Music festival campsites produce huge amounts of waste, which local councils must contend with. Qualitative and co-design methods are employed in this project to learn how campers’ and festival organisers’ practices – from the interpersonal to the organisational – produce and contend with festival campsite waste.
We conducted social research in partnership with Green Music Australia, Strawberry Fields Festival, Byron Shire Council, and Mullum Cares. Our project outcomes include producing a tool that may be used by other festivals, as well as a diverse strategy set for festivals to engage in combating campsite waste.
See Camping Buddy, a tool to personalise your festival camping experience and help you bring less, borrow more, and cut down your waste.
Media
- The Many Ways to a Waste-Free Festival
- Camping tool set to help music festival patrons clean up their act
- Do you have a Camping Buddy?
Funding / Grants
- NSW Environmental Education Trust (2020 - 2025)
Chief Investigators
Partners
Publications
- Vella, Kellie (2023) Pick Me Up Before You Go-Go: Sociotechnical Strategies for Waste in Music Festival Campsites. In Schmidt, Albrecht, Väänänen, Kaisa, Goyal, Tesh, Kristensson, Per Ola, Peters, Anicia, Mueller, Stefanie, Williamson, Julie R., Wilson, Max L. (Eds.), CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings.