A group of 20 festivals from seven different countries have pledged their commitment to increasing sustainability efforts today (Friday 18 October) at ADE Green, the environment-focused sub-conference of Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE).

Representatives from Dutch festivals including Amsterdam Open Air, DGTL, Down the Rabbit Hole, Lowlands, North Sea Jazz and Into the Great Wide Open, as well as Denmark’s Roskilde, the UK’s Boardmasters, Boomtown and Shambala, Ireland’s Body & Soul, French festival We Love Green, the Berlin edition of Festival Republic’s Lollapalooza festival, and others, signed the Green Deal Festivals Circular onstage with Dutch environment minister Stientje van Veldhoven.

A meeting for the Green Deal was held earlier this year in London, as part of the Green Events and Innovations Conference (GEI). Tickets for GEI 2020 can be found here.

The pledge will see the participating festivals become completely circular, or sustainable, by 2025.

“This deal has a great value for all involved,” said Roskilde’s Freja Marie Frederiksen, speaking at the event. “We can all learn from each other and improve things much more quickly.”

“Collaboration is the key to the urgently needed change in how we deal with energy, water, food, mobility, plastic and other materials,” added Paul Schurink of Green Events International, organising partner of ADE Green and an initiator of the green deal along with the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management.

“Collaboration is the key to the urgently needed change in how we deal with energy, water, food, mobility, plastic and other materials”.

“With a combined number of over three million festival visitors we can make an enormous impact.”

Topics discussed throughout the day at ADE Green included responsible plastic use, DJ’s air miles and innovative ways to change the industry. A workshop run by sustainability expert Douwe Luijnenburg instructed delegates on how to manage events in a environmentally friendly way.

Elsewhere, green initiatives will again take centre stage later today at the launch of Exit festival’s Life Stream, a project aiming to increase audience awareness around environmental issues.

The team behind the Exit events will broadcast performances from DJs Artbat, Coeus, After Affair, Andrew Meller and DJ Jock live from the Faralda Crane Hotel in Amsterdam from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. Environmental imagery and statements will be incorporated into the live stream.

The Life Stream platform will be used throughout Exit Festival’s 20th anniversary event, which takes place from 9 to 12 July 2020 in Novi Sad, Serbia.

More than 9,000 delegates registered for this year’s ADE which kicked off on 16 October and wraps up on Sunday, 20 October.

The industry will once again unite to tackle issues surrounding sustainability at GEI12 in London on Tuesday 3 March in London, on the opening day of the International Live Music Conference (ILMC).

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Amsterdam’s North Sea Jazz Club venue has closed after its operator, Kop Oost, filed for bankruptcy.

The 450-cap. venue, which offered both live music and dining, opened in 2012 in the new Westergasfabriek development. Its naming agreement with North Sea Jazz Festival – promoted by local Live Nation operation Mojo Concerts – expires in May, and a statement from Kop Oost says a change of name was already underway.

However, venue owner Beheer- en Exploitatiemaatschappij Westergasfabriek refused to sanction the name change, deeming it a breach of contract, and threatened to terminate Kop Oost’s lease.

This, says the company, led to investors withdrawing from North Sea Jazz Club – after which bankruptcy was “inevitable”.

“I find it very regrettable the club has closed, but there has been no rent paid for four months”

Sixty venue staff are to lose their jobs as a result of the closure.

Westergasfabriek director Mark de Kruijk, however, disputes Kop Oost’s version of events, saying the venue was months behind on its rent even before the end of the agreement with Mojo.

“I am surprised about the story [Kop Oost] is putting forward,” he tells he tells local daily Het Parool. “The Westergasfabriek does prefer to carry on with the name North Sea Jazz Club – but where our dispute primarily lies is in the venue’s huge arrears. I find it very regrettable that the club has closed, but there has been no rent paid for four months.”

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