climate change
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As Southern California struggles through a record-setting heatwave, a performance by Australian singer-songwriter Vance Joy at Hollywood Bowl was canceled on Sunday (Sept. 8) due to a heat-related power outage. Related Click ‘Edit’ to Select Content 09/09/2024 Shortly before the performance was set to begin on Sunday, the venue announced on social media that “due […]
All audio, lighting, video and stage production on the main stage at this year’s Lollapalooza will be entirely powered by a hybrid battery system, the festival announced Monday (July 29).
According to organizers, that makes Lollapalooza the first major U.S. music festival to have a main stage run entirely on a hybrid battery system. Typically, diesel generators power the stages at large-scale events.
Lollapalooza’s hybrid-powered stage will deploy over 1.5 MWh of battery storage capacity. A representative for the festival tells Billboard that the batteries are reusable and will be charged using diesel generators that run on biodiesel fuel (typically made from renewable sources like vegetable oil, animal fat or recycled cooking grease and used as a cleaner-burning alternative to petroleum-based diesel fuel). That’s similar to systems that power hybrid vehicles.
The batteries, manufactured by Swedish industrial tools and equipment company Atlas Copco, will be deployed by CES Power, which provides temporary event power generation, power distribution, and HVAC for festivals, film and broadcast, major events, and industrial projects. The system is being deployed via a partnership between Live Nation’s sustainability initiative Green Nation, T-Mobile and CES Power.
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“We have set a goal to build a more sustainable future for music festivals, which requires taking bold steps to find solutions that can reinvent how we operate and in turn, build industry trust in new technology so that major live events can see a path towards becoming more energy efficient,” Jake Perry, director of operations and sustainability at C3 Presents, which produces Lollapalooza, said in a statement.
“Solutions like the ones Lollapalooza are pioneering not only contribute toward our global Green Nation goal of cutting our emissions in half by 2030, but they provide local benefits as well through reduced noise and air pollution which creates a better experience overall for the artists, fans and crew,” added Lucy August-Perna, head of global sustainability at Live Nation. “We look forward to sharing the results and learnings from Lollapalooza with our network of over 200+ festivals around the world who are committed to raising the bar for more sustainable live events.”
Major events have historically been reticent to incorporate hybrid battery power due to concerns about its reliability, but such batteries are becoming more popular on the live scene as the technology advances. This past May, California’s Mill Valley Music Festival became the first U.S. festival to be powered by 100% renewable energy through the use of batteries.
This isn’t the first time Lollapalooza has experimented with green energy on its main stage. Last August, Billie Eilish‘s headlining set at the festival was partially run on a solar-powered battery system via an initiative with environmental nonprofit Reverb.
Lollapalooza 2024’s headliners include Meghan Thee Stallion, Hozier, SZA, Stray Kids, The Killers, Future and Metro Boomin, Blink 182, Melanie Martinez, and Skrillex.
On July 18, 1991, Phoenix, Arizona hosted the first Lollapalooza. By the time gates opened, those who were there estimate it was 110 degrees.
Many artists on the bill — Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, Ice T — felt beat up by the heat, but it was only Nine Inch Nails, whose sequencer malfunctioned after sitting in the sun, that ended their performance after two songs because of it. Frontman Trent Reznor made his feelings about the situation known as he flipped over amps and mic stands on his way offstage.
“I would advise groups like that not to play outside in that type of heat,” says Danny Zelisko, who partnered with Perry Farrell to promote the festival that year. “Fortunately, there was a whole lineup of groups behind them that didn’t have to rely on electronics.”
Thirty-three years later, Phoenix has grown into the nation’s fifth largest city, with 1.6 million residents. It’s also the country’s hottest major metropolitan area, with scientists attributing the city’s rising average temperatures to both carbon emissions and heat trapped by man-made structures as development sprawls further into the Sonoran Desert. Last year was the warmest on record globally, according to the National Weather Service, and the fourth hottest on record in Phoenix.
