Colours of Ostrava
www.posiv.cz ǀ 29
SUSTAINABILITY
Over more than twenty years, we have
implemented a number of projects that
we now consider a matter of course.
These range from providing drinking
water on site and the Festival Ticket
supporting the use of public transport,
through cooperation with Nextbike shared
bicycles, to the Mental Health Point
and the extensive Colours Without Barriers
project, which makes the festival accessible
to people with disabilities.
In the area of sustainable transport, this
year we are continuing with the Colours
Express, a specially dispatched Czech
Railways train featuring an onboard
concert by the band Gufrau, and we
are further developing our cooperation
with Nextbike. Visitors will have three
bonus stations available at the Hlubina,
Ruská and Lávka entrances. When renting
a bicycle from these locations, they
will receive 15 minutes of cycling free
of charge, so getting to the city centre or
the festival campsite will take only a few
minutes.
Social responsibility and inclusion are
equally important to us. That is why,
for example, we allow seniors to enter
free of charge on Saturday and have long
involved seniors in volunteer activities as
well. We want Colours of Ostrava to be
a festival open to everyone, regardless
of age, health condition or life situation.
We also see festivals as places that help
shape social norms. In a certain sense,
they function as influencers – showing
what responsible behaviour can look
like in practice. From waste sorting
and environmentally friendly transport
to mutual respect. We consider this to be
one of our greatest responsibilities.
What still troubles you in terms
of sustainability, and where do you not
yet have a solution?
One of the areas we are still dealing
with, and where there is no simple
solution yet, is transport and logistics
connected with artists, their teams
and festival visitors. For example, we
are looking for ways to work more
efficiently with accommodation so that
there is less need for repeated transfers
between the hotel, airport, soundcheck
and the performance itself.
Transport is one of the significant sources
of emissions associated with organising
large cultural events. That is why we try
to offer visitors alternatives to individual
car transport. The Festival Ticket
in the DPO app has been working well
over the long term, and the Heimstaden
“We’ll Take You Home” night buses
are also a very important part of this.
Thanks to them, visitors can return
safely, for a symbolic price, to various
places across the Moravian-Silesian
Region after the programme ends,
without needing to use their own car.
On the other hand, we can see that artists
themselves are now very aware of these
issues and often come up with solutions
that make sense both economically
and environmentally. Many international
performers fly to Europe for an entire tour
and then travel between individual stops
together with their crew in tour buses,
which significantly reduces the number
of individual transfers.
Alongside shared transport and tour buses,
we also try to support the use of electric
vehicles for the local transport of artists
and their teams between the airport, hotel
and festival site. This is not a solution that
would, in itself, eliminate all emissions
connected with transport, but it is one
of the steps that helps reduce the impact
of festival operations.
We have also managed to do a great
deal of work in the area of hospitality
riders. Today, we communicate the real
needs of individual teams with artists’
management in much greater detail, which
helps us reduce waste and the amount
of unused food that would otherwise end
up as waste.
At the same time, a number of small
changes have been made in this
area in recent years, almost invisible
to the ordinary visitor. For example, we
have banned the use of plastic confetti
and other single-use effects. There are
dozens of similar measures. Visitors often
do not even notice them, but it is precisely
the sum of these small steps that ultimately
has a significant impact.
Today, we do not see sustainability only
as a question of waste on the festival site,
but as a topic that runs through the entire
festival ecosystem – from transport
and production to cooperation with artists
and their teams. And that is precisely
where we still see room for further
improvement.
What can visitors look forward to this
year – not only musically, but also
in terms of sustainability? Are you
planning anything new?
For us, sustainability is not only
about major projects, but often also
about addressing seemingly small details
that ultimately have a major impact. One
of this year’s new features will be a greater
focus on the collection and recycling
of cigarette butts and used heated
tobacco sticks.
A cigarette butt is certainly not an invisible
problem. A cigarette filter can take
up to fifteen years to decompose in nature,
which is why this year visitors will find
special bins from Reneso on the festival
site, intended specifically for cigarette
butts and used heated tobacco sticks.
Portable collection containers, the so-
called “heetelníky”, will also be available
and distributed free of charge by the IQOS
team.
We are also hugely pleased about our
partnership with the Hedepy platform,
which will send its psychotherapists
to the festival site. They will support
the professionals providing psychological
first aid at the Mental Health Point
by the entrance gate.
And the music programme of the twenty-
third edition is beautifully illustrated by two
statistics. Two thirds of our line-up will
be appearing in the Czech Republic
for the first time, including debut visits
by the singer Lorde and the singer Teddy
Swims. And women make up 40% of our
line-up. We have not always managed
to put this together in the past, but this
year it makes us all the happier, because
the main evening slots will also belong
to outstanding female artists such as LP,
AURORA and Alison Wonderland. Last
but not least, we are curious to see how
many parents will be waiting with their
children for Mira’s original vocals
from the animated film KPop Demon
Hunters, performed by Audrey Nuna.