Entertainment vs. Environment: The realities of Santa Monica’s upcoming music festival
Art by Sara Polster
The people of Santa Monica should plan for a total tourist-and-trash disaster this fall with the city’s beach music festival. Set as a part of a Realignment Plan to invigorate Santa Monica economics, the event will be hosted by Goldenvoice, the same organization that hosts the popular music festivals Coachella and Camp Flog Gnaw. It will certainly realign something, that is, the hearing abilities of every animal for 100 miles.
The concert is set to be in September, so general information such as titles and line-ups would be expected later. However, there are factors that will cause serious, long-term impact on ocean health stability. According to the National Academies, exposure to extreme noise can heavily impact reproductive abilities of animals and predator-to-prey relationships. Noises can permanently damage an animal’s hearing, making it much easier for prey animals to be hunted as they are unable to sense important changes in acoustic atmosphere when a hunter is nearby. Loud and unpredictable noise also stimulates an animal’s fear instincts, which means that for the duration of the concert, animals within 100 miles from all directions will likely be swimming in a disoriented panic. The sound alone will greatly impact the safety of prey animals in relation to larger predators because of their lacking hearing capacities. The show is impacting their health from sound alone, as well as their actual safety in relation to predators less affected by sound.
The animals surrounding the Santa Monica Beach have already suffered through climate changes over the last year with the residue from the Palisades Fires polluting their ecosystem and introducing them to toxic chemicals. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, marine life can take up to five years to recover from a major fire. Hosting an enormous gathering that is sure to stimulate pollution in and around the ocean less than two years after a wildfire is more than insensitive, it’s unsafe. The beach has been decreasing in environmental quality over the last few decades, and took a huge hit after the fires. To allocate minimal funding to beach clean up and spend an enormous amount on entertainment that will continue to degrade the environment and make the waters even less safe is reckless, and frankly irresponsible. Athena Miller (’27), the Junior Coach of Samo’s surf team, described how the festival may impact the ocean, and posed potential solutions.
“I’m definitely worried because a lot of people, especially if they’re not from here, they’re not used to picking up their trash… the festival will definitely affect [the ocean] because people will leave trash on the ground,” Miller said. “It’s hard for Santa Monica as a city to moderate what trash reaches the ocean. If they have constant water testing during that time to make sure that the water quality is okay… that would feel safer.”
Most festivals use single-use plastic to contain food and drinks sold at the venue. However, Santa Monica’s sustainability bylaws require that they prioritize the environment and nature’s right to exist, as well as reduce waste as much as possible. Samo’s AP Environmental Science and Marine Biology teacher and member of Santa Monica’s Clean Beach Committee Benjamin Kay explained what Santa Monica could do to stop the event from damaging the environment even further.
“They should widely promote bring-your-own everything, they should make sure that the food trucks are giving food out in paper-based packaging… every vendor must conform to this policy,” Kay said. “We could have Santa Monica hire various stewards that are part of the festival, and lots of them, who are going around with trash pickers throughout the festival making sure that even paper waste doesn’t get to the ocean.”
There are a multitude of logistical issues, too. There is one paragraph from Santa Monica officials about when the performance will generally be and where it is. Besides that, there are some unofficial comments on an r/SantaMonica subreddit. So, eight months out, and not having a line-up is excusable, but not even having a name or ticket price range this soon seems concerningly underdeveloped. The city could close the Santa Monica Pier for the day, but any event on the beach can be heard by anyone with the will in the city. The festival may allocate some necessary funds to Santa Monica, but for the most part, locating the event in the most well-known and easily accessible part of the city has just created even more problems.
Maybe it’s cynical, but there are just so many things that can go wrong. In theory, this sounds like a great event; Santa Monica has always been a hotspot tourist location, and any local can agree that it’s been needing some more money and publicity for quite a while. Maybe, with more income, a store can open up on the Promenade that stays for over six months. Pigs will grow wings! It’s sure to make more than a few Samo students excited. It’s just worrying that the show is fast-approaching and none of this critical information has been released.
Multiple income-generating tourist attractions such as the World Cup and the Olympics will be rolling through Los Angeles County. Although these attractions are sure to be memorable and thrilling, Santa Monica’s top priority should be the long-term health of our city and the people–and animals–that inhabit it. We can only hope that our local officials will agree.