Back To The Motherland - Isle of Wight Festival 2013

The Isle of Wight Festival is always a special place for us, it's where we worked as sustainability consultants for six years, winning a host of awards and it is where Love Your Tent was born. During our time working with the festival we were shocked at more and more tents, camping equipment and general rubbish being left on the Monday morning and knowing because of recycling facilities and the festival organisers time constraints at having to return the site to normal use as quickly as possible, nearly all of this abandoned waste was going straight to landfill. 

We had in our six years working with the festival tried to communicate to the audience that this wasn't acceptable but nothing seemed to be working and we knew most other festivals not only in the UK but worldwide were in the same position, so we figured the only way to tackle this now endemic problem was with one voice and one message that was repeated across festival culture and that's when Love Your Tent became our mantra. 

After a soft launch of Love Your Tent at Isle of Wight Festival in 2012, where we ran our own Love Your Tent camping field called RESPECT, the campaign has gone from strength to strength. We now have a worldwide partner focusing on recruiting European and global festivals and since the amazing support from Isle of WIght Festival many other UK festivals have signed up to the campaign and have pledged to reach out to their audiences and spread the Love Your Tent and Take it Home message.

So we were excited to be back at the Isle of Wight Festival this year to catch up with all the lovely people working on it and to again run the RESPECT campfield where the 1200 occupants had signed up to our Tent Commandments pledging to take everything home with them and to be respectful to everyone else in the field. We're really glad to say that once again this field had such an amazing relaxed community vibe where everyone looked out for each other and just as importantly kept it clean all weekend, so there was no fighting with piles of rubbish to get back to your tent coming back from the main arena. The vibe was also helped by some extra facilities we organised for Respecters over the weekend such as kinetic mobile phone charging units using pedal power and tent stencilling, or body stencilling if you're our new pin-up, Dave.

Feedback from Respecters was amazing this year "This is by far the best camping experience I have had at the festival. I will be at the front of the queue for my pass next year. Thank you very much. How every field should look" Mark Grimes told us. "The whole festival needs to be like this rather than wading through beer cans and rubbish! Love Your Tent rocks!" says Andy Emery and Sue O'Brien said "All fields should be left like this! Will be back next year! Thank you Love Your Tent for helping make a brilliant weekend, spectacular". It's great to get such great feedback as it proves that a significant percentage of festival audiences want the camping experience to change and are prepared to do their bit to change it. With a little bit of collective thinking and action we can change the way people behave at festivals. 

We are pleased to say that whilst the waste contractor at the Isle of Wight Festival waited for everyone to leave on Monday morning so they could come in and sweep up the abandoned rubbish and tents from general camping, by lunchtime the RESPECT field looked like this with only three tents left standing. One of which we will be reusing for a Love Your Tent office at other festivals and of the two left as they were badly damaged in the wind one we managed to donate to a new home (Ellie from our team says she can fix it!) and one we have broken down and recycled. Pretty amazing result.

We were also really encouraged by the support we received outside of RESPECT by artists and the audience. It made for an exciting weekend of spreading the Love Your Tent and Take It Home message. We met some amazing people.

Bastille

Elizabeth McGovern

Imagine Dragons

John Giddings, Festival Promoter

Kids in Glass Houses

Laura Mvula

Lawson

Leeroy, The Prodigy

Lianne Le Havas

Respectful Gnomes

Thanks Girls!

So I guess what we are trying to say in a roundabout way is thank-you everyone at the Isle of Wight Festival for believing in and supporting Love Your Tent from the outset and setting an example for other festivals to follow.

Big Love Big Respect
x 

PS The music was pretty amazing too x 

Insight Interview No.5

As we get ready to board the ferry over to the Isle of Wight Festival for a weekend of running the RESPECT camp field and spreading the Love Your Tent and Take it Home message it seemed only fitting to get the camping low down from Isle of Wight boss, John Giddings:

1. Do you own a tent and if so how long have you had it?
YES – OUR DAUGHTER IS USING IT FOR DUKE OF EDINBURGH

2. Where is your favourite camping destination and why?
ANYWHERE WHERE IT IS NOT RAINING…
I LIKE CORNWALL

3. Apart from IOW are there any festivals you look forward to over the summer?
WERCHTER IN BELGIUM

4. Why do you think the UK embraces outdoor festivals and as a result has an enviable leading festival scene?
IT IS NOW A RITE OF PASSAGE FOR A YOUNG PERSON
IT IS SAFE,AND YOU CAN MEET PEOPLE

