[Go Green] Enjoy Jazz
2 October – 7 November 2026
Heidelberg, Germany
Founded in 1999, Enjoy Jazz. Festival for Jazz and More is the most extensive jazz festival in the world and is unparalleled in Europe with around 70 events per year with concerts as well as symposiums, workshops, readings, exhibitions and other formats. Enjoy Jazz is a decentralised festival that takes place in 20 different venues and welcomes an audience of between 20.000 and 30.000 people.
As part of its sustainability transformation process, Enjoy Jazz is networked nationally and internationally and works closely with the Baden-Württemberg Climate Protection Foundation, among others. Claudia Roth, Minister of State for Culture and Media, states: “Enjoy Jazz is at the forefront nationwide, especially in the field of sustainable event management, and is a role model for the entire event industry.” Rozan Dikkat, the festival's sustainability manager, also coordinates a regional sustainable network with over 30 organisations sharing their experience of how culture can be more sustainable. The network was part of the Green Culture Festival in Germany.
Programming
The festival tries to increase its environmental sustainability by booking artists who are already on tour. To help reduce travel-related emissions, artists are offered various mobility options. However, this isn’t always possible due to the size and amount of their instruments and equipment. Collaborating with the different venues welcoming the festival is essential to implement new sustainable ideas. The festival also partners with local bike rental companies near the venues and hotels, and provides shared shuttle buses for artists and journalists. For the social aspect, initiatives are being organised for the programme that focus on social and cultural responsibility.
Audience transport
Enjoy Jazz works closely with the venues to understand how the audience gets there. 7 years ago, Enjoy Jazz started to collaborate with public transport companies. A public transport ticket is now integrated into the festival to encourage visitors not to use their car: the festival pays around €1.07 for each transport ticket, a cost which is put on top of the price for the festival ticket. It’s an attractive partnership on both sides: the travel company earns, and Enjoy Jazz supports the use of public transport. However, it’s difficult to know exactly how many people use these combined tickets: to obtain information on how the public arrived, the festival calls on the visitor reception services, cloakrooms, info stands, etc. This information is more difficult to obtain for tickets booked online, for reasons of personal data security in Germany. They do collect the postcode, but the festival's long-term aim is to obtain more information via the ticketing system.
As Enjoy Jazz is a jazz festival, the audience is a little bit older - this is one of the reasons why they take their cars. Enjoy Jazz started a collaboration with Match Rider app for carpooling for concerts in Heidelberg - people can share a ride to the concert, and it’s also a way to try to build a community.
The team also tried to change the time of the concerts. Instead of starting at around 20.00 PM as usual, they listened to the audience feedback: it's easier for people to take public transport if they hold a concert on a Sunday at 17.00 PM. As the festival runs for six weeks in October, with concerts every day, it's possible to rethink, test and implement new approaches.
