Music festivals in India are slowly turning green

Every year, as the searing summer starts giving way to fall, the music scene in India begins to heat up. With more than 20 music festivals — both indoor and outdoor — taking place every year, these events are not just about popular bands and some great music. While cavorting sweatily to some rip-roaring, toe-tapping and head-banging music, fans also look forward to camping-like experience, sleeping in tents at exotic locations amid non-stop supply of food and drinks. The post-gig nightmare — a pile of waste at every new festival, in every new location.

However, with the growing number of music festivals, some artistes and event organisers are slowly waking up to the idea of hosting environmentally sustainable festivals and concerts.

Ricky Kej, the Bengaluru-based Grammy award-winning composer, has been making music with a message to save the environment for many years now, but to walk the talk has been tough. He says it is very difficult to make concerts and music festivals environmentally sustainable. It takes a lot of resources to pull of such events — there are generators that guzzle fuel, lighting fixtures that consume high electricity, air conditioning to deal with the heat… The waste generated is most often enormous.