Do Concerts Really Need to Be So Bright?

When I go to a concert, I usually notice the lights before the music even starts. There might be lights moving across the stage, different colours flashing, and spotlights following every performer. I used to think that this was just what made a concert look professional. More lights meant a bigger and better show.

Recently, I started wondering whether that is actually true.

Stage lighting obviously uses electricity. An older sustainability guide from Julie's Bicycle estimated that stage lighting could account for around 9 percent of a theatre venue's overall energy use, although the amount can vary a lot depending on the venue and production. Another study they discuss found that stage lighting was only around 2 percent of one theatre's annual energy bill. This means lighting is not always the biggest environmental problem in a concert, but it is still something musicians can control.¹

What interests me more is that reducing lighting does not necessarily make a concert worse.

I once imagined a cello recital where there was only enough light to see the performer and the instrument. At first that sounded boring. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. If the stage is darker, maybe the audience listens more carefully. You notice the sound of the bow changing direction. You notice breathing. You notice the silence before the next phrase.

In that situation, using less electricity is not just a sacrifice for the environment. It actually changes the artistic experience.

I think this is something musicians should think about more. Sustainability often sounds like something technical. People talk about solar panels, electric vehicles and carbon calculations. Those are important, but a student musician probably cannot redesign a concert hall. We can, however, question our own choices.

Do we need every light turned on during rehearsal? Do we need a huge lighting design for a small chamber concert? Could some performances use natural daylight? Could we use a smaller number of efficient lights and make that limitation part of the atmosphere?

I also do not think every concert should become dark. A musical or a rock concert may need complicated lighting because lighting is part of the storytelling. Sustainability should not mean removing everything exciting from art. It should mean asking whether each resource is actually helping the performance.

That difference matters to me.

A concert can teach people about the environment through speeches or programme notes, but I think it is more convincing when the environmental idea is visible in how the concert is actually made. If a concert talks about climate change while wasting electricity for no reason, there is a strange contradiction.

Maybe an eco conscious concert does not need to look obviously "green." Maybe it can simply be more careful.

For me, that is the most interesting idea. Sustainability in music does not always require adding something new. Sometimes it begins by asking what we can remove, and discovering that the music is still enough.