FEATURE:
Burning, Man
PHOTO CREDIT: Arthur Ogleznev/Pexels
How Sustainable Will Music Festivals Be Considering the Climate Emergency?
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WE are in a position…
IN THIS PHOTO: A festival-goer walks their bike through the mud near the exit at Burning Man in Nevada/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Hughes/USA TODAY NETWORK/Reuters
where we have to ask some very urgency and heavy questions when it comes to festivals. Relating to climate change and the impact it is having on festivals around the world, you wonder how secure their future is long-term. The pandemic meant that most festivals were not running for a couple of years. We have seen the worst of one pandemic but, at a moment when new vaccines are being discussed and a different strain of COVID-19 is rearing its head in the U.K., will we soon find ourselves in another pandemic?! One where we may have to go into lockdown and see festivals cancelled next year. That would be heartbreaking. The popular U.S. festival, Burning Man, faced weather peril and descended into chaos. The annual festival is held out in the Neveda desert. It is a week-long large-scale desert campout which focuses on on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance”. Heavy rain and mud has never been an issue considering the geographical location of the festival. Shockingly, as you can see here, weather really played its part. Climate change and global warning made itself felt at one festival. Look around the globe and the fact that heavy winds and rain have scuppered some festivals and delayed set times at others, this will only get more extreme! The Australian website The Age reacted to what happened at Burning Man and asked if this is the end of music festivals:
“Outdoor music festivals have traditionally conjured images of sprawling fields peppered with tents, glitter-coated patrons and lines of dubious-smelling portable toilets. But today’s music festivals are as likely to be known for something more sinister: extreme weather of the kind that led to 70,000 Burning Man attendees trapped on site for days just this week.
Since 2013, about 41 Australian music festivals have been disrupted by bushfires, floods, lightning storms, wind or extreme heat. The vast majority of these disruptions occurred in the last three years, with over 20 festivals being relocated, postponed or cancelled due to dangerous weather fuelled by climate change. The biggest of these was Splendour in the Grass in 2022, which had its first day cancelled following heavy rain and floods.
Music industry figures have been forced to confront a vital question. If the level of disruption continues at this rate, how much longer can outdoor music festivals continue, and what do they need to change to survive?
Though weather has always been a consideration when planning large outdoor events, Tara Medina, co-founder of Strawberry Fields – a music festival in Tocumwal, NSW that was cancelled because of La Niña-related flooding last year – says climate change has made extreme weather more frequent, severe and unpredictable.
“The weather for our first four or five events was reasonably consistent,” Medina says. “The variance was: you’re either going to get 20mm of rain, and it’ll be colder, or it’s going to be 35 degrees and hot. The extremes for us now are: it’s going to be 42 degrees and a catastrophic bushfire day, or it’s going to be seven metres underwater. The sweet spots are getting more and more rare.”
Other popular festivals such as Yours and Owls in Wollongong, The Grass is Greener in Canberra and Geelong and Splendour In The Grass in the Northern Rivers were either partially or entirely cancelled shortly before the events were due to begin last year – a period that was supposed to mark the festival circuit’s glorious comeback after its COVID-induced hiatus”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Wendy Wei/Pexels
In the U.K., there is always rain at festivals. It becomes almost expected during the summer and early autumn months that there will be a washout at some point. Instead, we have been seeing extreme temperatures. The trouble with climate change is we are not sure how the extreme weather will impact festivals in the future. I feel most will have to adapt when it comes to weather-proofing. If they are held in massive fields, heavy downpours, storms, and even extreme heat is going to impact that. All festivals need to address and react to climate change by next year. How they can ready themselves for extreme weather and what happened at Burning Man. Many artists are trying to have carbon-neutral sets and travel as little as possible. The huge number of vehicles at festivals means there is pollution. At the mercy of the weather gods, I do fear even here in the U.K., where we have seen record autumn temperature but do not get the sort of devastating weather other countries see, we might have to prepare for the worst. I don’t think all festivals will be endangered. It is clear that some changes will be needed. In the hot weather, it may not be possible to produce enough water to keep everyone hydrated. There do need to be more water points,. shade and changes to set times and lengths if people are standing in high temperatures for hours. When it comes to rain, ensuring that vehicles are not stranded and there is safe haven and shelter, all festivals need to consider these things. It may cost a lot of money though, as we have to accept that global warming will impact festivals negatively, Burning Man is this perfect example of expect the unexpected.
