Three professionals from the tech-enabled music marketplace detail how they stay engaged, balanced and connected to others in a variety of environments. Written by Stephen Ostrowski
June 13, 2022Updated: June 13, 2022
Just as musicians all around the world are finally gathering in studios, practice spaces and concert halls after making music alone for so long, the crew at online musical instrument marketplace Reverb recently came back to work together in person. In March, much of the team gathered in its headquarters in the Windy City’s Lakeview neighborhood to host its flex and office-based team members during what Head of People Ruba Al Badawi described as a “welcome week” of social gatherings and meetings. For Reverb — a company that Al Badawi estimated was 90 percent Chicago-based prior to the pandemic, but is now much more distributed — it was a welcome opportunity to have colleagues under one space after the last few years of remote work. Al Badawi, a five-year company veteran, said it was always in the plans to one day return to the office, and last year, the company announced its hybrid plan — which includes fully remote, office-based and the default flex mode, with a minimum of four days in the office every month. “We heard that longing to be together again from employees, even if it’s not every day of every single week. But we didn’t want to box people into making a decision about their work mode before they had the chance to test things out,” Al Badawi said. And, just because the brick-and-mortar office is a physical space, that doesn’t mean that it’s static. In fact, Al Badawi noted that even prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the company promoted flexible working, with “most folks in the office at least four days a week.” Now, Reverb has reconfigured its office to be more of a hub for collaboration, moving toward shared desking, equipping spaces with teamwork tools like Jamboards and rearranging furniture as needed. Working in a flex mode, Colleen McClowry, senior product manager of search, is one Chicago-based team member who splits her time between that physical space and home. As a parent of two young children, McClowry said she appreciates the flexibility afforded by the default arrangement. Typically she chooses to come on Wednesdays so she can take advantage of meeting-free focus time, but she noted that it’s not something that’s set in stone and can change “last minute” if necessary. “To me, the hybrid model is the best of both worlds. You do get that in-person time that motivates and excites you about things. But then, I’m almost more productive now at home after two years, getting in my groove and being able to have some heads-down time,” McClowry said. Offering up three different arrangements — in-office, hybrid or remote — requires juggling different needs and situations. One might argue that, when it comes to connecting with the larger whole, the last of those scenarios is perhaps toughest — but it’s something Senior Cybersecurity Engineer Kevin Harris has managed to pull off as a fully remote Texas-based team member, crediting forums like lunch-and-learns and engineering show-and-tells for making it easier. “I’ve never set foot in the office, ever. But I get hit up by people on Slack for security questions all the time, because they know my work from having done those lunch-and-learns. And I’ve reached out to people who I’ve seen talk about things because I had a question and I knew their name and face,” Harris said. Al Badawi’s recommendation to other leaders? “Listen to your people. The needs might be at odds sometimes, so it’s important to listen to both sides and really try to find the balance.” Below, the three professionals pulled back how they stay engaged, balanced and connected to others. A respect for boundaries, work practices like asynchronous communication and an emphasis on maintaining work-life balance all help make Reverb’s flex model work for McClowry. “People’s lives outside of work have meaning, and as a working parent, Reverb’s flexibility and transparency has been pretty transformational for me,” she said. How has Reverb’s work model supported you? McClowry: Having flexibility baked into our DNA is super important for me. Having that flexibility to be there for my kids when they’re sick, or when I need to be at home, and not having the need to go into the office or work a prescribed set of hours, is key. How’s the practice of asynchronous communication beneficial in your work-life balance equation? McClowry: It allows me to do work at the times that I feel most motivated or productive. A lot of times I’m most productive at night, after my kids go to bed. I’ll write early in the morning even before anyone in my house is up. It’s nice because in the old world of work I felt like I had to get everything done by five o’clock. Now I can actually sit with myself and do things at my leisure. If you need to step away and focus on tasks unrelated to work, how do you feel supported or empowered to do so? McClowry: As long as you block out your calendar to say, for example, “I have to step in for childcare” or “I need to do preschool drop-off or pick-up,” it’s not even questioned. People understand that you’re doing what you need to do. At Reverb, we know that unplugging and stepping away helps your well-being, and as a result, your work. Everyone in the company has transparent calendars. You’ll see even the executive team members covering childcare duties. It’s just the status quo across the company, which is really great. Once a quarter, we have mental health wellness days, which are really great. As a working parent, that’s really good for me, because I still have childcare for those days. I’ve used those days as an opportunity to practice self-care, recharge and do something for myself — whether it’s getting lunch with a friend, hitting up a yoga class or just taking my kids to something special, like the zoo or the