Adele in Munich - an event of superlatives, also in terms of CO₂ emissions.
As a European Climate Pact Ambassador and an activist, I am on my way to Munich with a group of committed climate activists from Music Declares Emergency. On the train, we are surrounded by fans who are full of anticipation for Adele's concert series ‘Adele in Munich’. A must-see event for true Adele fans, and the enthusiasm is infectious.
Concert series of superlatives
Adele made music history in August 2024 with a series of 10 concerts in a purpose-built Adele Stadium in Munich. The dimensions of this event are breathtaking: 75,000 seats, the world's largest outdoor LED wall, production costs of over 90 million euros - one of the world's most expensive but also most lucrative concert events to date.
Residencies vs. tours
At first glance, a concert series like this - also known as a residency - seems more sustainable than a tour: less travelling for the artist and her crew, a fixed location where everything is centralised and only needs to be set up once.
But what about the fans? Initiatives such as Music Declares Emergency have long pointed out that the audience's journey to the event accounts for the largest share of CO₂ emissions at major events. The TICKET TO RIDE study published in May 2024, which analysed audience travel to German band AnnenMayKantereit's 2023 summer tour, confirmed this with figures: The journeys there caused almost 90% of total emissions. Other studies also arrive at 42-90% (A Greener Future, Plant a Seeed).
The decision to organise a central mega-concert series in one location instead of several smaller concerts in different cities could therefore prove to be a climate policy fiasco.
Collecting data to highlight shortcomings
When we finally arrive in Munich, the gigantic scale of the event becomes even clearer. The news ticker on the screens in the bus that takes us to the stadium reads: ‘Mobile phone analysis: half of Adele visitors from abroad’ (Vodafone, in German). We meet Anja from Extinction Rebellion and Stefan from Creatives for Future. The topic unites us, and we were delighted to receive support from Munich climate groups.
Our plan was to ask the audience together on site about their journey in order to obtain concrete data on travel behaviour and the associated CO₂ emissions for the first time. At first, we were a little nervous: would security throw us out immediately if we stood in front of the entrance and approached people? Would we perhaps even be banned from the venue by the Bavarian police? The opposite happened: Everyone was really nice and co-operative and let us ask questions in peace.
Slowly, the crowds grew larger and larger, making their way from the car parks, the taxi rank and the Messestadt Ost underground station to the stadium. Everyone was dressed up and the anticipation was so obvious that you couldn't help but be happy. How nice it is that we can come together and celebrate our music together. We must be able to do that in a climate-friendly way.
On two concert days, we were able to use the Crowd Impact app to ask a total of 1407 people which means of transport and travel routes they had taken. We also asked air travellers whether they had travelled there especially for the concert.
A sobering outcome
A few days later, I'm sitting at my computer in the Impact Hub Berlin looking at the data. The disillusionment is great, because our fears have materialised:
24% of visitors opted for the aeroplane
52 % of the kilometres travelled were by plane
77 % of travel emissions are flight emissions
But perhaps most of them didn't fly to Germany specifically because of Adele, but had other reasons or were joining a longer trip? Unfortunately not: 92% of air travellers stated that the concert was the main reason for the flight. Some even travelled to distant countries such as Qatar or the USA the very next day.
One Portuguese family particularly stuck in my mind, who travelled from Portugal with five people in the car. Admittedly, you really have to be an Adele fan to make such a long journey! It makes you think twice about travelling by plane. But if the five of them had travelled by plane, the emissions would have been many times higher.
It would have been best for the Portuguese family if Adele had performed in Lisbon or Madrid and they hadn't had to travel so far.
What would a tour have changed?
Compared to the 2023 summer tour of the German band AnnenMayKantereit in ten cities with a more regional audience, the contrast is striking: The per capita emissions of a concert journey are on average more than 3× higher for Adele!
Of course, a different, more international target group also plays a role with Adele. Nevertheless, with such a huge difference, you can guess how much potential savings a tour would have had.
If Adele had played in 5 major European cities, for example, the average journey distance would certainly have been significantly reduced and fewer people would have chosen climate-damaging flights as their mode of travel.
The data shows that Adele fans only increase their use of the aeroplane from a certain distance. At the same time, the use of other means of transport decreases with increasing distance. From around 1000 kilometres (one way), the plane was chosen almost exclusively.
However, it is also unrealistic to send a superlative concert production like this on tour, it would be a logistical nightmare. You would need dozens of lorries to transport the LED wall alone.
But the question we have to ask ourselves is: in this climate crisis, can we afford events that are getting bigger, fancier, more superlative? Or can we also have a good time, celebrate our stars and our music without having to set LED wall and CO₂ records?
Finally, I would like to thank all the partners who made this campaign possible: The European Climate Pact, Music Declares Emergency, Extinction Rebellion and Creatives For Future.
The campaign was financed by the European Climate Pact. The data and analyses obtained are published here under the German Data Licence (Deutsche Datenlizenz) and the MIT Open Source Licence.
About the author: I am a sustainability consultant for cultural organisations, co-founder of Crowd Impact (klimaklitsche GmbH) and an activist with Music Declares Emergency. As a European Climate Pact Ambassador, I am committed to ensuring that the climate crisis is taken seriously and that we take action together for a future worth living. I live and work in Berlin, Germany.