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Amid a heatwave last July, the city clocked 19 days with record-high temperatures, including two that reached 119. Last July 22, a show by rock act Disturbed at the city’s Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre was postponed when the band’s equipment wouldn’t work in the 118-degree heat. A month later, 50 Cent postponed a show at the same venue due to an excessive heat warning.
A major tour stop for acts moving through the Southwest, Phoenix is home to many small, mid-sized and large-scale venues. Outdoor spaces include the 20,000-capacity Talking Stick, which is operated by Live Nation, and the 5,000-capacity Mesa Amphitheatre in nearby Mesa, Ariz., both of which host shows over the summer. (This summer, Mesa’s schedule is down to one summer show, in August, from several last year. May and August 2023 sets by Interpol and My Morning Jacket were moved to nearby indoor venues. A representative for the Amphitheatre did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment about whether these moves were heat related.)
But amid extreme heat — which is again currently gripping the city, many other areas of the U.S. and the world beyond — is Phoenix simply getting too hot to play in the summer, or is it business as usual?
Zelisko, who’s put on shows in the city for the last 50 years and has worked in nearly all its indoor and outdoor venues with his company Danny Zelisko Presents, says agents often ask about the realities of playing there in the summer. But despite concerns, “The fact is that economics come into it as well, and in many cases they can make more money outside, so sometimes acts just grin and bear it.”
Given that many summer tours are routed through amphitheaters and thus designed specifically for these types of spaces, it can also be difficult to move into a different kind of venue for a single show.
But certain artists “just won’t play outside when it’s this hot,” Zelisko adds. “It’s a wise move, because you’re really putting your crew out. These people will finish a show in Albuquerque, drive all night, show up here at 7 a.m. to load in, then do it all over again. Throwing a super-hot day into the mix is hard on some people.”
Steven Chilton, who promotes mostly indoor club shows in Phoenix under the name Psyko Steve, agrees the city is “a little slower” in summer, with some artists routing further north.
But Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre’s head of venue operation Karl Adams says he’s seen “no major changes” in how shows have been routed through the venue in recent years. This summer, Talking Stick has hosted shows by artists including Kenny Chesney, Paula Abdul and Cage the Elephant, with Sammy Hagar, Megadeth and more on the calendar through the end of August.
With some artists and fans willing to brave the Phoenix heat for a show, safety protocols at both outdoor and indoor venues are crucial. In the last 30 to 40 years, Zelisko says more responsibility has fallen on promoters to look out for crowds in the heat. “As it’s turned into a business where you put an act up any time of year that you can get them, promoters really plan for what’s going to happen on game day,” he says. “You have to look out for people, because you want them back as a customer.” This is particularly true for venues that have large expanses of concrete or asphalt, which can get to 130 degrees or hotter on a warm day.
At Talking Stick, protocols include encouraging fans to bring their own water bottles and fill them at free water stations. The venue is equipped with misting fans and cooling stations, provides free sunscreen and even has onstage air conditioning for artists. It also emails ticket holders prior to the event with show information that includes advice on how to prepare for weather, with this info also posted to the venue’s social accounts. Zelisko recalls handing out cooling ice pack necklaces at particularly hot shows, creating shaded resting areas and putting up pools backstage for bands to jump in after a set.
“When you’re a fan in line and somebody goes through handing out water, it’s a simple gesture, but very appreciated,” says Zelisko. “You’ve got to be thinking about that stuff, because you don’t want people dropping by the time they come in.”
That was the worst-case scenario outcome last December in Rio de Janeiro, when a 23-year-old fan died from heat exhaustion in a hospital after passing out during the second song of a Taylor Swift concert. Fans lined up for hours before the show in temperatures that reached 105, and many accused organizers of not delivering enough water supplies for the more than 60,000-person crowd. Fans also reported that they were not allowed to take their own water into the stadium.
