Towersey Festival

Towersey Festival worked with their power supplier Flying Hire to cut fuel use by almost a quarter across the site in 2018.

Flying Hire have provided power for Towersey for the last 4 years, each year working for greater efficiency, and pushing for the reduction of diesel. In 2018, a changed site plan gave the Flying Hire team the opportunity to work closely with Towersey to redesign their power plan, and achieve the significant fuel use reduction.

The new system involved building a miniature sub-station of synchronized generators and distributing all power from there; all the generators were synched on a load share demand basis for optimum running efficiency.

Planning was key to ensuring the transition would run smoothly; the team calculated the power needed around the main arena, the power being drawn, the load on cables and how this would affect the voltage. They reduced the number of generators from 14 the previous year to 8, and added an additional 3.2km of cabling in order to distribute the power. During the event fuel management for all the gen-sets was switched on and generators were monitored for optimum efficiency.

“For festivals that want to push on their green footprint, we would say work closely with your power provider and see how your setup can be made more efficient.” George Nearn, Flying Hire Ltd

Check out Powerful Thinking’s Five Tips for Smarter Power Contracts

De Parade Amsterdam

De Parade saves 27% of diesel use in one year

Dutch festival De Parade Amsterdam worked with energy consultant, Watt Now to save 15,300 litres (27%) of diesel in 2016 compared to the previous year, by monitoring and reducing fuel use.

De Parade Amsterdam is a theatre festival that takes place in the Martin Luther King Park. It runs for 16 days and has an audience of approximately 100,000. Other editions of De Parade take place in Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague.

Watt Now’s first step in working with the festival was to conduct a complete inventory during the 2015 edition to find out exactly what energy demands were being made and where, including lighting, catering, acts and venues, and how much diesel was being used by generators to meet these demands. As a theatre Festival De Parade has complex lighting demands and with each act energy use fluctuates so these needs have to be met reliably to ensure the performances run smoothly.

With these figures established Watt Now estimated the energy for the 2016 edition and, in collaboration with generator supplier Bredenoord, redesigned the generator arrangement to be more efficient; instead of the 7 big sets used in 2015 they used 14 smaller generators, arranged in groups of three, that switched on and off based on the load. As smaller generators are less expensive to hire they used the cost savings to hire smart distribution boxes to connect the generators (installed power supply went from 4000 kVA in 2015 to 2450 kVA in 2016).

As a result of these measures De Parade Amsterdam saved 15,300 litres of diesel (27%) in 2016 compared to 2015. Watt Now will continue to work with De Parade for the 2017 edition and they predict that a further 7% saving can be achieved. To further improve accuracy of reporting and maximum generator efficiency in 2017, Watt Now plan to conduct real-time monitoring of the generator settings and performance throughout the festival.

De Parade in Utrecht has led the way in fuel use savings by securing a government grant to fund a connection to the grid to completely power the festival. This is an avenue that Watt Now are keen to explore for De Parade in Amsterdam, and for other festivals across the city, and there is a growing movement for local governments to fund grid connections for outdoor events — with festivals such as De Parade now able to provide accurate energy data it is possible to predict usage and cost savings, enabling the local government to size grid connections accurately and gauge the financial viability of such projects.

www.deparade.nl/ams/
www.watt-now.nl
www.bredenoord.com/en/

Cambridge Folk Festival

Relationship with Energy Supplier is Key to Reduction

Cambridge Folk Festival has been running since 1965, it takes place in July and has a capacity of 14,000. The Festival is committed to reducing the environmental impact of the event and have found that a strong relationship with their energy supplier, Pearce Hire, is key to reduction.

Cambridge Folk Festival have worked with Pearce Hire for over 30 years and they have come to understand the Festival’s environmental and ethical values. They work closely with the festival’s Sustainability Coordinator and the Production Manager, to continually improve on energy efficiency, introduce new innovations and to meet the criteria for the A Greener Festival accreditations, which the festival holds.

