2#The World of Psytrance: Boom Festival (Portugal)
In the second article of our series, we bring you one of the great counterculture festivals in the trance scene. Boom Festival that takes place every two years in southwest Europe.
A Festival that was born in 1997, when “all this was overgrown” and hardly anyone knew what Psytrance was , what drug policies were, or even what psychedelia was.
Today the scenario has changed and that is why we decided to summarize some interesting points about Boom Festival !
The city that hosts Boom Festival is Idanha-a-Nova , a quiet village in the interior of Portugal . The look of the place is something that elevates the beauty of the event. The beautiful lake and the sunset make up the village landscape, and are instruments of distraction for the public, when they are not on the dancefloor .
The arrival of thousands of people from all over the world, with different values and lifestyles, generates great cultural impacts, but at the same time it has been an engine of development and economic impulse for many years. We are not talking about events that are fresh in the making & which have only been around for a few years, as in Brazil . We are talking about an event with more than 20 years of history, with gigantic cultural value for the scene and for international culture.
The event is a unique opportunity to exchange experiences, get to know, teach and practice sustainability, breathing a lot of music in a mixture of strands and art such as painting, sculpture, interactive installations, graffiti and dance, which are complemented by conferences , and presentations on topics such as alternative science methodologies, visionary culture, ancestral cultures, spirituality, gnosticism, anthropology, psychology of consciousness and others.
Boom participants are not just young people, there is a great age diversity that ranges from children, adults and even the public over 50 years old. This diversity is possible through artistic and cultural proposals that emphasize plurality and the exchange of knowledge.
One of the peculiarities of Boom is its independence from the commercial system, unlike what happens in most festivals, Boom does not accept commercial sponsorship, the ethics of the event consists of a climate of contact with nature where the public is far from any marketing strategy . The meetings focus on the exchange of knowledge between the participants. Without ostentation or glamor, what counts during festival days is culture, art and love, which is why many participants report the Boom Festival as an experience of parallel reality.
How it has Grown
The first edition of Boom took place in 1997 with the proposal of being just a musical event, but it has evolved over time to a celebration of alternative and intercultural culture capable of bringing together people of all styles and ages. The fact is that in the beginning nobody imagined the size that this festival would grow to, but today, we have one of the main and most coveted Festivals in the World! From a festival in the interior of Portugal, to an empire of invaluable cultural value!
Embracing Self Sustainability
In 2004 , Boom began to develop projects to become self-sustainable, aiming at ways of not contaminating nature and educating for ecological awareness. The development of toilets that do not use chemicals, the treatment of festival water using biotechnologies and energy sources, are sustainable options. In addition, Boom makes use of solar and wind energy.
The event also has a good waste disposal policy, uses permaculture in its decoration, and provides free cleaning kits to participants, which strengthens the event’s sustainability seal. In 2010 the festival was invited by the UN to be part of the United Nations Environmental and Music Stakeholder Initiative project , which aims to promote environmental awareness worldwide.
The Boom Festival is the only Portuguese festival with international awards in the environmental area.
Growing the Economy
The boomers enjoying the festival of Idanha-a-Nova for longer stays in Portugal . Tourism promoted with the festival has an economic impact of 55.3 million euros , according to a study by Ernst & Young (EY) that analyzes the economic and social impact of Boom .
This study also found that the number of people involved in each edition among visitors, artists and professionals is 41 thousand, representing almost 5 times the population of Idanha-a-Nova, which is a sparsely populated place. The number of people in the years that the festival takes place is equivalent to about double the tourists that visit the municipality per year. In addition to the economic benefit, the Boom Festival creates 549 direct jobs.
20 years of Boom Festival
An event with such a proportion certainly has a lot of history to tell! Details since its emergence, knowledge absorbed in Goa and that served as inspiration to bring Boom to life. The curiosities, difficulties, all the side projects, interviews from the festival’s creators themselves, and a trip back in time, all of this is detailed in the 20-year documentary of the Boom Festival and its journey from 1997 to 2017 .
The material, lasting 72 minutes, has over 100 thousand views and thousands of likes on Youtube . The documentary narrates the entire trajectory of two decades of Boom, and which were also taken to the pages of the book “ Boom Festival 20 Years: A Visual and Oral History” . The book has 356 pages and presents the testimonies of 134 people ” who had an impact on the evolution of the festival and whose lives Boom touched “.
The book explores the last decades of festival culture and psychedelia “ The book tells the compelling story of Boom, starting with an essay, which compares the culture of the contemporary festival with the ancient rites of Eleusis, before moving into the 21st century. Counted from 134 different perspectives, Boom’s birth and growth are documented in three distinct chapters, giving a deeper sense of context to each period: 1997-2000; 2002-2008; and 2010-today. The whole is illustrated by exclusive photographs , some of which have never been published before ”. The repertoire was produced in 2017 and features fascinating visual arts, portraits through 500 photographs and images, and can be purchased by clicking here .
Check out the documentary Boom Festival 20 Years
Postponement of Boom 2020
Tickets for the festival in 2020 were sold in 60 countries, and sold out in just 1 hour, but due to the global pandemic of COVID-19 , the event was postponed to 2021 . The Boom organization issued an official note on the website and on social media stating the main changes.
We hope you enjoyed this edition of Psytrance Around the World! Stay tuned for our next edition where we will be exploring Master of Puppets festival Festival in Austria/Hungary.
Article Source:
Iasmim Guedes | HiBpm
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