CCB Magazine

Huge amounts of waste, trampled green spaces, crowds of people in one place, tents left behind, camping chairs, smelly porta-potties and alcohol corpses scattered over the grounds - this is what local festival culture looks like. Robert Stolt from the festival consultancy FUCHS & HIRSCH in Berlin-Pankow advises festival planners on how to plan and (re)design festivals ecologically. A conversation with a man who turns the cultural screws.

Interview Lino Knocke

CCB Magazine: Hi Robert. The total event market in 2018 has included about 3 million events. Among events, festivals are by far the most energy and resource hungry. That's why you advise festival planners on sustainability strategies. But can a festival even be sustainable?

Robert Stolt:Of course! It not only can, it must. Sustainability has become almost a household word and has to be used for everything. But especially on the part of festival visitors, there is an ever-increasing demand for more environmentally friendly festivals.

Behind FUCHS & HIRSCH are something like the yellow pages of quality management, tailored for festivals. We arrange the product or the service of our partners to the suitable festival. We know exactly who to recommend and who to leave out

CCB Magazine: Can you give an example of a sustainable festival?

Robert Stolt: Example FUTUR ZWEI festival near Hamburg: The festival has a minimal waste balance, guarded bicycle parking and solar-powered stages. As soon as the sun is gone, they switch to silent disco: The DJ only plays until the last of the energy is used up - then everyone goes home. The catering is completely organic and regionally organized. At the end of the festival, there is a comprehensive final analysis of the CO2 footprint.

CCB Magazine: You have a consulting agency, FUCHS & HIRSCH. What role do you play in it?

Robert Stolt: We are networkers at heart. Behind FUCHS & HIRSCH are something like the yellow pages of quality management, tailored for festivals. On the one hand, people approach us with their innovations, for example a recyclable freezer box for visitors. Or seed confetti, biodegradable glitter, deposit tokens made from scrap wood. These innovative people often have the problem of not being able to approach the festival operators, because they are usually overwhelmed by requests. We mediate. On the other hand, we get requests from festivals that want to develop sustainable concepts.

Photo © Fuchs & Hirsch

CCB Magazine: You've been around since 2015, and as a festival consultancy you always try to keep sustainability in mind. What was the impetus for this?

Robert Stolt: We are trained event managers and have always been in the festival business and have helped organize major events. I come from the marketing sector, so to speak, and often received inquiries about who was doing what in the festival industry. At some point, the inquiries piled up so much that I thought with my colleague: Man, we have to bundle all this together. So I made lists of various service providers, from catering to stage construction. We threw our saved money together, commissioned our website and worked out the individual modules: Festival grounds, technology, decoration, catering, marketing, promotion, sponsorship, etc. In 2018, things really started popping with inquiries, all through word-of-mouth, no Facebook or Instagram.

Especially for inexperienced festivals or start-ups you can tell exactly what it takes to organize a sustainable festival from the beginning.  From the organizer's point of view, the most important thing is that you have a really good team behind you

CCB Magazine: You now worked with 70 festivals. What kind of festivals are they?

Robert Stolt: Especially many new ones. Many that are in the range of up to 10,000 guests. Especially with inexperienced festivals or start-ups, you can tell exactly what it takes to be a sustainable festival from the beginning. Of course, it's not enough for people to just come to us with their idea - they have to have a plan. Above all, we also check the service providers we arrange and ask the festival operators if everything went smoothly, too. That's how we sift out who we recommend and who we'd better leave out. Because if something was not satisfactory, it falls back on us. In this case, consulting also means giving feedback on what needs to be improved.

CCB Magazine: Now let's be specific: What does it take to organize a sustainable festival right from the start?

Photo © Fuchs & Hirsch

Robert Stolt: All the cogs have to mesh. From the organizer's point of view, the most important thing is that you have a really good team behind you. For a start-up, the first question is: Which bank do I choose? The GLS Bank, for example, is committed to social projects. These are the feet on which you stand. Then come the basic questions of your orientation: Do you want a vegetarian or vegan festival? Which drinks should be sold? A part of the beverage brand Solimate will be donated to Seewatch, for example. Of course, this also benefits the external perception of the festival. You should communicate the concept clearly from the beginning and stay true to your line. If you change every year, you can scare a lot of people away. Be aware of your target group, which you want to carry in the long run. 

The more festivals become sustainable, the more affordable and feasible they become. This means that not only are the ticket prices reasonable, but also the people who make the festival possible are paid appropriately

CCB Magazine: What about social sustainability? Aren't sustainable festivals also more expensive and exclude financially weaker groups due to the price?

Robert Stolt: The more festivals become sustainable, the more affordable and feasible they become. This means that not only are the ticket prices reasonable, but also the people who make the festival possible are paid appropriately. Namely, the musicians. It's often a difficult balancing process. Example: eco-toilets. The most expensive thing about eco-toilets is the logistics costs. Sponsorship also plays an important role: think about it, you're sitting on an eco-toilet, the door closed, and there's a poster of the sponsor in front of you - you immediately have a direct contact! And if the sponsor is smart, he'll make sure that there are only eco-toilets at the whole festival. That doesn't exist yet, but I hope it will develop in that direction.

CCB Magazine: Let's stay with the money. Do you save money with ecological transformation or do you end up paying for it?

Robert Stolt: The question is rather which expenses you can do without. We often give the tip to think about the budget thoroughly - and maybe save on the big advertising budgets for the social media and listen better to the community of the festival. If guests tell you they'd rather have clean composting toilets instead of smelly porta-potties, try to make that happen. The festival guests will thank you for it and you don't have to do the advertising time and again.

CCB Magazine: And how do you finance yourselves? What is your business model?

Robert Stolt: We have said from the beginning: If we arrange something, the festival organizer should not pay anything for it. From our partners, whose services we mediate, we get a percentage share. Our approach is as follows: The service provider should receive approximately the same price, regardless of whether it was arranged by us or requested directly by the organizer. We also still do marketing for festivals, which means nothing with Instagram or Facebook. Instead, we try to arrange interviews or shed light on who is behind which festivals in blogs, so that you can find a lot about the respective festival in Google searches. Because we are a B2B company and not an association, it's difficult to get funding for consulting activities. And we don't want to work with investors, we'd rather build it up slowly and sustainably.

CCB Magazine: The past two years have been quite difficult for festivals and other live events. How did you experience the time? Was there anything to do at all?

Robert Stolt: Of course. Festivals were allowed to have a maximum of a thousand people. We have advised some festivals on how they can split their festival to make several smaller events instead of one big one. In particular, we also advised on streaming as an additional source of income for festivals. Only on the topic of subsidies did we stay out of it.

CCB Magazine: What has been your biggest success so far and where do you see yourselves in the future?

Robert Stolt: Our biggest success happened just a few weeks ago with Future of Festivals, the first festival fair in Germany. Last year, we managed to gather all relevant festival distributors, service providers and event players in the Arena in Berlin on a November weekend. We organized the whole thing under 2G Plus with a total of 2,000 participants. The response was overwhelming! Many said, finally there is a trade show where we can meet and exchange ideas. Germany is lagging behind a bit. Countries like Belgium, Holland or England have had this for a long time. We had some celebrities at the start. From Burning Man, festival head Steven Raspa was a guest, who was very interested in material cycles to see what can be recycled. And from Fusion came Martin Eulenhaupt. We want to expand the fair and establish it as a standard in the coming years.

CCB Magazine: Robert, thank you for the interview.

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