The event topography harbours familiar landmarks, but out here on the interstices there are plenty of surprises. This section, comprising the remainder of the chapter, introduces ConFest culture by way of its spatial configurations. First, I detail the principal infrastructural mechanisms or key event zones and their functions. Second, I detail each village centre and its workshops.

The Gate

The gate wants everyone inside, in their own open format - the gate wants people to leave their baggage there - the gate can handle the baggage. (Paula, DTE email-group 24/10/98)

The Gate is a marquee and portable room set up on an entrance road some distance from the open road to accommodate volunteers who collect and issue tickets, pass outs and handle the money.14 David Cruise explains The Gate's interstitial status well: 'The Gate is not ConFest. The Gate is not the outside world. The Gate is both, a kind of half way place that one must pass through to reach the mythical land of ConFest'. Referring to the subtle protective network and flexible induction process honoured by gate volunteers, for Paula:

[T]he gate is a magical world and time zone all of it's own.... a doorway - a window - the entrance - like Orryelle's gateway [see Labyrinth, below] - a magical separation between the two worlds - the magic of it being one of the MOST critical parts - ensuring the difference between confest and the other big festivals I've been to. (DTE email-group 24/10/98)

It is at the entrance to the event-space that one may pass into the 'ConFest time' zone. There are two meanings to this. The first is the twice introduced ConFest-specific daylight savings of one or two hours.15 The second is the sensation of atemporality, or suspension of normal time that takes effect upon entrance for those more familiar with the ConFest journey. By transferring to ConFest daylight savings time, or by making early threshold adjustments (which includes the temporary discarding of watches) at The Gate, ConFesters enact something like that which Falassi (1987:4) calls rites of 'valorization' or 'sacralization', which, he avers, are common to festivals where 'daily time is modified by a gradual or sudden interruption that introduces "time out of time", a special temporal dimension devoted to special activities'.

Gate volunteers, besides ensuring every person entering ConFest has a ticket (DTE's policy is that everybody, including site-crew and workshop holders, has to buy one), must contend with certain difficulties. Since DTE do not hire professional security to search cars or patrol perimeters, the issues of 'freeloading' (10% get in without paying according to George) and those looking for cheap entrance, exist. As David Cruise explains, some 'would try the patience of Job [as they] stage performances that could get an AFI award'.

DC has helped facilitate the gate process over a few years. Interested in evolving appropriate strategies to deal with 'difficult situations', he argues people 'must enter your reality, you don't enter theirs'. Trev's disarming approach is exemplary. Trev is ConFest's naked ambassador. Guardian and translator of the ConFest Spirit to neophytes, he has rarely missed a ConFest since 1981, and he spends most of the time at the Gate. He even camps there now. By his reckoning 'it costs me 80c a week to go to two ConFests, and I make sure I've got that in the kitty'. But, besides the freeloaders who sponge on the community, there are those who come for the free or cheap 'PerveFest':

We've often had six, eight, ten car loads coming when the pub closes ... [but] the yobbos don't know how to talk to a naked guy, so I've never been physically accosted. It's disconcerting to them. I've got the upper hand ... 'Hi guys, welcome to ConFest. Got a ticket ... Just come for a look have you. Well you had your look. We're gonna turn you round here. But what can I tell you about ConFest? ConFest can change lives. It's a caring, sharing community of all sorts of people' ... And we've had beautiful wins out of this.

Usually unclad himself, Cruise reasons 'most people in our society cannot deal with a naked male. It's just so outside their reality, when they enter our reality of a naked ticket box, they kind of lose all their control and reference points. It's just outlandish'.

Sited on the other side of the car park from the gate, is the Welcome Tipi, a recent feature (at Moama IV and V). At the edge of the car park this second entrance threshold is the doorway to the village space. Entrants walk under the sign 'Welcome Home' (A Rainbow Gathering import) and encounter the guardian of the Tipi who imparts basic information and controls traffic. A map and doss down area for those arriving late at night are found here.

Information Centre

The nerve centre of ConFest, this area is designed to facilitate the exchange of information. This happens in several ways. Participants are provided information on a range of issues regarding the day-to-day aspects of ConFest. There is a map of the site, usually an example of what Niman calls 'participatory cartography' - a map updated by various people as the festival unfolds such that it is 'completely out of scale, bearing no resemblance to the actual geography of the area' (1997:16). There are also signposts to villages, a base 'radio on a stick' and a telephone. It is the location for ConFest's 'non-verbal communication exercise', as hundreds of personal notices informing friends of camping locations or pursuing lifts home, are posted. Most important, a wall of blackboards ('the wall') is usually positioned nearby upon which those who elect to run workshops over the week make their intentions known by scrawling the workshop/performance name and its time of day in columns identifying the location (normally a village). 'The wall' connects ConFesters to a live switchboard of alternatives. The area is also a storage space for community equipment (cool room, barrows, bicycles, four wheeled motorbikes or 'quads', tarps, tools, supplies etc.), the location for a worker's kitchen, and the principal point for recruiting novices for site work - especially The Gate crew.