Last summer, heat exhaustion was widespread at shows throughout the U.S., with Jason Aldean experiencing heat stroke while onstage in Hartford, Conn. last July. Zelisko predicts that all promoters will eventually have to deal with some type of weather issue, and that the heat in places with humidity is more challenging than the dry heat of the desert.
Still, “most of our 911 calls are heat related,” Chilton says of the Rebel Lounge, the 300-cap venue he manages. “It’s a big issue every summer, and it’s always the shows [that skew younger] where kids arrive early and want to sit outside in the sun for 10 hours in 110-degree heat, because they want to be first in line. Then they come into the venue exhausted and dehydrated and pass out. That’s a constant struggle for us.”
At Rebel Lounge, fans are thus only allowed to wait outside an hour before any given show. Once inside, Chilton says the venue has a competitive advantage, given that it has stronger air conditioning than many other local indoor venues, with these places losing out on summer bookings because they don’t get as cool inside.
While he says the cost of running multiple air conditioners is “very significant,” it’s worth it for the comfort of fans and artists. He recalls seeing a show at a nearby venue with weaker A.C., “and the band was furious at the end of the night.” Chilton says no one in the crowd complained, as locals know the realities of summertime in Phoenix.
The general vibe among those interviewed for this story is that the effects of climate change don’t yet feel hugely significant “because it’s always blazing hot in the summer,” says Zelisko, who once successfully fried an egg on a sidewalk during a 120-degree day. “I’m not saying it’s not getting hotter, because there’s a lot of proof that says it is, but what are you going do about it? We’ve still got to live.”
For Chilton, the difference thus far is “not necessarily that it’s more miserable, it’s that it’s miserable longer,” with heatwaves lasting longer than they used to. Still, the biggest weather issue he’s experienced wasn’t heat-related, but a fluke rainstorm during the two-day Zona Music Festival he produced in December of 2022.
“I did the research, and since 1900 in Phoenix it’s only ever rained three times on that day,” he says. “It was the most rain Phoenix had seen on a single day in like, a decade.”
Promoters also emphasize that Phoenix’s desert climate offers its own advantages. Adams of Talking Stick says the venue has “a longer season than some outdoor venues” since it can start hosting shows in April and continue them through the fall.
Zelisko wishes more groups would come to town in January, February and March — when outdoor shows are impossible in much of the country due to the cold — “because that’s the best time of year here.”
But as things stand, it’s unlikely summer shows will stop anytime soon in America’s hottest big city. “Performing outside in Phoenix in July is crazy,” says Zelisko. “But money makes people do crazy things.”
Glorilla‘s scorching summer anthem “TGIF” has inspired a much more serious discussion about climate change, courtesy of a prominent Democratic lawmaker. During the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing last Wednesday (July 10), U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley gave a speech about the impact of urban heat islands on lower-income communities. “You know the kids […]
After debuting this past February, the Music Sustainability Summit has announced the date for its second conference in Los Angeles. Focused on creating solutions to the climate crisis within the music industry, the Summit will happen on Monday, February 5. Like this year’s event, the Summit will happen the day after the Grammy awards. A […]
More than 50 members of the music industry have joined an advisory committee to help guide an ongoing study by MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative.
The report, expected to be released this fall, is designed to provide a comprehensive assessment of the relationship between live music and climate change, to identify areas where the industry and concertgoers can make improvements to reduce emissions and create positive environmental outcomes, and to analyze the latest sustainable technology and systems that can be adopted in the live events space and other areas of the industry.
The ultimate goal of the study is to determine sector-specific and industry-wide decarbonization solutions.
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The new advisory board includes Live Nation president/CEO Michael Rapino along with other Live Nation execs; Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl; and reps from companies including Wasserman Music, WME, Atlantic Records, Upstaging, Inc., Farm Aid, Projects Tait, Global Motion Ltd., Women of Qolor Entertainment and many more.
On the artist side, the committee includes Ellie Goulding, Adam Met of AJR and representatives from the live and touring teams of artists including Billie Eilish, FINNEAS, Harry Styles, Shawn Mendes, Fred again.., Jack Johnson and Coldplay.
