Adam Gardner is a guitarist with the long-running rock band Guster and a co-founder of Reverb, a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to creating a more sustainable music industry — click here for more information on the organization.
I’m writing this from the road, in the back of my tour bus, during the middle of Guster’s tour. Every night, I walk out in front of a room full of fans, feel that familiar jolt of adrenaline, and ask myself the same quiet question, how did all these people get here? Did they fly, drive, carpool, or bike across town?
It’s a question that’s only gotten more urgent as we’ve all watched beloved concerts, tours and festivals — from Bonnaroo, Willie Nelson, and Steve Miller — get canceled this year, due to extreme weather. The irony is hard to ignore: The very gatherings that bring us joy and connection are under threat, and they’re also part of the problem.
As a musician and co-founder of the environmental nonprofit, Reverb, I’ve seen both sides of this story, the magic and the mess. Seas of plastic left on grassy amphitheater lawns. Diesel generator fumes behind the stage. Idling cars in endless traffic jams as fans try to leave the venue. For 20 years, Reverb has focused on making shows greener on stage and in the crowds through fan engagement, reusables, less plastic, and cleaner energy. And it’s working!
However, one of the hardest pieces to pin down has always been audience travel, the invisible wave of carbon pollution that follows every concert. But for the first time, we finally have hard data, as well as real insight into fans’ challenges and hopes when it comes to getting to shows and the solutions they want to see.
The Fan Travel Opportunity
Through Reverb’s first-ever Concert Travel Study, we tracked fan travel at 400 shows across 170 North American cities. The results were staggering:
- Fan travel creates more than 38 times the emissions of band and crew flights, trucking, hotel stays, and venue energy combined for an average show.
- The average audience travel footprint per venue equals the annual electricity use of 110 homes.
- 94% of fans said that it is important for fans, venues, promoters, and artists to take significant shared action to limit their carbon footprint.
- Nearly 90% said they’d choose greener travel options if better ones were available.
This is a clear sign of the times. Fans are making their priorities known, and they want change. That’s where what I call the “Three I’s” come in:
- Information – Fans need to know their options: transit, carpooling, shuttles, biking.
- Infrastructure – Those options have to work: be synced with showtimes, and be safe and reliable.
- Incentives – Make the better choice the better experience, like Billie Eilish’s concession discount for fans who showed a transit stub.
Solutions in Pilot or Practice
A few music events are already demonstrating what fan travel solutions can look like. Free or bundled transit passes make it easy for fans to skip driving. During the Dead & Company shows in Golden Gate Park this summer, every ticket doubled as an all-day Muni pass, while the Hollywood Bowl has added the option to include a $3.50 GoMetro round-trip pass right into the ticket purchase. Dedicated shuttles also help. Billie Eilish piloted free fan buses on select stops of her 2024 tour, and nearly every show at the Xfinity Center outside Boston has the option to use Rally Bus from dozens of towns across Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.
Integrating transit access into the venue itself goes further. San Francisco’s Chase Center makes every ticket an all-day Muni pass, and backs it up with bike valet and nearby commuter rail and ferry services. And some festivals and venues encourage carpooling or discourage driving altogether: Coachella selects cars who arrive with 4+ fans for random VIP upgrades and prizes, while Forest Hills Stadium in New York has no on-site parking and encourages fans to take public transit or bike.
Music as a Climate Catalyst
In addition to lowering emissions, creating more sustainable travel options for fans improves the concert-going experience. Nobody wants to sit in traffic, miss the encore to beat the rush, or spend half the night hunting for parking. Imagine instead that you get to hop on a shuttle, your favorite artist is already playing on the speakers, you make new friends on the ride, and you arrive on time, present, and ready to dance.
We’ve seen this already. Fans who met through our carpooling programs have stayed in touch, and in at least one case, even got married! When travel becomes part of the concert experience, the whole night changes for the better.
These efforts prove fan travel can change. We can also work toward making sure the stage itself keeps pace. This summer at Lollapalooza, Reverb helped make live music history by powering the festival’s Main Stage — the beating heart of the event — with a hybrid battery system that provided over 1.5 megawatt-hours of battery storage, slashed significant emissions, and proved that cleaner power at scale is possible. This month, we’re powering the entire Healing Appalachia festival with renewable energy — in the heart of coal country — lowering fuel use by more than 80%.
The Road Ahead
Reverb‘s Music Decarbonization Project is reimagining live music — from battery-powered stages to greener merch to fan travel. We’ve shown cleaner power works at scale. We’ve pinpointed where the biggest emissions come from. And we know fans want to be part of the solution.
Now is the time for the industry to act. Venues and promoters can start working with local public transit and private businesses to provide cleaner alternatives. Artists can use their voices and platforms to encourage and inform fans. And fans can plug into these solutions and make their desires for a better, greener concert experience known.
The climate crisis is urgent and can feel daunting at times, but the solutions are within reach and many exist right now. Music has always carried us through struggle and change. It moves us, unites us, and reminds us what’s possible when we band together. That same power can help us take on the greatest challenge of our time.
