16-05-2025
London's festival king on the capital's newest — and greenest — blowout
When Massive Attack take to the Victoria Park stage to close the first day of Lido, the capital's newest multi-day music festival, they might not realise they're witnessing musical history.
'It will be fully battery operated,' Jim King, head of European festivals at organiser AEG, tells me. 'The whole of the event will be operated from batteries. There's no generators at all. There's no emissions from generators at any time.'
Picture a festival and you probably think of bands, light rigs and bars; what you probably don't see in your mind's eye are the clunking, usually diesel-fuelled generators whirring away behind each of them. It's all a bit … industrial. Lido's first night will be different.
'With Lido we've had the opportunity to really embrace
