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Foxtail Fest, the first event of its kind for the city of Wilmington, Delaware, is memorable for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that the show attracted some stellar acts from indie music, hip hop, and electronic. The blending of genres for the show was with a purpose: to encourage music lovers to actively engage in linking these genres to progress the directions of music as an art. Foxtail Fest is a great show, to be sure, but the big, beautiful bow on an already awesome gift of Foxtail Fest is in the sustainable practices it promoted. Just like it asked concert-goers to progress music as an art, Foxtail Fest made some very smart decisions in reducing its carbon footprint, moving the art of outdoor festivals forward as well. Here are some lessons in “event greening” that we can take from Foxtail Fest. Recycle. Much like Livenation has done on the west coast, Foxtail Fest pushed hard for more recycling amongst its population. This means more than just making recycling bins available and easily seen by festival-goers; adding recycling as an integral part of the event experience means offering up social awareness as well. The blend of education and action is something Foxtail Fest has taught the live music industry. Reduce paper waste. At Foxtail Fest, ticket buyers were given the option to download a scan-able e-ticket to their smartphone. This ticketing system dramatically reduces waste from paper and ink, and offers ticket-holders something special to remember the event. Considering that a vast majority of attendees of Foxtail Fest are young people who live a good portion of their lives online through smartphone technology, reducing paper waste in this way was just one strategy for the event. Another was to use digital marketing for the event, which was done solely through Foxtail Fest’s website. Venue selection. In terms of where to hold Foxtail Fest, the choice of the Tubman-Garrett Riverside Park was an easy one. As a historic and scenic location for the event, there were plenty of options for public transportation and/or carpooling to the show. Foxtail Fest gave ticket-holders the option to plant a tree when buying their ticket. In other words, Foxtail Fest teaches us to anticipate the footprint we leave during events like this one, and to give back even before making that footprint real. Planting a tree greatly offsets the carbon emissions from a live event like Foxtail Fest. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_event_management
http://markets.livenation.com/bgp/green/Green.html
http://www.ted.com/pages/greening_your_tedx_event
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