New Orleans Hosts Carbon Footprint-Free Festival

New Orleans is leading the charge for greener festivals with Project 30-90, a completely carbon footprint-free music festival that took place on Sept. 5 on the Mississippi riverfront.

Not only were all of the light and sound systems solar-powered, but paperless tickets were used and bike rickshaws took the place of golf carts to shuttle staff and artists around the site.

The artist lineup included Ghostland Observatory, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit and the Benjy Davis Project.

Held in New Orleans on the Mississippi Riverfront, Project 30-90 featured several eco-friendly activities for concert-goers. Photo: Flickr/Theorris

“The lineup is an honor to be a part of due to the talent, and the concept is an honor to be a part of because it’s the first time anything this environmentally proactive has been done in the festival business. Earth Day festivals aren’t even this green,” Benjy Davis told 2TheAdvocate.com.

Trash cans for recycling, composting and landfills were available throughout the site and monitored by “Green Ambassadors.”

All of the cups, plates, utensils and wraps used by food vendors were biodegradable, and $2 carbon credits were available to ticket buyers. In addition, organic cotton t-shirts with soy-based ink were available.

Though the skies were cloudy, the show went on as enough solar power had been saved up from previous days to operate off of the grid.

Named after the latitude and longitude of New Orleans, the festival was produced by Don Kelly Productions, a New Orleans-based event production company. According to the festival’s Web site, the company believes “events can be national in scope and still have little to no adverse effect on the environment.”

Kelly got the idea for the festival after Hurricane Katrina when his 5-year-old daughter asked why the curbside recycling program in New Orleans had stopped.

“I thought, ‘She’s onto something here. Why don’t we do something?’” Kelly told WDSU. “So, I tried to figure out a mesh of my love of music with a new interest in green.”

While the festival drew a smaller crowd than originally expected, it was a positive experience for all involved.

“What we want them to take away is that being green doesn’t mean you have to do something different, something special,” Mehmet Ergelen of the Idea Village told WDSU.

Project 30-90 is not the only festival to work towards being more environmentally friendly and sustainable. Among the largest and most well known music festivals featuring green initiatives are Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, both of which featured solar-powered stages in addition to recycling efforts and eco-friendly vendors.