(Photo by Nate Wyeth)
Singer-songwriter Jack Johnson announced last week that Bend’s Hayden Homes Amphitheater was chosen to receive the artist’s All At Once Sustainability Award for his 2022-2024 Meet The Moonlight World Tour.
The award program acknowledges only a handful of outstanding venues, festivals and promoters around the world who excel in waste reduction and sustainability. All At Once is Johnson’s social action network that promotes positive change in communities by connecting people to non-profits committed to environmental initiatives.
The winners were honored for making every effort to meet or exceed Johnson’s strict and unique sustainability requests and to implement energy conservation and waste reduction measures as an ongoing practice.
This is the second time Johnson as acknowledged the Hayden Homes Amphitheater for its sustainability practices. The venue also won an All At Once award in 2018.
“You are a leader and innovator taking action to reduce waste, promote reusables, strengthen local food systems, and support climate solutions,” Johnson said in a statement congratulating the winners. “Many music fans want to feel part of a sustainable music community. As an artist, I’m proud of these All At Once Sustainability Award winners for inspiring the music industry with their commitment to the environment.”
Since the Hayden Homes Amphitheater opened in 2002, sustainability has been a cornerstone of its business ethos. In 2013, the amphitheater took a pioneering step by discontinuing the sale of single-use plastic bottles, one of the first music venues in the country to do so.
Over the years, the Hayden Homes Amphitheater has established a dedicated sustainability office and formed a Green Team with more than 130 members committed to reducing the venue’s environmental impact through measures such as installing water fill stations, providing compostable cups and utensils, and introducing cashless points of payment.
And while many venues now offer separate recycling, trash, and compost bins, the amphitheater goes the extra mile by assigning dedicated staff to these receptacles, ensuring guests dispose of waste correctly and improving the efficiency and accuracy during the sorting process. Over the past two years the venue has diverted 78 percent of its waste from landfills thanks to these greening efforts.
“We’re honored to be recognized by Jack Johnson for all of the hard work our team and guests do to ensure Hayden Homes Amphitheater is one of the greenest music venues in the country,” said Marney Smith, General Manager for the Old Mill District and Hayden Homes Amphitheater.
“We’re also thankful for artists like Jack who challenge venues worldwide to meet such high expectations for sustainability,” she said. “Reducing our environmental impact will always be a focus of our team and accolades like this inspire us to continue looking for new, innovative ways to be a leader in that space.”
This recent recognition adds to the list of sustainability achievements for Hayden Homes Amphitheater. In 2023, the venue received three sustainability awards from Live Nation, including the top spot nationally for “Highest Scrap Value Returned,” signifying the highest number of recycled aluminum cans.
Additionally, HHA was honored with the “Innovation Award” for its creative approach to waste diversion.
The Innovation Award recognized HHA’s “Trashy Golden Ticket” initiative, where golden tickets were hidden around the amphitheater, including among the garbage bins, during each concert of the season.
Green Team members who discovered them were entered into a raffle for prizes. The initiative was so successful that Live Nation announced plans to replicate it at venues nationwide.
On a local level, Visit Central Oregon presented HHA with its 2023 Sustainability Award for its high waste diversion rates and the addition of nearly 300 new bike parking spaces, reducing the need for car traffic to the Old Mill District on concert days and beyond.
About the Hayden Homes Amphitheater:
The Hayden Homes Amphitheater is an independent, outdoor riverfront amphitheater built in Bend, Oregon’s historic Old Mill District in 2001. Since its first season in 2002, the Amphitheater has hosted more than 1 million guests at the venue for ticketed and free concerts, brew festivals and races. The venue currently accommodates 8,000 patrons for concerts and other events, including the largest craft beer fest in the Northwest.