arboretum. As a member of the cybersecurity engineering team, Harris and his colleagues aim to safeguard Reverb from abuse. To be successful, Harris — fully remote since joining the company — relies on a cohesive team culture that embraces ongoing learning as well as real-time and asynchronous communication. What does Reverb do to make you feel connected to your team and the company as a fully remote worker? Harris: There are a couple of things that we do that I think are really great. One of them is virtual events like lunch-and-learns and all-hands meetings, which have given me an opportunity to connect with people from all over the company, ask questions and answer questions. We also do engineering shows-and-tells every two weeks. That gives me an opportunity to really see what everybody else is working on and then directly engage with them. Both have been really great for me to feel like I’m plugged into the community. How would you describe the camaraderie and cohesion of the cybersecurity engineering group? Harris: My team has always had the convenience of being remote-first. The security team spun off from our infrastructure team very recently, just before I was hired, in fact. Reverb has been going through a unique growth phase, including when I joined, and because the team was evolving, I got the opportunity to help shape my team’s culture. Because the security team has always had conversations about what we wanted from our culture, and having always been in a remote environment, we’ve been able to foster that culture in the way that we wanted to. It also helps that in the security space, you pretty much always end up with internet geeks, so we all spend most of our time on Slack or Discord anyway. So those are really natural communication channels for us — we really lean into that. What are some of the current projects that you’re working on? How do they help Reverb grow and maintain security? Harris: Security teams don’t generate revenue; they offset risk. But one of the killers for any marketplace is fraud. Reverb is helping people all over the world find what they need to create all types of music, and as the security team grows, we should be able to help mitigate those risks to make it safer for people to do those high-dollar-value transactions. New security teams are trying to build the plane while they’re flying it, but they have to be maintaining security all the time. Yet you also want to be trying to do it in a better way and developing new processes. A big part of my current focus is developing what those processes are and then engineering the solutions that will make them possible. It’s still relatively early in the newly rolled out arrangement, but Al Badawi said she’s  optimistic when she reads the early feedback from employees. “The reception has been positive. Leading with flexibility has been what everyone is looking for,” Al Badawi said. How does the current arrangement set team members up for success and meet their individual needs? Al Badawi: We definitely do collaborate remotely. But we also think that there’s a type of collaboration that benefits from being off-screen, in a room and talking together, whiteboarding, and so forth. So it’s really about allowing folks to choose what type of collaboration happens in the office; we’re not dictating that. Larger brainstorms, big kickoffs and annual planning meetings are the things I anticipate will most benefit from that setting. What sort of success stories have you seen so far? Al Badawi: From folks who have been at the office before, we’ve gotten a lot of, “It’s so good to be back. It’s so good to see this couch or this specific guitar,” or even being back to restaurants that are around the office. We’re getting a lot of that chatter, even in Slack. The one that resonated with me most was actually someone who is remote, who wasn’t at Reverb pre-pandemic. They said they were afraid that collaboration and productivity would dip when the office opens. And then they noticed that it’s actually the same, if not better, because those who feel like they need to be in office have come back more rejuvenated. That lets me know we’re on the right path. What best practices would you share with people leaders creating a hybrid work program? Al Badawi: Give yourself grace — this is unprecedented. You don’t need to have all the answers now. And you can always iterate. There isn’t one email that goes out from me about something we’re testing that doesn’t say that we’re open to feedback and iteration. And I foresee that continuing, because we’re still in a pandemic and there’s still a lot that can change.

How Flexibility & Choice Set the Stage for Reverb’s Hybrid Work Model

Concertgoers ride stationary bikes during Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres world tour on May 12, 2022, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. The band has included energy-storing stationary bikes to their latest world tour, encouraging fans to help power the show as part of a push to make the tour more environmentally friendly. — AP
NEW YORK: It’s often said that fans at live concerts give the band a jolt of electricity. Coldplay wants to literally harness that. The pop superstars have added kinetic dance floors and energy-storing stationary bikes to their latest world tour, encouraging fans to help power the show as they dance or spin. It’s part of a larger push to make the tour more environmentally friendly. The band – whose songs include the appropriately titled Higher Power – has pledged to be as sustainable and low-carbon as possible, hoping to cut their CO2 emissions by 50%. “You don’t want to come across as being overly earnest. This stuff is really good fun as well,” said bassist Guy Berryman. “That’s the way it will bed in, if people see it less as a sort of onerous responsibility and more as a kind of opportunity to do something fun and it’s a benefit to the environment and to the whole concert experience.”
