Live Earth – Environmental case study

Event! Merchandising was appointed Global Merchandiser for Live Earth.

Live Earth was a monumental music event that brought together a global audience on 7th July 2007 to combat the climate crisis. Live Earth staged concerts in New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Hamburg as well as special broadcast events in Antarctica, Kyoto and Washington DC.

Live Earth featured more than 100 of the world’s best music acts, a mix of the latest headliners and legendary artists which included Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson,Black Eyed Peas, Jack Johnson, The Police, Genesis, Bon Jovi and Madonna,.

Live Earth’s 24 hours of music across 7 continents delivered a worldwide call to action and the solutions necessary to answer that call.

Event! Merchandising developed a range of environmentally friendly product to be sold around the world.

One of the product’s we created was the Live Earth belt made from London Fire Brigade’s decommissioned hose. The Fire-Hose Live Earth Belt was premiered at Live Earth London at Wembley Stadium. The environmental fashion statement represented Live Earth’s and Event Merchandising’s commitment to conquering climate change;

• The hose itself was reclaimed waste material. It is not made of virgin rubberand no energy other than elbow grease is used in its remanufacture.

• The hose was sourced in the South East of England, where the belts are assembled and sold, this means no miles and no emissions.

“We were so excited about this project – everyone won. One of our biggest and most troublesome waste streams was eliminated and the customer gets this fantastically cool and unique new Fire-Hose clothing accessory with a positive Live Earth message.” said Jeremy Goldsmith – Event Merchandising

Other product’s created were bamboo and organic T-shirts, over 50,000 were sold globally.

The biggest challenge was to create a Global Souvenir Programme featuring allthe artists. We worked 24 hours for 7 days to complete the artwork in time.

All the paper used was FSC approved and the power was generated from100% renewable sources.

The other huge undertaking was creating a Global Web shop for Live Earth,

MSN’s 39 localized web portals worldwide attract 465 million users.

“Live Earth was officially the largest global entertainment event in history.”

Al Gore – Live Earth Partner and former U.S. Vice President