Green Team: Bend’s Hayden Homes Amphitheater earns regional, national honors for sustainability practices

BEND, Oregon (KTVZ) -- You see them at every concert over the summer at Hayden Homes Amphitheater, members of the Green Team roaming the venue picking up trash and manning receptacles to help you figure out your waste. 

What’s recyclable? What’s compostable? Where's the food waste go? And what’s just plain ol’ trash?

Beyond that, the team spends hours dumping the waste into kiddie pools and sorting it all out to make sure waste goes to the right place with the ultimate goal of reducing the amount of trash taken to local landfills.

The process works. And their hard work has been rewarded.

The Hayden Homes Amphitheater earned three sustainability honors from Live Nation’s end-of-season awards for its outdoor amphitheaters - 52 in total. Additionally, the venue was named Visit Central Oregon’s 2023 Sustainability Award winner.

HHA won first place nationally for Live Nation’s “Highest Scrap Value Returned” - essentially, most aluminum cans recycled - as well as the top “Innovation Award” which celebrates venues “thinking outside the box” to improve waste diversion performance.

That award celebrated HHA’s “Trashy Golden Ticket” idea, which featured golden tickets thrown away or hidden around the amphitheater - stuck to a stray can, for instance - or among the garbage bins at every concert this season. Green Team members who found them were entered into a raffle for prizes.

The program was so successful, Live Nation intends to duplicate it at its venues across the country in future years to drive motivation and team morale among other Green Teams.

HHA’s overall recycling program also placed third nationally for “Highest Diversion Percentage” by diverting 78% of its waste away from local landfills.

Regionally, the amphitheater was awarded for its diversion rates and the inclusion of nearly 300 new bike parking spots this summer.

“The amount of effort we put into sustainability is important for a lot of reasons,” said Marney Smith, general manager for the Hayden Homes Amphitheater and Old Mill District. “To be able to tread lightly and know we’re good stewards to the environment, and know that we’re creating a sustainable music environment is more important than any award.”

Smith pointed out that the venue has focused on sustainability since it opened in 2002. Nearly 10 years ago it committed to eliminating single-use plastic bottles, an industry decision well ahead of its time.

Since then, the venue’s sustainability office and growing Green Team has worked diligently to reduce HHA’s environmental impact with water fill stations, compostable cups and utensils, cashless points of payment, an increase in bike racks, and visible and separate receptacles for recycling, compost and trash.

Manning the waste receptacles at the concerts each night saves time and makes the sustainability efforts more enjoyable, Smith said.

“If we didn’t do that, we could spend eight hours the next day sorting through it all after each show, but it wouldn’t be as efficient,” she said. “If you’re going to spend an eight-hour shift sorting recycling, it’s better to do it while listening to great music, right?”

The Green Team’s efforts are also a boon to local high schools.

Of the Green Team’s 130-plus members, roughly 115 were under the age of 18, and for every hour worked, the venue donates at least $1 back to that student’s school. They haven’t tallied the 2023 numbers just yet, but in 2022 the venue was able to donate more than $28,000 back to Central Oregon schools.

“Having high school students involved in the process has been enormously helpful,” Smith said. “Their expectations of sustainability are ingrained in how they do everything in their life. There’s a lot of pride in the job they’re doing and they work really hard to help us get to our sustainability goals.”

Overall, the venue has more than 800 employees throughout the season working various front and back of the house positions, said Cassidy Cushing, the Old Mill District’s sustainability manager in 2023.

“Every single person is considered an ambassador of sustainability,” Cushing said, adding that prior to the season everyone gets a crash course on the Green Team’s efforts and is shown all that goes into the sustainability program. “And their eyes open real wide when they see all that we do.”

But it helps fuel a desire among everyone at the venue to do their part on the sustainability front.

For example, in years past alcohol monitors would simply throw away the sticky strips of paper left over after they attach the Over 21 wristbands to concertgoers. As it turned out, that paper would end up sticking to everything and the Green Team would have to remove them from food waste so they wouldn’t end up in compost bins.

But one of the monitors this year thought to have each member of their team keep the sticky paper separate and throw them away in their own bags at the end of each night.

“That was a huge time saver for us,” Cushing said. “And it goes to show they’re not only listening to our guidelines on how to be sustainable, but coming up with ideas on their own and implementing processes as well.”

Cushing said the awards and recognition are great, but the Green Team gets more excited about the fact some of the processes happening here are getting picked up at venues nationwide.

“It’s way cooler seeing processes being shared by other venues and spreading awareness across the board,” she said. “It’s fun to share tricks and tips to help people easily do the right thing.”

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 for ticketed and free concerts, brew festivals, and races. The largest outdoor music venue in Oregon, the Hayden Homes Amphitheater accommodates 8,000 guests for concerts and events. Learn more at www.bendconcerts.com.