Participants also include reps from nonprofits and NGOs like Reverb, Support+Feed, Julie’s Bicycle, Global Citizen and Client Earth. See the complete list of participants here. Anyone can submit data to the report by emailing p1lm@mit.edu.
The MIT study is being executed with the support of Coldplay, Warner Music Group, Live Nation and consulting firm Hope Solutions.
“With the participation of the advisory committee and contributions of data from various sources, we are well on our way to producing a significant contribution to knowledge that can support meaningful actions to address climate change,” said Prof. John E. Fernandez, director of MIT’s environmental solutions initiative, in a statement.
“I would characterize the music industry as risk-averse,” Fernandez told Billboard in March of working within the industry. “It’s a business, and artists are trying to make a living, so we’ve seen an enormous amount of concern over the risk entailed with making a commitment to reduce emissions.”
Scan the ground after any given concert or music festival and one thing you’re almost certain to see is a scattering of empty plastic cups. According to a 2024 report by environmental advocacy agency Upstream, the live-event industry creates over 4 billion single-use cups that end up in landfills every year in North America alone.
It doesn’t have to be this way — and reuse company r.World wants to lead the change. The Minneapolis-based company provides reusable serveware — cups, food containers and more — for mass gatherings, with these products designed to mitigate the persistent single-use plastic waste problem in the live music industry and beyond.
“Other than reducing [carbon emissions from] fan travel, reuse is the number one thing venues can do to reduce environmental impact,” r.World founder Michael Martin says. “And artists and fans are asking for it.”
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Founded in 2017, r.World provides reusable plastic cups and other serveware to more than 200 venues across the U.S., along with festivals like Long Beach’s 20,000 capacity Cali Vibes and San Francisco’s 30,000-capacity Portola. In late May, the company partnered with Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, home of the NBA’s Lakers and Clippers, and Peacock Theater to launch a full-time reusable cup program in each venue.
But the mission extends far beyond concerts and sports, with r.World aiming to build the infrastructure for a national reuse economy that would extend to airlines, consumer packaged goods, restaurants and more, ultimately becoming “a one-stop national solution,” Martin says. “The music industry has essentially launched and is leading the reuse movement in the country, and it’s inspiring universities, corporate campuses, quick-service restaurants and others.”
At the center of this movement is the plastic cup itself. Good for 300 uses, r.Cups are made of thick plastic designed and manufactured to r.World specifications that Martin says “overhauled” the manufacturing process of a standard single use cup. Made in the United States to minimize carbon emissions from shipping, each cup is slapped with the words “please return our cup to an r.cup bin,” and when a cup reaches its maximum number of uses, it’s upcycled into other r.World products.
The sweeping project started 10 years ago, when Martin’s other company, the climate solutions-focused Effects Partners, was hired to analyze operations at Live Nation and create a sustainability strategy. While assembling a five-year plan for the live-events behemoth, Martin realized “the recycling and composting efforts at the venues were never going to work,” given that most everything ultimately just ended up in landfills. The realization made him “depressed for, like, six months,” until he considered the reuse programs he’d seen in European venues — and then developed r.World.
r.World reusable products
Courtesy of r.World
Through connections to U2, Martin suggested the band try reuse on their 2017 tour. It was a success, and r.World was soon working with 13 acts, including the Rolling Stones, Dave Matthews Band, Bon Jovi, Radiohead and Maggie Rogers, all of whom gave Martin permission to go to venues on their behalf and request that the venue try reuse during their show.
The first r.Cup cups were branded with band logos, until the team realized fans were just keeping them as souvenirs. In 2019, the model morphed into “an ugly cup” people were less inclined to take home.
Cups are collected in yellow bins that sit alongside garbage cans and recycling containers at venues, then brought to an r.World-owned wash hub facility. These hubs are built in economically depressed areas of any given city to help spur the economy, and are where cups are washed and inspected, largely staffed by people living in halfway houses or who are getting back on their feet after getting out of prison.
