Energy and Carbon Impacts of Various Outdoor Events
As the summer approaches, people are once again anticipating the return of months full of outdoor events. And in a world that’s still emerging from the COVID fog, where events were cancelled and people were avoiding crowds even in outdoor venues, this upcoming season is set to see an exciting reemergence of these cherished events.
The universe of outdoor events spans a wide breadth and really has something for everyone:
Music festivals
Farmers markets and pop-up markets
Food truck rallies
Street fairs
Sports competitions
Block parties and picnics
Carnivals and special attraction fairs
There’s really no shortage of outdoor events to choose from, all of which allow you to spend an afternoon, night, or even weekend taking in arts and culture, gather with your community, and enjoy the outdoors. These events present the best opportunity to combine cultural events with the beauty of the great outdoors, with attendees taking in the sun, enjoying nature, and breathing fresh air.
These events are a great way to enjoy the great outdoors, but they also highlight the importance of doing so in a way that truly protects the environment. Traditionally, this approach means doing the very basics: not littering, picking up after yourself, ensuring you’re not putting on events on sensitive or vulnerable land, etc. But in today’s world, we’re all more cognizant of the environmental impacts of energy use and the resulting climate impacts of greenhouse gases. And because these outdoor events commonly require power consumption of some kind (sometimes a whole lot of it), evaluating their energy use profiles and the resultant carbon footprints has become a critical way to ensure the outdoor events are preserving these environments for others to enjoy now and in the future.
Energy Needs of Outdoor Music Festivals
As a starting point, academic and industry research have identified the energy requirements of some of the more common and more impactful events. Music festivals, specifically, are not only some of the largest and most popular outdoor events being put on today, but they are also continually growing at staggering rate: more events to choose from, more attendees, and longer lasting festivals. By 2024, outdoor music festivals are expected to have a user penetration of 4.4% and see revenues grow by 14% per year.
But these music festivals are predominantly run by generators operating with diesel fuel. Interestingly, though, generators used at these outdoor musical festivals are regularly running at a low capacity of 25% or less, sometimes never passing that threshold for the entire festival. These energy use patterns present an opportunity. Study finds that large events use about 0.13 gallons of diesel fuel per person per day for large festivals and 0.07 gallons per person per day for small/medium festivals. Across these various music festivals, the energy needs typically go 54% to lighting, 27% to video equipment, and 19% to audio equipment.
To illustrate those numbers with tangible examples, the largest music festival in the United States is Summerfest in Milwaukee with 800,000 attendees, which would thus use 105,669 gallons of diesel fuel use per day. The most well-known festival is probably Coachella, which sees 600,000 daily attendees that would thus require 79,252 gallons of diesel fuel. Even outdoor music festivals classified as small, such as the Newport Folk Festival, the diesel use for its 50,000 attendees is significant at 6,604 gallons per day.
Converting Energy Use to Carbon Impact
The fact these events are run predominantly on diesel fuel creates the biggest challenge for keeping them climate friendly. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the burning of one gallon of diesel fuel burned emits 10.19 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2). That means the previously mentioned events are emitting each day: