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The concept of a FREE gathering could be traced back probably as far as you feel like going, but let's concern ourselves with roots of the early 21st century free festival culture, shall we? In North Amerika, it is known that various tribes of plains Indians would gather annually and form a temporary settlement for the purposes of singing, drumming, dancing and smoking the pipe together. There was no "security staff"; everyone was "on their honor" which meant even warriors had to chill out and lay aside any past or present grievances between tribes in the interest of maintaining a peaceful gathering. Centuries later, thousands of more recent sons and daughters of the amerikan continent would reconnect with this tendency toward a peaceful co-existence embodied in regularly occurring free gatherings. This loosely affiliated non-organization became known as the Rainbow Family of Living Light, a.k.a. the Rainbow Family. Rainbow gatherings evolved a traditional system of organizing which is somewhat based on various native american traditions, as well as some purely European ideals of individual liberty and freedom. At around the same time that the Rainbow was taking shape in north amerika, the modern European free-festival culture was also coming into being. In Britain, the Stonehenge monument became a beacon for spiritualists and assorted freaks that became reconnected with their ancient Celtic and/or druidic roots. By the 80's, the Stonehenge free festival was the biggest illegal gathering in Europe. Tens of thousands occupied the area around the stones for many days, forming a temporary city with no one in charge. Hundreds of school buses and other vehicles converted into homes, band stages, and café's became the standard for British and European free-festivals for many years thereafter, allowing for an always-moving festival culture. After harsh police-repression in the 80's and creeping alcohol and heroin problems that followed in the early 90's, the free festival movement in Britain seemed bent on destruction....until it received a pounding kick in the ass from the urban underground squat tekno madness that drew thousands of youngsters out of the cities and into the countryside to dance and freak on each other for days upon end. By the mid 90's, this idea had spread into continental Europe and caught on big time in France and Italy, where currently there is a free tekno festival attended by thousands of people every weekend during the summer. In north Amerika, things evolved a little differently. The rainbow gatherings became larger, with the largest one occurring once a year in June and July. Known as the "annual" gathering, between 10 and 20 thousand people converge on public land, always in a different place. Police repression is also an issue, but seemed to always play out more in the courtroom rather than the "Bean field" (reference to the "Battle of the Bean field") and the Gatherings are continuing to this day, despite protracted legal battles with the US Forest Cirkus.
WHY FREE?? The term "free festival" implies "no money" but it also communicates an intention....the creation of a free space where everyone should be "on their honor" to allow a situation of peaceful co-existence...a free flow of ideas that may not be possible within the confines of a festival that is based on the framework of the classic american rock festival, devised in the late 60's as a way to harness and capitalize on the explosion of youth energy and later continually repackage the "experience" and sell it back to new generations. The free festival evades this trap. You can't buy it, and you can't sell it...it's open to anyone who can accept the responsibility of self-government. There is no "headliner" band, and the festival doesn't require a corporate-controlled "star system" to attract a crowd. Musicians and artists don't have to whore themselves out to businesspeople or compromise their creative paths to "get on the bill". A free festival is also perhaps the unique meeting point between scholarly political philosophy and transcendental spirituality, textbook "anarchists" get to actually experience feelings of anarchy that go beyond words into the realm of the metaphysical. And what does one get in return for this heroic outlay of energy and resources? Why should anyone do anything for free and not expect something in return? Good fucking question, and I'll get back to you on that one in a few years.... but for those of us who have experienced the profound effects of temporarily liberated space on the thought patterns and world view of those in attendance, I can only say that the world of humans (and the world of quite a few other species) benefit greatly from these experiments and/or rituals of enhanced co-existence. So in a way, your participation and energy input to a free gathering could be seen as a gift, a pure act of selfless giving, and you have the freedom to visualize any of the infinite possibilities of what we could do together, just for the fun of it...
