When environmental education group Global Inheritance began their partnership with Coachella in 2004, the idea was a simple as having a bunch of artist apply paint to garbage cans in an effort to encourage recycling while helping to keep the concert grounds debris free. Seven years on, and GI’s efforts at the annual music festival have become some of the weekend’s most talked about activities. Whether it’s exchanging 10 empty water bottles for one full one, or peddling a bicycle to recharge your cell phone, Global Inheritance doesn’t just educate and amuse a few concert goers, it finds a way of making the event better for everyone, even if they never step foot out of the VIP area.
This year, Global Inheritance has come up with their most interactive concept yet. Building on the idea of human power, the group has put together the Sweatshop DJ initiative—a human powered DJ set-up that allows ambitious jocks to take to the decks in the desert, so long as they can bring enough friends to fuel the sound system via their own pedal power. It takes a lot of human movement to keep the juice flowing—12 friends in all, turning cranks, pedaling bikes and running on a gigantic hamster wheel. But the opportunity to rock even a passing crowd at Coachella is too great of an opportunity for amateur DJs to pass up.
“We want to inspire people to rethink the way we look at energy consumption,” explains Global Inheritance founder Eric Ritz, while declining to tell us what music he personally prefers. “It doesn’t matter,” he insists. “I support all shapes and sizes.”
Learn how to be a Sweatshop DJ at globalinheritance.org