These local facilities are crucial because, as Martin says, “you can’t prioritize the environment if you’re shipping cups great distances across the country” due to the carbon emissions created by such transport. r.World plans to establish wash hubs and reuse solutions in the top 20-30 U.S. markets, having already launched in seven. The company expects to add another one or two cities in the coming months and is in conversation with officials from nearly every city they are targeting. “We know the demand and need is there,” says Martin. While the majority of r.World’s current business is cups, Martin cites “exploding” demand for food containers at venues, festivals, schools and corporate campuses.
r.Cup typically launches in a venue after a facility or concession manager reaches out to ask about reuse. (Martin notes that they have a 99% client retention rate, and the one venue that did let go of the program was having financial issues.) With an operational design developed via focus groups with national concessionaires like Levy Restaurants, Aramark and Sodexo US, r.World provides everything from cups and collection bins to signage, employee training materials and social media content to educate guests, offering “a complete turnkey solution so it’s a no brainer for the operators,” says Martin. Venues are also provided with environmental impact reporting that uses EPA guidelines to consider everything from the sourcing and shipping of cups to the temperature of the water used to clean them. (Martin says the company is “sort of obsessive” about these protocols, which he attributes to “being a numbers geek.)
Cost of implementation is based on the number of single use items required by a venue and varies by how much of their service is packaged drinks versus draft or fountain drinks. Martin says the biggest arenas that serve draft and fountain beverages go through 1.5 million-2.5 million single use cups per year. While upfront costs of r.World products are higher than single use, the cost over time is generally less given that venues must keep buying the reusable plastic cups that get thrown away after each event.
r.World reusable products
Jesse Roberson
Some venues embed this added expense into the drink price, while others allow guests to opt out and get a single use cup for a slightly lower cost. (Over r.World’s millions of transactions, Martin has heard about “two or three” people opting out.) Drink servers are also into r.Cup, he says, “because they felt bad giving out all that single use waste, and cups are a conversation starter with guests.” Beyond the price differentials, Martin says the biggest hesitation venues and events have about adopting reusable cups is an “imagination gap,” along with other factors like existing vendor contracts, venue infrastructure and apathy and misinformation, such as thinking single-use aluminum or compostable cups are good for the environment.
To wit, reusable cups are alternatives to frequently-used compostable cups, which have a dicey record of being composted and behave as a regular single use plastic cup if they end up in a landfill. Aluminum cups and bottles also often end up in landfills given that recycling sorting at events can be spotty. A 2023 Upstream report states that “single-use aluminum cups are the worst option for the climate by far,” as they use 47% more energy over their life cycle and create 86% more carbon dioxide than other single-use plastic options.
r.World reusable products
Courtesy of r.World
As sustainability initiatives become more common and more in-demand across the industry and culture at large, more than 150 national reuse companies have launched since the pandemic. In 2022, Live Nation invested in Turn Systems, a program that provides reusable cups, collection bins and mobile washing systems at venues and festivals. As such, r.World is partnered with Live Nation competitors including AEG, ASM and NIVA, and provides product washing for other reuse companies.
Beyond venues and events, r.World clients include the Coca-Cola Company, which is widely cited as one of the world’s leading single-use plastic waste producers. Coca-Cola has made a commitment to incorporating 25% reusable products by 2030 and is working with r.World to provide reuse services for Coca-Cola clients like music venues, movie theaters, the Olympics, the World Cup and wherever else Coca-Cola wants to implement reuse. r.World has also been selected by the EPA and the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality to help raise national awareness of reuse.
Martin says that while an industry has developed to help solve the single use plastic problem, many waste management and consumer packaged goods companies would rather not see a large-scale shift to reuse happen. And despite the explosive growth in the sector, Martin says r.World’s biggest competitors are still single-use cups and serveware, whether plastic, compostable or aluminum.
