Boom Festival 2002

Author: Frederik
Date: Sep 19, 2002
Views: 3646

The most complete trance hippie gathering took off again! Over 100 photos, 4 videos & text reviews (english & french)).


Oct 16, 2002 - Text: Frederik, Sam - Translation: Van - Photos: Frederik, Flower, RaveOn, Edin, Sam, Videos: Omananda

(switch to french version)

This article was produced in cooperation with RaveOn - one of the main trance websites in Brasil.

Aug 21, 2002. An unusual day for Idhana-a-Nova, a small city in Portugal, close to the border to spain. 30 km from this city a traffic jam gathered in the middle of nowhere. Counting several km's thousands of freaks lined up their cars in expectance of one of the worlds main trance gatherings - Boom Festival.

Wednesday. An unusual day for the start of a party. But the reason is clearly visible in the sky - full moon! The door is only open for several hours and freaks from all over the world search for the best place to spend the next five days. The location looks promising but will only reveal it's whole beauty by the next morning. A magic lake with clear water surrounded by fields, mountains and beeing only dedicated to the trance world. No village, no people. In the daytime the lake lights up in magic colors. Where are we - is this earth? Or better - is it earth where we're normally living?

The last months have been hectic for the Goodmood Crew - the organisers of the festival. After it was clear that Samothraki Festival in Greece was meant to happen on the same weekend the trance scene was split in two groups - the Boom and the Samothraki people. There has been an ongoing discussion where to go - friends beeing seperated. There has been an ongoing struggling for the worlds best trance artist of the two festival organising crews. An the big question: How much people are there finally to fill up two festivals of this size? Now that the parties have started on Samothraki people know that Boom Festival is cancelled due to forest fires. On Boom people know that Samothraki is subject to a big storm blowing everything away and stopping ferry traffic completely. None of this is true. Reality suprises everybody finally resulting in two amazing festivals at a time with Boom having around 13.000 visitors and Samothraki around 9.000.

The start of Boom is (like previous Boom's) a bit rough with a long series of power cuts interrupting the trance dance. There is just one big electricity circuit and somewhere is a problem with this. New generators are beeing driven in from Lisbon and finally resolving the problem. But as every Boom Festival maybe this is part of the party. Go together through some rought times to finally have everything running perfectly and enyjoying in unity. Nobody is perfect!

One of the unqiue things about Boom is that the crew starts to works months before the event on the location. In contrary most festivals are usually build up maximum one week before the start. The Boom tribe take their time and by this they build unique structures and infrastructure. This time i.e. they build a parking place that made it possible for every visitor to leave the party every imaginable time. Unthinkable with most of germany's open airs. The parking "streets" were marked with millions of small stones that have been lined up and painted by the Boom crew taking three weeks. Natural Streetmarks!

Page 1 Introduction 1
Page 2 Introduction 2
Page 3 Introduction 3
Page 4 Night Dancefloors 1
Page 5 Night Dancefloors 2
Page 6 Day Dancefloors 1
Page 7 Day Dancefloors 2
Page 8 People 1
Page 9 Atmosphere
Videos 4 Amazing Videos

Photo by RaveOn

   

But this is just a detail. One of many. Not only a detail was the main dancefloor. I have never seen a dancefloor like this and I guess everybody will agree. Besides of beeing an absolutely spectacular temple this dancefloor also had a meaning: It was mainly designed by the belgian fashion designer François (www.saddhu.com) as a temple of the source to reconnect people with the memory of creation. The shade structure was based on sacred geometry. Before the party even started a small taifun came towards the temple, shake the whole structure heavily and then left to the chill out hill and then in the lake. François: "She visited us!". And she came again - on the last night. With tons of rain making the party stop for a couple of hours and purifying location and people of the previous days. To start after for the final day.

Another detail not just beeing a detail was the Dynamic Mythologies Tent. A dream of the organisers that was tried in Boom 2000 but that time didn't really work out. This time it did. A tent dedicated to lectures of some of the worlds main visionalists of psychedelic theories. This time the lectures took place in an extremely relaxed atmosphere and highly appreciated by the participants. Everybody was quietly listening. Nearly nobody left during the lecture. And some found new angles, meanings, targets or inspirations for life. Psychedelic learning of a different type!

And there was even a daily newspaper. Originally they planned a radio station and film team as well but I think still the newspaper that absolutely special and I don't remember this from any other trance festival in the world. And it was really there, day by day informing about the current program and showing some reflections of the last day.

While Samothraki Festival had the biggest lineup ever for Boom it was the compleness of the concept. The options what to do were so massive that getting bored was impossible. The problem was rather deciding what of the many options to do and I'm sure most people didn't check all tents and floors during the five days.

The music was focused mainly on psychedelic this year offering some of the main acts in this area. The timetable was (as usual on Boom) a bit fucked up presenting warm progressive acts in the night and full-on psychedelic acts in the day. But who cares, we're not only here for the music!

The international tribe was the Hippies. A lot of people who have been in the scene for long, who populated goa 10 years ago. Spiritual people, trance attached people, people with a big heart and visions. In contrast to Samothraki that - in my opinion - drew more the Neo Trance Freaks. People without that big visions and the main aim to party and have a good time at a nice location with likeminded people. Don't understand me wrong - I don't say the one group is better that the other.

The difference is created by personal contacts and build up reputation of the organisers. And you find the same difference with other parties: Voov Germany in comparison to Shiva Moon Germany. Ypy Poty Brasil in comparison to Celebra Brasil. Etc...

All in all Boom Festival was an amazing party, a wonderful holiday in deep Portugal, a time full of sun, love, music, impressions, expressions, energy and diversity. The organisers showed once again that they're able to deal with 13.000 people at a place where you normally don't find more than a shepard and some cows. The artists gave their best and were impressed. The guests left the dancefloor on sunday night happily although it would have been nice to have a proper after party. But also this is Boom: It's over when it's over so see you again in 2004!

(sam@chaishop.com)

   
 

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