How Volunteers Powered the Green Heart of Lollapalooza

Lollapalooza has always showcased some of the world’s greatest music for moving people.

This year, something else was moving through the festival grounds—a wave of community power, fueled by the volunteers who make up the beating green heart of everything we do at REVERB.

For the first time, REVERB ran all of Lollapalooza’s volunteer programs, alongside our signature sustainability work. Together, we created a festival experience where climate action and music went hand in hand. And the results were monumental. 

Our crew covered it all:

• Rock & Recycle, where fans collected recyclables in exchange for a custom festival T-shirt.
• Divert It! stations, with volunteers helping attendees sort between trash, recycling, and compost.
• Free water refill stations, keeping bottles out of landfills and fans hydrated in the summer heat.
• Bike Valet, welcoming hundreds of clean-energy commuters to Grant Park.
• Kidzapalooza, Greeters, Media Assistants, and Volunteer Check-In, making sure every corner of the festival felt welcoming, organized, and alive.

The numbers tell the story of a record-breaking year:

• 1,227 volunteers onsite 
• 1,387 bags of recycling collected (That’s 13,523 gallons of aluminum recycled.)
• 327 bikes valeted
• 13 dedicated Team Leads
• 8 front-of-house programs running simultaneously

People Power 

Behind the numbers, the deeper story revolves around the energy, dedication, and joy each volunteer brought to the park. Whether sorting compost under the hot sun, greeting families with a smile, or biking across the city to work a shift, our volunteers showed that climate action can be hands-on, people-powered, and just as much a part of the festival experience as the headliners themselves.

Thank you to all of our intrepid volunteers! 

And huge props to Livi Hally, Project Manager, Paige Roth, our Director of Community and Volunteer Programs, and Maya Reynolds, our Community Outreach and Partnerships Coordinator, whose leadership and coordination helped us hit record volunteer numbers, and keep the operation running smoothly from the first note to the final encore.

To every volunteer who showed up for the planet, the music, and one another, you are the heartbeat of this work, proving that when community comes together, we can keep both the music and the mission alive.