This year the organizers behind the Isle of Wight Festival are encouraging attendees to share their travel plans, find a friend and lower the carbon footprint of their transportation by using the FestivalBUDI scheme.
Despite the Isle of Wight Festival's smaller size -around 43,000 people in 2009- it is one of the best known in the United Kingdom, and the lineup rivals that of bigger UK festival such as Glastonbury or Reading & Leeds.
This year the lineup over June 10-12 includes bands such as Kings of Leon, Pulp, Foo Fighters, Kasabian and Liam Gallagher's latest project - Beady Eye.
With fans traveling from around the United Kingdom and from further afield, the festival has implemented a ride-sharing scheme designed to reduce the carbon footprint associated with travellng.
Called FestivalBUDI the site is designed to link travelers together and encourages car- or ride-sharing.
To use the site, festival attendees simply register their journey, search for matches and contact those whom they wish to share a ride with; once the sender has received a reply they confirm they are sharing and can then print out a FestivalBUDI parking permit. For more information see http://bit.ly/maObpy.
In addition to this green initiative, the festival is also advertising for visitors to make use of the coach service run by Southern Vectis especially for the festival - see http://bit.ly/mpVTzU for more details.
Local and national train services are also available, see local operators for details.
Music festivals around the world are becoming increasingly environmentally conscious, last year the A Greener Festival Awards honored the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennesse, USA (this year June 9-12), Croissant Neuf Summer Party in the UK (this year August 12-14) and others for their "outstanding" environmental efforts.
The results of the fifth annual A Greener Festival Awards by voluntary organization www.agreenerfestival.com will be announced later this year after the close of the summer festival season.
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