In this report, you can find a summary of the key takeaways of the 11th GO Group workshop on sustainable festival production in Roskilde, Denmark.

The project Tempelhof Lab tested cradle-to-cradle solutions at three concerts and published the findings as a guidebook. It can serve as a blueprint for events wanting to introduce circular production. Available in English and German.

For five years, Green Europe Experience (GEX) has tested circular, sustainable production practices for food and scenography. They summarized their findings in a handbook and two concise charters.

GO Group (Green Operations Europe) invites all those interested to participate in the 11th annual workshop on making festivals more sustainable from April 7-8, 2025.

IQ and YOUROPE have teamed up to produce The 2024 European Festival Report, an EU-funded, free-to-access publication distributed throughout the live music business.

This report summarizes the learnings from 2024’s GO Group workshop in Bratislava. Learn something new and get inspired!

Find out what 2023’s GO Group workshop can teach you about running your festival greener and smarter in this report.

YOUROPE’s Green Festival Roadmap 2030 aims to give European festivals and events a reliable guide for sustainable actions, including lots of measures in seven areas.

The objective of this Trainer’s Handbook for Vocational Education & Training is to ensure that the educational resources developed are useful and used widely among festival coordinators.

This e-learning course on event sustainability is for anyone who works in live events or in education and training for event roles. It is designed as a series of bite-sized modules with opportunities to dive…

The Green Festival Stories handbook consists of 21 good-practice examples of great sustainability initiatives at festivals all across Europe. The stories include input from the original creators and info on how they implemented their projects.

This self-assessment framework gives an overview of different levels of environmental practice at outdoor events across six themes, giving participants a snapshot of where their festival is at on its sustainability journey.

Boom Festival (cap. 40,000) in Portugal maximises the available water, reduces water consumption and treats grey water for reuse on the land while building systems that prevent a contamination of the nearby lake and waterways.

Paradise City Festival, Belgium (cap. 12,000), collects wastewater from toilets for off-site reuse and treats wastewater from showers on-site to reintroduce it into the local ponds.

MetalDays Festival, Slovenia (cap. 12,000), ​​found communicating the introduction of a plant-based menu to their diverse audience challenging. Subtler communication turned out to be the best route.

At Terraforma, Italy (cap. 3,000), environmental sustainability is embedded in the design and planning of the festival. The event combines music with artistic installations, sustainable architecture and workshops.

Pohoda Festival, Slovakia (cap. 30,000), have overcome the challenge of ​​a lack of sustainable suppliers in their region by taking risks, finding partners where they could, and innovating.

Timber Festival, UK (cap. 5,000), have embedded sustainability at all levels of their event and are working on a comprehensive sustainability strategy.

We Love Green, France (cap. 40,000), has created a charter for each of the five groups of participants in their event production. The charters serve as guidelines for ecologically responsible behaviour.

OpenAir St. Gallen (cap. 27,500) in Switzerland encourages eco-friendly travel by subsidising train tickets. Festival goers receive a 50% discount through a collaboration with the Swiss national railway company. 

Way Out West, Sweden (daily cap. 35,000), is 100% vegetarian and has been meat-free and largely dairy-free since 2012. They have been certified in accordance with ISO 20121 since 2013.

At NorthSide Festival in Denmark (35,000 cap.), all groceries for guests, artists and volunteers are 100% plant-based and organic. They don’t use meat or fish and only permit a maximum of 15% of cheese, eggs…

Lowlands Festival has worked for more than a decade to replace their diesel generators with a 90,000-panel solar carport park.

To battle campsite waste, Roskilde Festival, Denmark (cap. 130,000), started offering pre-pitched tents and established community camping areas, where people have to take care of their surroundings.

Find out how Øya Festival, Norway (capacity 20,000), phased out the use of diesel generators by connecting to mains power with support from the local government and their energy supplier.

Fire in the Mountain (capacity 2,000) have launched a five-year Sustainable Travel Initiative to reduce car and van use. Learn more about their measures in this article.

SNNTG Festival, Germany (capacity 3,000), uses local infrastructure to reduce travel emissions. They also provide cycling routes, a luggage shuttle and a joint bicycle arrival as a separate event.

Climax Festival, France (cap. 3,000), have maximised their waste sorting and recycling rates by collecting over ten types of material for segregation and partnering with organisations to ensure proper treatment.

Body & Soul Festival, Ireland (cap. 5,500), raised their recycling rate to 60% by improving their waste collections systems and working very closely with waste contractors and crews. 

DGTL Festival in Amsterdam (cap. 20,000) has rethought waste management by separating and treating waste like resources to become the first circular festival in the world.

Futur 2 reversed the energy planning process by first calculating how much solar energy they can produce on their own and then creating a program based on the result.

Learn how Shambala Festival, UK, (cap. 25,000) reduced their carbon footprint with an efficient energy plan and how they transitioned from diesel to renewable energies.

Tollwood, a large-scale urban food & arts event in Germany, uses 100% organic and Fairtrade products for their events and have cultivated a supply chain meeting their criteria by working closely with restaurateurs.

In 2022, YOUROPE cooperated with GEI Conference to replace its annual GO Group workshop. This report summarizes the learnings.