Melt!

On July 16-18th, Melt! Festival returned to the city of Ferropolis in Germany with performances from the likes of Massive Attack, The XX, DJ Shadow and The Futureheads. The organisers have made huge steps forward in ‘greening' their activities as much as possible, including providing more environmentally friendly transport for their ticket holders.

This year saw the arrival of the ‘Melt! Festival Hotel Train' powered by MiXeryFunTravel.de. The Melt!Train started off in Cologne, the Thursday evening before the Festival, stopping at Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund, Hamm/Westf., Minden, Hannover, Braunschweig, Madgeburg and Dessau. Tickets were only available in advance, and the journey ran overnight without the stress of driving, traffic, catching local connections and carrying heavy luggage to name but a few of the worries.

Melt!Train came to a stop just outside of the festival grounds, and remained there over the course of the weekend, with guests having access to their own private beds and facilities. The passengers were given special wristbands to ensure access onto the festival grounds. The journey was then completed by Melt!Train returning back to Cologne via all stops, completing the journey 1 hour after the final headliner has left the stage.

This sort of service sounded very costly (taking into consideration the cost of a normal weekend ticket or VIP ticket to some of the UK's festivals closer to us!), but with Melt! Festival working in cooperation with Mixery, the price remained affordable. Train tickets for individuals cost 59 Euros which included a return journey as well as four overnight stays on location, whilst compartments for 6 travellers could be booked for 349 Euros (both of these excluded the festival ticket).

This represents not just an innovative idea to reduce the carbon emissions from audience travel (as seen in our Jam Packed Part 1: Audience Travel report), but the idea also meant a large group of individuals were in temporary reusable accommodation onsite - offering a positive reduction in environmental impact when compared to the scenario of people buying and discarding camping equipment. What a delightful spin on the pleasures of train travel!