Foxtail Fest, a live music festival offering hip hop, electronic, and indie all under the same roof, is the first music festival of its kind for music fans and citizens of Wilmington, Delaware. The planners of Foxtail Fest set themselves apart by offering ticket-buyers the chance to plant a tree for each ticket purchased for the day-long event.

“Planting trees just seemed like the right thing to do,” said Foxtail Fest event planner and co-founder of What Scene?, Brandon Potter. He added that, “The city of Wilmington has given us so much, and we felt we wanted to give back. We knew we wanted to promote a social consciousness for people coming to the show, and planting trees just seemed like a good place to start.”

Event planners for Foxtail Fest used In Ticketing, an event ticketing service, because of its policies that support sustainability. The service offers ticket-buyers the option to download a scan-able e-ticket to their smartphone, eliminating the need for printing and use of paper and promoting awareness about paper use. The service also offers the option to plant a tree for tickets sold to offset the carbon footprint made at an event like Foxtail Fest. Given the number of attendees at Foxtail Fest, music lovers generated a high volume of trees planted in the name of music, free expression, and sustainability.

Foxtail Fest joins a number of other live, outdoor music events that have undergone “event greening.” As a new trend in concerts, Foxtail Fest joins a short line of local shows that have made the push to clean up their practices by pushing for sustainable practices in event purchasing, waste management, and biodiversity conservation. For Foxtail Fest, this means asking participants to think green even before they enter the gates by planting a tree.

Social consciousness was threaded throughout the event as well. Foxtail Fest asked concert-goers to recycle at every turn, to support local businesses, and to support local musical acts who agreed to play at Foxtail Fest in support of raising awareness of social issues. Combined, Foxtail Fest is setting a trend as positive as their motto, which is to “party positively.”