As Pearce Hire provide both power and lighting, they can invest in more efficient lighting, knowing that their investment will be subsidized by the resulting reduction in generator size and fuel costs. They are also uniquely placed to identify where and when to turn on/off generators and therefore save fuel.

Over the years they have introduced a number of innovations in lighting: adding photocells sensors, manufactured in-house, to switch site lighting on and off at dawn and dusk as required, resulting in huge savings in energy use and cost. They also swapped power-hungry tungsten floodlights for LED and festoon lighting site-wide, and supplied LED fixtures for stage lighting — next year they are looking to invest in some new LED profile moving head fixtures.

Generators used onsite are all Euro Stage Three compliant — one of the most energy efficient, low emission generators you can get and they are arranged in an efficient system of many smaller generators rather than two big sets. The festival is also partially run off mains electricity, supplied through a green tariff, which saves 12-15,000 litres of diesel per event and makes a massive saving on the carbon footprint. Meter readings are taken every three hours during the festival so that the carbon footprint can be accurately calculated and the festival’s major impacts can be identified and improvements made where necessary.

The Festival encourages all staff and vendors to ‘switch off ’ when possible; punters are asked to reuse plastic cups to reduce litter and waste; backstage, water coolers are used instead of plastic bottles. The Festival commission wildlife investigations of the site and go to great lengths to protect local waterways, land and the biodiversity of the area from negative impacts of the event.

Over the last five years Cambridge Folk Festival have reduced their diesel usage by a third. These achievements are a testament to what can be achieved when supplier and festival teams bring mutual commitment and prioritise reducing their environmental impact.

www.cambridgelivetrust.co.uk
www.pearcehire.co.uk

Mysteryland

Mysteryland: Significant energy savings in first year as a weekend festival

Mysteryland is the longest running electronic music festival in the world; 2016 sees the 23^th edition of the event. The festival has a capacity of 60,000 visitors per day. Mysteryland was founded by ID&T who have an international portfolio of world-renowned events including Sensation, Amsterdam Open Air, Welcome to the Future, and Amsterdam Music Festival. Up until 2014, Mysteryland was a one-day event, but in 2015 ID&T had the opportunity to expand the festival to a full weekender with camping.

As well as changing Mysteryland’s format, ID&T challenged itself in increasing the length and scope of the festival while reducing its environmental impact and maintaining its profitability through energy savings and efficiency. They set out to run the new campsite on 100% biodiesel, and decreased both diesel and power equipment use across the entire site.

ID&T takes the sustainability of its shows seriously: they have been awarded the highest rating for sustainability by A Greener Festival for their Welcome to the Future Festival and have been using the Julie’s Bicycle IG creative green tools to measure and record their impacts for the last three years across their portfolio. ID&T also works with the Amsterdam Dance Event to organize ADE Green: an international conference focused on sustainability and social change.

ID&T‘s commitment to creating greener events meant that they wanted to improve sustainability further for Mysteryland’s new weekend format, so they worked with ZAP Concepts, a sustainable events consultancy, to create and roll out a ‘Smart Power Plan’ to achieve their goals for energy efficiency and budget.

ZAP concepts worked closely with ID&T management, crew, and suppliers to create the Power Plan. The preparation phase was vital, it involved dividing the site into ‘Power Zones’ and calculating the power that would be needed in each zone by meticulously collecting exact energy requirement data from artists, production teams, and concessions located there — this included timings so that that the maximum power could be achieved at any given moment.

Mysteryland is a complicated site with many areas spread out as small islands, which meant it wasn’t straightforward when ensuring that each area had sufficient power. Using the power inventory from the preparation phase, ZAP Concepts planned the most efficient generator configuration for each zone and created a detailed plan for each generator’s run time with a start/stop time allocated for each generator per day for onsite crew to follow. During the construction phase of the plan, the crew were briefed on start/stop times and generators were thoroughly tested to ensure reliability.

