Making of

Boom Village

Dance Floor

People

August full moon 2002 was full on party moon. In the Amazon it was the 2nd Ecosystem, in Greece the 1st Samothraki Festival and in Portugal the 5th Boom Festival.

We were invited to photograph Boom, how could one resist a golden opportunity to participate in one of Europe's big summer trance events? So to Portugal we went for what was to be 'Rave On's' first European Festival.

Most of the Brazilian summer trance crew were off to Samothraki for what promised to be the top lineup of the Euro summer, but what I particularly liked about Boom's proposal was the holistic approach to the festival. Music quality was of course high on the list of priorities but importance was also placed on visual and performing arts and mind-expanding additives such as the Mythologies Convention Tent, the Mayan Dreamspell School and Psynema.

Happily for all party organizers the European Trance scene had grown enough to support the two big international parties. Forecasts from pre-event sales had the organisers expecting around 10,000 Boomers. We arrived at the site to see two and a half months of onsite work coming to its climax.

For the first time in it's 5-year history Boom moved location from the forests of Herdade do Zambujal to the lake of Idanha-a-Nova near the magical mountain top village of Monsanto, the oldest village in Portugal. With Booms steady growth they needed more space and more water. The remarkable energy, superb landscape, distance from major cities and the lake made Idanha-a-Nova the perfect location. The move meant partygoers could seek refuge in the lake's waters when the heat of the summer Portugal sun got too much, and hot it was. It also meant new challenges for the Boom crew in terms of planning, resources and construction.

On the main dance floor the enormous metal structure was taking its form. Squares of coloured material were being cautiously connected above it to provide shade for the dancers.

The idea for the covering came about 4 months before when François was studying the flower of life with a group of friends in south Alentejo. It began with a drawing of a simple mandala and transformed into the idea dedicated to the "Source" where people could reconnect themselves with the memory of creation.

The mandala evolved into a shady covering based on sacred geometry. The central square mandala representing the cube, the first polyhedron, the seeds of life, the male and female cross, the first four cells of creation's expansion, Fibonacci proportions, a compass, Leonardo da Vinci's Canon and a flat pyramid where an alien craft could land carrying and connecting people to the memory of creation.

Impressed? I was…

François explained, "Look at the plan, you can recognize the female (green) Fibonacci spiral passing through the center…the zero point…the creation, and the male spiral (orange) expanding in the opposite direction. You can see that the male spiral curves around on the male side of the cross, exactly on the limit of the structure. The female spiral curves around on the female side of the cross and ends exactly at the end of it!!! 1-1-2-3-5-8…"

10 days before the start of Boom the covering was almost finished, then a freak whirlwind started in the center of the structure. In a few seconds the whirlwind turned into a storm lifting the 3 ton metal structure out of the ground. It then headed straight down where the market would be to the chill out area and off the peninsula.

"Yes, we were visited by the source", said François, "and she didn't exactly agree with our plans."

The structure fully covered would have acted like a huge kite in the strong afternoon winds, kind of dangerous with 10 - 12,000 people under it. So work began again, this time with less covering. It became a race against time.

The original vision of the temple was an open cube with a huge 12 point star at its center. The star represented the beauty, the chakras of the heart. The vibration, being in accordance with the divine wish, would channel the energy from the source, creating a circulation between the cosmos, mother earth, the female and the male cross and passing out through the DJ...the divine flower project.

In the end the result wasn't exactly whatwas originally planned but it was indeed spectacular and, most importantly, the sacred geometry proportions of the covering were maintained. Something needed to be done to cover the not so pretty supportive metal structure. This is where Sola added her special touch. The center cube developed into a spectacular colourful temple and the Boom Dragon took center stage.

The structure required maintenance throughout the festival making sure all the steel cables were kept tight. It was a lot of work and responsibility and on the Saturday night of the festival the last test came…rain. This was perhaps another reason why the 'Source' had visited 10 days before. The material used in the covering was completely waterproof, if the complete version had gone up the weight of water trapped in the covering could have caused tremendous pressure on the metal structure tension, perhaps collapsing it.

"You can imagine the stress with so many people under the structure", said François, "it was an incredible learning experience, lets see if our 'Source' will give us other opportunities to offer pure love through this temple…the divine flower".

The Cosmic Walkers decorated the Boom party grounds with string work and plastic wrapped structures that lit up the Boom nights.

Other groups came and decorated their own little chill outs and chai shops adding to the Boom Village community atmosphere. The market place grew as time went on and boasted a colourful collection of trancey clothes, jewels, things and shop owners.

