climate change
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Since Lollapalooza ushered in the era of the modern music festival in the early 1990s, one main power source has been driving them all: diesel generators. These mobile devices have been particularly crucial to the festival industry given that many of these events take place in open fields and parking lots that aren’t connected to the power grid.
But generators are also environmentally problematic. At the biggest festivals, they can burn through thousands of gallons of diesel fuel over a weekend, spewing carbon emissions that altogether make them the second biggest carbon emitters in live music, after emissions created by fan travel. They’re also loud, and they kind of stink.
“You can hear them from the stage, you can smell them from the stage,” says Adam Gardner of the band Guster, and who also co-founded the music sustainability nonprofit REVERB. “It’s just unpleasant.”
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But the live events industry, and the festival industry in particular, is amidst what seems to be a sea change in how events are powered. And increasingly, the more viable alternative to the diesel devilry is simple — batteries.
Last month, the Lollapalooza 2024 mainstage was powered entirely by batteries, which kept the lights, sound and other power components on during performances by Chappell Roan, Megan Thee Stallion, SZA, The Killers and more. A rep for Lollapalooza tells Billboard that with this effort, the festival saw a 67% reduction in both fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions over prior years, when batteries had not been used. This equates to the sparing of 26 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, or the equivalent to five homes’ electricity use for a year. The use of batteries also saved over 3,000 gallons of fuel. Lollapalooza says this initiative made it the first major U.S. festival to power its mainstage on a hybrid battery system.
“I’ve heard some rumors about competitors being maybe a little jealous that we were the first ones to do it,” says Jake Perry, the director of operations and sustainability at C3 Presents, which produces Lollapalooza.
Lolla’s effort helped demonstrate that what may seem risky is actually a reliable alternative that’s evolving power options for live events. “There’s a lot of fear and apprehension over providing the power that’s turning the show on,” says Perry. “But there were, like, zero issues.”
The battery set up at Lollapalooza 2024
Dusana Risovic
REVERB, a 501c3 nonprofit that’s focused on sustainability in music for 20 years and was co-founded by Gardner and his wife, environmentalist Lauren Sullivan, estimates that each year, U.S. festivals burn the equivalent of 46 million miles driven by gasoline powered vehicles. As battery technology evolves, they’re becoming a more viable solution to the issue, if organizers can be convinced that they’re reliable enough to use.
“If there’s a choice between sustainability and reliability, everyone’s going to choose reliability,” says Greg Landa, CEO of CES Power, the industry’s leading mobile power provider for festivals. “The pop star doesn’t want to be on stage if there’s no audio or lighting.”
But early adopters have demonstrated batteries’ efficacy. In May, Northern California’s two-day Mill Valley Music Festival was powered entirely by batteries. At the 2023 edition of Willie Nelson’s Luck Reunion near Austin, Texas, the REVERB team powered all four stages with batteries, setting up a temporary on-site solar array to charge them. By 2024, the entire event was battery powered, with the only generators on site being inside the tour buses of the artists playing. In total, 350 gallons of diesel fuel were used at Luck in 2022, with that number down by 90% in 2023 and 100% in 2024, tour buses notwithstanding. This year, REVERB also brought battery power to SXSW, using it to power an outdoor stage for public performances by artists including Bootsy Collins.
REVERB and Overdrive Solutions’ solar setup at Luck Reunion 2024
Courtesy of REVERB
These efforts were backed by REVERB’s Music Decarbonization Project, which aims to eliminate carbon emissions created by the music industry. The Project made headlines in 2023 when it brought a temporary solar array to Lollapalooza in Chicago, using it to charge the battery system that powered the mainstage during a headlining set from Billie Eilish, arguably the modern artist most vocal about sustainability. (Eilish helped launch and fund REVERB’s Music Decarbonization Project in 2023.)
Through this initiative with Eilish, “we were able to help Lollapalooza [get] to where they are now, where they were able to take it upon themselves,” says Gardner, “which is exactly the point of the Music Decarbonization Project.”