During the show, it was proved to be vital to have a technical crew onsite to ensure that the generators were running efficiently and to problem-solve any issues. Fuel deliveries were also checked to verify that Mysteryland was receiving the amount agreed — as fuel quantities can often be less or more which skews measurements of fuel consumption. As part of the ‘Load Out’ phase of the Power Plan, steps were taken to ensure that all generators were turned off promptly after the show, as it is common for crew to forget to do this in their rush to finish the shift.

The Power Plan was a success in achieving ID&T’s aims: From 2014 to 2015 they reduced diesel consumption by 30% per visitor day (pvd) — from 0.56 liters to 0.38 liters, and total diesel use was reduced by 25%. Power needed for the festival was reduced by an impressive 40% from 2014 to 2015, from 0.15kWh (pvd) in 2014 to 0.08 kWh in 2015. The campsite was entirely powered on biodiesel and biodiesel use was increased by 15% across the entire site.

For the 2016 Mysteryland festival, ID&T aims to further increase efficiencies, reduce energy and diesel use, and increase biodiesel use. For the 2015 festival, both ID&T and ZAP Concepts agreed that using FAME biodiesel across the site was too risky in terms of reliability. They had experienced technical issues with FAME biodiesel and there were doubts about the sustainability of the provenance of some sources. They are now searching for biodiesel from reliable sources and are committed to checking the provenance with Greenpeace to ensure it is the best sustainable alternative for fossil fuel.

Bestival

Reducing fossil fuel dependency through efficiencies and biodiesel use

Bestival is one of the last major UK festivals of the summer calendar, attracting over 50,000 audience members to the Isle of Wight in recent years for this creative indie and dance music festival.

From the outset of the festival in 2004, organisers Rob and Josie de Bank were committed to being environmentally responsible and endeavouring to annually increase the use of renewables and WVO generators for energy throughout the festival site.

Since 2013, Bestival has made great progress in reducing fossil fuel dependency and they work closely with their energy suppliers to service their somewhat awkward shaped site with maximum efficiency.

The length of the festival site makes the power supply contract a complex issue and as it is considered, “too big for a single contractor,” they use different suppliers for the arena, the showspace and the campsite.

In 2013 and 2014, Midas Productions UK provided power the campsites and at the Tomorrow’s World zone — an area where the Bestival wanted to focus on promoting a ‘fun, sustainable, inspirational future’. Midas were able to monitor and measure power use over the first year and make changes to improve energy efficiency performance in the following year.

Due to the power efficiencies measures taken and the reduction in diesel generators used on campsites, from 2013 to 2014 overall red diesel use was reduced and biodiesel use significantly increased. In 2013, red diesel measured in at 108,000 litres, which dropped to 97,500 litres in 2014. Biodiesel use increased from 16,500 litres in 2013, to 21,239 litres in 2014.

Bestival have found that the biggest users of fuel are the production sets for the stages and that in order to create the greatest efficiencies in powering them they need to have accurate specifications in order to plan the best generator configurations and timings. This requires committing suppliers to accurate requirements, although their experience is that suppliers are not always keen to “tighten up on spec,” due to the fear of power failure to the stage at times of peak power requirement, possibly because while connection sizes are easier to pin down actual loading is harder to ascertain.

Bestival are learning from such experiences and continue to work closely with their suppliers to measure and record power and diesel use as a key tool in creating future reductions. There focus is on efficient site design and they engage with their audience in green initiatives wherever possible.

Thanks to Bestival and Midas UK for the information in this case study.

Hybrid Power in Hyde Park

Firefly Solar Generators Ltd provided technical production services for Hyde Park’s ‘British Summer Time Festival’, on behalf of the promoter AEG Live. The promoter is aiming to source 15% of the events energy from renewable sources by 2017.