PROMOTION Since people seek entertainment/distractions on a disgusting scale already, misinformation and propaganda becomes the obvious and cheapest option. Much fear and a feeling of impending boredom will visit most minds upon seeing a b&w flyer with no apparent mention of headliners or a jumpy castle. Without that 2 foot by 3 foot colored glossy foldout pre-flyer you just don't know what you're getting. The brilliant thing is that this kind of conditioning serves as a great filter for shitheads and ignoramuses. Time is a big issue. 6 months is pushing it for having enough time to let all the people who you want to see there know where and when you want to see them. ZINES, local and national are free-cheap, reach a more freethinking crowd and gets good exposure all over the country and sometimes further. Local zines can be found at shows and at the better bookstores and more reputable info shops. Create a website and trade links. **** Organize a date that werks with the currently touring soundsystems tour schedule. Usually tours are structured around free festivals with paid dates in between to pay for the cost of movement. Choose a date and place that would be between other festivals. Two definite ones to consider are Mutant and Berzerkus (www.mutantfest.org and http://homepage.mac.com/berzerkus). Accomplishing this means that now all soundsystems involved are promoting the festival and you reach many more people. LOCAL EVENTS. Flyer for a few months at your local parties that attract the kind of people you think would benefit the festival. MAIL-OUTS. To all djs, fans, and freaks. Snail mail, email, telegraph, carrier pigeon, pony express- get mastercopies out to friends and acquaintances who would throw them around record shops, infoshops, anyplace the people you want to reach go. FESTIVALS. Go mingle and/or infiltrate other festivals and flyer them. New ones pop up every year and a few are old standards.
SITE SCOUTING The most important thing to keep in mind for scouting is to give yourself enough time to be able to find a good site and not have to settle at the last moment. Keep in mind how many soundsystems and performers are coming and try to find a location with enough areas to hook up everyone. A source of water saves a lot of trekking about looking for washing water, it cools you off in hot weather, makes it possible to bathe, is vital for fighting fires, and is just damn relaxing to look at. The site needs large, flat, shaded, soft, beautiful, pristine, kind, gentle, and useable land for camping. But if you have to settle for three of the above, that's fine... we guess. Be that way. Shade from the sun is nice to have for areas where people will be hanging out all day, like the kitchen, werkshops, chillout, latrine etc. Parking is a most vital thing to keep in mind when you look for a site. Parking needs to be out of the way, cars need to be able to not get blocked in as this causes people some inconvenience when trying to get their friend to the hospital 60 miles away. You should have parking for at least 200-300 cars just to be safe. If possible, make the main path between the areas not accessible to cars. Most free festivals have found that BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land is the best type of public land to hold a gathering, but if you don't find that in your area, there are different types of land to consider: including US Forest Service Land, State Parks, State Forests and even private land. Each will have different rules and regulations which you will undoubtedly break.
MAP POINT Set up a meeting/map point in a nearby town (at the Piggly Wiggly, duh) where people can get detailed information on how to get to the site. People can use it as a last stop to get supplies (like, beer) before coming in and also pick up those without vehicles. If you can designate someone attending the festival to make some regular trips to the meeting point, this can make it easier for hitchhikers and freight train travelers to get there. Post any information about the meet point, ridesharing, and essential items (ie: beer) to bring on the voicemail so people coming won't have to make unnecessary trips to/from the site.
KITCHEN.
First thing is to acquire food. For a free kitchen or donation kafe, the amount
of money you want to pump into it is minimal. Most cities and towns have some
sort of free food distribution (food banks, food pantries, pockets). A visit
by 20 people to all available food banks for two weeks should feed a small stick
shaking army. It's best to get veggies and fruits only days before the festival
so they don't go bad.
An alternative, or in addition to food banks, are local markets and corporate markets. Go in weeks before and explain what you're doing and why. There's no reason why they can't give it to you besides some unconscious/conscious fear that giving away some near to rotten food for free will create a mad demand for older food to be distributed freely to the community, the vegetable section would become an AA meeting and the back alley a shooting gallery, so in the best interest of the safety of their paying customers, all food must be destroyed if not sold. Usually their excuse is health codes and fear of lawsuits. Bring with you a waiver form freeing them from responsibility, and see if they squirm. Keep on the corporate markets... why should they be let alone to pump money out of the community and give little or nothing back? Alternatively, try going in posing as organic farmers and ask if they have any organic produce they are throwing away for your compost heap. Usually, you'll be asked to come before opening in the morning and get whatever fruits and veggies slated for the trash.
A third option is always dumpsters, those magic metal boxes of what you need. Many bigger markets throw away huge amounts of good food to make room for new shipments. Check bakeries, bagel shops, donut shops.
Now you have fuck-wads of food, you need storage. Walgreen's bins with lids-like containers seem to hold up good they stack to make tables or igloos and clean easily. Drill holes in the bottom for vegetable storage. Everything should be in bins- flatware, bowls/plates, pans, utensils, and blind cave-dwelling fish. It makes set up and tear down so much easier. Bread bins (2'x2'x 4" high with mesh bottom) you see stacked in trash areas of markets are good for on-site vegetable and fruit storage, it prolongs their miserable lives.