Each kinetic dance floor can hold dozens of people, with electricity created when movement is made on them. The band has pre-show contests to see which group of fans can generate the most power, fuelled by Jump Around by House of Pain. And each of the bikes – a minimum of 15 but can be scaled up depending on the venue size – can generate an average of 200 watts of energy, captured in batteries that run elements of the show. Coldplay is just one music act working to reduce effects of the climate footprints of their tours, a list that includes Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, The Lumineers, Dave Matthews Band, Shawn Mendes, Maroon 5, John Mayer, Lorde, The Chicks, Jason Isbell and The 1975. “The relationship that musicians have with millions of their fans is unlike any other relationship of any other public figure. It can be a walking, talking example,” said Adam Gardner, founder and co-executive director of Reverb, a nonprofit that helps bands make their concerts greener. It is not helping Coldplay’s tour. The artistes are reflecting an overall push in the entertainment sphere – from sports teams to toy manufacturers – to reduce their carbon footprints. A study by Live Nation found 82% of live musicgoers said they strive to maintain an environmentally sustainable lifestyle. “Being green is not a charitable sort of self-flagellating, holier-than-thou exercise. It’s a good business model. That’s what we’d like to show,” said Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin. Added guitarist Jonny Buckland: “It has to work.”
The efforts involve everything from providing more plant-based food options at concessions and eliminating single-use plastic to rethinking transportation – the most environmentally taxing aspect of tours – for both musicians and fans. Eilish has pledged to eliminate an estimated 35,000 single-use water bottles from her tour and only serves vegetarian food backstage. The band Massive Attack is travelling by train, and Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour merchandise is sustainably dyed and 100% organic cotton. Mendes has pledged to reduce his tour’s environmental impact and emissions by 50% per show, employing sustainable fabrics in tour hoodies and T-shirts, staying at hotels that commit to net zero emissions, eliminating plastic and using sustainable aviation fuel. Styles’ recent tour had battery recycling centers, and it donated unused hotel toiletries to shelters. Coldplay plans to minimise air travel – but when flights are necessary, the band will opt for commercial over charter – and will use trains and electric vehicles whenever possible. Trucks will use alternative fuels like hydrotreated vegetable oil. “We’ve looked at every aspect of the show because there isn’t one thing that you can do which makes an overall significant difference. It’s just basically all of these changes that you make add up to something overall more impressive,” said Berryman. “Hopefully it will have this ripple effect throughout our industry.”
The “Music of the Spheres” tour stage uses recycled steel, and the band hopes to deploy the world’s first tour battery system, made from 40 repurposed and recyclable BMW electric car batteries. The hope is to power the entire show from batteries, never needing the grid or diesel generators. “We are very blessed that we have the resources to be able to do it because it’s very expensive to try these things for the first time,” said Martin. “We’re so privileged that we’re in a position where we can change.”
There’s also biodegradable confetti, compostable wristbands for the audience, the use of solar panels and the backstage generator is powered by vegetable oil. All band merchandise is sustainably and ethically sourced and 10% of the tour’s net revenue will go to environmental organisations like The Ocean Cleanup and One Tree Planted. “We’re trying to do this in a way that’s quite pragmatic and businesslike so that we don’t get written off as kind of left-wing nutcases. But it’s quite centrist and practical,” said Martin. Coldplay drummer Will Champion said the new green technology may be helpful to other bands just starting out on tour and hopes all musical acts can share experiences of what works and what doesn’t. “The more this is out there and the more people are taking initiative and coming up with new ideas, the quicker it becomes industry standard,” he said. “When that tips to the point where it’s a no-brainer because it costs the same or less than traditional ways of doing it, that’s when the floodgates open and then we make significant change.”
But change hasn’t always gone smoothly. Coldplay has been accused of greenwashing because it has partnered with Neste, which bills itself as the world’s largest producer of sustainable biofuels. Transport and Environment, a Brussels-based environmental organisation, said Neste has “documented links to deforestation and dubious biofuels”. But Neste responded that “conventional palm oil” was not used as a “raw material” in the Coldplay collaboration and it hopes to end use of conventional palm oil by 2023. “They’re trying their best,” said Transport and Environment senior director Carlos Calvo Ambel about Coldplay, “but maybe they picked the wrong consultant.”
