Atypical Events

All Points West Goes Green

Posted by jessie under Amusement, Music

The inaugural All Points West music festival concert took place last weekend, August 8-10 in Jersey City’s Liberty State Park.

Radiohead and Jack Johnson headlined the festival, which also featured performances from the Roots, Kings of Leon, Chromeo, Metric, Andrew Bird and the Virgins, just to name a few.

Over 40 acts played Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the historic 80-acre park, which offers striking views of the Manhattan skyline and Statue of Liberty.

All Points West was the first festival of its size to come to the Tri-State area in a long time. All Points West promoted itself as a “green” festival, taking precautions to lower the carbon footprints of the festival and its attendees, promoting recycling and mass transit.

One of the most notable ways the festival encouraged attendees to be green was by taking the ferry from Pier 11 at South Street Seaport in Manhattan to get to Liberty State Park, which was how most people got to the event.

Attendees were also encouraged to ride bikes, take the light rail or PATH train. People who wanted to drive to the event had to carpool and obtain a special carpool parking pass.

Large music festivals can generate a lot of waste. With this in mind All Points West used non-disposable materials in the backstage area, per request of the artists. It was an important priority of the artists to keep the festival green.

Radiohead, who headlined the festival on Friday and Saturday, even commissioned a carbon-footprint study of their tour. Jack Johnson, Sunday’s headliner, educated attendees on the importance of going green with an interactive eco-village that he brought along to the festival.

Eco-friendly art and environmental awareness booths were scattered throughout the festival, which also featured a “recycling store” called “TRASHed.:” Attendees could go around collecting plastic bottles and turn them in to collect merchandise like t-shirts, skateboards and beach balls.

People were also able to cut down on bottle usage by bringing their own water bottle that they could fill up for free at faucets throughout the festival grounds.

As a result of the greening efforts, the festival grounds were kept especially clean and over 70,000 people were able to reach All Points West by using mass transit.