Initial analysis and discoveries from looking at Vinje Rock and Øya, as well as the Ravnedalen Live festival. Vinje Rock and Øya are two very different but quite famous festivals in Norway, that both are very popular. Ravnedalen Live showed up in my research as a festival that manages its environmental impact well, and has had some very ambitious goals about reducing their impact and trash.
Above is a small mind map of my first observations and what elements are important to take with as a guide to host other festivals. One thing that clearly is important for all three festivals and would be extremely important for new festivals is the cooperation with local businesses and communities. Both Øya and Vinje rock have over the 20+ years they have existed built strong ties to the communities they exist in. Øya uses a portion of their profits every year to support projects for youth in the part of the city they are in. Vinje Rock uses a large amount of local business as their suppliers, as well as volunteers coming from the local community. Vinje Rock is a different type then Øya as it much more of a corner stone business in a small community, which gives it a different responsibility but also options when it comes to cooperation.
From Øya and Ravnedalen they have done a lot of very good work about research on waste management, and especially plastic beer glasses. It is very interesting to compare Norway and Austria on this, as Austria has a strong culture for pant on beer glasses, something that is not usual in Norway. One of the reasons for this might be that Austrian largely use cash, which makes returning a euro for a cup quite easy, but this is harder in Norway. An interesting way of solving this comes from Ravnedalen, who would give people who returned a certain amount of plastic glasses a free drink. This shows that a festival guide for Norway should contain recommendations and a way to return glasses.
