What’s the impact of a live concert?

The music industry has changed dramatically just in my lifetime, with a phase out of CD’s to downloading songs on utorrent or songs.pk, then purchasing songs on iTunes, and from iTunes to digital streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.

And yet technology will never be able to replace the live experiences. Over the last 20 years, the concert industry has grown multifold. The largest event promoter in the world, LiveNation just released its 2023 numbers and its mind boggling. They promoted 45,000 concerts in 1 year! To put that into perspective, thats hosting 123 concerts every single day.?

They hosted 145MN fans?—?80MN in North America and 65MN across the globe through their shows in 2023 alone. And we’re talking about only 1 company at the moment.?

Each attendees love their concert experience. Talking closer to home, We were fortunate to partner with BookMyShow Live which promoted shows like Ed Sheeran, Lollapalooza, Backstreet Boys, MotoGP and many more. Within a year, their live events division clocked 250CR ($30MN) in revenue

But the real question still remains?—?What’s the impact on climate? With artists travelling to 100 cities in a year with their production crew, few times they transport their entire set?—?Audio, Production, Screens and Stage with them. This has a massive CO2 impact

Globally, multiple artists have tried to measure their impact and find alternative ways to offset it. Coldplay?—?released its impact report which stated they have reduced 50% emissions from their last tour.

But wait?—?whats a carbon emission and how do we calculate it?

Emissions generated by using fossil fuel (burning mostly)?—?Eg burning coal for electricity, diesel for power for cars, gas for transportation and production.?

In the events industry?—?there are 2 primary emissions:

1. Transportation Emissions?—?Emissions to transport an asset from point A to B and then back
2. Manufacturing/Use Emissions?—?If its a virgin asset going to be used only once then we take the entire manufacturing emissions otherwise we break it done and divide it by the number of uses

Here’s a breakdown of how are emissions calculated for a live event:

To go deeper into each segment and to understand what are the actual parameters for calculation

1. Production?—?

Yes, you are reading it correctly, Production has 115 parameters alone. You need to account for each vendor, their transportation, emissions taken to manufacture an asset and how many times has it been reused & so much more! Lets look at the top most contributor in production

Power?—?Historically, this has been one of the most polluting areas for events. For Indoor events?—?If the power requirement is lesser, you might getaway for with house power but majority of the events have either primary or back up through diesel generators! The formula to calculate the footprint is fairly simple?—?No of ltrs/gallon of fuel consumed X Carbon Emission Factor per fuel conversion

Lets take an example of a large outdoor event which hosts 50,000 people?—?They have a power requirement of close 10–12MW on show days! Thats enough to power an entire township for a month. For that much power, we utilise over 90,000LTRs of diesel. Now lets apply the formula

90,000 (LTRs of diesel) * 2.67KGs of CO2e per LTR = 240T of CO2E from power for one event alone?—?roughly accounting for 5KGs of emission per person

Similarly there are other parameters such as internal logistics, air coolers, LED screens, lighting and sound, turnstiles, production offices, construction material, Medical Tents, Walkie Talkies, branding, waste and 100 more things which come under the production unit.?

We need to calculate the emission per use + emission generated during transportation of each asset to calculate the real emissions. Only certain elements like Urinals need to account for additional water wastage, disposal and restocking as well

Usually, the total of all emissions from other production assets would be equivalent to emissions from power. So we’ll count this as 250,000KGs of CO2 emissions as well!?

2. Food and Beverage?—

There are 3 core elements:

Alcohol?—?This is fairly simple to calculate. We need to account for the transportation emissions and manufacturing emissions of each. The former can be calculated with mapping out the stock in flow and outflow with an emission factor used for a vehicle.?

Lets continue the example?—?a 50,000 people event had over 12,000 bottles/cans + additional 12,000 bottles of mixers?

All of the units were transported in 20FT containers from various distribution points. We need to account for the fuel taken to driven those KMs and then account for the emissions of manufacturing each bottle/can along with refilling emissions

On an average, a win bottle generates about 1.6KG of CO2E and transportation can be another 500gms of CO2E. Additionally, the mixers have a lower CO2E as they are made from PET bottles?—?thats about 100gms of CO2E and another 100gms to transport the units. So we’re looking at a gross emission of 24,000 KGs through Alcohol and 2400KGs through mixers

Food?—?This parameter is quite tricky to calculate as we usually can not source the raw material emission so we take an assumption that the source location is the same for all ingredients.?

