Sustainability | Roots N Blues Festival

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How You Can Help

Our 2019 Sustainability Director, Scout Merry, our festival management team and our volunteer green team encourage you to support our sustainable practices in nearly every aspect of the Roots N Blues Festival Music Festival.

We seek to work with food and drink vendors that integrate green practices in their operations. Vendors are encouraged to use only recyclable and compostable containers and utensils. The vendors who facilitate green practices are given priority marketing in Festival social media as well as on-site signage.

Hundreds of signs are posted throughout the festival grounds to inform patrons that there are two designated smoking areas in the park during the Festival. Otherwise, smoking is prohibited in the park. Logboat Brewing Company provides TerraCycle cigarette butt receptacles in our smoking areas to prevent patrons from dropping cigarette filters in the grass.

In our efforts to lead by example, all festival staff and volunteer training sessions and materials include messaging about recycling and tips on how to interact with patrons to encourage and expand our green initiatives.

City of Columbia Solid Waste staff collected only 10.61 tons of refuse from our 10,000 guests during the three days of the 2018 Festival. This City department also reported the collection of 5.37 tons of #1-7 plastics, aluminum, glass, paper, corrugated cardboard and boxboard during the three days of festival operations. That’s two full City recycling trucks!

The City of Columbia provides us with 100 recycling bins and the University of Missouri Athletic Department supplements that number in support of our efforts to make recycling easily accessible throughout the Festival grounds.

Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture, a local nonprofit agency, provides daily composting services for food and drink vendors at the Festival.

Culligan Water provides a public filtered drinking water station in vendor row to encourage festival patrons to bring refillable water bottles.

Festival patrons are offered the opportunity to earn a limited edition Festival Green Team t-shirt by filling a standard City of Columbia recycling bag full of cans and cups from the festival grounds.

On the Monday following the Festival, vendors, stages, and tents are removed and the green team’s work expands significantly. The team reported the collection and delivery of twenty pickup truckloads of materials to City of Columbia recycling centers after the Festival.

Get Involved

Interested in joining our Green Team? Looking for a great way to enjoy the festival for free and do your volunteer work the next day?

Become a Volunteer

Who spied one of these little guys up in the trees at this year's fest?

This cold snap has us dreaming of long days, warm nights, and feeling the Missouri late-summer sun from the top of the ferris wheel 💭

We are thrilled to hear that the University of Missouri's School of Music has named their choral hall after RNB2021 headliner and Missouri Roots Songbook Honoree, Sheryl Crow.

Read the Columbia Tribune's full story here: https://www.columbiatribune.com/story/entertainment/music/2022/01/08/university-of-missouri-school-of-music-names-choral-hall-after-sheryl-crow/9132445002/

We are thrilled to announce that RNB Co-Owners, Shay Jasper and Tracy Lane, will be speaking at the annual Women in Music Summit, which will take place virtually on January 19-21. See story for more details!

Please note: this is not a call for festival submissions - if you or your group is featured, it does not imply an invitation to perform at the festival.

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As 2021 comes to a close, we’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who has supported us through this extraordinary year. This time last year, the fate of Roots N Blues Festival, as well as the music industry at large, was totally uncertain. But thanks to the overwhelming support of this wonderful community, the festival survived the pandemic and prospered in its return. That would not have been possible without our Roots Family, fans, friends, sponsors, and volunteers, as well as those who have donated to Friends of the Festival during our summer campaign and CoMoGives. The National Independent Venue Association also played a tremendous role in keeping us, as well as hundreds of other independent music venues around the country, afloat.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. Roots N Blues is truly a labor of love, and we are so excited to dive into preparations for the 2022 festival. We wish each and every one of you a safe, happy, and healthy new year.

With love,
Shay, Tracy, Jamie, and Sam

Roots N Blues Festival is committed to equitable booking and hosting artists who not only kill it on stage, but promote positive social change through their strength, vulnerability, and vision.

If you have not already, please consider donating to Friends of the Festival, the nonprofit that supports RNB, during the #CoMoGives campaign which runs until December 31st. You can make a donation by visiting the link in our bio!

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