How Boomtown is paving the way for greener festivals
If you’re heading to Boomtown this year then well done, you’ve made an incredible life choice. The festival, or the city as it’s known by its residents, is like no other. Every year, sorry every chapter offers a fresh storyline with thousands of new characters ready to create new tales, ones that can only be experienced to be believed.
Take a stroll through the Oldtown with its streets ladened with folklore and buried secrets. A dash of circus magic enlivens the atmosphere, while poets lead you to corners unknown, beckoning a wild adventure that only you are destined to discover.
Or dip into some funk and hip hop in the colourful sector of Barrio Loco. It's vibrant, it's loud and it's gonna take you to a world of freedom and exciting revelations: you do love bashment after all. Who knew?
Okayyy and back to the present day.
So, while seeing your favourite DJs, artists, theatrical performances and enjoying the food is what festivals are all about, making this pure magic happen takes a dedicated team and a whole load of responsibility to be green. Now more than ever, it’s so important for every festival to take big steps when it comes to their carbon footprint and Boomtown is smashing it in this realm.
The festival has launched a series of Green Mission initiatives, which now has banned single-use plastic, preventing 225,000 plastic bottles from being used. As well as that, Boomtown is working with Vegware to ensure all trader and bar packaging is 100% compostable, including coffee cup lids, bar cups and food boxes. Plastic cutlery, plastic food packaging and straws from all traders, caterers and bars are also completely banned and backstage is a plastic-free zone. Yasss.
A huge step for a festival that continues to measure its carbon footprint and invest in ways to reduce it. The festival itself claims: “Boomtown produced 1532 tonnes of CO2 emissions, which is the equivalent of 277 return flights from London to Sydney.” A horrible fact that the festival pledges to reduce by 50% by the year 2025.
And so far, it’s doing a great job. Seeing as the majority of emissions caused by the festival are through travelling to and from the site, the amazing brains behind Boomtown have made it a breeze for every festival goer to arrive via green travel. For example, if you arrive by coach, shuttle bus, train, cycle or come with at least three people in your vehicle your festival ticket comes at a reduced price.
Another incredible move Boomtown is making is to plant one tree for every festival goer – that's 48,000 trees! This work is in association with a charity called TreeSisters who plant fast-growing tropical trees in places such as Brazil, Cameroon, Nepal, India, Kenya and Madagascar. As the festival puts it: “This is just the very beginning and we want to see just how huge a forest we can grow with the incredible Boomtown community - not just to clean up our carbon, but as a gesture of love back to the world that gives us everything that we need to help restore the balance.” You can read more on that subject here.
Okay, so the festival itself is doing its absolute best in making the experience fun, safe and green. But this can't just be done by the Boomtown staff alone, it's something we all have to take responsibility for.
To make sure you’re preparing yourself for a green festival you can:
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Take your tent home with you or order a pre-pitched tent from £6 per person
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Bring a reusable bottle with you
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Travel via public transport or as a group in a car
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Use the correct bins and compost all cups, plates and cutlery
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Volunteer as a South Downs Eco Warrior
For the full list of Green Missions, have a look right here. And if you want to know about every little amazing thing Boomtown is doing to reduce their/our carbon footprint then have a look here.
You can check out my top tips for enjoying yourself at a festival right here.