Reverb, which has helped other bands navigate the complexities of being green since 2004, offers everything from free water stations to sourcing local organic and family farm food near the venue. The nonprofit has helped avoid the use of four million single-use water bottles since its start, it says. “Our philosophy is that it’s not all or nothing. I think if we force people to do everything all at once, most of them will choose nothing,” said Gardner, who is also a touring musician with his band Guster. “Some artistes that we work with are ready to jump in full-on and others are looking at the things that they’re able to change right away. And I think the most important thing is to start.”
Coldplay isn’t just pledging to reduce its own carbon footprint. It’s also building incentives for its audience to do the same on the way to the venue. There’s a free app for fans that calculates and ranks different ways of travelling to the concert – car, public transport, taxi, bike and train, included – with rewards like discounts on merchandise for those who commit to taking more green-friendly trips. The band also hopes to make free local public transport to the gig available to fans in America and Europe. “Everything in our show is really designed to bring everyone into the same group, singing together and wearing the wristbands. And this is just an extension of that. It makes us feel alive. It makes us feel part of a community,” said Martin. – AP
Article type: free

Get on your bike: Coldplay hopes to lead with a green tour

Get on your bike: Coldplay hopes to lead with a green tour
Get on your bike: Coldplay hopes to lead with a green tour
The pop superstars have added kinetic dance floors and energy-storing stationary bikes to their latest world tour, encouraging fans to help power the show as they dance or spin. Chris Martin of Coldplay performs during the band's Music of the Spheres world tour on Thursday, May 12, 2022, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. (Photo by Rick Scuteri/Invision/AP)
17 May 2022 08:57AM (Updated: 17 May 2022 08:57AM)
It's often said that fans at live concerts give the band a jolt of electricity. Coldplay wants to literally harness that. The pop superstars have added kinetic dance floors and energy-storing stationary bikes to their latest world tour, encouraging fans to help power the show as they dance or spin. It's part of a larger push to make the tour more environmentally friendly. The band – whose songs include the appropriately titled Higher Power – has pledged to be as sustainable and low-carbon as possible, hoping to cut their CO2 emissions by 50 per cent. “You don’t want to come across as being overly earnest. This stuff is really good fun as well,” said bassist Guy Berryman. “That's the way it will bed in, if people see it less as a sort of onerous responsibility and more as a kind of opportunity to do something fun and it’s a benefit to the environment and to the whole concert experience.”
Each kinetic dance floor can hold dozens of people, with electricity created when movement is made on them. The band has pre-show contests to see which group of fans can generate the most power, fuelled by Jump Around by House of Pain. And each of the bikes – a minimum of 15 but can be scaled up depending on the venue size – can generate an average of 200 watts of energy, captured in batteries that run elements of the show. Concertgoers dance during Coldplay's Music of the Spheres world tour on Thursday, May 12, 2022, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. The band has included energy-storing stationary bikes to their latest world tour, encouraging fans to help power the show as part of a push to make the tour more environmentally friendly. (Photo by Rick Scuteri/Invision/AP)
Coldplay is just one music act working to reduce effects of the climate footprints of their tours, a list that includes Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, The Lumineers, Dave Matthews Band, Shawn Mendes, Maroon 5, John Mayer, Lorde, The Chicks, Jason Isbell and The 1975. “The relationship that musicians have with millions of their fans is unlike any other relationship of any other public figure. It can be a walking, talking example," said Adam Gardner, founder and co-executive director of Reverb, a nonprofit that helps bands make their concerts greener. It is not helping Coldplay's tour. The artistes are reflecting an overall push in the entertainment sphere – from sports teams to toy manufacturers – to reduce their carbon footprints. A study by Live Nation found 82 per cent of live musicgoers said they strive to maintain an environmentally sustainable lifestyle. “Being green is not a charitable sort of self-flagellating, holier-than-thou exercise. It’s a good business model. That’s what we’d like to show,” said Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin. Added guitarist Jonny Buckland: “It has to work.”
