Phish Summer Tour Going Green(ish) with Help from Reverb

It’s virtually impossible for big-name musical acts to go on tour without racking up a giant carbon footprint. But, with the help of Portland, Maine-based nonprofit Reverb, bands like Phish are able to green as many aspects of their tour as possible including fan transportation, recycling, and powering their buses with biodiesel.

Reverb, which has worked on over 70 tours and 1,000 events since their launch in 2004, previously helped Phish reduce the environmental impact of their Hamptom Coliseum shows earlier this year and now they’re teaming up again for the band’s summer tour.

From Ecolocalizer:

Like they did for the Hampton shows, Phish and Reverb are teaming up with Pickup Pal to help fans find carpools to and from shows. Since many fans hit up multiple shows, driving hundreds of miles from town to town, this has a huge potential impact! Not only are they providing the resource, Phish has added an extra incentive! Check out this blurb from their recent newsletter:

After each show on this summers’ tour, we will pick twenty random Phish Ride Share participants to receive a free download of that night’s show. Please visit http://www.pickuppal.com/pup/erp/ for more information and to find the shows that you may be driving to or need a ride to.

The band set up a resource site through Reverb, Traveling Light, where fans can look up eco-friendly places to stay, eat, play, and even volunteer while on tour. They’re also encouraging fans to offset their trip’s impact through Native Energy.

Phish is also working with Reverb to reduce backstage waste and energy usage, and they’re using carbon offsets to neutralize CO2 emissions from the touring fleet, air travel, hotel accommodations and energy usage at the venues. The band and crew are all using reusable water bottles, all catering products will be biodegradable and compostable and food scraps will get composted as well.

That’s pretty impressive. It’s so nice to see bands – especially bands that go on gigantic tours – take responsibility and get proactive in reducing their environmental impact.

Find out whether your favorite band is working with Reverb to green up their act at ReverbRock.org.

Link [Ecolocalizer] + [Reverb]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

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