This sector is further divided between internal catering for crew and food stalls for the attendees on the day. The only difference between both is the number of days and vendors?—?the former is usually outsourced to 1 caterer vs a large event has more than 50 food stalls

The way to calculate this is to account for the amount of meat consumed + amount of vegetarian meals consumed + transportation emissions + emissions of food disposal or donation

For calculation purposes lets assume there is a split of 70:30 (Non Veg?—?Veg ratio). An avg rice chicken meal emission is 1.6KG of CO2E for 75gms of Chicken meal and An avg dal rice and potato meal is of 1KG of CO2E

Continuing the same example of 50,000 attendees?—?there were 7000 meals consumed by the staff (pre, post and on the day) and over 45,000 meals by the attendees.?

So 1.6 x 36,000 + 1 x 16,000 = 73,600 KGs of CO2E

Water?—?Last element of the this section. Very similar to alcohol calculation?—?You need to account for the transportation emissions and manufacturing emissions per use?

For large scale events?—?Water is divided between bottles and refills. The former is fairly simple to calculate and the latter needs to account for the packaging of refill as well. Based on our experience, an evert so large consumes about 30,000 bottles between pre production and post, while an avg attendee reuses the packaging 5 times to refill water

The emisison of refilling water is barely 3 grams but the packing material (500ml PET bottle) generates about 20gms of emissions, 20LTR jar generates over 1.2KG of emissions but is used over 30 times so per use is around 30 gms whereas our cup generates over 110gms of emissions

Over 100,000 LTRs of water was consumed.?

So lets calculate?—?(30,000*23 + 4500*30 + 10,000*110)/1000 = 1925KGs of emissions + another 500kgs of emissions through local transportations

Totally F&B generated over 102,000KGs of CO2E

3. Artist?—

?This is split between 2 key elements?—?Travel and Accomodation.

Air?—?Calculating this a bit tricky as you need to account for the fuel burnt and not the distance along with the amount of times the aircraft has been used and then correct each as per the airline make and class that you choose to travel. Additionally, you need to account for the transportation emissions needed for refueling at every stop as well

MyClimate solves the problem for us by providing an easy calculator. We’re assuming a team of 75 people travel from London and go back there too!?

The tool gives us around 220T of emissions from air travel alone!

Road?—?Similar to airlines, this depends on the fuel type, car type, age of the car (for efficiency), and most importantly KMs driven?

Lets assume we have taken 15 innovas for 75 odd people for 10 days with an average run of 75 KMs with an average efficiency of 15kmpl?

An Avg car generates around 2.67KGs of CO2E per 1 ltr of diesel.?

Lets calculate = 2.67*150 = 400KGs of CO2E

Accomodation?—?Did you know even staying in a hotel creates a carbon footprint? In fact, just one night in a hotel can have the same carbon footprint as a week at home.

70% of the carbon footprint of a hotel stay comes from energy?usage

The biggest contributor to the carbon footprint of your stay in a hotel is the energy that is used, from the lights and air conditioning in your room, to the energy used to wash your sheets and heat your shower.

This means the two most important factors for calculating the overall carbon footprint of a hotel are:

• How much energy they use, and
• The type of energy they use

Using energy from low-carbon renewable sources is a step in the right direction, but if this represents a small proportion of the total energy usage then it won’t significantly reduce the carbon footprint of your stay.

There are many other factors that impact the total energy a hotel uses, from building design to behavioural nudges, but the energy data is the ultimate indicator of how well a hotel is actually managing to reduce the carbon footprint of each guest’s stay.

India’s average for a premium hotel is 48KGs of CO2E per night per room!

Lets calculate?—?75 rooms for 10 nights = 750 room nights

750*48 = 36000KGs of CO2E?

In totality artists ended up accounting for 256,400 KGs of CO2 Emissions

4. Fan Travel?—

There is no definitive way to calculate this but yoyu understand this better from historical data. For an avg 50,000 people show, over 10,000 people travel by cabs and shared transport, 5,000 people travel through personal vehicles and rest travel through public transport

So the split is 10:20:70 (Personal, Shared and Public Transportation)

Assuming an avg train travel is a mix of 80% distance by train travel and 20% through shared transportation = 30kms per person on event day and emission as per Indian Railway is 0.007837 per km per passenger

For Shared Transportation?—?Lets account for 10kms of avg travel and assuming most of the vehicles are run through LPG. Avg emission per km is 0.12 KGs per KM

Lastly, with the same assumption of 10kms for a private vehicle too, the avg emission in India per KM is 0.12 itself

Additionally, if its a global or a national event, you can account for fan travel from various cities or countries as well. If historical data is not available and there is no way to derive where the audience is coming from, its safe to assume 0.5% users traveling from outside = 500KGsCO2E (Flight Emissions) + 2KGs CO2E (Road Emissions) + 50 KGs CO2e (Stay)

Lets calculate?—?35,000*30*0.007837 + 5,000*15*0.12*2 + 10,000*15*0.12*2 + 10,000 + 250*552 = 8229 + 18,000 + 36,000 + 138,000?

