This week social media captured Ed Sheeran stepping off an overnight train from Sydney into Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station. On an Australian tour, the performer—often described in the press as a roughly USD 700 million star—opted for an 11-hour rail journey instead of a one-hour flight. Reports note his wife, Cherry Seaborn, works in sustainability and that Sheeran has spoken about buying land to “rewild” parts of the UK, citing his affection for local wildlife and landscapes.
In an industry built on tight timetables and frequent flights, that train choice is largely symbolic: a personal effort to lower carbon emissions. Symbols matter, however. Australia hosts hundreds of concerts and more than 160 music festivals a year; in 2024 the live entertainment sector recorded over 31 million attendances, including more than 14 million concertgoers. Big, sold-out shows carry a sizable environmental footprint.
Event emissions scale widely. Conferences can generate hundreds or thousands of tonnes of CO2, large festivals and concerts can reach tens of thousands, and global mega-events such as the Olympics can produce hundreds of thousands or more. A common benchmark is roughly 5 kg CO2 per attendee per day, although actual impacts hinge on travel distances and event design. There’s no single global tally for concerts; most estimates are made event by event. UK music festivals alone are estimated to emit more than 400,000 tonnes of CO2 annually—about the same as the yearly emissions of some 230,000 average passenger cars.
Carbon audits typically examine how the audience travels to and from venues, where visitors stay, food and drink choices, site power sources and waste handling. While media attention often centers on artist flights and production gear, studies show those are rarely the dominant sources. Audience transport is usually the largest contributor: multi-city tour analyses found attendee travel produces roughly 38 times more emissions than artist and crew travel, hotels and equipment combined. Accommodation often ranks second when events attract interstate or international visitors. Food and beverage, venue energy, freight logistics and waste disposal tend to make smaller, though still important, contributions.
The live-music sector is responding with a range of approaches, particularly around energy use and touring logistics. Coldplay reported cutting its direct touring emissions by about 60% compared with its 2016–17 stadium tour, based on show-by-show comparisons and independent audits. Measures included replacing diesel generators with battery banks, using renewable power, redesigning freight flows and trialing kinetic-energy concepts such as power-generating dancefloors and bicycles. The tour also committed to one tree being planted per ticket, supporting millions of plantings globally. In Bristol, Massive Attack staged ACT 1.5 as one of the lowest-carbon live events to date, deploying battery power, plant-based catering, reduced freight and incentives to encourage low-carbon audience travel.
Despite technological and operational gains, these improvements have limits unless fan travel habits change. Green Music Australia highlights fan transport as a primary remaining emission source and urges organisers to adopt public-transport incentives, choose venues with good transit links and form travel partnerships. It’s relatively straightforward to reduce emissions from stages and production; shifting how tens of thousands of attendees arrive is the tougher challenge.
Sheeran’s cross-country train ride is a small step, but public choices like it can help normalize lower-carbon travel and reinforce environmental values across an industry already exposed to climate risks. A global review of more than 2,000 mass gatherings disrupted by extreme weather between 2004 and 2024 found arts, cultural and entertainment events—especially festivals and concerts—are frequently affected by storms, heat and other climate impacts.
In short, the live-events sector is both a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and increasingly vulnerable to climate change. Cutting event footprints should be central to the industry’s adaptation strategies—its long-term viability depends on more stable environmental and climatic conditions.