This is where artists and fans can flex their power by requesting reuse programs in their riders and spending money at venues with reuse programs given, Martin says, that “businesses will give back what consumers are asking for.”
GOAL — a sustainability program developed by founding members Oak View Group, State Farm Arena and its NBA sports tenant the Atlanta Hawks, Fenway Sports Group and green building expert Jason F. McLennan — has released a report outlining the impact of its first year of work.
The group’s 2024 Impact Report reflects data from 40 U.S., Canada and U.K. venues, including large-scale facilities that regularly host music programming like Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, Southern California’s Acrisure Arena and Austin’s Moody Center. GOAL (which stands for Green Operations & Advanced Leadership) sets out to collect data and build a roadmap for a more sustainable live event and venue industry. The report laid out current member performance and identified what future benchmarks could mean for the environment.
The report states that member venues diverted 32% of waste through reusing, composting and recycling over the last year. If that diversion rate reached 90% for all GOAL members, they could avoid emissions “equal to driving to the moon and back 75 times in a standard gas-powered car,” according to the report.
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The average member venue used 14.48 million gallons of water over the year. If each member reduced their water usage by 5%, it would be enough water for every citizen in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. to have one glass of water.
“The sports and entertainment industry has historically prioritized marketing over positive environmental impact, with venues making declarative statements about sustainability without necessarily following up with concerted action,” said McLennan in the report. “As we move forward, venues must hold themselves and each other accountable, and a consistent rubric for evaluation is essential to build confidence and drive continuous improvement.”
The report also outlines individual efforts at various member venues, with Tampa’s Amalie Arena installing an on-site central energy plant in 2022 to generate electric energy on site, a project that brought the arena’s Scope 1 and 2 emissions (direct greenhouse emissions that occur from sources controlled or owned by an organization and indirect greenhouse emissions associated with the purchase of electricity, steam, heat or cooling down, respectively) to 51% less than the average NHL arena. New Jersey’s Prudential Center purchased two electric Zambonis, while Atlanta’s State Farm Arena is in the process of quantifying all of its natural gas emissions so they can be offset. The average NBA Arena currently produces 1,611 metric tons of Scope 1 carbon emissions.
Meanwhile, three GOAL Members — State Farm Arena, Climate Pledge Arena and UBS Arena in New York — have achieved the U.S. Green Building Council’s TRUE Zero Waste Certification, which means they send at least 90% of their total waste to recycling, compost, donation or for reuse.
“I love GOAL. It’s the most important thing we’ve done toward sustainability,” OVG chairman/CEO Tim Leiweke told Billboard in March. “It’s hugely important that we get other people in the industry committed to GOAL. That’s one of [OVG’s] highest priorities.”
Find the complete report here.
Many songs from across the musical canon feature the sound of ocean waves, wind, rain, thunder, lightning, bird calls and other sounds of nature. Now, nature itself is being recognized as an artist for these contributions in an initiative to raise money for global conservation efforts.
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This new projects, Sounds Right, includes “Nature” getting an artist page on Spotify, with this page populated by new music and older songs remixed to “Feat. NATURE” by artists including David Bowie with Brian Eno, Ellie Goulding, U.K. electronic outfit London Grammar, neo-soul and folk artist UMI with V of BTS, Indian artist Anuv Jain, Norwegian singer Aurora and many more.
These songs will also be available on all major streaming platforms, with royalties going to Sounds Right. The project is projected to raise more than $40 million for conservation efforts from more than 600 million individual listeners in its first four years.
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Launched Tuesday (April 18), the Spotify playlist currently features 15 tracks, with more to be added as Sounds Right grows. Currently available songs include a “Nature Remix” of Goulding’s 2020 song “Brightest Blue” that now incorporates sounds of the Colombian rainforest. The 1995 Eno and Bowie collab “Get Real” features the sounds of hyenas, rooks and wild pigs, while Jain’s “Baarishein” includes the sound of an Indian rainfall.