= 202,229KGs of CO2 Emissions

5. People?—?

The crew, the team which makes or breaks the event. Similar to artists, we need to account for their travel emissions, accomodation emissions leading upto the final day?

Assuming 500 crew members are working, the split is 30:30:40 (Car, Bikes, Public Transport)

Car and Bike?—?30kms, Train?—?40kms (return)

Using the same formula as for logistics?—?150*30*0.12 + 150*30*0.1 + 200*40*0.007837 = 540 + 450 + 63

= 1053KGs of CO2e (Staff Travel)

For Staff Accomodation?—?Lets assume 100 Room Nights across the entire event (pre and post production)

100*48 = 4800KGs of CO2E

In totality, staff contributes to 6,000KGs of CO2e

6. Miscellaneous?—?

Can anyone ever define miscellaneous? This accounts for any thing you see at en event which can not be categorised under any of the above mentioned buckets. For Eg?—?Waste Management, Merchandise, Online Promotion, Ticketing etc.?

The principals remain the same and we need to calculate the transportation emissions and power emissions for each item. This usually fluctuates from every event and you can assume this to contribute 5% of your total emissions. In our examples case, so far we have?—?490,000 (Production), 102,000 (F&B), 256,400 (Artists), 202,229 (Fan Logistics) & 6,000 (Crew Emissions) *5% = 50,000KGs

THIS GETS US TO OVER 11,20,000 KGS OF CO2 EMISSIONS PER LARGE SCALE EVENT! India alone hosts over 20 of these annually. This also translates to 22KGs of emissions per person just for this event.?

Live Experiences, Movies, Sports and Production Units will continue to see a rise for years to come. If you zoom out and look at countries historically, Users start spending on discretionery items and experiences once they cross a threshold of income. India’s disposal income is at a rise and as that keeps growing, the industry will keep thriving!?

India has the potential to be a billion dollar music experiences, sports experiences, and production houses each and I cant wait to decarbonize all of them in the years to come.?

For the ones who would like to understand my calculations in depth or to get a template of our calculator, please reach out to me!?

For the ones interested to know how can we solve this large problem? Stay tuned, Cupable has something really exciting up our sleeve. Our aim is to decarbonise events and production houses and we are confident of reducing these emissions by atleast 20% in year 1 and 75% by year 5.?

References:?

Calculation principles - Flight Emissions Calculator Find out more about the calculation bases of our flight emissions calculator: flight route, aircraft type, number of…www.myclimate.org

Indian Railways and carbon emission In India, the transport sector accounted for 13.2% of energy related CO2 emissions (272 million tCO2 ), and for 14.www.dhirubhai.net

What are the CO2 emissions of my car? | Age Co Wondering how much CO2 your car produces over its lifetime? Age Co reveals the average CO2 cars emit each year and per…www.ageco.co.uk

https://staze.com/blog/why-does-staying-in-a-hotel-have-a-carbon-footprint/#:~:text=The%20average%20carbon%20footprint%20of,hotel%20stay%20is%2040kg%20CO2*&text=Staze%20acts%20as%20an%20independent,carbon%20footprints%20of%20different%20activities.

The Carbon Emissions of Staying in a Hotel - Circular Ecology Have you ever wondered what the carbon emissions of staying in a hotel might be? It can vary dramatically from country…circularecology.com

https://www.ceew.in/publications/india-transport-energy-use-carbon-emissions-and-decarbonisation#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20direct%20emissions%20(tailpipe,more%20than%2092%20per%20cent.

Find out the Carbon Footprint of Common Items - clever carbon So you know your carbon footprint - so what? Our list covers how many of the things we buy today affect our carbon…clevercarbon.io

Are Diesel Generators Bad for the Environment? Learn why diesel generators aren't the environmental polluters some believe thanks to tighter regulations and industry…www.wpowerproducts.com

The Carbon-Footprint of Diesel Generators Diesel-fueled generators have long been the foundation of emergency backup power. According to economic and public…www.feace.com

https://medium.com/@celebr8vegan/alcohol-production-and-green-house-gas-emissions-bde00562988b#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20study%20published,of%20CO%E2%82%82e%20emissions%20per%20liter.

How to calculate motorbike CO2 emissions - Thrust Carbon Calculating motorbike CO2 emissions is very straightforward. There are two methods to calculate motorbike CO2…thrustcarbon.com