Local concert venues are going green

With “green” as a new buzzword, many industries are marketing eco-friendly products and practices. They could probably learn a few things from musicians such as Willie Nelson and Dave Matthews, who have been active in the Earth-first movement.

Now the music industry, venues and fans are following, and it’s becoming common to find eco-friendly initiatives at concerts and as part of record deals.  

“The music industry is ahead of the curve compared to corporations at large,” says Ray Waddell,  senior touring editor at Billboard magazine. Their second annual Green issue hit shelves at the end of March. I expect it to continue.”

The Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater is one local venue in line with the national and global trend towards creating eco-friendly soultions to everyday life. Venues  like the amphitheater have begun to adapt, in part because they’ve catered to artists’ requests for so long.

Last season, the  amphitheater started recycling glass, aluminum, office paper, cardboard and other materials,  placed bins in the plaza to encourage guests to recycle  and began using recycled paper in all restrooms.

This season all cleaning products, including soap in restrooms, will be certified by Green Seal, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C. that provides industry standards for environmental quality and promotes the use of green materials. Also, the amphitheater  will switch from traditional incandescent lighting to lower-energy compact fluorescent lighting.

Even the fertilizers are eco-friendly.

“We are not completely green yet,” says Tabatha Webster,   the amphitheater’s operations manager.  “As a company, we decided to make the change last year because it is the right thing to do.”

 Officials are submitting their initiatives –  recycling, water efficiency,  energy conservation and the elimination of Styrofoam – to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to be recognized as a Virginia Green attraction,  a title available since 2006 and already awarded to a handful of local organizations and events such as Virginia Beach’s Shamrock Marathon and the Norfolk and Virginia Beach Convention and Visitor’s bureaus.

Other local venues are looking for more ways to go green too. The Ted Constant Convocation Center  is also looking to be labeled a Virginia Green destination by summer’s end, said marketing coordinator Alicia Cintron. Bill Reid, one of the partners at the NorVa, said employees at the popular concert hall just had discussions about ways to reduce trash and recycle plastic cups. Portsmouth’s nTelos Pavilion  has a list of green measures in place, marketing director Kati Hilton said, but was unable to name them immediately. It’s a question that hasn’t come up much, she said. 

Yet with green accommodations becoming increasingly the norm, green policies might be as commonplace at concert halls as say, security measures.

 “When you have artists of the stature of Dave Matthews Band,” says Billboard’s Waddell, “the venue wants to keep doing business with them. They’re happy” to make changes.

Measures that once might have seemed kooky are becoming mainstream.

Willie Nelson has made it to all his concerts across North America in the past few years on a bus powered by bio diesel fuel; he’s even got his own line of the stuff, BioWillie. 

Indie-folk singer Jose Gonzalez is one of the many artists who  are not just using biodiesel but demanding that their backstage areas include biodegradable catering products and recyclable materials. KT Tunstall uses biodiesel, and, like Radiohead, facilitated the planting of trees to offset emissions from the production of albums.

 At last year’s Grammys, hip-hop group The Roots hosted a “green carpet” bash, and they partnered with Global Inheritance , a youth activist group, to give compost bins to schools to encourage composting among young people.

Thom Yorke, Green Day, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow and Moby are some of the other artists who have made environmental measures and charity part of their work.

Dave Matthews Band, the rock band formed in Charlottesville, is one of the greenest acts working today. The group calculates  its CO2 emissions from every stop and buys carbon credits to offset those environmental costs.

“They encourage carpooling,” says Waddell, “and make it easier through social networking. On tour they eat only local organic food, use recyclable catering products and set up eco-villages at shows so fans can learn about ways to contribute. It’s an all-encompassing effort, and it’s not cheap, so they should be commended.”

Across America, venues are slowly adopting measures like these, even offering priority parking to hybrid vehicles and installing solar panels to power the performing spaces. Such moves are expensive, though, and while the  Beach amphitheater says  it has absorbed the cost of the eco-friendly changes, sometimes consumers pay for it.

Charlottesville’s Pavilion, owned by Coran Capshaw, manager of Dave Matthews Band, is widely recognized as one of the greenest venues in the country. All concessions are served in recyclable containers, and the the space is outfitted with recycling bins.  In case people don’t use the bins,  the Pavilion has a crew sort through garbage to find recyclable materials. The cost is reflected in higher concession prices, says General Manager Kirby Hutto. 

“If we were looking to cut every penny, we could cut it and make few more dollars,” he says. Less eco-friendly cups would cost 60 percent less. “But in this day and age, it’s the right thing to do.”

Malcolm Venable, (757) 446-2662,