Festivals are a bit like chocolate bars. They come in all shapes and sizes, but there is one for every type of person. Some are big and famous, like Cadbury’s dairy milk bar. Others are not everyone’s cup of tea, but have a certain acquired taste such as a Bounty’s bar. Personally, I would liken the music festival ‘Coachella’ to a Dairy Milk bar.
Both are well-known brands, which almost everyone has heard of, yet expectations of the final product are often higher than the reality. Although British people specifically liken festivals with rain, mud, and tents, there are other festivals that take place such as festivals for food, arts, culture or religion.
But the one thing in common with all these festivals is they require somewhat large gatherings of people in one area.
Therefore, not surprisingly pretty much all festivals this year have been cancelled due to the ‘much loved’ coronavirus, along with all other summer plans that involve more than going 100ft from your house. Festivals this year are all faced with very uncertain futures, including a loss of money, a lack of sponsorships and a very huge pressure to improve their sustainability initiatives. How can your festival sustain itself during this global pandemic, whilst keeping a good image and to come back with a bang for next year's festival season?
To answer this, I am first going to look at how music festivals dealt with sustainability in the past.
Quite simply, they didn’t. The results from most festivals looked like this: most festival goers left all their rubbish and tents behind intentionally. These are photos from music festivals in England. Plastic was also strewn about freely and nonrenewable energy was used to provide for the music performances.
This led festivals to come up with more sustainable solutions. Solutions such as going plastic free, using renewable energy for energy and even using recyclable tents, such as these ones.
The pressure on festivals to up their sustainability solutions is currently very high as well as to get this message across to the festival goers about adhering to these policies. One way of passing on the message was when David Attenborough attended the Glastonbury Festival in 2019 to praise everyone for going plastic free. However Sir Attenborough can’t attend every festival there is, and whilst going plastic free is the first step which all festivals should adopt, there is the increased need to do more to stand out and to make a bigger difference.
The future of festival sustainability for me is to do with the Butterfly Effect. If you haven’t heard of this before, it is the phenomenon where one tiny change in a very complex system can have a big impact somewhere else. For example, there is the question whether a butterfly that flaps its wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas.
How does this link to festivals?
Well, the future of festival sustainability is not only to do with initiatives that take place inside the festival, such as providing recyclable tents.
There is much more to be done before the festival takes place, during and even after it!
For example, your sponsors should be encouraged and almost required to support and help finance social or environmental initiatives, which can limit the direct or indirect damage your festival has on the environment. This can also take place during the festival, and the initiatives they are supporting will take place after the festival has finished, which concludes the campaign!
Boon.Today can provide you with technology to support these types of purpose-driven campaigns.
The main difference with these campaigns to your regular campaigns is that 1% of the advertising budget for that specific campaign will be donated at the end to the social or environmental initiative of your choice.
The digital interactions on your campaign, whether it's via social media, watching a video, visiting your website or even scanning QR codes will add up in micro-donations.
Once the maximum amount of interactions end the money will be sent to your initiative! T
he use of QR codes is especially useful during the festival, as it is a more interactive and memorable experience for the festival goers.
How is this the butterfly effect? Well, a little goes a long way.
Imagine you approach your sponsors to ask them to help provide funds for a charity to deliver and donate all tents and camping gear left behind to a homeless shelter. Something lots of festival-goers will be more than happy to partake in. You organise the campaign to take place with your sponsors whilst the festival takes place by using QR codes which are dotted all over the festival grounds.
When scanned on a phone, the sponsors can decide what will appear on the phone screen, such as a short video, a website or app download link.
After the campaign finishes, and the micro-donations have all added up, all the leftover gear would be sent away funded by the sponsorship.
This QR code is something so small that each person has the chance to partake in, and 1% of the sponsors budget is hardly going to break the bank, like a butterfly flapping its wings.
Yet it can lead to a massive opportunity to help homeless people, protect the environment as well as bring a good name to the sponsorship brand and your festival as you are working with a sustainable brand, like a tornado in Texas!
Now, the initiative can be as local as removing tents, but it can be more international. It can be whatever you choose it to be.
You can use this technology even though your physical festival may have been cancelled this year.
You may have lost some sponsors or be holding online festival replacements.
However nothing is stopping you from encouraging your sponsors to partake in doing good during this time.
Everyone is suffering major financial limitations and costs however you must make the most of it by trying to give back!
Ensuring your festival is working with sustainable brands even during this time will greatly improve your festival sustainability.
I’m sure you may have lots of questions about what I’ve just said.
If so contact us at Boon.Today to get a free demo to see everything I’ve just described become a reality! I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised...