BUMBERSHOOT®: SEATTLE ANNOUNCES MORE ARTISTS TO THE LINEUP:

Seattle, WA - The 38th annual Bumbershoot: Seattle’s Music & Arts Festival, Presented by Samsung Mobile announces the addition of The Offspring, Nada Surf and Flobots to the 2008 lineup. The 3-day urban event takes place Labor Day Weekend (August 30 – September 1). The Festival stretches across the 74-acre Seattle Center, located beneath the city’s iconic Space Needle, and programs 20 indoor and unique outdoor venues. This progressive Festival features a diverse array of arts including live music, comedy, theatre, dance, film, urban crafts, and literary and visual arts. Complete Festival details are located at bumbershoot.org.

Beck / Stone Temple Pilots / T.I. / The Offspring / Keyshia Cole / Lucinda Williams / Neko Case / Paramore / Band of Horses / The Black Keys / Nada Surf / Ingrid Michaelson / Del Tha Funky Homosapien / Jakob Dylan / !!! / Mike Doughty / Old 97’s / Xavier Rudd / Anti-Flag / Minus the Bear / M. Ward / Lee “Scratch” Perry / Man Man / Joe Bonamassa / Saul Williams / Brother Ali / Battles / Aiden / The Walkmen / Kid Sister / Sons and Daughters / Asylum Street Spankers / Unearth / Estelle / Dan Deacon / Blitzen Trapper / Sondre Lerche / Bedouin Soundclash / Scary Kids Scaring Kids / Tim Finn / Dale Watson / The Whigs / John Vanderslice / Flobots / Thao with The Get Down Stay Down / Final Fantasy / Adele / The Fall of Troy / Orgone / Langhorne Slim & The War Eagles / Forro in the Dark / These Arms Are Snakes / The Blakes / Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby / Ryan Bingham & the Dead Horses / Pacifika / Arthur & Yu / Darondo & Nino Moschella / Ian Moore / Mark Pickerel & His Praying Hands / Barcelona / Kinski / Throw Me The Statue / J-Boogie’s Dubtronic Science / Tyrone Wells / Howlin Rain / Monotonix / The Shackeltons / West Indian Girl / Star Anna / Ravens & Chimes / Hadley Caliman Quintet featuring Thomas Marriott / Grynch / Joshua Morrison / The Hands / Matt Jorgensen +451 / PWRFL Power / Chester French / The Girls with more to be announced mid-July.

Bumbershoot is a leader in the Festival industry for its environmental initiatives. The carbon-neutral Festival has included conscious decisions to decrease its impact on the environment, while supporting the culture and community in which it resides. These tenets of sustainability have guided the event to annually re-examine basic operations and seek programming elements that incorporate messages of sustainability. 

Constantly seeking ways to further develop its environmental plans, Bumbershoot is proud to welcome the following new elements, reinforcing its current roster of green initiatives.  

It’s important to take the first step towards sustainability by reducing overall consumption habits. Each year Bumbershoot reexamines the materials necessary and works at reducing consumption where it’s possible to do so. This reduction has led to: fewer (and smaller) official programs and brochures (as well as printing on FSC-certified papers), the use of biodiesel generators, recyclable banners made from recycled material, merchandise options that are created with organic cotton (reducing reliance on pesticides), a ban on the use of Styrofoam (since 1980), requirement of all Festival food vendors to participate in a pre-consumer compost plan, plus ample recycle bins around the grounds for patrons (reducing overall waste in 2007 by over 6 tons). All patrons are encouraged to reduce in their own way by using alternate means of transportation and using personal non-disposable water bottles.

After reducing in all areas possible, the Festival looks at what can be reused. In 2008 Bumbershoot will continue to reuse select signage from previous years. Once stage backdrops and Festival banners are no longer reuseable on the grounds, they’re donated to Alchemy Goods and are repurposed into two styles of personal eco-BumberBags, for purchase at the 2008 Festival at Red Balloon’s Capitol Hill store (417 15th Avenue East) beginning August 1st.

Once the first step to being “green”, recycling now falls near the end of the eco-chain, but remains a vital part of the Festival’s plans.  Patrons will find recycling bins provided throughout the grounds, and will be rewarded for using them; Clif Bar will be onsite to reward recyclers with free music from Clif Green Notes artists. Additionally, all Festival food vendors are required to compost all pre-consumer food scraps and recycle used cooking grease. In 2007, the Festival composted 2 tons of food waste and recycled over 4 tons of materials that would otherwise have headed for a landfill.

Bumbershoot’s unique urban setting allows attendees ample access to alternative transportation. Festival patrons not within walking distance of Seattle Center are encouraged to use one of the following transportation options: Seattle Center Monorail, King County Metro bus, Rideshare, carpool or bicycle. Those who carpool will receive discounted parking rates at Seattle Center lots, while cyclists can take advantage of a free bike parking area located south of EMP l SFM. 

