Taking Care of Our Venues: How to Go Green This Festival Season

As much as we enjoy outdoor music festivals for the music, they would not be same if it were not for the setting. Our local favorite, the Gorge, is a number of artists’ favorite venue because of the beautiful views and scenery. We can’t imagine Paradiso being anywhere else but the Gorge, and because of this we have to do our part to keep our environment clean.

Here are some things that we as festival goers can do to help preserve the spaces where we love to celebrate.

• Carpool or shuttle. If you know a number of your friends are going to a festival, carpool. The fewer cars on the road, the better for our environment.
• When packing for the festival remember to pack reusable bags, tupperware, and the like, rather than plastic bags, and cloth napkins rather than paper napkins.
• Use less paper by having your ticket on your phone, rather than printing it. Most festivals are okay with people using electronic tickets, but always double check.
• Take a reusable water bottle, rather than buying. Not only are you saving plastic, but money as well!

As much as we attendees want to contribute, the support and infrastructure of the festival curators is important to creating a conducive space for going green. Some festivals are making great strides, and we can do our part by contacting organizers and lobbing for greener festivals. Here are some ideas we can pitch to instigate change:

• Have more water refill stations accessible to attendees. If festivals provide more refill stations, it will be just as easy to fill up your water bottle as it is to purchase a new one.
• Recycling bins. Many festivals provide attendees with only one type of garbage, so people end up throwing away recyclable items. Having recycling opportunities will help people recycle, rather than throwing things away.
• Festivals can provide a solar charging station for phones and other battery operated items.
• Festivals should make sure that there are designated walking paths for festival goers. When people go off the trail it causes more damage to the environment. “Trails are maintained for a reason and walking off them causes soil erosion, damages vegetation and, over time, many people who disregard this will cause damage to the ecology of the area.”

It is important that we always do our part to help the environment. What are you going to do this summer to go green? Let us know in the comments below!