It’s festival season! But are festivals any good for the environment? This week Chanté chats to Lewis Jamieson of Music Declares Emergency and the Grammy-nominated House DJ Jayda G about how festivals can become more sustainable and why the music industry can be an important voice in the fight for climate justice.
Jayda G’s documentary Blue Carbon can be watched here
Archive – BBC, TikTok (billsvids), CNN, Blue Carbon (WaterBear), Instagram (liamcmusic_), BBC 5Live,
Continue reading...After festival organisers refused to screen Euros clash, pop singer bought flat screen TV and generator from Argos on Sunday morning and set them up in camping area
Festivalgoers at Glastonbury were given the opportunity to watch England’s Euro 2024 last-16 match against Slovakia by an unlikely figure: former One Direction star Louis Tomlinson, who livestreamed the game in the festival campsite on a flatscreen television he’d bought from Argos earlier in the day.
Glastonbury officials had announced earlier in the week that the match would not be shown at the festival due to clashes with performances on the major stages, forcing fans to find enterprising ways to watch it. Tomlinson was more enterprising than most, purchasing a flat screen TV and generator on Sunday morning and streaming the game using wifi. He said that he had initially intended to watch the game in the hospitality section but was thwarted by spotty reception, so brought the TV to the main festival site instead.
Continue reading...‘Unfair’ rejection rates of up to 70% harm cultural diversity and create a ‘global apartheid’, say promoters and musicians
Musicians, authors, producers and festival managers have hit out at “humiliating” and costly visa-rejection rates for African and Asian artists visiting Britain and European Union countries, saying it is having a chilling impact on cultural diversity.
Analysis shows the UK last year raised £44m in fees for visa applications that were then rejected, mainly coming from low- and middle-income countries. The EU made €130m (£110m).
Continue reading...Tailor-made suits, live music and – of course – a scooter run are expected at this weekend’s celebration
Hundreds of vintage fanatics, dressed in tailor-made suits and berets, are expected to descend on London this weekend for a three-day event celebrating mod subculture.
Modstock, launched 30 years ago by a British vintage fanatic, Rob Bailey, and his organisation New Untouchables, returns for its fourth edition.
Continue reading...Greens MP and Australian Festival Association say NSW force charging much more than other states to patrol equivalent events
New South Wales police have been accused of “price gouging” and operating a “rort” that threatens the viability of music festivals, by charging tens of thousands of dollars more than their counterparts in other states to patrol the events.
The Greens MP Cate Faehrmann told NSW parliament this week that a recent festival that played across three states paid $107,852 for policing for 16,000 people in NSW, but just $45,000 for 14,000 people in both Victoria and Queensland.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Between 1 January 2013 and 30 June this year, 94,535 general and strip-searches were prompted by the dogs but nearly 75% of these searches yielded no illicit drugs
New South Wales police are spending millions of dollars a year on sniffer dogs that often incorrectly detect illicit drugs on patrons as part of a program which has cost the taxpayer more than $46m over the past decade.
In addition to the overall cost of running the dog unit, the police force must pay for at least six to 10 officers to accompany every dog and dog-handler deployed to a music festival.
Continue reading...Singer’s protest kiss with bandmate and criticism of anti-homosexuality law leads to ban and festival cancellation
The English band the 1975 have been banned from performing in Malaysia after their lead singer criticised the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws on stage.
The group, fronted by Matty Healy, were playing at the Good Vibes festival in Kuala Lumpur on Friday.
Continue reading...Audience comes to Scottish singer’s aid at Pyramid stage, while late-arriving US star performs a cappella after midnight curfew
As this year’s Glastonbury festival comes to a close, here is a look back at some of the weekend’s most memorable moments.
Continue reading...On stage at Glastonbury, Sawayama criticised the 1975 frontman over podcast appearance in which he joined in with mockery of rapper Ice Spice and referred to racially charged pornography
Pop singer Rina Sawayama has spoken out against her labelmate, the 1975’s lead singer Matty Healy, for widely criticised comments he made on an American podcast in February.
Introducing the song STFU!, she said: “I wrote this next song because I was sick and tired of microaggressions. So, tonight, this song goes out to a white man who watches [pornography series] Ghetto Gaggers and mocks Asian people on a podcast. He also owns my masters. I’ve had enough.”
Continue reading...Whether waterlogged from flooding or parched and prone to wildfires, festival sites are having to plan for every eventuality – and the costs are substantial
Wellies and sun hats are the traditional first guard against the elements at festivals, but this summer they may not be enough to protect revellers. Flood defences, wildfire response teams and satellite weather-monitoring technology are among the ways UK music festivals are adapting to extreme weather events fuelled by the climate crisis.