5. Does IOW have a problem with discarded tents and camping equipment?
YES

6. It’s estimated across festival land, that 1 in 5 people leave their tent behind after each festival does that surprise you?
YES – THEY SHOULD NOT BE LAZY,AND TAKE THEM AWAY

7. Why do you think think people leave their tent and camping equipment behind?
THEY DON’T WANT MUDDY THINGS – WET ,TOO HEAVY,LAZY? AND THE EQUIPMENT IS CHEAP

8. What do you think can be done to change people’s behaviour and to value their possessions and the environment more?
TELL THEM THE HARM IT CAUSES – EDUCATE THEM,OFFER THEM SOMETHING!

9. Do you have a funny camping story?
A FOX STOLE MY SAUSAGES

10. What are your current top three tracks to listen to around the campfire?
BASTILLE POMPEII
IAN HUNTER ALL THE YOUNG DUDES
KODALINE ALL I WANT

11. Any top camping tips?
BE NICE TO YOUR NEIGHBOURS

12. In your experience is there anything festivals can be doing more of to make it easy for punters to take everything home with them?
NOT REALLY – THEY ARE VERY TIRED AT THE END OF A LONG WEEKEND!!

13. What do you think of the first cross-festival waste campaign aimed at campers, Love Your Tent?
IT’S A GREAT IDEA...
  

Isle of Wight Festival at Seaclose Park runs from 13th-16th June 2013 with headliners including Stone Roses, The Killers and Bon Jovi

Wychwood Experience

The Wychwood Experience

We kicked off our 2013 Love Your Tent tour with a trip to Wychwood Festival over the bank holiday weekend, none of us had been before so we were excited to see what this boutique festival at Cheltenham Racecourse had to offer.

We weren't disappointed, thank-you Wychwood you gave us sunshine, music, comedy, workshops and with a hot-tub thrown in, we were happy, happy, happy.

But let's not forget the real reason we were there ........ Wychwood were one of the first festivals this year to pledge their support of the Love Your Tent campaign and vowed to help us create awareness of the simple Take It Home! message. They did this even though, according to them, in their nine year history they haven't really had a problem with abandoned tents so we were intrigued to have a look for ourselves and see the flip-side of the devastation scenes we have been used to seeing at other festivals.

Amazingly this is what their campsites looked like ......

We looked and looked to find evidence of bad behaviour and this is all we found, I'm not sure if you can actually see it but in the middle of this picture there is a white bit of paper someone has thrown on the floor:

With 12,000 visitors enjoying the festival over the weekend this is an incredible display of how an audience can collectively make such a difference to a festival experience and explains why for the last two years our RESPECT camp field at the Isle of Wight has been booked within a matter of days, as people seek out like minded eco and socially savvy people to camp with to avoid the sea of rubbish that accumulates over the weekend in most festival campsites.

When the festival organisers at Wychwood told us they didn't have a problem they weren't kidding, at the end of the festival they had three yes THREE abandoned tents. Wychwood audience you may all (apart from three of you!!!) go to the top of the class for effort and enthusiasm.

As our tour rolls on to the Isle of Wight this coming weekend it will be good to start getting a picture by comparison as to what makes an audience more likely to leave rubbish lying around throughout the weekend and abandon their tents and camping equipment at the end. Is it audience demograhic?   The provision organisers put in place for waste collection and recycling? is it all down to awareness???? We don't have all the answers right now but at the end of the summer we really want to know why at least 1 in 5 people attending UK festivals leave without their tent.

Happy Camping,

The Love Your Tent team xxx

Insight Interview Series No. 4

This week it's the turn of the delightful James Drury, General Manager of the Festival Awards to share all things camping with us. Festival Awards have really got behind the Love Your Tent campaign and have been fully supporting us through social media and their website.

Thanks Guys!

1. Do you love your tent and what is it?

Yes! I’ve had the same black two-man tent for 5 years now. It’s a bit worse for wear but I wouldn’t camp at a festival without it. It’s kept some of the worst of the British weather off me.

