I don’t know about you, but my excitement level for Boomtown Fair this year keeps growing, despite me always thinking I’ve hit maximum! As the district line ups were announced over 9 weeks, with each poster drop my eyes lit up at the sheer number of awesome artists being showcased, so many of whom are a rare sight in the UK! I’m not quite sure how Kaptin has managed it, but I’m certain that this is the biggest and most diverse line up of any independent festival for 2019. Take a look at the posters here:
Their focus has clearly not only been on music this year either. After a hugely successful “Respect” campaign in 2018 paired with the immersive closing ceremony featuring A.M.I driving home the message that the festival will not continue unless attendees change their attitude towards the environment and each other, this year they’ve upped the ante once again. Last week, Boomtown Fair announced their new environmental initiatives over the course of 5 days, calling it their “Green Week”.
Boomtown Fair Green Week Overview:
Single Use Plastics banned on site!
This is huge news! Across the site, including crew and artist areas, single use plastics won’t be used or sold.
The festival have paired with WaterAid to provide even more free refill points across the site, so you can bring a reusable bottle to fill up when you need (or buy one of the official festival ones to pick up on site!). Soft drinks will be available only in cans too. This will save 225,000 plastic bottles from being sold at the festival!
Food packaging will all be commercially compostable, as the festival is working with Vegware to ensure all trays, boxes, cutlery, coffee cups & lids will decompose within 12 weeks. Make sure you throw food waste and packaging in the food waste bins!
Even the bars will now have compostable cups that look like plastic but are actually made from plants!
Tents are for life! #TakeYourTentHome AIF Initiative
If you regularly read WMT, you’ll know I always preach about buying a good tent and taking it home with you after the festival. The comfort alone of buying a good tent is worth it! Boomtown have partnered with AIF (the Association of Independent Festivals) in their #TakeYourTentHome campaign, and have increased the options available to discourage tent waste.
Let’s start with some mythbusting – it is NOT TRUE that leftover tents are recycled/given to charities. Tents are multi material and impossible to recycle. On average a tent weighs 3.5kg and is mostly made of plastic. One tent is equivalent of 8750 plastic straws! So even if you’ve been saying no to plastic straws for years, if you leave a tent behind, in that one act you’re contributing more plastic than you would have saved. If you want to donate your tent to charity, pack it away and give it to stewards at the gates.
I know it’s hard carrying everything into and out of a festival. For those who would rather save the hassle, Boomtown have improved the pre-pitched options on site to include both budget and luxury options for 2019:
- Camplight have been at Boomtown for a few years now, and offer pre-pitched packages using salvaged tents so are super sustainable, and relatively low cost, starting at £54.50 for a package for one (includes use of tent, sleeping bag, roll mat and chair).
- New for 2019 is the pop up tent scheme! You pay £50 for a two man pop up tent that you collect when you arrive on site. You can then pitch it wherever you like, and at the end of the festival you can either keep it or sell it back to Boomtown for £10. Just bear in mind my advice that a two man tent will realistically only fit one person and their bag in, but it’s still a fantastic scheme!
- Camp Skylark – located near the Lion’s Den, Camp Skylark offers a range of pre-pitched accommodation, from yurts to bell tents to Airstreams. You can also choose to pitch your own tent at Camp Skylark to make use of their additional facilities (flushing toilets, hot showers, cocktail bar etc).
- Boomtown Springs – launched last year to huge success, Boomtown Spring is the fully immersive, exclusive experience. At the high end of the budget scale, but worth it if you can afford it, there are a range of pre-pitched options (and also pitch your own) with access to a swimming pool (!!!), Boomtown Springs Mansion, INCREDIBLE showers and toilets, exclusive bars, and best of all, you get to arrive on Wednesday and be part of the awesome opening party which last year I heard was WILD.
Take a look at this page on Boomtown Fair’s website, it has loads of tips on how to ensure your tent doesn’t end up in a rubbish pile!
One tree planted for every ticket holder! Partnership with TreeSisters
As a further shout to just how committed Boomtown are to their green footprint, the festival announced it is partnering with TreeSisters – an incredible reforestation & culture change charity who, for over a decade, have been planting fast-growing tropical trees across Madagascar, India, Kenya, Brazil, Cameroon and Nepal.
It is imperative that we start giving back to nature faster than we are taking from it, so it’s amazing that Boomtown have pledged to fund the planting of one tree for every ticket holder for Chapter 11 with TreeSisters. That’s a humongous 48,000 trees planted!
And just announced – the Eco Campsite is taking over what was DSTRKT 5
In 2018, the worst campsite for discarded tents and miscellaneous waste was identified as DSTRKT 5 camping, which is closest to the action in the Downtown bowl. This year, the festival are making this the Eco Campsite, which won’t cost you any extra to camp in, but requires you verbally make a pledge to maintain the clean camp ethos and take your stuff home with you.
In return you’ll benefit from one of the most central campsites, a NiftyBin system to sort waste at the source, campsite helpers who’ll assist everyone living there to maintain the clean camp ethos, free workshops to inspire a zero-waste lifestyle after the festival and a beautifully CLEAN space to call home for 5 days.
Boomtown are incredible definitely leading out front when it comes to setting examples
So nothing actually concrete to prevent tents being left. Just green marketing. Predictable from boomtown.
I think they’re doing a lot more than other festivals of their size. The logistics of implementing anything more would be huge. Green marketing worked for Shambala. The tide is turning I hope 🙂