Food? Well, it was all right...I was personally saved by the Buritos, salad, guacamole and potatoes of the English crew, but thtat's a matter of taste I guess. Everything from a Brazilian financial point of view was pretty expensive for example the 2 Euro 200ml beers...on the other hand and, more importantly, there was free drinking water for all!

To the side of the market place was an area set aside where Baby Boomers could get together. Eventually the market trail led you down to the colourful Dreamspell Mayan Calendar school and the chill chillout area.

At he end of the peninsula was the unique and inspiring Mythologies tent. This year Boom invited Naaskow of Interchill Records and friends to take care of this convention space, a space that would cover various aspects of the psychedelic culture. Naaskow defined 'dynamic mythology' as a living system of stories with which we draw upon to orient ourselves in the cosmos, in terms of where we've come from, where we are, and our possible destination and what this all means for us on planet earth during these incredible and insane times; and that was what it was all about.

Naaskow commented that perhaps one of the greatest challenges in organizing the visionary space was pulling together a range of speakers that were into the idea of an integrative space to soberly discuss psychedelic culture. A prerequisite for the team was the ability to convey the immediate relevance of the psychedelic experience to a psychedelically-inclined, underground, media-savvy, multicultural audience. With time a plan came together as slowly a team of 'interesting' speakers were put together.

The speakers were chosen through personal contacts, books and writings published on psychedelic culture. Click here, then on the 'conventions' link to see the lineup
"I was interested in putting together a small group of speakers with a wide spectrum of experience. Most of the people that came to speak were primarily concerned with the natural psychedelics, the plant medicines like yage, salvia divinorum and the mushroom," said Naaskow. "They all seemed to be into the idea and keen to take part in a cutting edge international event like the Boom."

Even though most speakers were psychedelic in nature it seemed that many were not regular party goers. Most were fascinated and impressed that psychedelic culture had evolved to what we see happening at some of these global trance festivals. Some specifically commented on the level of conscious intention of the Boom with such additions as the Mayan Dreamspell school and the dynamic mythologies conference area. Some that had begun their psychedelic history in the 60's and 70's had begun to think those days were gone forever. Boom thankfully prooved that the psychedelic culture was alive and evolving.

What was incredible was the participation of the Boom goers. People seemed to be genuinely interested and there was plenty of discussion. "A lot of people were incredibly thankful for visiting us at the tent. I think a they connected with something there, whether it was a connection with like-minded people or information and ideas depended on what was important for them at the time", said Naaskow.

The experience was rewarding for many people, "It felt like we were carrying on the work that Terence Mckenna started," claimed Naaskow, "and that we were, at the same time, taking things into a totally different direction in terms of setting up a space where people could connect and share information and stories about the psychedelic experience in a grounded way. The intention was to create a space for the exploration of an emergent context/paradigm based upon the psychedelic vision so that we may evolve our sense of what it means to be alive on the planet right now as a global village going galactic so to speak."

With the success of the space I asked Naaskow if he thought it could work in other parties or was Boom kind of special?
"Yes, definitely. We are already working on developing some of the ideas that were explored while we were in Portugal so that we may continue to do the dynamic mythologies tent elsewhere. It's kinda like a freely roaming gypsy caravan that can set up anywhere and host any number of activities designed for the application of the psychedelic vision to the tasks of healing and transforming the world."

Not only was the participation in the mythologies tent impressive, the overall participation was excellent. People came from all over to just have fun. If you were an old Goa goer you would have recognized a substantial number of old friends. Boom brought them all out off the beach perhaps because of the overall intention of the party and special guests such as Alex Grey and Swami Chaitanya. For a weekend Idanha-a-Nova was freak capital…

Many people commented that Boom succeeded in capturing the best vibe, choosing the best location and putting up the most innovative decoration of the European festivals. They even managed to put out a daily journal. There were of course the fair share of technical problems such as the up and down power supply to the chill out and market area, mainly due to unintentional misuse by market proprietors and then there was the freak rain storm on Saturday night which, of course wreaked havoc, but the Boom crew kept going and the party went on…              

Oh...and the music…the lineup went through it's fair share of changes but in the end it was all good…just check out the photos of the dancefloor...

Text & Photos: Lisa & Andre Ismael

Making of

Boom Village

Dance Floor

People

Fact File:
The number of "Boom 2002 goers" was up by almost 50% on 2000 to 15,000
Number of reported thefts were down by 50%
Quantity of rubbish produced was down by 50% to about 40,000 ton
Reward systems were implemented for collection of rubbish and ciggarette butts
Cool huh!!