The efforts involve everything from providing more plant-based food options at concessions and eliminating single-use plastic to rethinking transportation – the most environmentally taxing aspect of tours – for both musicians and fans. Eilish has pledged to eliminate an estimated 35,000 single-use water bottles from her tour and only serves vegetarian food backstage. The band Massive Attack is travelling by train, and Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour merchandise is sustainably dyed and 100 per cent organic cotton. Mendes has pledged to reduce his tour’s environmental impact and emissions by 50 per cent per show, employing sustainable fabrics in tour hoodies and T-shirts, staying at hotels that commit to net zero emissions, eliminating plastic and using sustainable aviation fuel. Styles' recent tour had battery recycling centres, and it donated unused hotel toiletries to shelters. Coldplay plans to minimise air travel – but when flights are necessary, the band will opt for commercial over charter – and will use trains and electric vehicles whenever possible. Trucks will use alternative fuels like hydrotreated vegetable oil. Concertgoers ride stationary bikes during Coldplay's Music of the Spheres world tour on Thursday, May 12, 2022, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. The band has included energy-storing stationary bikes to their latest world tour, encouraging fans to help power the show as part of a push to make the tour more environmentally friendly. (Photo by Rick Scuteri/Invision/AP)
“We’ve looked at every aspect of the show because there isn’t one thing that you can do which makes an overall significant difference. It’s just basically all of these changes that you make add up to something overall more impressive,” said Berryman. “Hopefully it will have this ripple effect throughout our industry.”
The “Music of the Spheres” tour stage uses recycled steel, and the band hopes to deploy the world’s first tour battery system, made from 40 repurposed and recyclable BMW electric car batteries. The hope is to power the entire show from batteries, never needing the grid or diesel generators. “We are very blessed that we have the resources to be able to do it because it’s very expensive to try these things for the first time,” said Martin. “We’re so privileged that we’re in a position where we can change.”
There's also biodegradable confetti, compostable wristbands for the audience, the use of solar panels and the backstage generator is powered by vegetable oil. All band merchandise is sustainably and ethically sourced and 10 per cent of the tour’s net revenue will go to environmental organisations like The Ocean Cleanup and One Tree Planted. “We’re trying to do this in a way that’s quite pragmatic and businesslike so that we don’t get written off as kind of left-wing nutcases. But it’s quite centrist and practical,” said Martin. Coldplay drummer Will Champion said the new green technology may be helpful to other bands just starting out on tour and hopes all musical acts can share experiences of what works and what doesn't. “The more this is out there and the more people are taking initiative and coming up with new ideas, the quicker it becomes industry standard,” he said. “When that tips to the point where it’s a no-brainer because it costs the same or less than traditional ways of doing it, that’s when the floodgates open and then we make significant change.”
But change hasn't always gone smoothly. Coldplay has been accused of greenwashing because it has partnered with Neste, which bills itself as the world’s largest producer of sustainable biofuels. Transport and Environment, a Brussels-based environmental organisation, said Neste has “documented links to deforestation and dubious biofuels”, like palm oil or its byproducts. But Neste responded that “conventional palm oil” was not used as a “raw material” in the Coldplay collaboration and it hopes to end use of conventional palm oil by 2023. “They're trying their best,” said Transport and Environment senior director Carlos Calvo Ambel about Coldplay, “but maybe they picked the wrong consultant”. Reverb, which has helped other bands navigate the complexities of being green since 2004, offers everything from free water stations to sourcing local organic and family farm food near the venue. The nonprofit has helped avoid the use of 4 million single-use water bottles since its start, it says. “Our philosophy is that it’s not all or nothing. I think if we force people to do everything all at once, most of them will choose nothing,” said Gardner, who is also a touring musician with his band Guster. “Some artists that we work with are ready to jump in full-on and others are looking at the things that they’re able to change right away. And I think the most important thing is to start.”
