100% renewable power, veggie food, upcycling workshop, outlawed single-use plastics, organic food, wooden stages, recycling stations, biodegradable crockery, electric fleets, low-impact solar-powered lighting, chemical-free compost loos, water-saving vacuum toilets, mobile solar-power stations, waste-separation points, and many more eco-friendly schemes are featured in sustainable festivals in the EU and the UK. Guardian selects 10 prominent ones, Pohoda, Isle of Wight, and Terraforma among others.

Chance The Rapper organized a free festival and conference in Accra, Ghana for 52,000 in January, which went without any serious trouble. The inaugural Black Star Line Festival (named for Marcus Garvey’s black-owned global shipping line from 1919), included a 6-day conference with performances by Mensa, Erykah Badu, T-Pain, Jeremih, Sarkodie, Tobe Nwigwe, Asakaa Boys and M.anifest along with special guests Dave Chappelle, Sway and Talib Kweli. Chance The Rapper had two goals, as he's told Pollstar: "The goal... was to perform for my people, which I got to do in that moment. And two was to produce an event that was safe and intentionally Black that no one there could in their right mind ever forget they took part in."

Mixmag has started the Cost of Living series exploring how the current economic crisis is impacting dance music. "Surging electricity bills, spiraling travel costs, increases in the price of goods and services and a dramatic change in crowd habits have hit an industry still reeling from lockdown to near-breaking point" - Mixmag underlines the environment clubs and promoters are having to deal with. Interesting phenomena is occurring with festivals: "A number of club-focused promoters appear to have turned their attention to putting on festival-like 'day parties' since the end of lockdown... As disposable incomes become tighter than ever, the 'day festival' gives attendees the chance to attend a festival — but without having to add on extra costs such as transport and accommodation, and the chance to pre-drink and pop off home without the Monday morning dread knowing they have to pull a shift in a few hours, or inadvertently spend hundreds at the bar".

Belgian Tomorrowland has been voted world’s No. 1 festival in the DJ Mag Top 100 Festivals poll 2022, with over 100,000 verified votes counted. "Since launching in 2005, Belgium's Tomorrowland festival has pushed the boundaries of production, imagination and curation", DJ Mag argues, adding "the flagship event expanded from two to three weekends in July 2022 for 'The Reflection of Love', welcoming 600,000 visitors from 200 countries, and hosted its Winter edition in L'Alpe d'Huez in France".

The top 10 festivals on DJ Mag's list are:

1. Tomorrowland, Belgium
2. Ultra Music Festival, USA
3. EDC Las Vegas, USA
4. Creamfields North, UK
5. Exit, Serbia
6. Glastonbury, UK
7. Awakenings, Netherlands
8. Coachella, USA
9. Untold, Romania
10. Sunburn, India

"Globalism and diversity seem to have won in pop music. Good" - Matty Karas reflects on this year's Coachella line-up. Bad Bunny, Blackpink, and Frank Ocean headline the California mega-fest this April. "If you dare to bring a guitar to the desert, Goldenvoice will bury your guitar, and they might bury you with it... The kids want something else, and Goldenvoice will give it to them" - Tom Breihan points out.

The Face was at the Flesh, "intimate festival", which "took place in a leafy location just north of London". The - "tunes were mostly hard-hitting techno, with an indulgent dose of crowd-pleasing edits thrown in". The looks - "pretty amazing". Check out the photos.

Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot said she doesn’t fear a surge of coronavirus cases tied to Lollapalooza, in part because her public health commissioner “went incognito” to the music festival without valid proof of vaccination and was turned away, Chicago Sun-Times reports. Mayor also said she is “confident that thousands of people — mostly young people, which is our toughest demographic — got vaccinated simply because they wanted to go to Lollapalooza", adding that "every single day, they turned hundreds of people away — either who didn’t have the right paperwork or had an expired test that wasn’t taken within 72 hours. That tells me there is a rigor around the protocols that they were using to screen people”. Lollapalooza is the largest festival of its kind in the world this year.

The electronic music festival Verknipt in the Netherlands has been linked to more than 1,000 new cases of the novel coronavirus, although the organizers have followed all the health guidelines. CNBC reports. In early July Verknipt hosted about 20,000 attendees in Utrecht. Now, 1,050 of those people and counting have tested positive. This is especially discouraging because the electronic music event followed many expert guidelines - the festival was held outdoors, where infections are generally much lower; concert-goers also needed to show a QR code confirming that they were either fully vaccinated, had recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection, or had tested negative within the last 40 hours. That 40 hours window is seen now as the main possible reason for the infection spike.

In just the last 72 hours alone, a bevy of major US tours has been announced. Consequence (has a dedicated live music subsite) picks out a few of the biggest ones:

- Elton John has announced the final leg of his farewell tour
- Lorde has announced the first tour dates behind her new album 'Solar Power'
- J Cole has mapped out a tour in support of his latest album 'The Off-Season' - GZA, Raekwon, and Ghostface Killah are teaming up for the 'Chambers 3 Tour'
- Violent Femmes and Flogging Molly are teaming up for a co-headlining US tour

UK prime minister Boris Johnson has scrapped the plan to ease restrictions on live music in the country next week due to the pandemic, which will bring British musicians, fans and promoters to the brink of losing another summer of live music. Live music events industry believes they are treated differently than other events. Indie venues say a four-week delay in reopening will cost them £36 million, NME reports. The Association of Independent Festivals says 86 percent of the festivals planned for this year in the UK will be canceled, Billboard reports.