GO GROUP

GO stands for Green Operations. GO Group is an independent, pan-European and cross industry think-tank to inspire people in the music festival and events industry to run their operations greener, smarter and more sustainable. GO Group was initiated at the 1st International GreenEvents Conference in Bonn in November 2010. YOUROPE co-founded the group alongside GreenEvents Conference, Green Music Initiative (GMI) and Bucks University in early 2011. Since then, GO Group stimulates exchange and leads the discussion about social and ecological responsibility. The group inspires and connects hundreds of festivals, initiatives and scientists.

It is the aim that GO Group:

1. Identifies international best practices in sustainable innovations for the music festival and event industry
2. Aggregates, communicates and shares the collective knowledge with interested stakeholders from all over Europe
3. Establishes working relationships between different industry groups to enable practical and spontaneous exchange of personal experiences
4. supports initiatives and takes part in projects related to GO Group’s fields of action

GO Group has put green issues on the agenda by delivering

• 5 international conferences with up to 180 participants
• 11 international two-day workshops and festival field trips with up to 50 participants as well as
• 50 conference contributions (such as panels, presentations, keynotes) in 15 European countries

GO Group is a regular contributor to the most important conferences and conventions of the (live) music industry such as ESNS, Green Innovations & Innovations@ILMC, ADE Green, Reeperbahn Festival, by:Larm Oslo, MaMa Paris, Nouvelle Prague et al.

In fall 2012 GO Group and YOUROPE initiated the “Green Operations Award” as a category of the European Festival Awards. Its target group are festivals that have made a significant contribution to or achievement towards developing more sustainable events. The Award is given out by a panel made up of experts that are not directly linked to any specific festival.

GO Group has supported several EU-funded projects such as

• Everywh2ere – introducing fuel cells & hydrogen power to festivals (within the Horizon 2020 program) – currently running
• GEX Green Europe Experience – sustainable scenography and catering solutions for festivals (within the Creative Europe program) – currently running
• Future Festival Tools – empowering event professionals in live events across Europe to be future-ready, with green competency, tools and personal certification. (within the Erasmus+ program) – currently running
• EE Music – Energy Efficient Music Culture (within the Intelligent Energy Europe program) – finished

More Information: www.go-group.org