Best Sustainability Initiative: Billie Eilish’s ‘Hit Me Hard And Soft: The Tour’ (2025 Excellence In Concessions Awards)

Billie Eilish, who was raised vegetarian and cut out all animal products from her diet when she was 12, is showing fans how easy and delicious it can be to go vegan as part of her commitment to sustainability. This she is doing by ensuring all of the venues on her “Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour” have multiple plant-based food options.

Working with nonprofit REVERB and promoter Live Nation, Eilish has an environmental rider for all sustainability requests both backstage and in fan-facing arenas including single-use plastic reduction, free water refill stations, providing plant-based food options at concessions with price parity. Some venues, like her recent stops in England at The O2 Arena in London and Co-op Live in Manchester – offered a 100% plant-based menu and created bespoke items.

Co-op Live featured 73 plant-based menu options including the Billie Burrito featuring roasted veggies, seasoned rice and plant-based mince; mushroom specials created in collaboration with Manchester’s FungALL and vegan cookies. The O2 had street-food inspired, plant-based dishes including chipotle tacos and peri-peri “halloumi” wraps, pancakes and more.

Eilish’s team notes that venues on the tour are provided guidance by nonprofit Greener By Default to develop plant-based menu options and support in reviewing their existing menus and discussing swaps or tweaks. REVERB works with Live Nation to talk through challenges at each venue including requiring each arena to have a minimum of three plant-based entrees on their menu – chips, popcorn and pretzels don’t count (though are welcome).

The tour partnered with nonprofit Support+Feed, which aims to combat food insecurity and the climate crisis via plant-based food, and GOAL (Green Operations and Advanced Leadership), a sustainability-driven membership and support network for venues, co-founded by Pollstar parent company Oak View Group, on select dates. The tour also worked with nonprofit Musically Fed on select shows to donate excess catering food.

Support+Feed, which was founded by Eilish’s mother, Maggie Baird, hosted food drives at nine venues on the 2024 tour for a total of 17 food drives, as well as creating digital Plant Maps to highlight plant-based meals available at arenas globally. The REVERB Eco-Village at each show encouraged fans to take action for sustainability including the Support+Feed Pledge to eat one plant-based meal per day for 30 days.

“We are thrilled that venues have responded so enthusiastically to this exciting challenge. All of the venues on the tour in every country have added delicious plant-based options, and many have even gone fully plant-based for Billie’s shows,” Baird told Pollstar. “The fans have reported loving the food, the plant maps, and the opportunity to be a part of helping our planet. We are so grateful for the commitment and willingness to embrace this idea and hopeful that many items or similar plant-based offerings will permanently make their way into all of the arenas’ future menus.”