According to a survey among the live music venues, festivals and orchestras, the scene is ready to take action towards more environmentally sustainable practices in concert production, but more information, resources and concrete tools are needed.
Newly released survey (link to survey, only in Finnish: www.kestavamusiikki.net/selvitys) launched a project that aims to compile a toolkit for more sustainable concert production in Finland.
The project started in summer 2020 with a questionnaire to Finnish live music professionals. The project coordinator Anu Ahola and research specialist Merja Hottinen received 19 responses from a wide spectrum of Finnish live scene: 10 festivals (4 large, 3 medium-sized, 3 small), 2 symphony orchestras, 4 smaller ensembles, 2 venues and 1 other agent. The genres that were represented were classical music, art music, pop & jazz.
The survey revealed, that ecologically sustainable development is highly regarded by the industry, and some of the "bigger players" have already taken action towards the greener practices and monitoring being applied in their everyday operations. However, many of the businesses still require more resources, information and expertize on environmental issues. The survey showed the need for concrete tools, like guides and calculators, and even shared goals and monitoring standards for the whole industry were brought up.
The next phase of the project entails defining sustainability goals for the Finnish live music business, and assembling a digital toolkit that would benefit the whole variety of professionals, genres and companies of all sizes.
The steering group of the project includes all major organizations and associations of live music in Finland: Finland Festivals, LiveFIN, Music Finland, Jazz Finland and Association of Finnish Symphony Orchestras.
Further information:
Anu Ahola, Coordinator
050 569 0505
anuahola26@gmail.com
Merja Hottinen, Research Specialist
040 581 7424
merjahottinen@gmail.com