The Most Polluting Part of a Concert Might Happen Before the First Note

When people imagine an environmentally friendly concert, they often picture recyclable cups, paper programmes and efficient lighting.

Those things matter. But one of the biggest parts of a live event's carbon footprint may not happen on the stage at all.

It happens in the car park.

A Greener Future analysed festivals from sixteen countries in its 2024 sustainability findings. Depending on the event, audience travel represented between 35 and 94 percent of the festival's carbon footprint. At rural festivals, 62 percent of attendees reported using a private vehicle for the longest part of their journey.¹

That completely changed the way I thought about sustainable concerts.

Imagine that an organiser removes every plastic straw, changes the lighting and prints programmes on recycled paper. Those are useful actions. But if ten thousand people each drive separately for several hours to reach the venue, the largest environmental problem may remain almost untouched.

The difficult part is that this is not completely under the organiser's control.

A festival cannot physically stop someone from driving. Rural venues may have poor public transport. Some audience members have accessibility requirements. People may travel late at night when buses and trains are no longer running. Simply telling people to "travel sustainably" can therefore become an easy way of passing responsibility onto the audience.

I think organisers need to make the lower carbon choice the easier choice.

That could mean buses from major transport stations, discounted tickets linked to public transport, clear information about train times, secure bicycle parking, or organised car sharing systems. Event schedules could even be planned around the last train home rather than assuming everybody has access to a car.

There is also a social side to this.

Travelling to a concert together can actually improve the event. A bus filled with people going to the same festival already feels like the beginning of the experience. Shared transport does not have to be presented as a sacrifice. It could become part of the culture surrounding live music.

This is why I think musicians have more influence than they sometimes realise.

Fans copy clothes, language and behaviour from musicians they admire. Artists regularly influence what audiences buy and how they identify themselves. If performers actively talk about public transport, support local shows or make sustainable travel part of the event culture, that influence could matter beyond a single concert. Research from Julie's Bicycle and climate communication researchers has specifically explored how live music's cultural influence might help change audience travel choices.²

There is something slightly ironic about travelling huge distances to attend a concert celebrating the environment.

But I do not think the answer is to stop people gathering.

Music needs physical communities. Some of my best musical memories exist because people travelled to be in the same room.

The challenge is making that gathering smarter.

Maybe the environmental design of a concert should begin before the audience even arrives.