Last summer’s record high temperatures in the UK hit during festival season, and the changing climate has become one of the industry’s biggest challenges, increasing the frequency, severity and likelihood of weather such as heatwaves and thunderstorms. With preparations underway for this year’s festival season, event organisers are increasing their contingency plans to secure their events, at a time of higher costs in labour, energy and insurance.
Continue reading...News of the Grammy award-winner’s performance comes weeks after organisers apologised again for how wild weather and traffic were handled last year
The Grammy award-winning singer, rapper and flautist Lizzo will headline the 2023 Splendour in the Grass festival, a year after the New South Wales event was hit by a series of disasters.
Festival organisers announced Lizzo’s performance ahead of the full line-up, which they said would be “coming very soon”, as well as revealing a new “flexible pricing model” for tickets, under which prices will increase as the event approaches.
Continue reading...French pop singer invites Sigur Rós, Jim Jarmusch and more for June festival at London’s Southbank Centre
Christine and the Queens has announced the artists who will be performing at this year’s Meltdown festival, which he is curating.
Taking place at London’s Southbank Centre, 9-18 June, Christine and the Queens promised “art to save the city – to free its contours and enliven the soul”, and will himself perform twice on the closing weekend.
Continue reading...Animal Collective, Bonobo and Mercury prize winner Little Simz among acts to cancel concerts
Musicians are cancelling concerts and entire tours because the rising costs of staff and materials coupled with a drop off in ticket sales is making them too expensive to run.
Earlier this month, US band Animal Collective cancelled forthcoming European dates as“not sustainable”. Within days, the UK downtempo producer Bonobo called time on future live shows in America, describing them as “exponentially expensive”. Then electronic musician Tourist rescheduled a US stint, saying “sometimes tickets just don’t get sold”.
Continue reading...Lil Nas X and Arctic Monkeys to headline at Sidney Myer Music Bowl after farmers appeal plans to hold event in Birregurra
Victoria’s Falls festival will make its long-awaited return in December following a two-year hiatus but with a second location change to the fringe of Melbourne’s CBD.
For the first time in its nearly 30-year history, the three-day festival will relocate from regional Victoria to the inner-city.
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Continue reading...The Byron Bay event kicked off on Saturday after festival goers endured flooded campsites, long queues and the cancellation of the first day’s programming
Revellers at Splendour in the Grass have tried to make the most of the muddy situation, but long queues and “a lack of communication” have left some running low on patience.
Organisers of Australia’s biggest music festival urged fans to turn up to the event on Saturday, after performances were cancelled on Friday.
Continue reading...Ex-Beatle’s gig seen by many in huge festival crowd as ‘something to tell your grandkids about’
Paul McCartney’s history-making Glastonbury set was hailed as one of the greatest headline performances of this generation as a crowd of more than 100,000 people gathered at the festival’s famous Pyramid stage to watch him play.
He was joined on stage by Bruce Springsteen and Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl – and even sang a duet with his old bandmate John Lennon, using special effects pioneered by the Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson.
Continue reading...Organisers say the centre is a ‘real watershed’ moment and will open two nights a week from 19 July
Australia’s first fixed pill testing site will be up and running within weeks, and the organisers hope it could be the start of a national program.
A pill testing trial at Canberra’s Groovin the Moo festival in 2019 potentially saved seven lives after the program detected “toxic” chemicals mixed into drugs.
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Continue reading...Set at Cheese and Grain sold out in under an hour after being announced on Thursday night
Sir Paul McCartney delivered a surprise performance the night before his Glastonbury festival headline set, which had caused traffic congestion as fans tried to buy a coveted ticket.
The impromptu gig at the Cheese and Grain entertainment venue in Frome, Somerset, was announced on Thursday evening and sold out in under an hour.
Continue reading...From Glastonbury to Radio 1’s Big Weekend there are heady expectations of a vintage season
For a while it felt so far away: listening to your favourite artist, pints flying overhead, queueing for portable toilets, losing your friends and finding new ones. But after two years of cancellations and delays, music lovers can once again look forward to an array of festivals and gigs this summer.
From Paul McCartney at Glastonbury and Tyler, the Creator at Parklife, to Adele and Elton John at BST Hyde Park and Liam Gallagher at the Etihad Stadium, there’s something in the music calendar for everyone.
Continue reading...As the festival returns from Covid-enforced hiatus, over half of the acts announced so far feature women
Paul McCartney, Kendrick Lamar and Olivia Rodrigo have been announced as among the stars performing at this summer’s Glastonbury festival.
Out of the 89 names announced so far, 48 are women or acts that include female artists, meeting festival co-organiser Emily Eavis’s previously stated intention for Glastonbury to achieve gender parity on its bill. “Our future has to be 50/50,” she told the BBC in 2020.
Continue reading...