BY MELANIE ULLE
In recent years, I have really started to live for live music. I think it’s because concerts are some of the few places left where we can plug into something bigger than ourselves. I was at a Daybreaker dance experience (Google it- you’ll thank me later) the other day dancing to EDM with a couple hundred strangers and I started crying like a fool because I felt so connected to a sea of random strangers through music. Yes, I was sober. It was 11 am. I am convinced that we need way more raw connection and that indescribable shared joy of a concert more than ever to remind us that we’re not alone.
And yet….
The live music industry has long grappled with its environmental footprint. For years, the industry standard for going green involved a simple transaction. A dollar was added to a ticket price to purchase carbon offsets. Brandy Schultz, the founder of the nonprofit Sound Future, saw a flaw in this model.
A longtime Denver resident and a kickass entrepreneur who previously founded and sold the successful company Adventure Nannies, Schultz brought her creative and practical business perspective to the problem. Having spent a decade on the road with her husband’s band, The Lumineers, she witnessed these well-intended efforts firsthand. In a recent conversation, she explained that while offsets felt like a step in the right direction, there was a glaring lack of transparency regarding where those dollars actually went and what they achieved.
Schultz noted that her team wanted to make something they could measure and report on over time. By changing the focus from reducing a footprint to creating measurable good, they successfully reduced harm and left something meaningful behind for the communities hosting these events. This desire for tangible impact led to the creation of the Surf and Turf program. When Sound Future launched, the initial focus was on high-tech innovations like kinetic dance floors and massive battery arrays. While exciting, these solutions proved expensive, hard to scale, and frequently unreliable.
The Surf and Turf program requires zero logistical lift from the artist team, the venue, or the promoters. Rather, it channels funds directly into local restoration projects such as kelp farming and watershed recovery that generate compounding benefits over time. These benefits include healthier ecosystems, more nutritious food sources, and long-term carbon storage.
Schultz believes that the practical and local solutions used in large-scale event restoration can also transform how we approach urban sustainability in places like Denver. She emphasizes that meaningful change does not always require a massive budget or cutting-edge tech.
In her own life as a member of the Denver community, Schultz applies these lessons to her home, where she replaced a traditional turf lawn with a clover blend. (Note, had she not mentioned this, I wouldn’t have known. Looks pretty lush to me). The shift resulted in significantly lower water usage and a yard teeming with more biodiversity than she had ever seen. Win-Win!
Schultz acknowledges that innovation has its place, but she argues that nature-based systems are often the most resilient and effective tools we have. Kelp farms, for example, act as natural buffers against storm impacts while reducing coastal erosion, and watershed recovery projects improve water quality and boost biodiversity simultaneously.
Unlike emerging tech, these nature-based systems are time-tested and deliver multiple benefits at once. As the live entertainment industry evolves, Sound Future is working to ensure that concerts provide a net-positive benefit.
For those inspired to support the movement, Schultz encourages fans to look for Surf and Turf QR codes at upcoming festivals to see exactly which local projects their attendance is supporting. To learn more or to donate, visit www.asoundfuture.org.
Ultimately, none of us are willing to forgo the pure joy and connection of live music, and we shouldn’t have to. By implementing these simple solutions, I think we can feel much better about buying that ticket and unapologetically enjoying the show.