inBloom Mobile App Makes It Easier For Touring Bands To Stay Green
inBloom is a location-based and eco-conscious mobile app that was originally designed to make it easy for musicians to find affordable and healthy food, green hotels, and bio-diesel filling stations while on tour.
"As a touring band, you see those golden arches off the side of the highway and it's extremely convenient and cheap to buy food from companies you know exploit people, animals, and promote unsustainable farming monocultures,” says inBloom co-founder Oren Eytan. “The question I started asking is 'how do you make it just as easy and affordable to find healthier alternatives?'"
Eytan is also the founder of Musician's Energy Conservation Alliance (MECA), which runs a variety of programs to help musicians save money while touring in an environmentally friendly way. MECA currently has nearly 1,000 musician members including OK Go, The Antlers, DeVotchKa, Kevin Devine, An Horse, Nicole Atkins, Free Energy, Murder By Death, and A Rocket To The Moon.
Quickly realizing that the app had a wider potential audience, inBloom now focuses on the sustainable food movement and includes listings for restaurants, grocery stores, farmers markets, Community-Supported Agriculture (CSAs) and Co-Ops, green hotels, thrift shops, green supply stores, and retail businesses powered by renewable energy.
On October 22nd, a separate veriosn of the app will be released for MECA members that focuses on major cities, music venues, and highways typically traveled by bands. The wide-release edition of inBloom, geared to non-musicians, will be available as a free iPhone app in the iTunes store on November 15th.
This post is by regular Hypebot contributor, musician, and music marketer Hisham Dahud (@HishamDahud)
