Evolving ConFest Sites
Written and updated since 1994. Updated Oct. 2014.
The following is a personal perspective on evolving ConFest Sites in the
1990s
When ConFesters arrive at a ConFest site
they are a chaotic and complex self
organising social system. Everyone is a volunteer. There are no bosses.
There are no subordinates. People are very mindful that the site set up is an
opportunity to evolve community and to explore how to work well with each other
in a cooperating and collaborating way. We are exploring processes that differ
from the top down way of the dominant system. It is not a ‘pre-plan the layout away from the site, and then impose the plan’. Rather when the first
few arrive we first walk the site. We are becoming familiar with the site as
it is, and as it may be as the time for ConFest gets nearer. The site can be very dynamic. It can be
changing on a daily, even hourly basis, especially when it is raining,
flooding, or when flood water is receding and land drying out. During a
brief shower dry dust can turn to slippery mud on a hard base where cars can
get no traction. Thirty minutes later and traction returns.
For example, on the New Year 1993/94 when we
first used the Perricoota Station property on the Murray River at Moama, ten
weeks before ConFest the site was around 70% under water. We had an assurance
from locals with knowledge of planned water release levels by the Murray River
Water Authorities that the land we wanted to use for the festival would be dry
three before our date allowing us three weeks set up.
In the first few weeks only two of us were
on site and each day we would be wading the area to gain a sense of the shape
of the landforms and how we may best use the place - exploring possible places
for villages and the market, swimming areas, car parking and the like. At first
we make tentative suggestions as to layout. This layout is guided by the site
and by what has happened spontaneously at past ConFests.
The first essential is that we let the site tell us what to do. Then
we let the unfolding context tell us what to do.
What are the site’s natural features and how
may we fit in with those features? How
can we potentially position things relative to those natural features? We
intentionally keep everything very tentative
as we are doing this walking and talking
looking at the features and the constraints of the topography. This is a very
organic natural process. It is very indigenous. We are not in an imposing mode.
It is more of the looking for the fitting and the placing of potential
localities.
We have the sense of the various energies
that ConFest attracts. There are the quiet people and the more vigorous sound
makers. There are the workshop energisers and enabler facilitators. We know
what the various villagers like to have in their village. For example the pagan
village people like to camp in a ‘grove’ type atmosphere near a clearing
preferably with one small ceremonial tree in the middle. They like to be able
to clearly see the full moon at Easter time. If we select a tentative site with
these features for the Pagan Village people, when they all start to arrive
typically they really like the place as it is the best location for them on the
site. It may have for example, a grove of trees for shady camping near a
clearing ideal for ceremony with a clear view of the full moon at Easter, being
a reasonable distance from the market, beach, arts and other workshop venues.
They can drum and the site has just the atmosphere they love.
The same applies to every other village. We
know their preferences and we maximally fit these preferences. When done well,
the ConFesters do typically congregate within the various village spaces as
they have been tentatively suggested. When thousands of people all arrive in a
few hours they essentially do whatever they like to do. ConFest and ConFesters
have the context emerge now whereby between one and two thirds of them have
been before and they know how it all works.
There are the typical natures of the various
villages that the ConFesters generate when they arrive. There are the
following:
The quieter kinds of villages:
·
Spirituality
·
Healing
·
Yoga
·
Tai chi
·
Meditation
The medium noise villages:
·
Arts
village
·
Decadence
·
Pagan
·
Nothing
in particular
·
Crazy
hat
·
Family
and children
·
Sexuality
·
Tantra
·
Spiral
·
Tipi
·
Circus
The more noisy villages
·
Acoustic
music
·
Drumming
(and this at other locations as well)
·
Singing
dancing
We use the blue plastic packing tape to mark
out tentative spaces for villages by tying the tape between trees around the
tentative space above head height so when others arrive no one will hit or trip
on the tape while walking at night. This typically stays as a marker.
This tape comes in a large roll number of 1,000
metres long
We then staple A4 size paper signs on to the
tape saying this is a possible place
for say, the Pagan Village. Workshop spaces are marked as well as event spaces
large and small. Some areas along the water ways are marked as ‘no camping’ to
create places to stroll and take in the water reflections and ambiance. Some
areas are marked for conservation.
There is a map about site layout at the
welcome gate. It shows the three parking zones:
·
Car
Free (furtherest into the site)
·
Stay-put
Gypsy
·
Access
Gypsy (closer to the front gate)
The map also shows the tentative village layout and the various zones of relative
quietness. No one is giving people directives about what you can and cannot do.
There is a pervasive spirit of ‘here we
evolve our community life together’. ConFesters can choose to camp where
ever there is camping space.
In walking the site we are sensing where the
ConFest paths may emerge. Paths have very ancient traditions:
o
A way
to get between places.
o
A place
for easier walking without tripping.
o
A way
to locate our self and others.
o
A way
to see the local features.
o
A means
to take in the best features of the locale
o
A way
to discover the locale and each other was we walk and talk
o
Enabling
walking meditations
o
A way
to meet others passing by
o
A way
to meet others on the wayside
On one occasion when grass on the site was
high, a perceptive person brought an old robust domestic Victor Motor Mower and
someone very familiar with the site and with a feel for all of the tentative
villages and other places took the mower for a sensible walk. After a few hours
of ConFester walking, the mown ‘pathways’ became the ConFest paths. The paths
had maximal shade. They wandered past all of the enchanting and interesting
places. The maximised the visual feast of ConFest. While only the width of the
victor motor mower originally, some of these segments of the ConFest mown
‘path’ became major tracks where you could walk five abreast, made wide by foot
traffic.
In selecting workshop and conference spaces
we again have a sense for the special sacred feel of the space. We are looking
for spaces beside paths for easy location. We are looking for places with
special vibe, and attractive aspect and attractive view. We look for natural
clearings with a natural surrounding boundary of trees. We look for the absence
of dangerous overhead branches that may fall. We look for tree based anchor
points for erecting shade tarps. We especially check for local over-ground
water flow and natural drainage ways. In the past, folk have not allowed for
this and more than once we have ‘lost’ most of our workshop spaces when they
became pools of water.
This is an emerging document and will be
enlarged.