Ellie Goulding put the climate crisis center stage last night as she triumphantly returned to the stage to kick off her UK tour in Glasgow. “The Brightest Blue UK Tour” – named after Ellie’s latest critically acclaimed album – breaks new ground in “greening” the live music industry, paving the way for other artists to make the same demands on promoters and venues to address the impact of the industry. Tickets for “The Brightest Blue UK Tour” are available now here.
The intimate tour, which continues to visit London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bournemouth and Newcastle sees Ellie perform a career spanning setlist, performing many tracks from Brightest Blue for the first time, set among urgent, vital messages – adding extra meaning to many of Goulding’s most famous hits.
Lighting designer, Cate Carter has also brought Ellie’s thoughts and feelings on the climate and nature emergency to a stunning backdrop. Last night’s show closed with a roll call of names of global youth climate leaders working tirelessly to hold global leaders to account. “Today’s youth climate leaders are my heroes. Without them and their actions I don’t think we would have a chance of success at COP26. We need to listen to them. I want to take every opportunity to amplify what they are doing,” says Ellie.
ELLIE GOULDING BRIGHTEST BLUE TOUR – REMAINING DATES
OCT 09 – O2 Academy Newcastle – Newcastle Upon Tyne
OCT 11 – O2 Apollo Manchester – Manchester
OCT 13 – O2 Academy Birmingham – Birmingham
OCT 15 – O2 Academy Bournemouth – Bournemouth
OCT 17 – Eventim Apollo – London
As a UN environment ambassador and official COP26 advocate, Ellie is known speaking up for the planet. Ellie’s tour tackles the industry’s notoriously large carbon footprint and high impact and scaling down to levels compatible with the Paris Treaty.
“My young fans in particular are very worried about the climate crisis and this about me stepping up for them and their collective future,” says Ellie Goulding, “Backstage my team has worked tirelessly to address all our impacts and I hope others will follow. There’s such an opportunity to move my industry towards net zero because we touch on so many different areas. We should be doing every damned thing to transition to a clean, green industry and we have to do it right now when we have a tiny window to keep 1.5 degrees (of global temperature rise) alive.”
While the singer delighted fans with her high energy performance, behind the scenes at the Glasgow O2 Academy the whole tour had been engineered to be as low impact as possible but still deliver a stunning visual and sonic performance.
Jane Deady one of the UK’s most experienced tour managers described the protocols rolled out at Ellie Goulding’s Glasgow gig – which range from powering the whole show on renewables to a plastic free backstage as a “gamechanger.” “Most of the green riders so far are directed towards massive stadium setups, but we want to support quirky UK venues coming out of the pandemic, so we’ve had to create New green plan and that needed collaboration and fresh thinking,” says Jane Deady.
Ellie and her tour team have worked with Lucy Augusta Perna, global sustainability director for Live Nation Entertainment, to adapt the organization’s Green Nation Touring Program for the Ellie Goulding tour.
Alongside Sir David Attenborough and Jane Goodall, UN environment ambassador, Ellie is an official advocate for COP26. At COP26 Ellie will return to Glasgow in order to take part in a number of official events for the UNFCCC and fringe events along with Arctic Basecamp and One Young World. “We need to be the generation to halt the climate crisis and restore nature. The only way to do that is to start right now,” she says.
Multiplatinum-selling singer/songwriter Ellie Goulding’s career to date includes two GRAMMY Award nominations, a Golden Globe nomination, two BRIT Awards, sales of 18 million albums and over 140 million singles, and 23 billion streams worldwide. With over 50 million followers combined on her social platforms, she also earned YouTube’s Diamond Award with 10 million subscribers on her YouTube channel and over 5 billion views globally. Ellie holds Billboard’s Hot 100 record for the most entries on the chart this century by a British female vocalist. All three of her albums have been certified platinum, with 18 of her singles now RIAA certified. October 2020 saw her win Billboard’s Music Award for Top Dance/Electronic Song for her smash, “Close to Me.”
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