Aftermath of Live Music Events
Hi Everyone!!
Today’s blog post is the first in a series of posts where I will be focusing on the effects of concerts and music festivals on environmental pollution. In this blog post specifically, I will be giving a brief overview on what entails a concert and music festival as well as what types of pollution can be caused by these events.
Concert vs Music Festival
While concerts and music festivals come under one big umbrella of live music performances, they are both very different kinds of events.
Concerts are usually held indoors, from a small venue such as a bars/clubs to bigger venues such as stadiums. Most of the time, they are a one band show with only one or two other supporting acts. Apart from that, these bands would usually play 1-2 shows in one location before moving on to the next.
Music festivals on the other hand are often seen as a more large-scale event held outdoors in a green field. They usually last 2-3 days spread out over a long weekend and consist of performances by numerous bands. These music festivals have grown increasingly popular in the 21st century with some notable ones being Glastonbury (UK) and Coachella (US) drawing in crowds from all over the world.
As both of these events are fairly different, I will not be comparing them to determine which event causes the most environmental pollution but instead will explain how each of them cause environmental pollution in their own way.
Music festivals are on the rise
In the 21st century with the rise in digital technology and ease of travel, the number of music festivals as well as the number of people attending these music festivals have increased exponentially. According to Billboard, 32 million people go to at least one music festival a year in the US and around 3.17 million people attend music festivals every year in the UK.
According to TIME, music itself has evolved over the years with the act of listening to music now being practically free. As such, live music is becoming all the more special and according to Chirinos, “Audiences are keen to connect to the artist” and attending such live music events allows them to break down the wall between audience and artist.
According to Rishi Bahl, a musician and marketing professor at La Roche College in Pittsburgh, Pa, “festival organisers quickly caught onto the spike in artists taking the road (to go on concert tours) and decided to pay them more to appear at their events”. In doing so, Music festivals are becoming increasingly more popular than concerts as “they don’t need the grind of touring anymore, they’ll fly to a show, get paid six figures, fly home”.
However, what does this mean for the environment?
Both music festivals and concerts result in many types of environmental pollution, namely noise, plastic, air and water pollution.
Noise Pollution
Noise pollution is rather unique as compared to other forms of pollution and is considered to be a fairly new in the field of climate change. Noise pollution is defined as unwanted or excessive sound that can have harmful effects on human health, wildlife and environmental quality.
Generally, sounds that we deem to be unwanted or unnecessary are considered to be noise. That being said, these live music events are interesting in the sense that what is considered to be music to one person could be considered noise to another. While there is a fine line between what one would consider to be noise pollution, concerts and music festivals do fall under the category of events that cause such a pollution which I will elaborate more on in my next blog post.
Plastic Pollution
Plastic pollution is considered to be one of the most prevalent types of pollution from these live music events. Waste is considered to be one of the biggest problems facing modern live music events today. According to the BBC, each major music festival in the US generates around 100 tonnes of solid waste a day, while an estimated 23,500 tonnes of waste are produced by music festivals in the UK each year.
Graca Goncalves, a former environmental scientist at Nova University of Lisbon, said that “the growing use of disposable plastics at festivals has been behind many of the waste problems large festivals struggle with” this is because “drinks and food are sold in disposable plastic cups, bottles and food containers, along with enormous amounts of plastic cutlery”. Most of these Concert/festival goers tend to just leave all their waste lying around after the event not caring how much of an impact all this waste can have on the environment.
Water Pollution
These live music events, especially music festivals, may also pollute water bodies, groundwater and waterways as the runoff or wastewater enter these systems. This form of environmental pollution is more prevalent during music festivals as outdoor events tend to be more unsanitary and overcrowded with sub-par sewage systems, while concerts are held indoors with working toilets and sewage systems.
During these overcrowded music festivals there tends to be a long line to use the temporary toilets and thus some spectators may even choose to urinate on the ground. Such an act would cause an excess of nutrients to enter the groundwater and waterways, thus resulting in eutrophication.
Air Pollution
Air pollution from concerts and music festivals occur both on and offsite and are usually the result of the fuel expanded to get to the event as well as the energy consumed to run the event. Not only does the transportation of people and equipment take a lot of energy, but the means of transport by which they are taking to get to the venue exacerbate the issue. Artists and spectators travel long distances by airplane to hold and participate in these events, but some spectators also travel fly long distances to attend such events. As for on-site energy consumption, these events (especially music festivals as they are usually held in empty field) may also use generators or mains power which may also increase the amount of carbon emissions.
Research conducted by Oxford University showed that 500 UK festivals produce 84,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. According to The Guardian, “CO2 comes from generators producing electricity and trucks bringing water, scaffolding and toilets to and from the festival (event) site. However it is agreed that (the) largest component is caused by festival goers travelling to and from the festival site”.
I hope this blog post gave you a good overview on the types of pollution that can occur from these live music events. In my next few blog posts I will be diving deeper into each individual form of pollution as well talking about some case studies.
References:
Gajanan, M. (2019, August 14). How Music Festivals Became Such a Big Business. Retrieved November 06, 2020, from https://time.com/5651255/business-of-music-festivals/
What’s the Difference Between a Festival and a Concert? (2020, February 27). Retrieved November 06, 2020, from https://www.festivalclothinguk.co.uk/whats-the-difference-between-a-festival-and-a-concert/
Luoma, S. (2018). The environmental impacts of the biggest music festivals in Europe.