Swiftly to Sustainability: How “Building X” could power a pop icon's world tour

Imagine the happiness on the faces of the tens of thousands of people looking at you.

As the tour manager of the superstar who is about to walk onto the stage of the magnificent MetLife Stadium in New York, you made this moment possible. Tonight her name is Taylor but tomorrow it could be Billie, Olivia, Sabrina, Ed or Bruno. You have been doing this long enough to know that whoever the pop star is and wherever the concert takes place, you will witness a potent wave of unbridled love sweep through the crowd as soon as the music starts.?

That is why you usually feel a mixture of excitement and worry right before the show because you know one thing: something can always go wrong. But tonight, you are enjoying the moment. The reason is simple. Before embarking on this world tour, you decided to embrace the new era of sustainable live music production and transform your building operations.

An open-source digital platform?

You made the move not because you heard the prophecy but simply because in a world where buildings are roughly responsible for 40% of total energy use, you needed an innovative solution to run a sustainable show. You wanted real-time access control, visitor management, automated ticket-selling, waste management, and occupancy-based systems. Long story short, you came to the conclusion you needed Building X. Siemens' innovative open source digital platform helped you meticulously plan for this world tour and ensure everything in each venue is about energy.

Like the vast majority of the people in the crowd facing you, you are eco-conscious and you had been looking for ways to offset the carbon footprint of the tour. All these years touring with pop stars have taught you that the key to a successful and sustainable show is to optimize and save energy in the venue while creating the perfect setting for a powerful communion between the artist and the crowd.??

Once you made the decision to deploy Building X, you started discovering the full range of possibilities you had to optimize automatically heating, cooling, ventilation in the venues of the tour based on air temperatures and the number of people in the crowd. You also started optimizing the lighting. All this contributed to your ability to significantly reduce the show’s energy consumption and carbon footprint. You made the calculation: if, instead of consuming 500 Kilowatt hours (kWh), the show consumed 400 kWh, you would be able to offset 50 tons of CO2.??

For tonight’s concert, air quality might not be a major issue at an open air venue such as Metlife Stadium but for the show at the indoor Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia two nights ago, it definitely was. The CO2 sensors you deployed there with Building X allowed you to monitor air quality and improve the ventilation of the building in real time.?

Make data-driven decisions?

From your vantage point backstage, you can see people in the crowd wearing the wristbands with the location tracking device they received when entering the stadium. These wristbands and the advanced AI algorithms of #BuildingX allow your crew to make data-driven decisions in real time by allowing them to know how many people are attending, which restrooms they are using and where they are buying their food and beverages.??

These visitor management tools provide valuable data to prevent overcrowding in certain areas of the venue as well as to optimize the cleaning of bathrooms and the inventory of food vendors. You knew from past shows that ice cream would be in high demand tonight. Your food and beverage manager just called you to confirm it is indeed the case. But thanks to the previous data collected with Building X and the information you are getting in real-time from the food vendors, you know there will be enough ice cream for the show. And you will also be able to reduce food waste like you did at all the previous concerts on this tour.??

Sustainability has become a necessary quest in the live music industry and you are happy to be contributing to this movement. During its own world tour, the British pop band Coldplay proved artists and superstars could reduce their environmental footprint by collecting data on its own sustainability initiatives. Tonight you are doing the same with Building X while making sure the show is sustainable.?

The start of a journey?

When the MC told the crowd about that accomplishment a few minutes ago, he got a huge cheer from the thousands of concert-goers who know we have we have always had to be mindful of our relationship with planet Earth. But tonight, this is us trying collectively to make a lasting difference. And as the lights finally dim and the crowd starts singing with Taylor, you know deep inside your heart: It's the start of a long but incredibly exciting sustainability journey.?

Disclaimer: This blog post describes a theoretical scenario intended to illustrate the features and potential applications of Building X to help with managing big shows in arenas more sustainably. It's told from the perspective of a tour manager.?

Copyright: Siemens AG