Festival organisers are determined to ensure the Green Bella campaign means nothing but great memories are left behind after this year’s event.
When it’s not hosting the iconic music festival, Belladrum Estate is quiet aside from the odd walker, farmer and forester.
After colouring its vast grounds with tens of thousands of people, stages and tents for a couple of weeks each year, festival producer Dougie Brown has always been determined to make sure the estate is returned to its usual quaint and clean self.
“We fully appreciate where we are, we’re in a beautiful part of the country, we are also in people’s home,” he said.
“This is not a field in the middle of nowhere, people live around here and we need to respect and look after the land. We all have a moral obligation and, when Belladrum leaves and the estate returns to its day to day use, we want to leave as little impact as we physically can.”
From reusable cups to clean camping fields, organisers hope the Green Bella campaign will help make this Belladrum’s greenest year yet.
Clean fields
When booking tickets for this year’s nearly sold out event, festival goers could choose to spend the weekend in the clean fields.
All 3,000 people who have signed up to this have done so under the agreement that they will take all camping equipment home, remove all pegs from the ground and leave the site exactly as they found it.
“Our clean fields are areas where we’re trying to encourage people who are really proactive on their own to join us,” said Mr Brown.
Clean fields were first introduced at the festival in 2017 and have become increasingly popular over the years as Green Bella has grown.
Green Goblet
Instead of going through some 9,000 plastic cups like they have in previous years, festival organisers this year have introduced the Green Goblet reusable cup scheme.
When buying their first drink of the weekend, festival goers will pay an extra £1 to receive their cup, which can then be exchanged for a clean one every time they buy another drink.
Though this will create more work for those working at the festival, Mr Brown said it will have a “great impact” on lowering the festival’s carbon footprint.
Travel
Artists performing at Belladrum this year will scoot around the festival village in hybrid and electrical cars as part of the Green Bella campaign.
Anyone going along to the festival is being encouraged to car share or to make use of the shuttle bus services that have been set up between the estate and Inverness.
Talking about the effort being put into making this year’s festival even more eco friendly than those before it, Mr Brown said: “It’s something we’ve always been trying to make steps towards. You’re building such a big infrastructure around an event, it can be quite difficult to find ways to make meaningful changes.”
Highlands Support Refugees
Mr Brown said one of the biggest problems Belladrum faces is people leaving behind camping equipment after the festival.
He said: “There’s such a strong market with these super cheap tents that people basically buy as disposable items, we need to encourage people to move away from that and take their tents home with them.”
Highlands Support Refugees will have an area at the festival where people can drop off camping equipment they don’t want to carry home, but Mr Brown stressed it needs to be of a good quality.
“They do have an area where people can go and donate things, but that only works if they’re decent quality and they have been taken care of,” he said.
“The cheap, disposable ones, they can’t be used for anything, they’re not good enough to be taken to refugee camps or anything as the quality is so low.”
Cube modular
Instead of using portacabins for backstage shelter, this year organisers have made the switch to Cube Modular.
The new foldable cabins can be stacked on top of one another, offering an 80% reduction in storage when compared to fixed frame containers.
Only three trucks will be needed to install this year’s cabins compared to the 15 that have been needed in previous years, meaning both costs and emissions will be cut significantly.
Conversation