AGF FESTIVALS SEEK AUDIENCE INSIGHT: SUSTAINABILITY AND COVID-19

Following over a decade of ground- breaking research into audience attitudes to sustainability and the environmental impact of events and festivals, A Greener Festival launches its latest audience survey in collaborations with festivals from around the world.This survey follows on from the AGF surveys of 2006, 2008, 2012 and 2013 and aims to find out what audience attitudes are now in the midst of the pandemic.Teresa Moore Director and lead on research for AGF said “we are living through a time when we have seen the biggest experiment in public behaviour change due to Covid 19 and lockdown for at least a generation. What impact that might have on audiences in the longer term is important for all those involved in the event and festival industries.”AGF has hosted fortnightly meetings with the global festival community since April, with a focus on how the sector can return with even better environmental and social credentials than before the pandemic. Understanding the audience attitudes and needs is a key component to achieving this, and is why this survey is the first public facing project to come from the working group.Em Weirdigan, Director of UK festival, The Green Gathering said ""AGF has been doing such great work throughout this pandemic, continuing to challenge festival organisers and audiences to adopt greener solutions and habits. The Green Gathering is a huge fan and will be cheerleading alongside AGF for a recovery that builds towards climate justice and sustainability. We can't afford to lose ground now!"Teresa Moore went on to say “Organisers have been thinking long and hard about the issues they now face in staging their events and how to keep up the momentum for sustainability created over recent years. But with the industry effectively shut down for a year the big unknown is what audiences are thinking. How will they respond to the opening up of the industry when that takes place? Will the growth in importance of sustainable practices seen in the years prior to the pandemic continue or has it been stopped in its tracks?”The survey is available here:https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/AGF_Audience_2020Full results and findings will be announced at AGFs annual flagship event, the Green Events & Innovations Conference - GEI13 - in early March.The results of previous AGF research can be found here: https://agreenerfuture.com/knowledge-base/