travel and transport

Given 80% of a festival’s emissions are caused by travel, we are encouraging festival go-ers, artists, the site team, traders, and anyone involved in the show to travel consciously and minimise their carbon emissions. On-site travel activities are kept to a minimum and electric vehicles are used where possible.

Here is a few ways in which we are helping reduce our impact, and a few suggestions on ways you can minimise your carbon footprint en route to the fields this Summer:

  • Public transport is the most carbon-efficient way to travel to Kendal Calling and we encourage festival go-ers to use coaches and trains, cycle, lift-share, or even walk to the festival! More information can be found here for public transport options . Taking a train instead of a car for medium-length distances would cut your emissions by ~80%.
  • In 2015 we co-founded the carbon emissions initiative Energy Revolution (now called Ecolibrium) which is dedicated to reducing the travel carbon footprint in the live events industry. Your generous contributions when you buy your tickets have meant each year we donate large sums to the initiative and it’s great to see the positive impact it’s having! 
  • If you decide to travel by train to Penrith North Lakes station, make sure you use our shuttle bus service to get you from the station to the festival site! Advance tickets for this can be purchased here.
  • We have lots of coach pick up points to encourage group travel to and from the festival – more information here!
  • Our coach partners National Express ensure they offset their excess carbon and have selected a number of projects that focus on renewable energy.
  • With the average 100 mile car journey leading to over 20 kg of CO2 being produced, we suggest car sharing where possible. goCarShare is a great option for you to coordinate group lifts, as well as reducing yours and the festival’s carbon footprint considerably! (Source: DEFRA Report).
  • We will publish data on exactly how everyone, including our artists and traders, travel to and from the festival and aim to reduce the collective carbon footprint year-on-year.
  • Our site transport is already predominantly electric vehicles and we have minimised diesel vehicle use on site.