Northern Nights is the only festival I have attended with a dedicated MC who comes on stage after each act. His name is Klyce , and he dresses in a different outfit for each announcement. The guy is a legend. I think an MC is a great way to update the crowd on information they need to know about because they get everyone's attention at once.

This past weekend, I was at NNMF shooting an episode of my festival travel show and wanted to interview him. My crew and I had finished recording for the day and were in full-on party mode Saturday night. As we walked past the media center I saw Klyce dressed to the nines in a full suit with $100 bills printed on it, so we decided to grab an interview last minute. I didn't have my mic with me so we asked to use the house system where a radio station was covering the event.

Tucker Gumber and MC Klyce. Photo by: Courtesy of Tucker Gumber

We sat down and started asking questions when the radio team informed us that they put us on the radio. We rolled with it and ended up talking for a full 20 minutes and covering what we both do. At some point Klyce asked me to review him as a MC. I said he had great style, presence, and humor, but I thought he should go farther in encouraging the attendees to pick up after themselves. At this point I challenged him to ask everyone to pick up a piece of trash and hold it in the air after the last act ended. He accepted the challenge and invited me on stage to do it with him.

When the last act (Shlomo) walked off the stage, Klyce gave the usual announcements and then brought me out. He said that I had been to a bunch of festivals and had never seen a crowd pick up as a group before. He then asked everyone to pick up a piece of trash and hold it up. Everyone participated (which you can see in the photo above) and the venue went from the usual mess to SPOTLESS. Many in the crowd hung around to thank us afterwards. It was a pretty special day in our journey towards unity.

Read more about Tucker's work advocating for "Leave No Trace +1" at festivals around the country here. Visit his website The Festival Guy for more info.