EE MUSIC, the Europe-wide campaign to build an energy efficient culture in music event production, is gaining momentum across the continent. 

The campaign aims to scale up skills and knowledge within the industry on energy efficiency and sustainable energy management, stir up an industry-wide conversation amongst music event professionals, venues, and festivals on how they use energy, and provide the tools and resources necessary for that transition.

Appetite for using energy more intelligently is growing in the industry – not least thanks to the 5-40% reductions in energy or fuel use that some good practice events and venues have been able to demonstrate.

EE MUSIC has been on a European tour in 2014, interconnecting industry leaders at some of Europe‘s biggest music conferences and festivals. To date, the EE MUSIC team has hosted workshops and launch events in Germany, he UK, France, Poland, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Bulgaria and as part of music industry events Eurosonic Norderslaag (NL), Nuits Sonores (FR), c/o pop (DE), Waves Festival (AT), Amsterdam Dance Event (NL) and more, featuring guest speakers including Matt Black (Coldcut), Katie Maddison (Bestival), Melville Bouchard (Heart of Glass, Heart of Gold), Auro Foxcroft (Village Underground), Carlijn Lindemulder (ID&T), Thomas Heher (Waves Festival), and Chris Johnson (Shambala Festival/Powerful Thinking). In 2015, the EE MUSIC team will visit 20 more European countries, hosting over 35 further cost free events, workshops and targeted trainings.

EE MUSIC is mobilizing hundreds of clubs, events and outdoor festivals and supporting them in saving energy and money. The project aims to save over 19,000 t CO2e through its duration, and lay the foundation for saving almost 200,000 t CO2e more by 2020. This would be the biggest and most ambitious achievement in energy efficiency in the history of Europe’s music event industry.

Accompanying the workshops is a collection of detailed guides and case studies, available at the EE MUSIC website, and the EE MUSIC IG Tools: carbon calculators designed specifically for use by venues and outdoor events. The EE MUSIC IG Tools help event organisers and venue owners measure, report, and understand their energy use and environmental impacts, and compare their performance to industry averages. They can provide a foundation for effective energy management strategies and are helping to build a Europe-wide understanding of energy use in the music events sector.

The Tools have been adapted from the Julie’s Bicycle Creative IG Tools (currently being used by over 2,000 arts organisations globally) and are free to use in all countries, with English, German, Polish, Portuguese, French, Latvian, Bulgarian, and Spanish newly available as language options.

Funded by the Intelligent Energy Europe programme of the European Union and initiated and coordinated by WIP Renewable Energies from Germany, the project is a joint effort between existing music industry sustainability experts Julie’s Bicycle and the Green Music Initiative, the Elevate Festival in Austria, and a number of professional energy and communication agencies.

“This is about building a more resilient European music events sector in the face of rising energy costs, and it’s about helping the music industry be part of one of the most important conversations of the 21st century: that of climate change and our energy future,” comments Chiara Badiali, Julie’s Bicycle.

EE MUSIC is also about supporting the music event industry’s potential for cultural innovation and driving change by mobilizing large audiences, inspiring by doing, and unlocking the role the sector can play in forming a sustainable energy future. In the words of Jacob Bilabel of the Green Music Initiative: “Energy and music go hand in hand. The festival, the event, the club or the stadium of the future will be louder, brighter and even more fantastic. We will need only half of the energy, but have double the fun. EE MUSIC can pave the way for a smarter, greener and better future for all of us.”