 "Photo: Warner Brothers Records")
The Echo-Project has just made music festivals even crunchier. In addition to an eclectic line-up, camping and desirable location, this festival is going through great lengths to encourage environmental awareness and greening up the Chattahoochee River, just south of Atlanta, Ga.
"Greening experts are trying to make the entire event carbon neutral," said Nicolas Bouckaert, festival promoter and owner of Rivertown Entertainment, LLC, adding that the 350-acre venue belongs to his father. "We want to keep it as clean as possible."
Rivers Alive, just one of the greening partners for the event, have set up three separate river clean-ups to occur during the festival. Bouckaert said that the river is especially dirty because it runs through Atlanta before reaching the site.
Neal Turley is the co-owner and operator of Sustainable Waves, a national provider of mobile solar powered sound and staging. He says that they are focusing on three main environmental concerns at the festival in addition to recycling initiatives, carbon emissions and power consumption.
"Generation of energy, waste management and habitat restoration," Turley said adding that the state of the river is critical. "We're hoping to drive 2,000 people to volunteer to clean the river … 750 people have volunteered so far."
Sustainable Waves is a national provider of mobile solar powered sound and staging that will run one of the stages at the festival.
"Our sound systems are custom built to be as energy efficient as possible," Turley said, adding that they are going to be using three types of energy to run the festival - biodiesel, hydrogen and solar. The main stage is going to be run on biodiesel while a side stage will be run on solar energy that will even run the lighting.
Although they are using renewable and solar energy for a majority of the event, it is inevitable that some electricity will be necessary.
"We're going to be calculating the carbon count during the festival," Turley said adding that they plan to buy energy credits to offset what they emit.
According to Turley, the festival is in an experimental phase and someday they want to run it solely on solar power and by burning compost. They hope that the crowd will use compostable products along with the environmentally friendly napkins and utensils they provide.
"We can burn the compost and use the hydrogen gas to power the event," he said. "We have permits on the property to do this for the next 10 years. It's not a one-time thing that's [meant] to change the world."
He went on to say that they hope to look back on their efforts and see a difference.
At the festival, there will be a demonstration on how to build a solar panel and people will be permitted to help assemble it.
"People can get hands on experience putting the wire to the metal," Turley said. "We're trying to give people the opportunity to wire a system and see how it works."
The Echo-Project is held Oct. 12-14. Realizing that the trip may be lengthy for some, they are offering "Green Tickets." Tickets are traditionally $155 but if you upgrade to a "Green Ticket" for only $4 more, you purchase 500-kilowatt hours of renewable energy, which offsets the environmental impact of about 682 pounds of CO2 emissions.
Say someone decides to drive their 2000 Honda Accord down to Atlanta for the festival. By driving the 1046 miles, your car emits .35 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, or 771 pounds. Buy upgrading to a "Green Ticket," one offsets the greater portion of the trip, more if carpooling. Besides the long hours behind the wheel, it would almost be like not driving at all.
The line-up includes Phil Lesh and Friends, The Flaming Lips and The Killers as headliners along with other popular DJs like Bassnectar and RJD2. In addition, jam bands like Moe., Umphrey's Mcgee, The Disco Biscuits and Perpetual Groove will be performing along with Les Claypool, Michael Franti and Spearhead, The Roots, Stephen Marley, Medeski Martin and Wood and the Beneveto-Russo Duo.
"We've gotten a great response from the bands and they all seem to be really excited about this," Bouckaert said.
"I wanted to do something big and bring a lot of people together," Bouckaert said. "I have access to the land because my parents invest in [it]. I wanted to do something that I really loved and am passionate about. What better way to spend a fall weekend than at a beautiful place listening to good music? At the end of the day it's all about having a good time."
Lauren Modisette can be reached at lmodiset@student.umass.edu.
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