Revenue will be collected by conservation nonprofit EarthPercent, then allotted to biodiversity conservation and restoration projects in threatened ecosystems around the world. The Sounds Right Expert Advisory Panel, a group of established biologists, environmental activists, representatives of Indigenous Peoples and experts in conservation funding, will advise on how funding should be dispersed.
“It’s been fantastic to see so many brilliant artists excited to engage creatively with the sounds of nature and supportive of Sounds Right’s core objective to see that nature is fairly compensated for her musical contributions,” EarthPercent’s Co-Executive Director Cathy Runciman said in a statement. “We know that many artists care deeply about protecting and restoring nature, and it’s a privilege to launch these collaborations via the Feat. NATURE playlist and together generate positive impact for biodiversity.”
Sounds Right was developed by the Museum for the United Nations and UN Live, Copenhagen-based organizations that use culture to crate local action and global change, in collaboration with a variety of climate-focused partners.
On Feb. 5, 300 workers from North America’s music industry gathered at the inaugural Music Sustainability Summit to discuss the impact of climate change on their business. “People were always asking where to start, what to do and how to do it,” says Amy Morrison, co-founder and president of the Music Sustainability Alliance, which organized the symposium. “We saw a need to bring people together in order to not duplicate work, to share best practices and to spotlight the good work everyone is doing.”
Morrison formed the 501(c)(3) nonprofit MSA with co-founder Mike Martin during the pandemic and near the end of her 23-year run as senior vp of marketing at Concerts West/AEG. While semiretired, she still consults for the company and continues running tour marketing for The Rolling Stones, including their North American Hackney Diamonds trek this summer. The touring shutdown enabled her to complete a certificate program in sustainability at Presidio Graduate School, and she now dedicates most of her working hours to the MSA. (The alliance is currently collaborating with a nonprofit fundraising consultant to raise money to pay staff.)
The MSA’s mandate is the creation of “climate-focused professional resources and community,” Morrison explains. “It’s a relatively simple concept, but nobody ever saw the need for it. The downtime we had to reflect during COVID was helpful, and the timing now couldn’t be better to accelerate and lift everyone up together to do this.”
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The Music Sustainability Summit will be an annual gathering that takes place in Los Angeles — where the MSA, like Morrison, is based — on the day after the Grammy Awards, and MSA will organize a number of year-round initiatives and track environmental regulations that will affect the industry, with the two most pertinent being truck emissions and phasing out single-use plastics. It also offers a music-industry resource guide.
“It still blows my mind that I get to work with the Stones,” Morrison says. “Living in L.A., this poster beautifully marries the SoCal vibe and the greatest rock’n’roll band in the world.”
Maggie Shannon
By mid-April, the MSA plans to have three to five working groups dedicated to promoting sustainability practices in the industry. Each will share solutions and actionable recommendations. In collaboration with the Eller College of Management, MSA is also conducting an analysis of the economic impacts of extreme weather on the live industry and how environmental regulations will affect touring practices. Morrison is also a member of the advisory group for the Sustainable Production in Entertainment Certification, which is being developed by the U.S. Green Building Council-Los Angeles in partnership with experts to develop SPEC’s green certification program for workers across the entertainment industry.
Beginning in May, MSA will hold a series of webinars that will focus on merchandise, food choice impact, easy ways to green events, regulations and incentives, among other topics. Plans are also underway to launch quarterly member happy hours in L.A. and New York.
“I oversimplify things a lot, which I think is a gift and a curse,” Morrison says, “but it makes me not scared and it motivates me to try things because it’s like, ‘We can do this.’”
It’s often said that despite the music industry having a very small impact on climate change, it has an outsize influence on the culture that can be leveraged. What are your thoughts on that?
I agree as a general statement. I feel it’s really important, though, that we have our house in order and that the industry can walk the walk, speak with confidence and be legit and authentic in getting that message out. I think that supports artists who want to speak out as well because they have the confidence that the industry is behind them.