For safety reasons, propane stoves and campstoves are best for use in the forests. The kitchen should be an off limits area to keep the area clean and reduce that stressful "looking for the fucking can opener again".
Having
a bin for the dirty dishes to pile up in makes it that much easier. Dish washing
is suggested to be done in 3 containers (5 gal. Buckets or large plastic bins)
1 is wash- which is soap, tea tree oil, and water. 2 is rinse- that's just water,
and finally 3 disinfect- water and tea tree oil. Disposable products like bowls
and spoons might seem like a good time saving idea but in the end you'll have
collected more trash to carry out and washing dishes isn't that hard. Water
can most easily be stored in food grade 50 gallon drums, previously used for
food products. For a spout get a hard plastic tube ¾" outside diameter. Cut
the bottom end of the tube at an angle, drill a 23/32" or 11/16" hole in one
of the removable caps, use dish soap to lubricate the tube and shove it in.
The tube should stick up 2 inches over the top of the barrel. Attach a ¾" inside
diameter flexible rubber tube (like aquarium tubes) over the 2 inches of exposed
hard tube and put a small hose clamp on it. Just 6 inches from the business
end of the flex tube put a tube crimper you can get at a homebrew store to werk
as an on/off valve-like-thing. draw a picture of a large pig dancing with a
small goat on the outside of the container.
Remove the other screw cap and lay it aside to your right. Take a fuct bike innertube cut out the air valve and 3 inches of innertube on either side of it. Make a hole just smaller than the valve in the cap laying to your right and push it into the hole, it should take a bit of force to make sure it's airtight. Get a bike pump or one of those fancy tire pumps that plug into your car lighter (I've seen them at goodwill for 9$). Pump it up crimping the flex tube. When the air pressure is higher inside the drum than outside, a siphon will be started and will continue until either water runs. To stop the water quickly lift the tube up as high as you can and shout out the names of all the people you desperately want to slap.
A good portion of the waste produced in the kitchen will be compostable organic waste. There are several reasons to compost in the forests and deserts of this land, I will list none and leave the search for eternal truth to you. Dig a hole as deep as you can make it (within, what is commonly accepted as, reason). At least 250 feet from the food prep area to prevent airborne and fly borne bacteria getting into your morning coffee and killing you before you can make it to the can opener. A thin layer of dirt should be placed on every new addition to the pile.
Times of meals should be made known to all attending the festival, and to 3 people who you expect not to exist. Also let people know what the next few meals will be.
Coffee and tea should always be on hand and ready to drink. The Less Acidic and easiest way is to make 5 gal batches of ice pressed coffee. Put 4 gallons of water in a 5 gallon bucket, add 3.5 lbs. of coarse ground coffee. Let it sit, covered for 24 hrs. Filter (we use white sheer frilly curtain material to make big reusable filter) and drink. Do this every 12 hours and you should always have enough drinks around.
Make sure you have good knives, cutting boards, serving and cooking tables, loads of forks and spoons, big soup pot, big fry pan, spatula, big stirring spoon, cups, lights, and a tarp for to protect against the sun and rain. A quick stop at a local charity thrift store could get some or all of these things donated, if you ask nice.
LATRINES
should be well away (500 ft) from any food prep area or water source. Latrines
should be dug thin, long and deep. A 5 gallon bucket of lime is added for
that flush effect. With a little more werk, attach a toilet seat to a box
with appropriate holes. Place box over the hole you dug and put some paper
on a nearby twig. Since latrines are usually into the forest a bit, use signs
and safety tape to show the way. Lights are nice. ROAD CREW This is probably one of the more important damage control jobs. This is where you introduce everyone in to the autonomous situation and fill them in on what's going on. For the success of the festival people have to werk together, and people usually do, they just need the information on what's going on. Two people should be stationed from 8pm- 5am at the entrance to the festival. Every car should be stopped and given a short scenario of what's going on. Separating long term parking and just overnight parking helps with the auto headache. People should be asked by road crew how long they're staying and direct them to the right area. Long term parking: asking first if they've been there already saves you from going into your mad rant, which is usually something like where to park, where to camp, fire danger, and with enough forethought you'll be giving them a map of the area with names of camps, where to park, location of med tent, kafe, intergalactic petting zoo, camping, etc.
