Dave Matthews Band and Live Nation Tout ‘First Zero Waste Tour’ — ‘Over 90% of Waste from Fans on the Tour Was Reused, Composted, Recycled, or Donated’

(l to r) Live Nation Venues president Tom See, Rock Hall of Famer Dave Matthews (holding a guitar made from aluminum cans recycled on tour), and Live Nation head of global sustainability Lucy August-Perna. Photo Credit: Sanjay Suchak

It turns out staging huge tours can be environmentally friendly – at least according to Live Nation and the Dave Matthews Band, which say they’ve organized the “first zero waste tour.”Live Nation and the more than three-decade-old Dave Matthews Band reached out with a variety of hard numbers about that zero-waste tour. As told by the involved parties, the descriptor (and the appropriate figures) pertains specifically to shows delivered at 18 Live Nation venues in the U.S.

The Virginia-based group had previously announced its sustainability-focused plans for those concerts, mentioning the expected presence of “free water refill stations,” “zero-waste stations to collect disposable items,” and, building on the latter, “onsite green teams hand-sorting all concert waste.”

All told, north of 400 crew members are said to have contributed to the effort, and “over 90% of waste from fans…was reused, composted, recycled, or donated,” per Live Nation – with the figure having hit 99% at certain venues.

(A minute-long video places the overall percentage at 93%, and “donated” presumably refers to clothing and other non-recyclable junk left behind by attendees.)

Also according to the Ticketmaster parent, approximately 100,000 pounds of trash were “diverted from landfill,” and “3,200 meals were donated to local community organizations” in connection with the initiative. Lastly, 1,500 aluminum cans recycled on the tour “were used to create a series of top-of-the-line aluminum guitars gifted to Dave Matthews for charity.”

Though it perhaps goes without saying, there are substantial costs associated with staging zero-waste (or low-waste) concerts – meaning that doing so will prove financially challenging for even well-known acts.Of course, a significant amount of time, energy, money, and trouble would be saved if fans simply cleaned up after themselves; Coachella and Stagecoach attendees left behind an estimated 24 tons of trash, clothing, and gear this year, for instance.

In any event, it remains to be seen whether the Dave Matthews Band’s zero-waste framework can also apply to different concert series. Closer to the top of 2024, Live Nation, Warner Music, and Coldplay partnered with MIT on “a comprehensive study of the live music industry’s carbon footprint.”

Initially expected to wrap in July, said study was extended in late June “to allow for more comprehensive data collection and analysis,” Live Nation said. The resource’s release is now tentatively expected for sometime this fall.