Coldplay isn't just pledging to reduce its own carbon footprint. It's also building incentives for its audience to do the same on the way to the venue. There's a free app for fans that calculates and ranks different ways of travelling to the concert – car, public transport, taxi, bike and train, included – with rewards like discounts on merchandise for those who commit to taking more green-friendly trips. The band also hopes to make free local public transport to the gig available to fans in America and Europe. “Everything in our show is really designed to bring everyone into the same group, singing together and wearing the wristbands. And this is just an extension of that. It makes us feel alive. It makes us feel part of a community,” said Martin. Source: AP/sr

At Display Week 2022 TCL presented the most compact LCD panel for VR we’ve seen yet. The primary driver of the size and bulk of today’s VR headsets is the display-optics assembly – both the size of the display and the lenses used to magnify it over a relatively wide field of view. Valve’s Index uses 3.5 inch panels, while HP’s slightly more compact Reverb G2 uses 2.89 inch panels. HTC’s Vive Flow, the most compact headset available in the west, uses 2.1 inch displays. TCL presented two new LCD panels at Display Week. Both have a refresh rate of 120 Hz. The first is also 2.1 inches, like Vive Flow’s, but whereas Flow’s displays are 1600×1600 TCL’s new display is 2280×2280 thanks to having a density of 1512 pixels per inch. Flow reaches only 75 Hz, but it’s unclear whether this is a limitation of the panels or just a product design decision. This new panel was shown integrated into a fully standalone prototype headset to demonstrate just how compact a standalone with Flow-sized displays could be:
The second has slightly lower resolution, 2160×2160, but is smaller than any VR LCD we’ve seen to date at just 1.77 inches. To achieve this it actually has an even higher density, 1764 pixels per inch. Of course, there are even smaller OLED microdisplays available, but those tend to be significantly more expensive. Neither new TCL panel is higher resolution or more dense than the stunning 3K panel JDI and Innolux also presented at Display Week. But both TCL panels are smaller, so could theoretically be used in extremely compact headsets.

TCL Presents Ultra Compact 2K VR LCDs With 120 Hz Refresh Rate

By MARK KENNEDY - AP Entertainment Writer
May 16, 2022
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Concertgoers dance during Coldplay's Music of the Spheres world tour on Thursday, May 12, 2022, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. The band has included energy-storing stationary bikes to their latest world tour, encouraging fans to help power the show as part of a push to make the tour more environmentally friendly. Rick Scuteri - invision linkable, Invision
Concertgoers ride stationary bikes during Coldplay's Music of the Spheres world tour on Thursday, May 12, 2022, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. The band has included energy-storing stationary bikes to their latest world tour, encouraging fans to help power the show as part of a push to make the tour more environmentally friendly. Rick Scuteri - invision linkable, Invision
Chris Martin of Coldplay performs during the band's Music of the Spheres world tour on Thursday, May 12, 2022, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
Rick Scuteri - invision linkable, Invision
Guy Berryman, left, and Chris Martin of Coldplay performs during the band's Music of the Spheres world tour on Thursday, May 12, 2022, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
Rick Scuteri - invision linkable, Invision
Will Champion of Coldplay performs during the band's Music of the Spheres world tour on Thursday, May 12, 2022, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
Rick Scuteri - invision linkable, Invision
Jonny Buckland, left, and Chris Martin of Coldplay perform during the band's Music of the Spheres world tour on Thursday, May 12, 2022, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
Rick Scuteri - invision linkable, Invision
By MARK KENNEDY - AP Entertainment Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — It's often said that fans at live concerts give the band a jolt of electricity. Coldplay wants to literally harness that. The pop superstars have added kinetic dance floors and energy-storing stationary bikes to their latest world tour, encouraging fans to help power the show as they dance or spin. It's part of a larger push to make the tour more environmentally friendly. The band — whose songs include the appropriately titled “Higher Power” — has pledged to be as sustainable and low-carbon as possible, hoping to cut their CO2 emissions by 50%. “You don’t want to come across as being overly earnest. This stuff is really good fun as well,” said bassist Guy Berryman. “That's the way it will bed in, if people see it less as a sort of onerous responsibility and more as a kind of opportunity to do something fun and it’s a benefit to the environment and to the whole concert experience.”
Each kinetic dance floor can hold dozens of people, with electricity created when movement is made on them. The band has pre-show contests to see which group of fans can generate the most power, fueled by “Jump Around” by House of Pain. People are also reading…
And each of the bikes — a minimum of 15 but can be scaled up depending on the venue size — can generate an average of 200 watts of energy, captured in batteries that run elements of the show. Coldplay is just one music act working to reduce effects of the climate footprints of their tours, a list that includes Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, The Lumineers, Dave Matthews Band, Shawn Mendes, Maroon 5, John Mayer, Lorde, The Chicks, Jason Isbell and The 1975. “The relationship that musicians have with millions of their fans is unlike any other relationship of any other public figure. It can be a walking, talking example," said Adam Gardner, founder and co-executive director of Reverb, a nonprofit that helps bands make their concerts greener. It is not helping Coldplay's tour. The artists are reflecting an overall push in the entertainment sphere — from sports teams to toy manufacturers — to reduce their carbon footprints. A study by Live Nation found 82% of live musicgoers said they strive to maintain an environmentally sustainable lifestyle. “Being green is not a charitable sort of self-flagellating, holier-than-thou exercise. It’s a good business model. That’s what we’d like to show,” said Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin. Added guitarist Jonny Buckland: “It has to work.”