SAFETY/HARM REDUCTION The medical tent should be clearly marked and have a light for night finding. And what would be in a minimal semi-ideal med-tent.... Let's seeeee........ first you have to think about what types ov encounters could possibly occur in the immediate natural environment, as well as the bumps regular day to day human activities could produce.... Then bring everything you need to deal with it...... I'm not saying you have to go build a hospital or anything (although it sounds delightfully fun to imagine), just bring something for everything, and you'd be surprised how things can overlap......
of course you want to have all different sizes of bandaids and other bandages, a couple ace bandages, gauze, tape, scissors, latex gloves(a big box of these are a good idea, as you are in the woods or where ever, and hands are very dirty, also it's good for your own safety as well), alcohol preps, tweezers, a thermometer, and whatever other goodies you feel you need as you are standing in the local drug store getting the rest of this stuff........
in a very minimal setup I would include a container of tea tree oil, hydrogen peroxide, witch hazel, citronella oil, lavender oil, Gatorade (dehydration) grapefruit seed extract, cascara sagrada tincture, cranberry tincture or uva ursi tincture, hyssop tincture, Echinacea tincture, calendula tincture, ginger tincture, pill curing (a Chinese formula),slippery elm lozenges, arnica montana salve, tiger balm, I hate to push products but Weleda Burn Care(a homeopathic ointment for burns-it works better than anything I've tried), a bee sting kit, a snake bite kit.......
In a larger setup I would add Spirulina, vitamin A(10,000 IU), vitamin B complex, vitamin C (1500 mg, time release, with bioflavanoids if possible), vitamin E 400 IU gel caps, a food based multivitamin, a multimineral blend, a vegetarian digestive aid (such as bromelain or papain), triphala (an ayurvedic formula to cleanse the digestive system), evening primrose oil capsules, pennyroyal tincture, blue cohosh tincture, black cohosh tincture
DETAILS: For problems that might incur, I have made a list including what would be good to have for it....... For any treatment first make sure the patient tells you their allergies (i.e. hay fever could make someone react if you give them bee pollen). For all abrasions, clean the area and disinfect before applying poultices.
LEGALITY
All right don't look at me like that. Free festivals are a threat to mainstream
capitalist society in amerika. Just recently, Reclaim the Streets (RTS), and
their impromptu street parties got them labeled as a terrorist organization
by the U.S. Government (www.fbi.gov/congress/congress01/freeh051001.htm).
Free parties/festivals were targeted by the UK authorities back in 1992 with
the Criminal Justice Bill and more recently, France has passed a similar law
banning unsanctioned free parties and gatherings which- if convicted- carries
steep fines and confiscation of equipment. Here in the USA, The Rainbow Family
is at the forefront of the legal battle to peaceably assemble on Public Land
(refer to: www.welcomehome.org under
"legal stuff" and research for yerself).
Anyone questioning the commodification of our public lands and national forests, anyone who believes in the right to peacefully assemble, or anyone supporting a worldview where human rights come before property rights will be seen as a threat. So if you find some cool BLM land, have a posse, and want to throw down a weekend gathering- cuz you figure: This is public land and we're the public and we're gonna be totally responsible about it...you are now that "anyone" we're talking about. So, depending on the size and the character of your crew, you will be dealt with using as much force as is deemed necessary. But since cracking heads every time someone shows an inkling of free thought is a bit costly and time consuming, jumping about like burning ferrets might not be the cops' or rangers' first reaction. If you can negotiate diplomatically and show how responsible you are, you can hopefully persuade them to chill out and even provide assistance (like bringing in 100 gallon water buffaloes). Forest rangers aren't cops and they have the jurisdiction over BLM land so they're worth talking to if you find yourself on BLM land.
BLM land is land owned and controlled by the national government and is therefore "covered" under the first amendment which is, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." (for more info go to www.freedomforum.org or www.welcomehome.org under "legality" for specific information on the right to assemble).
FIRE 5 gallon water buckets should be filled with water at every camp thru out the festival. A reserve of buckets should be kept at the med tent for larger fires that need bucket brigades. A 16" wide (deep enough to clear any combustible material like grass away) trench around vehicles on the festival site will make the BLM happy and easier to deal with. Designate this job to your favorite superstar DJ, they will love it.
CLEAN-UP
If you've done it right you would have been cleaning throughout
the festival. Areas for recycling should be clearly marked for the duration
of the festival. Putting up wire mesh containers for recycling makes it so much
easier. You just need chicken mesh wire, wooden stakes at least two feet high
and a shovel. Make a triangle by sticking the stakes into the ground about three
feet apart from each other. Then take the mesh and weave/ wrap it around the
stakes. Put up separate bins for plastic, glass, and aluminum. Trash should
be driven out when ever someone goes into town. The entire area should be gone
thru to ensure no trash is left behind.
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