EDIT: …APRIL FOOL!

A FESTIVAL FIRST!

Audience and crew travel currently makes up over 90% of Shambala’s travel emissions.

We’ve done a huge amount to reduce this already – from offering 25% of tickets at all tier as coach packages, subsidising coaches, balancing travel miles with Energy Revolution, partnering with GoCarShare, offering electric car charging on site and working with Red Fox to run guided bike rides from Bristol, London and Sheffield to the site – but we feel there is more that could be done.

In a HUGE first for the festival industry, by 2020 we pledge to be utterly free of all vehicles.

This includes cars, lorries, vans and buses. We’ll be removing car and van passes from sale, and removing all car parks from the festival site.

HOW THIS WILL WORK FOR OUR AUDIENCE:

• Pedal power: We’ll be tripling the amount of cycle packages, running from all major cities.
• Horse power: We’ve laid on over 200 horse drawn carriages, to pick up festival goers (and their camping kit) from the local train station, from which it’s just a short, scenic journey to the festival site.
• Use your getaway sticks! We’ll be offering guided walks from London, Bristol, Birmingham and Sheffield – stopping at least 10 campsites along the way!
• Take to the skies! Arrive on site in style, with our official Shambala paraglide packages.
• Ahoy there! We’re partnering with the Canal & Riverside Trust, to introduce ‘Shambarges’ – dedicated narrow boats which will ferry you to site! (Please note, Shambarge passengers will need to start their journeys in early July to arrive on time, so get your holiday requests in now).

Fairness is important to us, so the vehicle ban will also apply to crew and artists. Obviously this throws up some serious logistical hurdles, but we’re confident we’ve found some workable solutions.

HOW THIS WILL WORK FOR OUR SITE BUILD:

Introducing The Human Conveyor Belt! To avoid having lorries and vans full of equipment driving to site, we’ll be quadrupling the size of our site crew, and using them to create a human chain, from a few major cities to site. Our build equipment will then be passed to site, from hand to hand, until it arrives on site, with zero carbon emissions created.

HOW THIS WILL WORK FOR OUR ARTISTS:

We’ve decided to go locally sourced! The Shambala 2020 musical line up will be sourced exclusively from within 3 miles of the festival site, to ensure all artists are able to arrive on foot – great news for Market Harborough’s budding music scene.

Expect headline slots from the likes of the Northampton Harmonica Society, the Great Oxendon Womens Institute Choir and the Kettering Kazoo Club!

Shambalans, you’ve always had our back when it’s come to pioneering new, green iniatives – we hope this time is no exception.

Join the vehicle-free revolution – you’d be a fool not to.

Love, The Shambala Team x