With the demand for environmentally friendly live events increasing all over the world, the Middle East is a region that is making great strides in its approach to sustainability. Among the companies and organisations trying to lead the change in the region is Showpower. Made up of a team of sustainable power experts, the company is seeing greater demand than ever for alternative power solutions for the region’s live events.
“The tide is certainly turning, and people want to challenge the status quo,” began Paul Schurink, Showpower’s co-CEO. “The region is already known for delivering productions on another scale, so imagining the scale at which it will drive sustainability, and innovation will be no different.”
Showpower’s plans involve taking the region on a journey, rather than attempting to enact a complete change, which Schurink described as unsustainable. “We’re interested in educating and bringing events and productions on a sustainability journey, because that is exactly what it is: a journey,” Schurink commented.
“There are always multiple stakeholders to engage with, and everyone needs to be on the same page and aligned with the same goal, so it can take some time to implement the major changes required and shift mindsets towards the reliable and proven solutions that are available.”
Success stories for the sustainable power solution supplier include Lollapalooza Chicago, Global Citizen Festival and Coldplay’s mammoth Music of the Spheres World Tour. A crucial part of cutting the Music of the Spheres World Tour’s emissions by 50% was the deployment of the SmartGrid battery system, which was designed to replace diesel generators especially for international stadium events.
“Existing battery systems on the market couldn’t meet ours and Coldplay’s standard, particularly as we needed 100% power reliability and N-1 redundancy, as any power failure is simply not an option,” Schurink explained.
Along with the SmartGrid system, Showpower offers management of the entire power process for a live event – from designing the power plan to delivering the hardware, to onsite management, aiming to ensure maximum efficiency and reliability across the entire energy system.
“We don’t just drop off SmartGrid and pick it up after the event. We start by measuring the event’s power needs so that we can accurately predict the required power and energy use,” Schurink commented.
“We then design the most sustainable power plan possible, using any available on-site energy sources to feed the SmartGrid. At the core of the system, SmartGrid balances energy supply and demand in real time, running the batteries in parallel with the event load to ensure complete redundancy and uninterrupted power.”
To date, SmartGrid has powered over 50 of Coldplay’s stadium shows across 15 countries, with the US tour and the band’s Wembley Stadium run still to take place. Elsewhere in the region, Showpower worked with MDLBEAST’s Soundstorm festival in 2021 and 2024, supporting their strong commitment to improving efficiency and sustainability, especially in power use. “Alongside their own initiatives and through our energy assessments, monitoring, and collaboration with the Soundstorm and TAIT production teams, more grid connections are being utilised, generator run times are decreasing and generator sizing and capacities are more efficient,” stated Schurink. “Based on our 2024 data, we’re now able to help redesign power zones to maximise use of grid power without the risk of exceeding capacity from the show loads. This sets Soundstorm up to significantly shift from diesel generators to grid energy in future editions – cutting both fuel use and carbon emissions. It is great to see a festival of this size taking real action.”
Dedicated to getting the region diving headfirst into sustainability processes, the Showpower co-founder participated in two panels at the recent Saudi Light and Sound Expo in Riyadh, which covered major achievements and processes dedicated to moving towards an emission-free future in the Middle East. The presence at SLS Expo, Schurink hopes, will help speed up conversations around greener energy by showing it is possible.
Looking to the future, Schurink commented: “Our Smart Power Plan and SmartGrid concept is already known and proven for many years in Europe and the US. We now need to build the Showpower brand and build trust in the MENA region through projects, education and consultancy. It is clear that the market is developing fast – especially with the pipeline of global and major events coming to the region – so as we build a permanent presence and have our SmartGrid fleet available in the region, this will reduce transport, deployment time and ultimately costs.”
He concluded: “We also hope that success stories such as MDLBEAST Soundstorm can reassure other festivals, events and producers in the region, showing them what is possible in the region; just as Coldplay have shown the touring world that change and transition to cleaner power solutions is also possible.”
Photos: Showpower; Getty Images courtesy of Global Citizen