IN THIS PHOTO: A shot of this year’s rain-ravaged Burning Man festival/PHOTO CREDIT: Tara Saylor
It must be a huge concern for all music festivals around the world when they hear of cancellations and damage because of the weather. The amount of money they lose if they need to cancel or delay the festivities is massive. Carbon-neutral festivals so exist, yet they can be very expensive. Festivals at the moment are not doing enough to adapt to climate change and make themselves greener. I guess small festivals and fewer days will mean less damage and risk. There will be more reliance on more modest festivals that cost less and will lose less if they are hampered by the weather. From the U.S. to Australia to the U.K., festivals also need to know how many people will show up. Putting tickets on sale earlier so exact numbers can be tabulated and then they can adapt accordingly is important. Maybe, as The Age outline in their feature, online festivals and harnessing technology could be a way of moving some festivals online. It is a shame, as festivals are about community and togetherness outside. If more drainage and fortified areas to shield people against the rain may become less effective as things get worse, there do need to be discussion and action plans from all festival to ensure they can continue – and do so safely and without too much cost and disruption. I don’t think we will see a day when all festivals are cancelled, though we will see more being delayed or heavily affected by weather. Burning Man was lashed by Storm Betty. Tiree in Scotland was hit by heavy rain; a Metal festival in Germany also saw rain creating mud and disruption; even last year, strong winds claimed a life and injured many more at a Spanish festival.
PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay/Pexels
If festivals are not quite ready for all possibilities climate change might lead to when it comes to unpredictable weather, there are those adapting and trying to do things so that they are ready for the worst. Earlier this year, The Guardian outlined how the costs of protecting festivals against wildfires and extreme rain is a real problem. Is it the case that the Government need to make a cash injection to ensure that there is funding for festivals so that they continue year on year without needing to scale back and cancel? It is a very precarious and scary time:
“Standon Calling, a 17,000-capacity festival in Hertfordshire, has felt the force of extreme weather in recent years. In 2021, the team were preparing for a dry weekend and performances by Primal Scream and Craig David. “Forecasts weren’t suggesting we were going to get freak weather,” recalls founder Alex Trenchard. “Then we had double the average rainfall for July fall in around three and a half hours. It was extraordinary.”
The downpour left almost a third of the site flooded, with bosses forced to cancel the event on the final day. The evacuation was complicated as local access roads had been closed and some attenders had to leave their cars and belongings behind.
The following year, they dug flood irrigation trenches across the site – only to face a heatwave. “You’re now preparing for something that, even in the realms of extreme, is at the extreme end,” Trenchard says.
PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay/Pexels
Unpredictable weather has been part of preplanning and risk assessment for UK music festivals for decades. The difference now is, bosses can’t look at past patterns to model their plans.
“Throughout the world, and in the UK, we’re seeing unprecedented weather events,” says Ric Robins from the Met Office, who has spent 40 years following British weather and works with events to disseminate weather warnings. “We’re going to have to make plans for weather events that we haven’t seen yet, but are now plausible,” he adds.
That will be difficult, because most festival sites are under construction by the time they receive accurate data. “It’s around five to seven days [before the event] when the forecast settles down into something you can plan for,” explains Robins. As a result, festival organisers – under scrutiny from local authorities, emergency services and insurance companies – must now prepare in advance for multiple extreme weather scenarios.
Jane Healy is responsible for the water and sanitation provisions at festivals such as Glastonbury and Boomtown, a 60,000-capacity festival in Hampshire where, in August 2022, temperatures peaked around 40C. She recalls there was concern about localised drought. To protect festivalgoers’ welfare, the team were trucking in tankers of extra water, trying to keep it cool enough to drink and using it to dampen down dust.
PHOTO CREDIT: Zeyneb Alishova/Pexels
“When you haven’t planned for extreme weather, it’s easy to fall back on the old ways,” she says. For example, shipping in plastic bottles of water. “Quick options, like anything in life, aren’t normally the most sustainable. You’ve got to have your contingencies, even if you don’t use them.”
These types of weather events mean festivals are scaling up plans every summer. More than half a million people attend Festival Republic’s events each year, such as Reading and Leeds, Wireless and Download. Last year, the organisers saw the damage caused to homes and villages by wildfires and adapted their plans.
“We increased fire crew teams and fire appliances,” says group managing director Melvin Benn. “Instead of our fire teams being central, we created hubs so response times would be shorter.” Real-time monitoring is key. “We contract a satellite weather service, which costs an awful lot of money. It gives us literally minute-by-minute anticipation. I’ve used this technology to keep shows going.”
All this necessary adaptation comes at a time of budgeting strain for the festival sector. “Issues of climate change affecting festivals aren’t happening on their own,” says Trenchard. “It’s alongside other factors, such as cancellation insurance. The premiums are rising year-on-year because insurers are having to pay out on weather-related claims.” Already this year, record rainfall has meant Laneway festival in Auckland was called off.
The positive news, though, is that festivals are increasingly engaged when it comes to their contribution to global heating. “Ten or 15 years ago, there was a handful of people championing this stuff,” says John Rostron of the Association of Independent Festivals, which represents 105 events with a combined audience of 1.3m music fans. “Now, it’s very much a guiding star. Every aspect of a festival can engage in considering the climate and sustainability: whether that’s how you travel there or the energy driving the power or water usage on site”.