2. Where is your favourite camping spot and why?

Anywhere which is close enough to the action to not have to walk too long, but far enough away to be able to get some sleep

3. What festivals are we most likely to spot you at over the summer?

I’ll be at The Great Escape, Kendal Calling, V Festival, and possibly some others...

4. Would it surprise you to know that 1 in 5 people leave their tent behind after each festival?

Yes. It always surprises me that people leave their tents at a festival, and walking through the site on the morning after the festival has ended I think it’s sad to see so many abandoned. But I never knew it was such a large proportion of people. 

5. Why do you think people leave their tent and camping equipment?

It seems to me that it’s a combination of laziness and the fact that tents are so cheap that it doesn’t seem a big waste of money to leave it behind. 

6. What’s your funniest camping story?

I once spent an hour trying to find my tent only to realise I was in the wrong camping area.

7. What are your top three tracks to listen to around the campfire?

Someone’s Second Kiss by RJD2

The First Time Ever I saw Your Face by Joanna Law 
To Build A Home by The Cinematic Orchestra

8. Any top camping tips?

Take earplugs - essential for getting some sleep at a festival

9. Knowing the festival scene as you do has the problem of abandoned tents been a recent phenomenon or has it always happened?

It seems to me that it's got significantly worse in the last few years. I think that’s mainly down to the fact that it’s cheaper to get a tent now.

10. Do some festivals suffer more than others with campfield waste? 

I’m not sure - the larger festivals, by the very fact that they are larger, must have more to clean up - but I don’t know if some have more of a problem than others.

11. What do you think can be done to change people’s behaviour and to value their possessions and the environment more?

Festivals are a great forum for education - there’s already a great amount of work which is done around environmental and charity programmes, so this power could be used to help people understand the environmental damage done by leaving tents on site. Some people mistakenly think that if they leave their tent it will be collected and given to charity, but they have to go in landfill, which damages the environment. It’s important that they realise this. It would also help if tents weren’t so cheap.

12. Is there anything festivals can be doing more of to make it easy for punters to take everything home with them?

More education, through schemes such as Love Your Tent is really important, which is why we at Festival Awards are getting behind the campaign.

13. What do you think of the first cross-festival waste campaign aimed at campers, Love Your Tent?

I think it’s a great idea. The more people understand the damage that leaving a tent behind does, the better for all of us.

James Drury is General Manager of Festival Awards Ltd, producers of the UK Festival Awards, UK Festival Conference and the European Festival Awards. The awards events and conference bring together the festival industry to share information and celebrate the achievements of the world’s foremost festival industries. In 2012 over a million votes were cast for the awards, with fans making their feelings known about more than 700 festivals.

Love Your Tent launches online audience survey

Love Your Tent, the first cross festival waste campaign aimed at campers, wants to know why? Why has leaving tents, camping equipment and general rubbish become such an endemic part of festival culture that it sees 1 in 5 people (Source AGF, 2012) abandon everything at the festival site on a Monday morning, in favour of spending a short time taking their tents down and packing everything up, so they can reuse next time?

The Love Your Tent online survey in association with A Greener Festival and Buckinghamshire New University is now live and the LYT team want as many festival goers to fill it in throughout the 2013 festival season in an attempt to fully understand audience behaviour, so the problem can be tackled through education and collective action.

“We bought our tent for a tenner down the local supermarket so I’m not really bothered about it, I can always buy another one next year”

 “We’ve partied a bit too much and don’t have the energy to take it down and carry it home”

“I’m actually doing some good because they get sent to overseas charities for emergency shelter, don’t they?”

“These are some of the responses we got last year when we asked people at one of the major festivals why they were leaving their tents behind. These answers were pretty typical but we know it doesn’t have to be like that, festival’s such as Wychwood and Shambala have proved it’s possible for audiences to take everything home with them after a weekend of partying so together we need to appeal to as many festival goers as possible to do the same. The survey is an opportunity for us to see if there are more behavioural connections that are revealed on a wider scale such as is it more typical for younger audiences to leave everything? Is there a gender sway towards disrespectful behaviour? Is it a combination of factors that contribute to people to choosing to leave everything or is there one dominant reason? These answers will allow us to tailor the focus of the Love Your Tent campaign for next year so we can start to make some headway in limiting camp field waste in the future.” says Juliet Ross-Kelly of Eco Action Partnership who launched the Love Your Tent campaign in 2012.

