How Do Festivals Get to 2030 Sustainably? Part I

The news that Arcadia's stunning Dragonfly installation at Glastonbury was entirely powered by renewable energy sources represents a major leap forward for large-scale live events and their extravagent power needs. But when you consider the way our weather is changing and becoming more extreme due to global warming, the rising costs of top artists, the price of transporting them and their fans to the event, and the direct impact that this has on ticket prices, there are several question marks as to what the best way is to guarantee the longevity of festivals. So, how can we ensure that their growing reputation as beacons of eco-responsibility remains credible? And what do festivals have to do to make themselves robust enough to weather the rocky road ahead? Running large scale live events can be powered by sustainable power, but how do you persuade the diesel addicted events to stop mainlining the black stuff? Power is one thing, but really it's all about the storage and the batteries. How close are we to multi-day events being able to run on renewables?