Inspired by our theme ELEMENTS we decided to make our festival more sustainable. These are the actions we are taking to ensure our aim:

Travels:

•  we encourage our musicians from the UK to use public transport to come to our festival
•  we rent bikes for all musicians to get from place to place within Oxford
• flights are unfortunately unavoidable since we’re an international music festival, but we pledge to plant a tree for every musician who takes a plane to attend our festival

Theme:

•  our artistic director Priya Mitchell chose our very earthy theme ‘Elements’ for many reasons. The programme will aim to remind us where we come from, that we all need the four elements earth, wind, fire and water to live and that these need to be protected; the  fifth element, ether, building a spiritual bridge to connect us again in every sense.
•  collaboration with Botanic Gardens – they are building an Elements Family trail in our honour and we will give concerts in the gardens during the Summer

Meals and groceries:

•  we source our catering and meals from organic and local sources
•  we try to shop as package free as possible at markets and in bulk
•  we avoid throwaway items like plastic cutlery etc.
•  we give all of our musicians reusable coffee mugs to avoid the need for takeaway paper cups with plastic lids and lining as well as reusable water bottles with compostable coal waterfilters
•  we book tables at establishments that share our values (lunch and supper)
•  we buy locally grown flowers

Education:

•  Musical education is one of the strong pillars of our artistic programme. This year’s programme for children includes pieces that encourage children to consider nature with respect – for example: Ferdinand the bull, who rather sits down peacefully to smell the flowers, instead of competing in bullfights!

Location:

•  we organize concerts in gardens, forests and al fresco to connect our audiences and performers more with nature, allowing unpredictable sounds of the outdoors to become part of the concert experience, as at Asthall Manor and Worton Farm
•  Rehearsal phases in the Abbey in Sutton Courtenay, which provides a simple and sustainable environment.

Printing:

•  a music festival always means a lot of ‘paper work’ – printing of sheet music, contracts, posters, flyers etc. We try to print everything on recycled paper and save as much paper as possible.
•   we use ticketing systems in which the tickets don’t have to be printed. Showing a cpr code on the phone is enough and saves paper.
•  we provide the concert programmes also as digital downloads.