Love Your Tent is a rapidly growing movement spearheaded by Eco Action Partnership Ltd, with the cooperation of A Greener Festival, the Association of Independent Festivals  and Sounds for Nature (Germany), with the aim of reducing camping waste and landfill at Festivals around the world, through collective social pressure and consciousness. 

“Assessing festivals around the world who take great efforts to minimise their environmental impact, one of the saddest things to see is a waste land of abandoned items from the audience. Unfortunately tents and camping equipment seem to have become disposable items in the minds of many. We fully support the Love Your Tent campaign in the hope that more will realise this sad wastefulness that desperately needs to be addressed.” comments Co-Founder of A Greener Festival, Claire O’Neill

Last year the Love Your Tent campaign was nominated for a ‘Green Innovations Award’ at the annual festival awards and has since gone from strength to strength with many festivals pledging to support the campaign by helping to build awareness throughout 2013 including Wychwood, Truck, Shambala, Glastonbury, Reading, Leeds, Isle of Wight, Body & Soul, Y Not and Brownstock and with more big names to be announced soon.

The audience survey will be followed up with a festival organisers survey later in the year.

To answer the survey, follow this link

To join the movement and pledge your support, go to www.facebook.com/LoveYourTent

For more information visit www.loveyourtent.com

Here’s to a sunny, litter free 2013 festival season!

Insight Interview Series No.3

The lovely Jen Howard Coles, Sustainability Co-ordinator, from Shambala Festival is the third interviewee in our Insight Series.

Pioneering, intimate and truly innovative, Shambala Festival is an award-winning green event in a secret location in Northamptonshire every August Bank Holiday weekend. It beautifully blends music, creativity, theatrics and spectacle and has become one of the most anticipated festivals in the festival calendar.

Thanks Jen for giving us an insight into your camping past and present!

1.     Do you own a tent and if so how long have you had it?

I do have an old, much loved one but I must confess to being a van-dweller mostly these days.

2.    Where is your favourite camping spot and why?

Ooo that’s a tricky one. I love the Gower because it’s so easy to get to and so beautiful with amazing beaches. And when I lived in Edinburgh my favourite spot to camp out was another beach called Tynninghame, between North Berwick and Dunbar. Wild and empty beaches with sheltered folds in the cliff for sleeping out, or up above beautiful tent spots in the low, dry, mossy woodland.

3.    Apart from Shambhala are there any festivals you look forward to over the summer?

Knockengorroch in Dumfries and Galloway, usually the 3^rd weekend of May.  I haven’t missed one for more than 8 years. Scotland’s best kept secret.

4.   Why do you think the UK embraces outdoor festivals and as a result has an enviable leading festival scene?

Optimistically because we are culturally and creatively diverse and forward-thinking. Pessimistically because we are desperate to escape the rat-race in these densely populated islands!

5.   Does Shambala have a problem with discarded tents and camping equipment?

Not a big problem really. We get a few.

6.   From a festival that doesn’t have a problem with abandoned tents does it surprise you that 1 in 5 people leave their tent behind after each festival and most of them end up in landfill?

It’s something I’ve looked at quite a lot and considered, but yes, 1 in 5 is shocking.

7.   Why do you think people leave their tent and camping equipment behind?

They are tired and feeling lazy. It might be dirty and they can’t face cleaning it up when they get home. They bought it cheap and they don’t care about it much. It’s slightly broken sometimes maybe?

8.   What makes the Shambala audience so keen to pack everything up at the end of a long weekend of partying and yet other audiences feel as if it is someone else’s responsibility to clean up after them?

We attract a lot of responsible people who care about the environment. It’s a lovely site and we all want to keep it that way. We have a great waste management team who make sure that bins don’t overflow and litter is kept to a minimum, so I think people realise if they leave a mess it really shows. 

9.   What do you think can be done to change people’s behaviour and to value their possessions and the environment more?

Very difficult question. No one approach will work on everyone. Education, encouragement and making it really easy and intuitive are key. Less cheap crappy tents in supermarkets!! Tent mending service on site.