The event attracted around 65,000 visitors with acts such as the Rolling Stones and Bon Jovi. Firefly Solar Generators Ltd was asked to provide a completely solar powered setup for the Bandstand stage area, featuring Incognito and Dione Broomfield. The Firefly Cygnus 12kva Generator with a 4kwp solar array of panels provided power for 10 days of programming during the course of the event. Both the lighting and sound were powered from solar generated power – making great use of the sun and soaring temperatures! A full technical production service was delivered from Firefly Solar Generators Ltd, using a D&B Q Series PA system with Digico mixing desk, lights from Miltec, ETC and Easily LED.

By using a combination of biofuel generator and solar storage, they were able to provide continuous and reliable supply, whilst offering carbon and fuel savings.

Firefly also supplied Pictor tower lights to light up key external areas including the meeting point and other important public access and ingress routes. These were also solar powered.

Cygnus HPG benefits to the contractor;

Replaced a 20kVA diesel generator, saving 780 litres of diesel
Saved: 1.81 tonnes of CO2 Emissions
Saved: approx. £819 in diesel fuel (£1.05 per litre)

Pictor solar tower light benefit to customer;

Replaced six diesel powered tower lights saving 312 litres of diesel
Saved: 0.72 tonnes of CO2 Emissions
Saved: £327 in diesel fuel (£1.05 per litre)

Provided a silent lighting source in sensitive areas and a very visual representation of the clients commitment to renewable energy supplies

The Showman’s Show

The Showman’s Show: Audit leads to 50% reduction in diesel use.

The Showman’s Show is the only outdoor event services exhibition in the UK. It has a wide variety of exhibitors and offers them power supplies for their stands (ranging from 13 amp to 125 amp 3 phase). The organisers have to be prepared for all kinds of power demands, at any point during the event and at any location on the showground and, until 2011, they hired large sets of diesel generators to ensure these demands could be met.

In 2012, in support of the Powerful Thinking campaign, the organisers of the Showman’s Show decided to review the energy supply and consumption of the event and look at the possibility of alternative power supplies to diesel generators.

The first step was to simply monitor the power usage. At the 2012 event, the Show’s electrical contractor monitored the use of all the generator sets throughout the build up to the show and during the event itself. They found that the event was overestimating the size of the generators they would need and could afford to reduce the size of the sets while still meeting demand from the events services areas and exhibitors.

A key observation was the energy consumption of the crew catering facility: the catering area is active for two and half weeks over the build, through the show and during the break down. In the past, the catering tent was supplied with its own designated generator to power the cooking facilities, lighting and run heaters (bearing in mind the event is held in October). Using a more dynamic approach to supplying energy, the catering tent was moved onto the small mains supply — available from the main show ground — during the event build and break down when demand on this supply was low. Over the two days of the event itself, when there was more demand on the mains supply from the camping area and welfare units, the catering tent was moved onto a combined set that was already powering the main exhibition hall. When the event was over and the caravans and welfare units had gone, the catering tent was moved back onto the mains supply.

This simple review of generator sizes and proactive approach to the power supply for the crew catering tent resulted in hiring one less generator and significantly helping to reduce diesel consumption — by over 50%.

In 2015 the Showman’s Show began working with the Electrical Contractor that also supports the venue on the site where the Show is held. They were able to improve the existing electrical infrastructure, reducing energy demand onsite meaning that the crew catering facility, campsite and site office could run from a mains power supply all through the build, the event itself and the break down, rather than switching to generators during the event as done in 2014. They also installed a further permanent floodlight which meant one less lighting tower needed to be shipped in and run.

The other action they took was to simply switch off generators if they weren’t being used: previously generators have been left on during the show build to allow exhibitors to work late at night or early in the morning. The contractors simply noted when work had stopped and then turned generators off so as they were not running through the night unnecessarily. This probably made the biggest impact helping to save over 200 litres of fuel from the year before.

These small measures producing such positive results have encouraged the organisers to regularly review the supply and to look for ways to further reduce their energy consumption.

Thanks to the Showman’s Show for providing the information for this case study.