Pt'chang Peacekeepers

The DTE funded ConFest Safety Project (CSP) formed the Pt'chang camp at Moama IV and V, merging with the existing 'fire and security' team (known as 'Pt'chang')16 and also attracting the input of those involved with the previous Community village. The CSP is 'an informed and pro-active community controlled safety project' designed by people within the ConFest community to create safety and to empower ConFesters to respond constructively and nonviolently to unsafe situations. Anthony, instrumental in developing the CSP, says it was created by a small number of activists within the grassroots Australian Non-Violence Network. Anthony claims 'a lot of the techniques and skills and stuff that we are using here have been used in war zones'. The CSP, he said, has been inspired by the Gandhian Shanti Sena, a grassroots peace army which spread throughout India intervening in conflicts, including that between Hindus and Muslims17 and the 'world peace brigades' including the nonviolent interventionist Peace Brigades International.

An ideal social laboratory for applying their techniques, ConFest was chosen as a response to the real threat of sexual harassment and abuse. 'Women friends of mine [explains Anthony] have been really clear in telling me that it's the perfect place for rape, and it's been highly dangerous for women ... Sexual harassment's rife'.18

Prior to Moama IV, as a result of funding from DTE, 40 people were trained in a range of skills. According to the Pt'chang Handbook (ConFest 96/97: produced by the CSP:19) the appropriate protocol is to employ 'actions that work consensually', using an 'enabling wellbeing' frame rather than one of 'conflict managing'. Accordingly, the training was a movement away from 'security guard', power-over strategies, toward power-with strategies. Anthony explains:

We're not police ... We've got a totally different way of using power than police or authority figures and use fundamentally different methods, such as simply using listening skills to intervene in violence, and peacekeeping skills.

The training drew on a diversity of experience and networks, covering Aikido centring, briefings on drug and alcohol issues and harm minimisation, debriefing, sexual assault, non-violent intervention skills and crisis response strategies. The radical departure from power-over strategies of 'crowd control' is clear in a passage from the Handbook (7):

Nonviolent interventions are fun and we can be as creative and adventurous as we like. We can interrupt the old, boring, scripted patterns of violence with something that is new, different and unexpected. We recognise that there is thrill and excitement in taking risks and being scared, and finding the spontaneity and excitement of intervening nonviolently.

Pt'chang provided several key facilities: a 'safe place' marquee; a 24 hour crisis response network of co-ordinated peacekeepers (in pairs, on foot and on bicycles) trained for crisis intervention; a communication network connecting all peacekeepers and First Aid (the hub was the communications or 'coms' tent, where a log book was kept), and; the 'Wellbeing Collective'. Forming Pt'chang's core, the latter was itself comprised of three groups: the Support group (counselling, debriefing, healing); the 'Purple Collective' available in cases of sexual violence, assault and child abuse, and: the Conflict Resolution and Mediation group, acting as a mediation service (Handbook:2). Workshops were held on a range of safety issues. They liaised with DTE, and the Bush Fire Brigade and undertook 'fire patrols', disseminating information about fire regulations. A workers' kitchen was set up and maintained in their space. They perceived their most important role is in encouraging all ConFesters to take responsibility and initiative for their own safety.

Community Kitchens

The 'Earth Link Cafe' was conceived at Moama III (Easter '95), evolving out of a perceived need to supply volunteers with meals (food supplied with DTE funds). It was set up and maintained by a core of experienced people many of whom were connected to various alternative community groups from the Dandenongs: such as Mountain Co-op, Alternative Options for Youth and Mountain Net. Its principal co-ordinator, Laurie, designed it such that there were two fires: a fire 'of the hearth' 'being from the mother's spirit', and the masculine 'fire of the hunt'. The 'Cafe' idea has given rise to Community Kitchen developments at subsequent ConFests where huge 'feasts' have occurred towards the end of the event. The idea of distributing food to participants, a portion of the Society's 'invisible hand', has precipitated the occurrence of events where several kitchens have appeared in different village centres (Toc IV being a good example).

Community Toilets/Showers

There are normally about 20 toilets around the site. Before the event, pits are dug with back hoes, which are then skirted with hessian or tie-dyed cloth wrapped around star pickets. ConFesters are urged to 'adopt a dunny': keep toilets clean and maintain paper supplied from Information. Since pits are deep, covered and participants urged to cover their faeces with the lime provided, diseases often reported at Rainbow Gatherings - the 'Rainbow Runs' (Niman 1997:67) - are prevented. Toilets are finally filled in and pulled down by site crew. There are a small number of showers located around the site also. Toilets and showers are non-gender specific and users are often visible to one another and to those walking by. Often there are no barriers separating multiple toilets which means defecating can be quite a fear-confronting experience for novices who are accustomed to excreting waste in lonely cubicles. According to Chris, 'I think having a crap beside a stranger is about the most disarming thing ConFest gave [me]'

