Comment: conscious clubbing

2016 is all about ethical partying. Iceland’s Secret Solstice is running on volcano power (and zero carbon), festivals are starting up with the explicit aim of raising money for charity, and DGTL in Amsterdam, Comunite in Mexico and Outline Festival in Moscow are completely vegetarian. Combining good PR with giving something back seems like a no brainer, but why is this happening now?

“People long to do good”, says Marco Wijnakker of Amsterdam festival NieuwLicht. It’s raising money for a different charity each year, with Niños de Guatemala (NDG), a charity aiming to stop the cycle of poverty in Guatemala by providing education, supported in 2016. Each year, everyone involved in NieuwLicht will donate part of their entrance fee. “Our lives are changing quite rapidly, through the digital revolution. Money is shifting as a centre in our lives, and people are searching for more meaning.”

Marco has a point; beyond good causes, it’s a heightened consciousness that characterises this movement. “I just went to Bloc Weekender and the music was great and the people awesome, but the food was crap Butlins food and it was just cheap cider, beer and vodka to drink”, says Kim Booth, owner of promotion company Rebel Butterfly. Now she’s organising spiritually minded, free Cosmic Pineapple parties to be held at Pikes Hotel this September. “Think Burning Man vibes in Ibiza”, says Kim. Meanwhile in London, new night LIK has just had its second sell-out party. Its main selling point: no alcohol and zero tolerance for drugs. We’re not talking your local church group’s knees-up here; with underground house and techno DJs and a great sound system, LIK is ‘mindful clubbing’.

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It’s obvious that among young people there’s a rising fitness culture and awareness of healthy living; perhaps it follows that there’ll be a desire for a healthy mind, too. Ultramajic boss Jimmy Edgar is one of a growing number of artists and DJs who are looking beyond gigs and sales. “Music and spirituality are deeply connected. Unfortunately for most artists these days, including me, it’s a bit discombobulated for many reasons. I’m willing to support anything that makes an effort to bring some positivity – otherwise what else are you doing but chasing money and other notions that don’t really matter in the long term?”

And perhaps nothing matters in the long term more than the planet. While attendees may not take into account what power an event is running on, it’s definitely something a promoter can shout about. Iceland’s Secret Solstice is able to run almost totally on geothermal power and this year aims to be carbon neutral. “While most major events around the world have to rely on fuel burning generators, we tap directly into Reykjavik’s power grid,” says Marketing Director Leon Hill. “We are powered by volcanoes, which is an extremely cool thing to be able to say.”

Meanwhile, more and more festivals are turning vegetarian or vegan. Jennie Sobol of Outline in Moscow says it was an easy decision. “Most of the organisers don’t eat meat. It’s important to show people they can enjoy food without destroying the environment, or their bodies. We had no complaints; as long as you have nice food people can eat when they’re hungry people are happy!” Mexico’s Comunité festival makes a pretty convincing case on their website: ‘Each day, a person who eats a vegan diet saves 1,100 gallons of water, 45 pounds of grain, 30 sq ft of forested land, 20 lbs CO2 equivalent, and one animal’s life. If we control what we serve the guests during the 24 hours of this festival we will save incredible resources!’ Meanwhile, some of the profits from the festival are used to build clean water systems for surrounding villages.

Is there a danger of people selling their event as ‘ethical’ just to shift tickets? “That will surely happen in the future,” say Kim Booth. “It’s going to be the next ‘thing’ – but you can always tell the true people.”

Stathis Lazarides, founder of the TerraFerma organisation which has just launched its The Art Aid Project aimed at promoting undiscovered talent and progress through collaboration, agrees that this is likely due to the increasingly business-minded environment of club culture, and asserts that electronic music needs to “take its own future in its hands and preserve its original values.”

“We want to build on the original foundations that have been destroyed by businessmen and create a safe haven for artists, away from the stresses of today’s environment of bad competition,” says Lazarides, adding that “this youth revolution can be much more than a playground for millionaire DJs.”

Whether everyone going to these festivals really cares about how they’re run is moot: if ethical events like this keep happening and clubbers look for a more spiritual dimension to the way they enjoy themselves, it’s a trend that’ll only become more apparent – not least because of social media (the perfect arena both for ‘virtue signalling’ and for getting across a genuine message). As every promoter knows, as long as the tunes and the vibes are right, people will come. If the tunes and the vibes are right and your event is doing some good, even better.