The MSA wants to create that confidence. The mission is to have a net-zero music industry by 2050 [with] lots of milestones along the way.
“This clock commemorates The Concert of a Lifetime, Simon & Garfunkel’s 1993 residency at [what is now] The Theater at Madison Square Garden. I grew up listening to them, and being a part of this historic reunion was a career highlight.”
Maggie Shannon
What initiatives is the MSA working on?
We’ve been working on a Get Out the Vote working group. There’s a lot of interest, and it involves everything from message targeting, deciding on markets and the intention of activating younger people to vote [with consideration for] the climate. We’re also talking about how to use the channels we have: What can a venue do to get the word out? What can a promoter do? Then the campaign needs to be created for them to actually have something to share. It could even be picking a city that needs the impact and finding a local artist there [to get involved] who could be just as meaningful as getting a superstar to do it. We’re working with folks that create campaigns, along with political experts.
You work in the touring industry. What initiatives do you have in that sector?
In the next couple of months, we’re launching a campaign for [tours] to have one less truck. It’s about flipping the narrative that [the goal] is no longer having the biggest tours with the most trucks — it’s about still putting on a beautiful show, but with fewer trucks. That’s something we can measure over time. It’s a ways down the road from launching. We’re also working on courses for worker education on how to be green, like a certification you get in how to do your job in a green way. We need operational change, and it only comes from education.
“Running the marketing for a festival of this magnitude with these artists was an incredible experience. I got to draw on my touring experience while learning new things.”
Maggie Shannon
What would a curriculum like that teach?
It could be how to set up composting backstage, or how to go down your supply chain and source items, or how to measure energy use. Really basic stuff, starting on the production side.
Because production has the biggest impact?
Yeah, and it’s easier to adopt. It’s important for systemic change that the people who are doing the work, who are really making operations hum, understand the work. And if their bosses or management see the value in funding this type of program, then it’s also coming from the top.
How do you see the music industry generally becoming greener?
I see it in the expansion of departments, with more people being hired and more resources getting put behind it. [Live Nation’s touring program] Green Nation is starting to really empower its production teams to lead in the green space, and they’re putting green coordinators out on the road. It’s not like, “The runner or the [production assistant] can do it.” There has been a shift in the acknowledgment that this is actually a job.
The MSA is working with big companies that compete with each other. What has that been like?
We’ve found that in the production vendor world, it’s a no-brainer. They’re all game to be on the same calls and do things together. At the summit, the panel with the [sustainability leads from AEG, Live Nation, ASM Global and Oak View Group] was a good start. A secret mission of mine is to find a project for the four of them to work on. Maybe to find a city where they all have a property — I’m sure there’s more than one — and work on [climate-minded] infrastructure together. It can be a small thing to do as proof of concept. I think the working groups will bring some of that because a lot of our role is to facilitate, convene and set the table for people.
A friend gifted Morrison this Al Hirschfeld drawing of Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia. “As a longtime Deadhead and Hirschfeld fan, it makes me smile to see Jerry doing what he loves.”
Maggie Shannon
I think part of the road map for us is to come up with some science-based, peer-reviewed recommendation to take to the C suite and say, “Here are a couple of projects that maybe if all the venues work together on, this is the impact it could have, and all it will cost you is X, Y or Z.”
I can see how having such options would be useful for busy people who don’t know where to start.
Maybe I’m dreaming, but they really should all work together on this, and I think they will, with the right projects and the right impact.
Climate change can feel so overwhelming. How do you avoid existential dread and stay in a place of progress and optimism?
I’m a half-full gal. I am optimistic, and I’m fed by support, good work and successes. The summit was amazing. I couldn’t have dreamed of it to be any better. And everyone still showed up during a crazy rainstorm. There were a lot of years of banging the head against the wall around all this, but change is happening. So I’m not driven by fear — I’m driven by making a difference.
This story will appear in the March 30, 2024, issue of Billboard.