By Brian Cohen
LouFest Organizer
On August 28th and 29th, 18 bands will descend on St Louis for the first ever LouFest Music Festival. The all-ages event in Forest Park will feature 2 stages, great food from local restaurants, fun retail, and a Kids Village with activities for our youngest fans.
Main acts include She & Him (featuring actress Zooey Deschannel and guitar wizard M Ward), Canadian phenoms Broken Social Scene, and local favorite Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.
A massive outdoor party with thousands of people could be a recipe for environmental disaster. But Loufest is committed to creating a different kind of festival—one that’s fan friendly and eco friendly.
For starters, Loufest has partnered with 3Degrees and Pure Power to purchase renewable energy credits to offset the festival’s electrical use and carbon offsets for all band and audience travel. And we’re using St Louis Earth Day’s “Recycling on the Go” program to coordinate all of our waste collection and sorting.
To reduce plastic bottle waste, LouFest is offering a free refillable water program. Fans are invited, even encouraged, to bring their own water bottles to refill at the festival. And all food and beverages sold at Loufest will be served in compostable plates, napkins and cups. Our goal is to recycle or compost almost all waste generated by the festival.
To minimize traffic and pollution in our fair city, Loufest is encouraging fans to use the MetroLink and MetroBus. Schedules for both are listed on the festival website for easy reference.
But we’re not stopping there. Loufest is committed to teaching our fans how they can practice green living every day, even after the music’s over. To do this we’ve created the LouFest EcoZone. This is a special area of the festival dedicated to conservation, recycling, and clean energy.
The EcoZone will feature local vendors representing multiple approaches to sustainable living. Fans will come for the great music, but hopefully they’ll leave with much more.
So come out and support St Louis’ newest green festival. With amazing food, entertainment, and music, all presented in an environmentally responsible way, it should be a great weekend. For more information and to buy tickets, visit www.loufest.com.