Built to last
Six commitments. Five quantified targets. One full audit two months after the festival closes. We're not interested in feel-good language — we're interested in tonnes of waste avoided and watts of solar deployed.
01 · Targets
Audit will be published within 60 days of the festival closing. Targets we miss, we publish those too.
02 · Zero plastic
The simplest decision we made. Not "fewer plastic bottles". Zero. The bars and food stalls serve drinks in deposit-return cups (€2 deposit, washable, designed for 100 cycles). The cups are produced 90 km from the venue by a Bologna-based co-op. For water: 32 free refill stations across the festival site, the boulevard, and the campsite. Bring an empty bottle.
03 · Cashless
The festival is fully RFID — every wristband is loaded with credit at the gate, then taps to pay at every kitchen, bar, merch tent and locker. The decision was driven by waste, not convenience: each cash transaction at a typical festival generates ~4g of paper waste (receipt, change). At 5 transactions per attendee per day, 103,000 attendees, 5 nights — 10 tonnes of paper saved across the festival.
Unspent credit is automatically refunded the day after your last show date.
04 · Power
The backstage area runs on a permanent 1.2 MW solar microgrid installed at the venue in 2023 — enough to power lighting, monitors, dressing-room HVAC, catering kitchens and crew internet without drawing on the grid for the duration of the show.
The Main Stage PA still runs from grid power (the load is too high for solar), but the grid power itself is contracted from Iren, the Reggio Emilia utility, which supplies 100% renewable energy for our event window.
05 · Food
Twenty kitchens curated with Reggio Emilia chefs, locally sourced. The full supply chain is mapped on the festival app — every ingredient traceable to its farm or co-op.
Unsold stock at close goes to Caritas Reggio's redistribution programme. Plate scrapings go to local biogas digesters. Composting partner: Iren Ambiente.
06 · Travel
Travel is the largest single contributor to a festival's carbon footprint, and we don't pretend to have solved it. What we have done:
We're not telling you not to drive. We're trying to make the alternatives easier than driving.
07 · Waste
Woven hemp fabric, recycled-PET shell around the RFID chip, cardboard slider closure. Composts in 18 months. The chip is harvested for recycling at the post-festival sort.
All festival signage is built to be reused for at least three editions. We don't print a single one-off poster.
08 · Audit
A full audit is published 60 days after each festival, signed by an independent third party, listing every target hit and every target missed, with the reason. Last year is the baseline; we'll keep cutting from here.
09 · Partners