The efforts involve everything from providing more plant-based food options at concessions and eliminating single-use plastic to rethinking transportation — the most environmentally taxing aspect of tours — for both musicians and fans. Eilish has pledged to eliminate an estimated 35,000 single-use water bottles from her tour and only serves vegetarian food backstage. The band Massive Attack is traveling by train, and Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” merchandise is sustainably dyed and 100% organic cotton. Mendes has pledged to reduce his tour’s environmental impact and emissions by 50% per show, employing sustainable fabrics in tour hoodies and T-shirts, staying at hotels that commit to net zero emissions, eliminating plastic and using sustainable aviation fuel. Styles' recent tour had battery recycling centers, and it donated unused hotel toiletries to shelters. Coldplay plans to minimize air travel — but when flights are necessary, the band will opt for commercial over charter — and will use trains and electric vehicles whenever possible. Trucks will use alternative fuels like hydrotreated vegetable oil. “We’ve looked at every aspect of the show because there isn’t one thing that you can do which makes an overall significant difference. It’s just basically all of these changes that you make add up to something overall more impressive,” said Berryman. “Hopefully it will have this ripple effect throughout our industry.”
The “Music of the Spheres” tour stage uses recycled steel, and the band hopes to deploy the world’s first tour battery system, made from 40 repurposed and recyclable BMW electric car batteries. The hope is to power the entire show from batteries, never needing the grid or diesel generators. “We are very blessed that we have the resources to be able to do it because it’s very expensive to try these things for the first time,” said Martin. “We’re so privileged that we’re in a position where we can change.”
There's also biodegradable confetti, compostable wristbands for the audience, the use of solar panels and the backstage generator is powered by vegetable oil. All band merchandise is sustainably and ethically sourced and 10% of the tour’s net revenue will go to environmental organizations like The Ocean Cleanup and One Tree Planted. “We’re trying to do this in a way that’s quite pragmatic and businesslike so that we don’t get written off as kind of left-wing nutcases. But it’s quite centrist and practical,” said Martin. Coldplay drummer Will Champion said the new green technology may be helpful to other bands just starting out on tour and hopes all musical acts can share experiences of what works and what doesn't. “The more this is out there and the more people are taking initiative and coming up with new ideas, the quicker it becomes industry standard,” he said. “When that tips to the point where it’s a no-brainer because it costs the same or less than traditional ways of doing it, that’s when the floodgates open and then we make significant change.”
But change hasn't always gone smoothly. Coldplay has been accused of greenwashing because it has partnered with Neste, which bills itself as the world’s largest producer of sustainable biofuels. Transport and Environment, a Brussels-based environmental organization, said Neste has “documented links to deforestation and dubious biofuels,” like palm oil or its byproducts. But Neste responded that “conventional palm oil” was not used as a “raw material” in the Coldplay collaboration and it hopes to end use of conventional palm oil by 2023. “They're trying their best,” said Transport and Environment senior director Carlos Calvo Ambel about Coldplay, “but maybe they picked the wrong consultant.”
Reverb, which has helped other bands navigate the complexities of being green since 2004, offers everything from free water stations to sourcing local organic and family farm food near the venue. The nonprofit has helped avoid the use of 4 million single-use water bottles since its start, it says. “Our philosophy is that it’s not all or nothing. I think if we force people to do everything all at once, most of them will choose nothing,” said Gardner, who is also a touring musician with his band Guster. “Some artists that we work with are ready to jump in full-on and others are looking at the things that they’re able to change right away. And I think the most important thing is to start.”
Coldplay isn't just pledging to reduce its own carbon footprint. It's also building incentives for its audience to do the same on the way to the venue. There's a free app for fans that calculates and ranks different ways of traveling to the concert — car, public transport, taxi, bike and train, included — with rewards like discounts on merchandise for those who commit to taking more green-friendly trips. The band also hopes to make free local public transport to the gig available to fans in America and Europe. “Everything in our show is really designed to bring everyone into the same group, singing together and wearing the wristbands. And this is just an extension of that. It makes us feel alive. It makes us feel part of a community,” said Martin. Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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