10.   Do you have a funny camping story?

Yes but I can’t think of an appropriate one! Camping is almost always hilarious.

11.   What are your top three tracks to listen to around the campfire?

They’d all be reggae songs.

12.   Any top camping tips?

Wellies. Tupperware. But most of all a sheepskin rollmat. Mine’s chocolate brown, 6 ft long, Hebridean and fits in a stuffbag.

13.    In your experience is there anything festivals can be doing more of to make it easy for punters to take everything home with them?

Trolley lending, cycle couriers, make sure fire lanes and gaps in tent rows are maintained for easy exit, smaller carparks/pick up points nearer to individual camping areas. Also, people bring less stuff when they travel on public transport.

14.   What do you think of the first cross-festival waste campaign aimed at campers, Love Your Tent?

I like it!

Shambala Festival is on from 22nd-25th August and you can buy your tickets here

Insight Interview Series No.2

Introducing the amazing Robert Vincent whose debut album Life in Easy Steps has been lauded by the likes of Janice Long, Steve Wright and Graham Norton. The Liverpool singer-songwriter effortlessly fuses sounds of country, folk and rock with honest and emotionally raw lyrics, that tear your heart out one minute and make you want to stick two fingers up to the world the next. 

Although he is busy touring up and down the country, he has taken 5 minutes out of his busy schedule to give us an insight into his camping experiences and his view on the camp field clean up operation faced by many festival organisers today. 

1. Do you love your tent and what is it?

I do love my tent, it’s a nice 6 man, with a nice little porch area. Very cosy, 2 separate rooms.


2. Where is your favourite camping spot and why?

I wouldn’t say I have one favourite. But I have done quite a lot of camping in the Lake District. I’d say Keswick

3. Are you a festival-goer? If so where are we most likely to spot you over the summer?

I am a festival goer, but usually to perform. This festival season you'll spot me at a few of the smaller festivals the first of which will be the Darvel Music festival in Scotland. Looking forward to that.

4. Would it surprise you to know that 1 in 5 people leave their tent behind after each festival?

No it wouldn’t. I’ve seen some of the information on the subject. And I’ve seen the carnage after a festival.


5. Why do you think think people leave their tent and camping equipment?

I think it’s probably laziness to be fair. But you can maybe understand these days, people tend to be quite, “wiped out“, lets say after a weekend of a festival.

6. What’s your funniest camping story?

There is many a story about people waking up in the morning with tents collapsed on top of them in the night and the only thing to be seen is a pair of willies sticking out of the crumpled mess. Clearly still attached to the owner! And even the odd story of sabotage of somebody’s guide ropes and tent pegs. But my fave is waking up with a loudly moo-ing dairy cow with it's head in the tent, that was a surprise.
When I was in school, me and a bunch of friends went camping.
…In the grounds of the local country estate, one of us ended up violently ill (Drinking) and we spotted a strange character hanging about in the woods. So being 16. We all ran away. Needless to say, our tent and belongings where no longer there the next day!

7. What are your top three tracks to listen to around the campfire?

Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd.
Stand By Me - Ben E. King.
In the Army Now - Status Quo!!…..ok maybe anything by Johnny Cash.

8. Any top camping tips?

A slightly elevated area near running water is always good. Lots of water proof bags.
　
9. What do you think can be done to change people’s behaviour and to value their possessions and the environment more?

I just think more information being provided for the festival goer is always good. I’d like to think that the festivals would be at the forefront of this. I believe at Fuji Rocks in Japan, nobody drops so much as a cigarette butt. Maybe the whole litter culture needs to change. Only this morning I saw somebody drop a cigarette packet. I think the problem extends further than just festivals.

10. Is there anything festivals can be doing more of to make it easy for punters to take everything home with them?
I don’t think so, I think people are responsible for themselves. Tents can be awkward to pack up but not impossible. As I said I think its mainly, people are too tired after a long weekend to put their tent away and take the option of leaving it. Maybe more stewards to make sure people take their tent. Some kind of registering system with your ticket that correlates with your tent. Number and description, If you leave your tent, you can be contacted about it. And jolly well told off!


