Glastonbury festival is well known for its vivid and innovative outdoor designs, lighting and art installations. From the world-famous Pyramid Stage and Arcadia to Block9 and Shangri La, a host of designers, artists and fabricators are involved in helping to provide jaw-dropping backdrops and design structures to festival performances and DJ sets. This year is set to be no different with Greenpeace set to host a show-stopping, 20m-tall giant colour changing tree structure in their popular space within the festival’s Green Fields.
Built from SMARTPLY OSB, the huge tree structure features a DJ booth and a colour changing light show which will come alive at night, allowing festival revellers to party way in to the early hours. Among a range of new attractions at Glastonbury this year, the giant tree is set to be a sight to behold for festival-goers and will help provide a fantastic visual display for the Glastonbury crowd. But, beyond the spectacle of the giant tree lies a deeper and more meaningful message that ties in to Greenpeace’s values of sustainability.
#StandForForests is Greenpeace’s key message for this year’s festival with the environmental campaigning organisation set to emphasise the important role forests play in maintaining the health of our planet. The choice of SMARTPLY OSB to build their tree structure was a result of its carbon positive nature as a building material, as well as the rigorous sustainability agenda and clean supply chain of the manufacturer. Making use of renewable wood from well managed Irish forests independently certified in accordance with the rules of the Forestry Stewardship Council, MEDITE SMARPLY are strong believers in working towards a circular economy model when it comes to timber production.
Along with the giant tree, Greenpeace will also be building a range of other visually exciting features for their field using SMARTPLY OSB. From the interior of the Greenpeace bar and hoardings to block off non-public areas to decorative giant animal sculptures, a Jungle café serving delicious veggie food and a forest grotto teaching visitors about the majesty of the world’s forests.
Katy Duffy from Greenpeace, commented, “Our close and longstanding collaboration with SMARTPLY originates from Greenpeace’s involvement in the setting up of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) back in the nineties. It is through this that we recommended the use of SMARTPLY in preference to the unsustainable products sometimes being used throughout the building industry. Over the years’ we have also helped to convince the events industry that SMARTPLY has numerous uses and as a result we now see it used in festivals and events throughout the UK.”
“Greenpeace are radical thinkers with regards to the environment and climate change,” says Stuart Devoil, Head of Marketing and Brand at MEDITE SMARPLY, “and so it’s with great pride that we’ve been selected as the material of choice for their tree structure at Glastonbury. It’s a real testament to our commitment to sustainability and the environment that an organisation like Greenpeace would choose our timber products. We look forward to seeing how the finished tree looks at Glastonbury and hope festival-goers enjoy visiting the Greenpeace field and learning about the importance of legally sourced timber and the effect it has on our planet.”