To power the Festival, Bumbershoot uses energy from Seattle City Light, a net-zero energy provider relying on 95% renewably sourced power. In the limited locations where green power cannot be sourced (including the Mainstage), the Festival turns to biodiesel generators and waste-based biodiesel from a local provider. In addition, all Festival food vendors are required to recycle their used cooking grease, turning food waste into future fuel.  Further renewable power can be evidenced in the Northwest Rooms; Bumbershoot’s visual arts exhibits are illuminated with the help of solar power.

 

With the wide array of arts featured at Bumbershoot, it’s inevitable that transportation is required for the many world-class performers, authors and artists that help make it such a popular destination. Until there are means of transportation that create zero emissions, Bumbershoot offsets all roundtrip artist transportation by purchasing certified carbon credits through Seattle-company, NetGreen. While this action doesn’t negate the emissions caused by the artist’s travel needs, it does proactively contribute to the reduction of future greenhouse gas emissions, equal to the amount of emissions created by artist transportation. 

While patrons are strongly encouraged to travel to the Festival by alternative transportation, the opportunity to purchase personal carbon credits to offset individual travel is available on the Festival’s website (bumbershoot.org) as well as onsite at the NetGreen booth. A $2 carbon credit purchase will offset 333 lbs of carbon. 

All carbon credit purchases will support a regional methane capture project in Tillamook Bay, Oregon that will retain methane from up to 4,000 dairy cows. This project will prevent this especially potent greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere (noted to be up to 25x more potent than CO2) and will reclaim it for clean energy use within the local community.

Bumbershoot strives to provide a diverse entertainment potluck brimming with music, comedy, arts and performance. This mélange of artistry is created with the community’s tastes in mind while also introducing important artistic and social statements that provoke thought, imagination, and education. This hefty dose of culture and community interactivity is integral to our society’s sustainability; while 150,000 guests attend the Festival each year, and ticket prices remain far lower than the national festival average, attendance for some members of the community is financially unobtainable. In an effort to share this unique experience, Bumbershoot created the Send a Kid program, wherein a patron donation of $10 will help send an under-served youth (and their adult chaperone) for a day of exploration, imagination and culture.

Throughout Bumbershoot fans can also take in eco-art including a Bottle House on the Fountain Lawn. The Dupen Fountain will be home to Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas – these mini-operas (inspired by water “kidnapped” and placed into bottles at grocery stores) will happen throughout the 3-day weekend. Additionally, guests can attend the Live Earth short film series, as part of the 1 Reel Film Festival; this film-focus on environmental issues will include shorts: “H2 Uh Oh,” “Alice in Not So Wonderland,” “Earth 2.0,” “Think (What Does It Take to Change a Habit?)” and many more.

Supporting sustainable actions shouldn’t be hard work. In fact, it can be fun! BumberFans receive weekly email tips on how to green their music habit from the green gurus at Grist.org, plus ideas on how to reuse – turning common items that are landfill-bound into useable products or eco-art courtesy of ReadyMade. To engage fans further, Bumbershoot is encouraging patrons to partake in two contests at bumbershoot.org that will reward Grand Prize winners with a bike and a pair of 3-day Gold Passes to this year’s Festival. 

The Festival has teamed up with ReadyMade to present one of the magazine’s famous “MacGyver Challenges” where contestants save a product headed for the trash heap and turn it into something useful (or artful!) This special Bumbershoot MacGyver Challenge charges fans to re-purpose old CD jewel cases. Entrants can submit their ideas online at bumbershoot.org/macgyver-challenge.htm.

There are countless ways to make your music habit a more sustainable one. Do you carpool to concerts? Volunteer at Vera Project? Solar power your iPod? Demand only organic shirts from your favorite band? Contestants can enter a 30-second video PSA today at bumbershoot.org/green-PSA-contest.htm. To get the creative juices flowing, BumberFans are encouraged to take the Grist.org “How Green is Your Music Habit?” quiz.

For more details on Bumbershoot’s ongoing efforts to support sustainability in Seattle and beyond, visit bumbershoot.org/green

Three-day Festival passes are available NOW at bumbershoot.org for $80 through Friday, August 15 and $100 thereafter. Single day-specific tickets will be available to the public Tuesday, July 15 at bumbershoot.org, Ticketmaster outlets, or by calling 206.628.0888, and beginning Saturday, August 2 at Western Washington Starbucks stores. There are no service fees for tickets purchased at Starbucks. Single day-specific tickets are $35 through August 15, and $40 thereafter. For more ticket information visit bumbershoot.org/tickets.htm

A new Insider Deal – a limited quantity of $25 single day-specific tickets for BumberFans only – is available now, while supplies last! Anyone can become a BumberFan online at bumbershoot.org. BumberFan Club membership is FREE and provides subscribers with Insider Deals, breaking Festival news and other exclusive opportunities.

The 38th annual Bumbershoot: Seattle’s Music & Arts Festival, Presented by Samsung Mobile is produced by One Reel, in collaboration with Seattle Center and AEG Live. One Reel is the independent, not for profit producer of the Northwest's premier arts events also including WaMu Family 4th at Lake Union and Teatro ZinZanni. For more information, visit onereel.org.

Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC, a Dallas-based subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Researches, develops and markets wireless handsets and telecommunications products throughout North America. For more information, please visit www.samsungwireless.com