As part of Harvest Rock Festival’s commitment to building a regenerative legacy the festival has partnered with FEAT. Live to apply a $1 “Solar Slice” ticket surcharge across tickets to fund local sustainability initiatives at the festival site and in the months following the event.

The first FEAT. Live engagement will be a native tree planting ceremony and cultural welcome featuring special guest Tones and I. During this event, Tones and I and her crew will partake in a Welcome To Country by Uncle Mickey, a Senior Aboriginal Man descendant of the Kaurna people (Adelaide Plains) and Narrunga (Yorke Peninsula); plant some native seedlings in the local parkland and hear from local bush regeneration team Trees For Life about the projects that the festival’s Solar Slice will be funding.

The purpose of this event is to enable Harvest Rock and their artists to start a long-term regenerative relationship with the local Aboriginal custodians and environmental caretakers who are working towards rebuilding the biodiversity of Adelaide’s natural landscape. Involving the festival’s artists in this regenerative mission is central for spreading the sustainability mindset and helping create new standards for the broader music industry.

“We want to give our artists an opportunity to deepen their ties to the places they tour by planting native seedlings which they can watch grow over the years, and building direct relationships with our Aboriginal custodians to learn about the songlines of the land,” explained FEAT. Live founder Heidi Lenffer.

“The challenge of this decade will be to reimagine every aspect of our touring impact, and it’s hard to feel a connection to a place when you’re parachuting in and out for a 40 min festival set. We think it’s important to carve out space for artists to create a living legacy of forests and relationships that can grow over the years they tour.”

This event will be facilitated by Adelaide City Council and Trees For Life, who will provide the seedlings and access to the parklands plot for planting. FEAT. Live will also allocate some Solar Slice funds towards Trees For Life’s bush regeneration projects, to further the impact beyond the festival tree-planting engagement.

Last year, FEAT. Live launched a new climate action strategy designed to reduce the emissions of live entertainment by unlocking sustainability funding through ticket sales. The ticketing surcharge named ‘Solar Slice’ is built into the booking fee of partner events as an industry commitment to prioritising sustainability. 1.5% is the suggested (but negotiable) surcharge price point to symbolically reinforce the 1.5 degree warming target of the Paris Climate Agreement.

So far the Solar Slice has been successfully rolled out by Lime Cordiale and Chugg Music for the 2022 ‘Facts of Life tour’, where funds were used to regenerate hectares of critically endangered Australian rainforest in the Booyong Flora Reserve, Northern Rivers NSW.

Other early adopters of the Solar Slice include Australian heavyweight promoter, St Jerome’s Laneway Festival, who has applied a $1 Solar Slice across the 2023 tour. Harvest Rock festival promoters Secret Sounds will also be applying the Solar Slice across ticket sales to Falls Festival 2022/23.