Event Industry News: The theme of this year’s event is sustainability and well-being, and while EVENTIT’s sustainability journey is just beginning, this year’s conference will see the show making a big effort to improve its sustainability and encourage others to do so too.
EVENTIT has partnerships with businesses who have sustainability right at their very core.
3 comments:
I think sustainability will be the next thing the theatre industry tackles. I am hopeful that in the same way intimacy training and work/life balance have come to the forefront within the industry that efforts for more sustainable practices will be next to tackle. I think what Judith Wilson says about the event industry creating unnecessary waste is spot on and I see the same thing in theatre. I love EVENTIT’s plan to repurpose event materials and would love if the theatre found a way to do this as well; whether it be material sharing between theatres or donation after strike or any other number of things that could reduce the one-time nature of building scenery. I was impressed by how many measures they outlined from the catering choice down to handouts. I recognize that a one-time event is much easier to do sustainably than changing an entire industry but I'm hopeful this is a step in the right direction.
Originally, when going into the entertainment industry, I was worried about what my contribution to the current climate and environmental crises would be. I like to think of myself as pretty well versed in environmental consciousness, and obviously as someone who is not in full control of my current eating and living conditions, I try my best. I think that what EVENTIT is doing is going to change the course of the entertainment industry forever. Once other companies see how easy it is to be environmentally conscious, and how their fans who are environmentally active will react, more will catch on. While it definitely takes more planning, the more that sustainability is fore fronted as a priority, the easier it will get. The only reason that it is currently “difficult” to make an event sustainable is that no one knows their options. EVENTIT is paving the way for the entire entertainment industry to prioritize sustainability at its venues and events.
Sustainability is a problem that must be tackled in industries across the board and theater is not an exception. While this article talks about sustainability in the events industry, theater has a very similar problem. Shows produce tons of waste from the consumable props that have to be replaced for each and every performance to the giant sets that must be custom built for every show and then are often thrown away since much of it cannot be reused or recycled. There's even more waste if you consider what isn't onstage: the thousands of playbills thrown out every day, the merch that is sold at every performance and seldom actually used by customers, and the plastic food and beverage containers that fill the trash cans outside the theater after every performance. Initiatives like this one in the event industry are a hopeful sign that we could be making progress towards a more sustainable future in theater.
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