IN THIS PHOTO: A satellite image courtesy of Maxar Technology shows an overview of the traffic jam of people leaving Burning Man/PHOTO CREDIT: Satellite image ©2023 Maxar Tech/AFP/Getty Images
I want to bring in a feature from Pitchfork. Published this week, they discussed a new reality for festivals at a time when climate change is having a marked and devastating consequence. Given the fact that outdoor events can only have so much protection and shelter, is it possible to work festivals around extreme weather? It seems like an impossible and tough situation for festival organisers around the world:
“Scientists agree that global warming is triggering increasingly unstable and unpredictable weather around the globe. And that has left festival organizers scrambling to grapple with their new normal. Such events can be deadly: Last summer, high winds killed one and injured 40 when a stage and other structures came down at the Medusa festival in Valencia, Spain. But even small incidents can put a festival’s entire future at risk. After Australia’s Splendour in the Grass festival flooded its campground locale last year, some local government officials called for organizers to find a new location.
We Out Here, a fledgling festival in the UK countryside, had a close call in 2019, its very first year. While stages were going up in advance of opening day, high winds forced the closure of multiple events in the region. “That was scary,” says We Out Here’s Joe Barnett. “We had fences going over, structures being blown. Had we been a week earlier, our inaugural year of the festival would have been canceled, and I’m not entirely sure that you survive that.”
Uganda’s Nyege Nyege Festival changed its dates from September to November, to be closer to the beginning of the dry season, and is shifting to an outdoor space within Jinja, a town on the shore of Lake Victoria, at the source of the Nile. “Global warming is dramatically affecting different parts of the world in different ways,” says Arlen Dilsizian, co-founder of Nyege Nyege. In the 12 years he’s lived in the country, the Greek-Armenian musicologist has seen Uganda’s wet and dry seasons become increasingly erratic. Last year, a month of rain leading up to the festival turned access roads into mud pits, exacerbating the already difficult logistics of the site’s remote forest location. “If it rains, we’re much better prepared now, and everyone can rush off to their hotel,” adds Dilsizian.
IMAGE CREDIT: Marina Kozak
With social media, there’s more public-facing accountability when adverse weather hits and organizers are unprepared (see: Fyre Festival). “You’re not going to be able to handle every weather situation perfectly,” Nelson acknowledges. “But having the best plan in place and proving that you did your due diligence—that’s becoming even more important. We do have changing climate conditions, and not all people might acknowledge that. But it’s certainly becoming more extreme in certain areas of the globe, and that’s affecting how people should mitigate risks around large-scale events.”
More needs to be done to address those risks, agree organizers and experts. Nelson suggests more general communication around emergency action plans to both attendees and staff. Joe Barnett, of We Out Here, sees the burden of responsibility as two-fold for event organizers: First, they must adjust to the new reality of extreme weather through increased infrastructure. (“One of the reasons I’m excited about working on a new festival site in Dorset is that we have some really good ground in terms of drainage, and we have a landlord who’s open to us investing in road networks on the site,” he adds.) And secondly, they should use their platform to educate. “I don’t think festivals just have a responsibility to reduce their negative impact,” Barnett says. “They have an active responsibility to discuss the impact of climate change and to encourage their customers to be conscious of it.”
Open’er’s (Mikolaj) Ziółkowski agrees, citing Billie Eilish’s solar-powered stage at Lollapalooza as an example of positive messaging. “You and I believe in climate change, but so many people are saying everything is fine,” he says. “We’ve got the perfect tool to talk to new generations.” At the same time, Ziółkowski adds, part of the nature of festivals is, well, being close to nature. “As humans, we have to be outside. Sometimes we will get wet.”
Although we are not at a point of no return when it comes to trying to act and ensure that global temperatures do not rise too high and lead to a bleak future for the planet, we are stumbling into that. The new reality is that the sort of record temperatures we have seen in the U.K. and the storms witnessed around the world will not only become regular: things will get worse and it will lead to a lot of deaths and damage of the land. Festivals are not necessarily essential. They are crucial for the music industry, so the music industry does need to come up with something – action plans and changes when it comes to how they are run, their carbon footprint, and how they are going to survive long-term. Not to dampen the brilliant festivals we have seen this year, but the recent drenching of Burning Man via a storm that left people stranded and in peril…this should be the wake-up call not only music festivals should heed and take to heart – it is something governments around the world need to acknowledge and act upon. It is a huge tragedy when music festivals are cancelled or impacted by the weather. We need to do all we can to ensure that these magnificent festivals survive; those that are…
IN THIS PHOTO: Brian Cross performing at Medusa Festival in Cullera, Spain on 10th August, 2019/PHOTO CREDIT: Pablo Gallardo/Getty Images
SO crucial to so many!