Robert Vincent is currently touring with The Moulettes and Marcella Detroit, check out his tour dates at www.robertvincentmusic.com/shows

HIs single The Passage is out now taken from his debut album Life in Easy Steps

Keep up to date with new releases and live dates at www.facebook.com/RobertVincentUK or www.robertvincentmusic.com

Insight Interview Series No.1

The first of our Insight Interview Series comes from Holger Jan Schmidt, from our Love Your Tent European office (he's the one on the right!)

1.    Do you love your tent and what is it?

Let's put it this way: I loved my tent. Simply, I am not the festival camping guy anymore - grew old. But when I was younger it would have been the best feeling in the world to buy a cheap tent and take it to as many festivals as possible. "See, I made ten festivals with it - that's 3 Euro per festival!"

2.    Where is your favourite camping spot and why?

Looking back it was in Spain close to Figueres - but I don't remember the village's name. We were there with about 10 people after our last year in school - I remember memorable evenings on that site!

3.    Are you a festival-goer? If so where are we most likely to spot you over the summer?

I am a festival guy. That's my job. You will be able to meet me at Pinkpop (NL), Rock Am Ring (GER), Exit Festival (SErbia), Das Fest (GER) and surely some others ...

4.    Why was it important for you to become part of the Love Your Tent movement?

I am working on the exchange of knowledge between international festivals and came to know that the abandoning-tents-problem is not a german problem nor a british one. It's international and I like to say it's more a problem of a throw-away society than of a single promoter. But: people just see their surrounding and don't know about the other hundreds of festivals with thousands of tent. But the should know and that's why such an initiative like LYT makes sense and is badly needed!

5.      Why do you think think people leave their tent and camping equipment after they have been to a festival?

Simple answer: because they can... they can afford it. They are used to dump things. They don't get punished for it and many think they payed for the disposal of everything they brought by purchasing a festival ticket.

6.    What’s your funniest camping story?

Oh, I don't have that one. My first festival camping experience (Bizarre Festival 1992) ended with a drunk guy I didn't know sleeping in my tent and puking into one of my shoes... is that funny? For me it really wasn't.

7.    What are your top three tracks to listen to around the campfire?

Prodigy – Firestarter, Billy Joel – we didn't start the fire and Twisted Sister – The fire still burns

8. Any top camping tips?
Reasonable bot not too big distance to the loos... And: take it home!

9.    What involvement do you have with festivals across Europe and are the waste issues the same as in the UK?

I am working for the European Festival Association, Yourope, run the international think-tank GO Group (Green Operations Europe) and promote the GreenEvents Europe Conference in Bonn, Germany. I am in very close contact with international festivals and as mentioned before, yes, it is a very international problem. I know it from Scandinavia, Benelux, Austria and Switzerland, Hungary, France, Portugal and Spain. Sorry to say, but that's the fact.

10.    What do you think can be done to change people’s behaviour and to value their possessions and the environment more?

Encouragement and information. Show them the alternative and make them aware of their contribution to an unbelievable amount of tents and outdoor gear, going to landfill or getting burned – thousands of tonnes and worth millions of Euros. Show them campsites that are clean and that it doesn't mean it's less fun.

11.    Is there anything festivals can be doing more of to make it easy for punters to take everything home with them?

In the first place they shouldn't bring half of their households anyway. I know festivals where people bring couches, kitchen machines etc. If it is a managable number of things to break down and take home it should be easy. Small distance to cars or shuttle busses could be something else and if people get convinced it is good not to burn the tent, this may help, too.

Holger will be presenting the Love Your Tent campaign at the 3rd International GO Group workshop in Paris on Monday 8th and Tuesday 9th April. 

Travelling Green

The time has come again when you start to think 'how the hell am I going to get to there' well why not start your festival experience early and bond with some like minded people en route with our friends over at goCarShare.

If you have an empty car seat why not offer someone a lift, and equally if you need a lift, check out goCarShare and find someone going your way!  With the average 100 mile car journey leading to over 20 kg of CO2 being produced, sharing with goCarShare <http://gocarshare.com/festival>  has the potential to reduce your carbon footprint considerably.  You can save the planet and your pennies!

'By travelling in a full car, festival-goers carbon emissions become comparable to taking the train…… so it can make a real difference.’ (Source: DEFRA Report)  

Stand by your tents...! The Love Your Tent blog is about to go live!!