Festival Preview: Boomtown 2022

Today on blog, the low down on Boomtown Festival 2022, how they have managed to remain an independent festival and how they are tackling the environmental impact of the festival with their Green Mission. >>

From 10th August, the Matterly Estate in Hampshire, near the historic city of Winchester, will be transformed from the idyllic rolling hills of the English countryside (it is part of the South Downs National Park) into a dystopian city with 6 districts of immersive theatre and music. ‘Citizens’ can get lost (both figuratively and literally) for 5 days in the sprawling pop up world of Boomtown, a unique and fiercely independent festival set to enjoy a new beginning in 2022 as ‘Chapter One: The Gathering’, where citizens can discover a whole new world!

Boomtown 2022 will be a sunken city made up of 6 districts, some of which fans will recognised from the previous incarnation such as Copper County, Old Town & Metropolis, as well as new areas like Botanica and Origin, all bringing the eclectic mix of music, performance and arts together in a newly reimagined site for revellers to explore and get immersed in. New Campsite Villages will provide sanctuaries that overlook the spectacular city below.

Boomtown is like no other festival. Every venue has its own back story, every door leads to a hidden gem and on every corner you can find characters keen to interact and make you part of the story. 

However, underpinning all the incredible acts, entertainment and awe inspiring sets, are some impressive festival values. Boomtown has a new sustainability campaign for 2022, and is one of the first UK festivals to sign a Green Deal and commit to being Net Zero by 2025. Boomtown’s ongoing priority is to protect the environment from the impact of an event of its size, to raise awareness and inspire ongoing behavioural change amongst the public that attend Boomtown.

Some of the key sustainability actions include:

•  Switching fuel to hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), which will reduce emissions from fuel consumption by 90%.
• In 2019 they eliminated the sale of single-use plastic bottles at the festival, preventing 225,000 plastic bottles a year, and will continue to encourage everyone to bring their own reusable bottles and food serveware. 100% of the food serve-ware at the festival is compostable.
• The brand new main stage, Origin, is being built using with real plants and sustainable materials, a lot recycled from previous main stage Lion’s Den.
• Every afternoon at the festival, people attending can listen out for the mobile pop-up sound systems and Eco-Warriors to get involved in the big Boomtown tidy. The Eco-Warriors will be handing out free 2023 festival tickets and merchandise to the cleanest camps and those doing their best to keep the South Downs National Park clean and free from litter.
• Boomtown have a partnership with Tree Sisters, and have so far planted 100,000 trees around the world from Madagascar to Nepal. They continue to plant trees, contributing to one of the most powerful solutions for climate change.

BOOMTOWN IS COMMITTED TO BECOMING A CIRCULAR FESTIVAL AND NET ZERO SCOPE 1 & 2 GHG EMISSIONS BY 2025.

The team are working towards transforming Boomtown into a sustainable city that is run entirely on renewable energy, a circular economy city where organisers and citizens reject a throwaway society, where there is minimal impact on the local environment, a city where the food is good for the people and the planet and everyone is inspired to take immediate positive action.

Festivals can be carbon and waste intensive, but they can also provide the best testing ground for collaboration, creativity and innovation, with many exciting opportunities to reduce impact.

Therefore, in 2019, the team signed the green deal circular festival (GDCF) pledge to become a circular festival by 2025, alongside many other festivals to work together with and get support from the circular festival community.

After years of going to festivals and feeling sad and let down by fellow festival goers by the amounts of rubbish left behind, Boomtown’s stance on sustainability is a breath of fresh air. I am really excited to see how their values and policies work this year, and hope this is a new dawn for festivals in the UK and internationally.

If you’re also excited to be back in the fields, and want to support one of the only UK festivals to sign up to the Green Deal Circular Festival Pledge, Boomtown tickets are still available for 2022 but you need to be quick!  

Rosie x