Category: events

Pvilion’s Solar Fabric Kits for Coldplay World Tour

As Awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design.

Designers: Todd Dalland, Pvilion, Brooklyn, New York, USA
Client: Coldplay, United Kingdom

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This product was designed and provided to Coldplay for their 2022-2023 world tour. The product includes flexible, travel-friendly solar fabric panels and fully functional battery kits to help power key elements of each concert. Pvilion provided the band with 70, 10 ft x 3.5 ft clip-on solar fabric panels. 

These solar fabric products are lightweight, flexible, can be folded up, and are easy to travel with. At each stop that the tour makes, the fabric panels can quickly be set-up and attached to most surfaces that receive sunlight and are fully operational by showtime. 

The goal of the Coldplay: Music of The Spheres Tour is to be as sustainable and low-carbon as possible, and diesel generators are incredibly harmful to the environment and those that work around them at concert venues. 

The addition of these solar fabric kits reduces the harmful fumes that would otherwise be emitted using diesel generators at each concert and is an essential component to the band’s sustainability efforts. 

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About the Green Good Design Sustainability Awards:

“For 2023, Green GOOD DESIGN received hundreds of submissions from around the world. Members of The European Center’s International Advisory Committee—worldwide leaders in the design industry—served as the jury and selected over 180 new products, programs, people, environmental planning, and architecture as outstanding examples of Green Design.

The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design have joined forces on two continents to present an innovative and challenging new public program: GREEN GOOD DESIGN SUSTAINABILITY AWARDS.

GOOD DESIGN™ was founded in Chicago in 1950 by Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, and Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. to promote and foster a greater public understanding and acceptance for Modern Design.

Now in turn and in 2023, GREEN GOOD DESIGN‘s goal is to bestow international recognition to those outstanding individuals, companies, organizations, governments, and institutions – together with their products, services, programs, ideas, and concepts-that have forwarded exceptional thinking and inspired greater progress toward a more healthier and more sustainable universe.” (This is an excerpt from their website. Click here to read more on the original site.)

To view the award listing, click here.

Pvilion Clip-On Solar Powered Fabric

As Awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design.

Designers: Todd Dalland, Pvilion, Brooklyn, New York, USA
Manufacturer: Anchor Industries Inc., Evansville, Indiana, USA

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This project was designed and created by Pvilion with the intent to integrate solar power to event tents as an alternative to diesel generators. These solar fabric event tent clip-on attachment kits are made with Pvilion’s photovoltaic fabric, and are specifically designed to attach to the top of large event tents to incorporate the use of solar power. 

For those in the event industry that already own large event tents but want to implement solar power, Pvilion has created a clip-on attachment, made with photovoltaic fabric, specifically designed to attach to the top of large event tents. 

The use of these solar fabric attachment kits allows event tent users to have access to power anywhere that they are set up, without needing access to the local power grid. Not only does it allow for this independence, but it also reduces harmful fumes that would otherwise be emitted using diesel generators in these settings. 

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About the Green Good Design Sustainability Awards:

“For 2023, Green GOOD DESIGN received hundreds of submissions from around the world. Members of The European Center’s International Advisory Committee—worldwide leaders in the design industry—served as the jury and selected over 180 new products, programs, people, environmental planning, and architecture as outstanding examples of Green Design.

The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design have joined forces on two continents to present an innovative and challenging new public program: GREEN GOOD DESIGN SUSTAINABILITY AWARDS.

GOOD DESIGN™ was founded in Chicago in 1950 by Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, and Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. to promote and foster a greater public understanding and acceptance for Modern Design.

Now in turn and in 2023, GREEN GOOD DESIGN‘s goal is to bestow international recognition to those outstanding individuals, companies, organizations, governments, and institutions – together with their products, services, programs, ideas, and concepts-that have forwarded exceptional thinking and inspired greater progress toward a more healthier and more sustainable universe.” (This is an excerpt from their website. Click here to read more on the original site.)

To view the award listing, click here.

Access All Areas  |  April 11, 2022 | Christopher Barrett

Live from Mexico in the people-powered Energy Zone of Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour, Tim Benson, Chair of Powerful Thinking and Energy Consultant on Coldplay’s current tour, updates us on the tech and innovation which allows energy from fans to be converted, via kinetic dance floors and pedal bikes, into power for the show. As well as spotlighting the remarkable clean tech solutions, and the expertise required to maximize system outputs for this stadium-ready portable mini-micro-grid, Tim also celebrates the innovation of the band themselves, who have pushed the boundaries to engage fans in a hitherto untried way.

It’s 16.30 hours at the Foro Sol stadium, Mexico City, as the blistering sun mercifully begins to descend. Suddenly, some 26,000 fans, old and young, sprint into view, vying for the best vantage points to take in the sensory delights of Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour (MOTS) spectacular. Strangely, though, there’s also a hive of activity downstage midway between the final delay towers, where fans are furiously pedalling on bikes and leaping around on raised platforms.

‘Is he mad?’ I hear you ask. Definitely not, in fact I’m privileged to say that I’m part of creating this unlikely melee of activities.

This is MOTS Energy Zone, an area dedicated to people-power, where the electrical team, under the guidance of Head Electrician Paul Traynor, cunningly harvest energy from the movement of Coldplay fans. The two raised platforms are, in fact, kinetic dancefloors courtesy of Dutch firm Energy Floors. As fans bounce around to the bass lines of House of Pain’s Jump Around, their movement produces energy, which then charges a series of Wattsun battery packs. Similarly, the 12 bikes are fitted to Kinetic Effects’ PedGen bike stands, incorporating DC motors, which can produce hundreds of watts each. The energy generated by the bikes is stored in a SMART Power 50kWh battery system, which in turn inverts and distributes AC power to the ‘C-Stage’, a circular structure where the band play an intimate set surrounded by adoring fans.

If you look closely at the risers surrounding the delay towers and behind the stage, you’ll also see solar canvasses provided by US company Pvilion. These rapid-deploy PV panels charge batteries that feed an inverter providing energy to the LX in the stage underworld. Back of house, you will also find a mini-solar farm that provides a 100% renewable charge station for the Wattsun battery packs & docks. These portable battery solutions are being used for a range of applications, including stage backline, LED lights, video control racks & DMX buffers.

However, the most remarkable thing about the Energy Zone is how it all dovetails: These aren’t plug and play solutions that naturally knit together, they have to be constantly optimised and tweaked to maximise system outputs. Energy and power data has to be captured, relayed to the venue screens and reported back to the band’s sustainability director and team. In many ways, it’s the ultimate renewable energy mix, a portable mini-micro-grid incorporated into a stadium touring set up – no mean feat I would say.

The innovation of Coldplay themselves, and the willingness of their production and touring crews to push the boundaries like they have never been pushed before, is clearly paying off. Not only are they championing remarkable clean tech solutions, but they are also engaging fans in a hitherto untried way – more of this please touring industry!

To read the original article, click here.