Fire Circle

A gathering area, the Fire Circle serves as a focal point for the collective release of energy. At Toc III and IV it was adjacent to the market, at Birdlands it was at the centre of the site on 'the sacred mound', and at the Moama events there was no single gathering space. The Fire Circle has been the site of collective daytime performances such as the meditative 'morning sharing',19 Spontaneous Choirs,20 Tai Chi, Yoga, belly dancing and children's parades. At dusk this space metamorphoses into a mischievous nocturnal playground where the boundary between performer and spectator is fluid or non-existent - a spontaneous combustion of youth, colour, sound and spirit. At Toc III, following an invocation of the original inhabitants of the area (the Yorta-Yorta), hundreds gathered to perform a fire walk under the fullness of the moon. Vertiginous dancers, many of whom were naked with mud, ochre and paint-based body-murals and facial designs, gestured frenetically to the accompaniment of tumultuous orchestras. On this, as with most evenings, the air dense with dust and the ringing of bells dangling from a thousand limbs, necks and foreheads, and with the roar of firesticks overhead, there occurred one rapturous Dionysian cacophony in which the fire remained a central element.21

For ConFest's duration, music is nearly always audible, especially the rapid strain or distant booming of drums accompanied by the intermittent roar and shriek of delirious crowds. The gathering spaces are pulsating centres of percussion. Every night a host of musicians appear in possession of a bizarre spectrum of instruments. There is an eruption of African djembe, dun dun (double ended talking drum) bongo, congas, doumbek, kalimba and chekere, together with steel pan, cow bells, clapping sticks, xylophone, rainmakers (carved hollow wooden tubes filled with beads), 44 gallon drums, frying pans, cooking pots and anything loud when beaten. I have seen and heard a range of wind instruments (flute, saxophone, tuba, horns, bagpipe, didjeridu), and an equally impressive range of vocals, from tonal chant to rebirthing scream. Together with fire jugglers and breathers, the convergence of hundreds of skilled and semi-skilled musicians in the Fire Circle, around camp fires and at other locations (like the chai tent or Market centre), especially on New Years Eve, generates an infectious frenzy.

The Market

In the market, itinerant stall holders trade in goods and services palatable to New Agers and 'greenies': handicrafts, candles, folk-jewellery, leather goods, crystals, incense, hemp products, cheesecloth garments, recycled fabrics, herbs and oils. Here, one can find numerologists, aromatherapists, tarot, palm, rune and aura readers; buy 'tribal staffs', 'rainmakers', 'medicine sticks', roo-bone 'amulets', Feng Shui meditation products, a range of percussive instruments and didjeridus; and get one's body pierced or hair tied. Food and drink sales are strictly vegetarian, wholemeal and non-alcoholic - meat, animal derived and disposable products are prohibited, and inorganically produced foodstuffs are disfavoured. Bio-dynamic juices, like wheatgrass, are popular, as is chai tea (in the 'chai tent' - a familiar meeting place). The converted 'bus with the lot' of the bohemian 'Vege Out Cafe' and the Earth Oven bakery are also favourite venues. Most vendors are itinerant traders following a circuit of alternative events and markets (like St Andrews market near Melbourne). Some are operated for the benefit of non-profit, ethical and community organisations. Stalls include Friends of the Earth (FOE) dishing up vegan fare, Ananda Marga22 who erected large marquee restaurants serving Indian cuisine, Hari Krishna, The Dzogchen Community,23 the Sun Cafe, which dispensed 'solar powered smoothies', and the Performer's Cafe. At these events, GECO and HEMP (Help End Marijuana Prohibition) also had tents wherein their own agendas were placed on display. At Moama IV, the market centre featured The ConFest Prayer Wheel. Upon writing their 'good feelings, prayers and wishes for the planet, us and the New Year', market patrons were invited to slip their wishes into the makeshift cylindrical device and give it a spin.

Along with conforming to health and safety regulations, and requiring a public liability insurance policy, food vendors must, in their application to the Market Committee, satisfy several criteria: no meat, no disposable products, no personal generators, environmentally sound cleaning products only and sullage should not disrupt the aquatic and terrestrial environment. From Toc IV a divisional recycling system and compost area was situated in the market. At that event, a 'participation policy' was also introduced. Each vendor was required to provide one breakfast, lunch or dinner for site workers, with the larger stalls obliged to take bigger sittings. Vendors were charged rent according to the stall's type and size. At Toc IV there were four types:

· Non-profit organisations, community GEN24 types, and co-operative groups that use organic and biodynamic produce' (as much as $100.00).

· Non-profit organisations, community GEN types and Co-operative groups.

· Other traders who use organic and biodynamic produce.

· Other traders (as much as $300.00).

Many vendors are regulars and have evolved long-standing social networks wherein they camp together, share stories about the health of the market and 'look after each other'. Sociality is similar to that described for car boot sales in Britain by Crewe and Gregson (1998). Far removed from the hostility of the conventional market-place, friendships between vendors often cut across any competition.

During this period of research, an area was demarcated in the market for the purpose of screening 16mm film of past ConFests. The film was narrated by a long time DTE elder and custodian of visual history, the late Gordon Ballard. Images, actions and concerns of participants at past events (including the original event at Cotter and the presence of controversial ancestral figures such as Jim Cairns) were projected. Participants, especially novices, were reminded of their heritage and provided the opportunity to position themselves historically. Films on Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, vivisection and footage of UFOs were also viewed.

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