Lollapalooza’s use of battery power in 2024 came after years of the fest searching for the battery technology to make it happen, with C3 testing batteries from myriad manufacturers over the last few years at events including Austin City Limits and North Carolina’s High Water.
“The technology is evolving very quickly,” says Perry. “This year it finally got to a point where it was big enough and capable enough to put it into an installation this size.” The effort falls into Live Nation’s goal of cutting its emissions by 50% by 2030.
Battery power at a festival functions in essentially the same way as in a hybrid car; think of battery systems as a hybridization of the stage. How long batteries last depend on what’s being powered (i.e. a stage, a lighting source, a food vendor, etc.), how long it’s powered for and the battery’s storage capacity.
Partnered with CES, Lollapalooza 2024 used lithium ion batteries made by industrial equipment manufacturer Atlas Copco. All batteries, regardless of manufacturer, can carry only a certain amount of charge and must have charge added during the event. Each battery is connected to a secondary power source that charges it back up when necessary.
As such, how green batteries actually are varies by the way they’re charged. Batteries can be powered off the grid if utility power is available, or from a generator running off diesel (the most common option) or biodiesel, which has less of a carbon footprint but can be hard to source. Solar panels don’t require any fuel to be burned, although setting up the necessary solar array at an event can be time- and space-intensive.
But even when using diesel backup generators, batteries are more efficient. Landa says that if the company put a 60 kw battery at an event site, it’s unlikely the battery would ever be using that full 60 kw power, with levels more likely to be at 30-45 kw depending on what it’s powering. At that rate, the battery would likely last four to five hours before being charged by the generator, thus using less fuel.
“That’s the hybrid approach we’re talking about,” Landa says.
Batteries also have built-in computers, making them able to report how much power they’re using at any given time. When they need to be charged, they automatically turn on their power sources. When they reach the necessary level of charge, they automatically turn this backup source back off. And because batteries are intelligent, if a failure occurs, they’ll instantly flip on the backup source to avoid power interruptions.
“They’re telling you everything in real time,” says Gardner. “You can literally monitor your power usage on an iPhone as it’s happening.”
According to Landa, the top mobile battery suppliers are currently Caterpillar, Atlas Copco and portable power solutions supplier POWR2. The Vermont-based Nomad offers transportable battery systems designed for rapid deployment and operation at the utility (or grid) level, although Alex Crothers of the Burlington-based music production company Higher Ground incorporated Nomad batteries into the company’s 2024 summer season, along with batteries from Overdrive Solutions. Crothers is currently exploring how to make these batteries into backup power for the venues he co-owns, given that the concert series only happens a few times a month due to the weather. Meanwhile, Overdrive Solutions provides battery power stations and systems and has partnered with AEG on myriad events, assisting with planning and on-site execution.
“A lot of them use the same technology in their guts,” Gardner says of all these products.
As battery technology improves, there could come a time when they can be charged with utility power before being transported to a festival, then run for the duration without being recharged. “That is not where we are today,” says Landa. “But that is the goal.” As batteries become more efficient, they’ll also likely become smaller, which will allow more of them to fit on a shipping truck and reduce costs and carbon emissions related to transport. Some batteries currently being made by Overdrive Solutions are already as small as a rolling suitcase.
The current hybrid battery model is what makes it possible for artists to say that their shows are completely battery powered, even though there are generators on site. “When you hear about Coldplay, they brought just as many generators as they brought batteries,” says Landa. “While Chris Martin was on stage, he may have been without any emissions, but there were diesel generators charging those batteries [after]. I’m not trying to greenwash this.”
At Lollapalooza 2024, generators ran on b14 biodiesel, a blend of diesel and biodiesel, with C3 partnering with CES and sustainability consultancy ZAP Concepts (who worked with Coldplay on their Music of the Spheres Tour, which pledged to reduce the band’s direct carbon emissions from production, freight and band and crew travel by at least 50%) to make the project a reality.
