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Solar Powered Party Comes to Melbourne—Cut Copy DJs, Banoffee & More

Salute the sun while dancing the day away.
Banoffee

The future of renewable energy looks bright with the announcement of OFFtheGRID, a solar powered music festival coming to Melbourne this summer. Insert cool sunglasses emoji. The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art forecourt will be transformed into an environmentally-conscious party zone, with a first line up announcement featuring Melbourne’s finest—Cut Copy DJs, Banoffee, Sui Zhen, Tornado Wallace, Silent Jay + Jace XL, Prequel, and Wax’o Paradiso.

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The artists will perform on a five metre high solar stage, hooked up to a state-of-the-art battery bank to power the event from day through to night. Every aspect of the festival will be environmentally sound. 100% of the profits will go towards building a renewable power plant in the city of Melbourne, and there will be a zero waste policy—recyclable stuff will be recycled, organic stuff will be composted, and leftover stuff will be turned into an artwork (rather than just being dumped in landfill) to be auctioned off.

“The language of renewable energy has been lost in elitism to confuse and delay change,” says Banoffee. “This festival is a step towards a different type of communication. We need to start leading by example and show people how tangible this change is.”

The smart people behind OFFtheGRID are a group called Finding Infinity. They started out with a battery bank operated party in a London basement, took the concept to Mexico, and then back to London to hold a party in collaboration with fashion royalty Vivienne Westwood—all solar powered, of course.

OFFtheGRID takes place on December 22, 2015. Tickets are on sale now! Head here to find out more.

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