» Keeping the Brighton Festival green
The people behind this month’s spectacular Brighton Festival chat to Wave about ensuring the city has an event to be proud of when it comes to being green
Coming up with green alternatives takes creativity and initiative – are there any performances or events taking place at this year’s event that you find particularly inspiring?
In this years’ Brighton Festival – which runs from 3-25 May – we have Sir David King, one of the leaders in the environmental field. Former Chief Scientific Adviser to the government, he will be looking beyond the spin and cutting straight to the chase. Also Rider Spoke is a unique event that will have participants engaging in their own personal cycle trail around the streets of Brighton seeking out the hidden spaces in the city.
Sir David King
When and where will Sir David King be giving his talk? Where can people get tickets from?
In the Pavilion Theatre on 8 May. Tickets cost £7.50 and can be bought from the Brighton Dome Ticket Office, in person, by calling 01273 709709 or on the website www.brightonfestival.org
Rider Spoke sounds amazing!
Rider Spoke are part of the free outdoor programme, and their performance takes participants on a night-time cycle through the city’s secret spaces and hidden sanctuaries. Each person embarks on their own individual journey armed with a bike and handlebarmounted video consul. You then take a journey answering questions, leaving memories or simply eavesdropping on fellow players. It runs from 8-11 May, with slots every 15 minutes from 6pm-10pm on the 8th, 10th and 11th. Really adventurous players can take part on 9 May, when the programme will run from 8pm-2am. Tickets are free but must be booked in advance through the Ticket Office.
When and where is Alex James giving his talk?
Alex James is on 21 May in the Corn Exchange and tickets can be bought from Brighton Dome Ticket Office.
Alex James
You’re working with Southern Trains this year who are providing late express trains back to London for our visitors from the capital. What about people who are travelling in from more local areas like Lewes or Uckfield – will there be any other extra public transport for them? Where is the best place or website for people looking to find out about public transport information?
The Southern Fast late train stops at East Croydon before going on to Clapham Junction and Victoria and should be a great way to encourage friends to visit the Festival just for a day. The usual services run to Lewes – last one at 11.34pm which is in plenty for time for all this year’s Festival events. Southern have also extended the service through to Chichester for this year. For information about buses try www.buses.co.uk or call 01273 886200. For national rail enquiries contact www.nationalrail.co.uk or call 08457 484950.
What sort of work are you doing with Journey On? What kinds of things are they doing to get people in the City to ditch their cars and cycle or walk instead?
Journey On (www.journeyon.co.uk) is a great website initiative to encourage cycling and walking around the City. For the Festival they are producing special route planners to all our venues both on foot, by bike and by bus. It also calculates the distance, cost and carbon emissions for your journey and even the number of calories you’ll burn along the way! All help to make travelling between Festival venues as stress-free as possible.
Rider Spoke
How does your media partnership with Sky Arts work? How will they be helping to keep the Festival carbon neutral?
Sky Arts will be producing a 10-minute programme about Brighton Festival which will include interviews with some of our programmers and footage of rehearsals. The programme will give an overview of the 2008 Festival and the unique mix and diversity of artists and events during the 23 packed days. We are delighted to be working with the first carbon neutral media company as there is a real synergy between our two companies.
You’re using a company called Impact to deliver your brochures because they are one of the most environmentally friendly delivery companies – how did they persuade you?
They believe that good business is good sense, which is why they were awarded the Green Mark in 2003 in recognition of their environmental policies. In July 2007 they became the UK’s first Carbon Neutral print display company. They are meticulous about their recycling, use LPG vans as part or their fleet, and for the central London runs use cycle deliveries. We are investigating these for Brighton and hope to be able to trial them next year.
Where did you find the recycled paper, biodegradable inks, treatments and polythene bags for your brochures? Was it easy to track them down?
We were committed to ensuring that all our printed materials were as environmentally friendly as possible and so worked with our suppliers to source them for us – we made them do all the work but are really pleased with the quality of the result and the fact we were able to follow through on our commitments.
Do you plan to bring in more green initiatives in the future, such as using renewable energy?
Ideally we would love to bring in more green initiatives like renewable energy, but as a charity with limited budgets, it can be a challenge to carry out all of our grand plans!