Of course, batteries have many festival applications beyond powering stages. REVERB worked with Coachella and Stagecoach to put up battery-powered light towers that were charged by solar. “Festival organizers loved it,” says Gardner, “because they didn’t have to run out to light towers on the outskirts of the festival in their golf carts and fill up the diesel generators.”
REVERB and Overdrive Solutions’ solar setup at Coachella
Courtesy of REVERB
Perry of C3 says that after the success of 2024, Lollapalooza will likely roll out additional battery usage incrementally, ultimately working to entirely replace the roughly 70 generators on-site annually. This endeavor will become easier as the general supply of batteries increases, as currently, Perry says, “these types of high-capacity batteries are low supply, high demand.”
He adds the price of the Lolla mainstage project was “not cheap,” with the festival partnering with CES, Live Nation’s sustainability program Green Nation and T-Mobile to cover costs. Landa says that while lithium-ion batteries currently cost about five times the price of diesel generators, batteries are rechargeable and built to work for a decade or longer, so buyers can spread the cost out over time.
Landa predicts that, as with electric cars and iPhones, prices will come down as technology evolves, with a trickle-down effect likely to occur. “Think electric vehicles at the top,” he says, “then think industrial applications, then think events and entertainment at the bottom of the funnel. We need the guys ahead of us to drive down cost and increase the supply chain so that it makes sense by the time it gets to the bottom of the funnel.”
As this happens, and as the industry grapples with sustainably — particularly in the face of events being affected by major and extremely freaky weather events — initiatives like REVERB’s work at Luck Reunion and SXSW and what C3 did at Lolla 2024 are meant to build broad trust, showing the industry what this technology is and that it works.
“I think the most positive feedback that I got was that it went unnoticed,” Perry says of Lolla’s batteries. “For me, an operational person, the biggest kudos is to be smooth and unseen.”
As three wildfires rage throughout Southern California, electronic music festival Nocturnal Wonderland has been canceled due to its proximity to the blazes.
Produced by Insomniac Events, the festival was set to take place this weekend (Sept. 14-15) at the Glen Helen Amphitheatre in San Bernardino, Calif. But producers announced Wednesday (Sept. 11), that the festival will not happen because of the Line Fire, which is burning near the venue.
“We are saddened to inform you that new fires in the San Bernardino area have ignited over the last 35 hours and are now approaching the Glen Helen Amphitheatre,” the festival announced on social media. “The health and safety of festival attendees and staff is our highest priority. After further discussions with local authorities, due to the impact of the fires surrounding the venue, we will be unable to proceed with Nocturnal Wonderland.”
The statement notes that ticketholders will receive an email regarding ticket refunds in the coming days, along with information about how ticketholders can support local firefighters and the residents of affected areas.
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The Line Fire has been burning in the San Bernardino National Forest since Sept. 5, and expanded to 34,659 acres burned as of Sept. 11. As reported by the San Bernardino Sun, local authorities announced on Wednesday that “the worst is getting behind us” in terms of getting the fire contained. Two other fires, the Airport Fire and the Bridge Fire, are currently also burning in Southern California, forcing evacuations and affecting air quality throughout the region.
These blazes continue on the tail end of a signficant heatwave, which gripped the region over the last week and brought temperatures up to 112-degrees in parts of the city. Amid this heatwave, the Hollywood Bowl lost power on Sept. 8 and was forced to cancel a show by singer-songwriter Vance Joy. The region also experienced a 4.7 magnitude earthquake at approximately 7:30 a.m. local time on Thursday (Sept. 12).
Nocturnal Wonderland is Insomniac Events’ longest running festival, with the 2024 iteration having scheduled featured performances by artists including Kaskade, RL Grime, Slander, Flosstradamus and other genre-spanning electronic acts.
In the comments section of the announcement, Insomniac Events Founder Pasquale Rotella wrote, “My thoughts and prayers go to all those affected by the fires. Heartbroken about the cancellation. Your support means the world. Can’t wait to celebrate together in the future.”
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.