable,” explains the ID&C director.
ID&C ensures all products are professionally tested to verify the strength of materials and their eco-friendly status.
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