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August 12, 2008

A Surprisingly Green All Points West Music and Arts Festival.

This past weekend, I worked for Sambazon at the All Points West Music and Arts Festival at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ. It’s fun working at an event like this, where most people are familiar with organic, but few with superfoods and even less with fair trade, so there’s an opportunity for information sharing. And interacting with people when they try acai for the first time is great.

But what was surprising and comforting was that the festival wasn’t publicized as an environmentally-friendly event, however I found many green elements when I arrived and began to explore the grounds.  Most prominent was the Village Green of Jack Johnson’s All At Once organization, set up to educate and connect concert attendees with nonprofit organizations such as Climate Counts and Vote the Environment. Voter registration actually extended past the village, as volunteers worked the crowds. Ben Jelen was also a part of the line-up, with his foundation and connected Eastport Natural Collection products also having a presence. Global Inheritance, a nonprofit working to reinvent activism for today’s young generation, set up its Trashed Recycling Store, where concert-goers could exchange recyclables for merchandise. Next door to their booth was RE:VOLVE Apparel Project for Sustainable Living, selling their t-shirts which are sustainably produced and graphically beautiful. I’ve been eyeing their tee with the factory blowing hearts instead of smoke for ages!  Art installations included the stunning (and shade-producing) Solar Pavilion 2, constructed with a zero-waste mandate with eco-friendly materials.

Past Elephant interviewee Your Vegas was also at the festival and sounded great, but I’d have to say my musical highlight was the Secret Machines. They have been a favorite of mine for a few years, and their set was fantastic and afterward I happened to look up and see that all three band members were standing together near the crowd. I grabbed some bottles of acai and ran towards them with my gift. They couldn’t have been nicer and also appreciated that they could have something healthy to drink at the event (thanks to the acai gods for assisting in me meeting my rock idols)!

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