Holding ConFest had then become DTE's key motivation, with members primarily concerned with the planning, promotion, facilitation and operation of successive events. While the Co-operative may have become neutral in the interests of its own survival, its product has always been far from neutral. The peculiarity of this ALE, distinguishing it from most pop, rock, country and folk music festivals, raves and New Age fairs, is its amalgamation of Festival and Conference. It became a popular seasonal location where the perennial quest for release and diversion, for play (Festival), met the contemporary offerings of alternative cultural awareness (Conference workshops). It became a site where the hedonistic excesses of the carnivalesque coincided with the serious business of opposition (to dominant socio-cultural patterns such as: work, health and diet, religion, sexuality, technology, consumption), a context wherein a rapturous Dionysian sense of vertigo and quest for transcendence would engage creatively with an Apollonian inclination for order, organisation and the achievement of goals.33 ConFest licensed transgression, becoming a sensually and socially promiscuous landscape where the fantasies and ideas of thousands of participants could be given free expression. It gained reputation as a transitional topos, an occasion whereupon one's spontaneous expressions, uninhibited tactile convulsions and exposure to a tableau of alternative practices, beliefs and behaviours may give rise to many different transformations: on psychological, spiritual, social, political and cultural levels simultaneously, a matrix of potentiality.34

Conferencing is, according to Svendsen (ICBM 1999), the significant partner in ConFest. For this ConFest disciple, the conferencing dimension is a catalyst for 'the generation of independently thinking self-organising ... moral agents for the wider unconscious society' (ibid:131-2). Conferencing is conventionally mediated through a huge range of workshops, discussions and forums reaching a total of around 300 at the earlier summer events. Participants have been invited to do workshops on themes ranging from a spectrum of holistic therapies designed for the purposes of personal growth, to a multiplicity of educational sessions and interactive theatre and dance 'playshops', to politically motivated sessions (contesting and resisting spiritual pathos, nuclear family, drug prohibition, sexual repression and environmental abuse). Many workshop themes convey a complex relationship between personal growth and ecological sustainability (ecological self/global community) - being healthy and being green are connected modalities of authenticity.

Characterised by crowds of strangers uniting for the purpose of having 'serious fun', the Festival dimension complements the serious business of self-healing and social/political activism. I have chosen one well known example, an experience which has been referred to as 'the Raindance' transpiring on New Year's Eve at Walwa III (1990/91). Dik Freestun is a competent commentator:

[B]eginning an hour or so before dark, some 2000 fun lovers mostly wearing nothing but body paints, willow leaves and natural adornments, took off to lead a mighty Pageant/Procession, which grew to take in thousands! It took around 50 to carry a VERY long Rainbow Serpent, made of a huge and heavy ship's rope, dressed with ribbons, paint, etc and a big, coloured head. Around it, walked, ran, jumped and danced the 100s & 1000s of painted people with rainbow flags waving, all sorts of musical instrument, drums, clap-sticks, pots & pans ... the Pageant progressed, round the island, through Craft street, past the Power Co'35 and was headed to the Stage area when the STORM moved in. Over the hills came big black billowing clouds, thunder and lightening! ... That didn't seem to affect the height of Natural Energy swelling to a peak with every lightening flash - Cheering! Whooping! Yelling! Leaping! Drumming! Dancing! Wild - the primal mob seemed between 2 to 3 thousand strong. By the time the storm raged in with squalls of rain in wind gusts - driving- lashing - thunder - lightening - the people/serpent/rainbow/storm/energy performed a circle, spiral, in and around CAR-HENGE ( ... two old wrecked utes mounted on their tails 3 metres apart with a station wagon across the top, tied balanced and propped. Painted with symbols and rainbow colours).36 From it's inside centre hung a great BELL - fullon - steel - loud - everyone rang it all confest thru' - but NOW at the height of the Storm Pageant it was ringing wildly! Some 44gal Drums up-turned became Bass Rhythm beaten with sticks to match thunder ... After dark, [though the storm had gone] the primal energy of thousands didn't weaken. (Freestun DTENEA Feb. 1991:14-15)

Akin to the way Maleny participants registered the post-Fire Event rain storm over New Year 1991/92 (Lewis and Dowsey-Magog 1993:211), many ConFesters interpreted the Walwa thunder storm 'as a divine sanction of the efficacy' of the festival.

The first events in phase two were organised with the specific intention of honouring that which, it was considered, made ConFest unique - its Conference component. Seeking 'Viable Futures', Glenlyon II (1982) featured a 'Community Politics Village' with workshops exploring current political issues and grassroots philosophies. Boasting the theme 'Making Alternatives Work', Baranga I occasioned a host of workshops on practical alternatives. A flier for the event carried the query: 'Do you feel threatened by an Orwellian vision of 1984?' and a newsletter (DTE News 37) promoting the event as a kind of reactionary antidote to a host of maladies, reminded patrons 'we are facing the 2nd depression of this century'. The event was designed to educate 'survival skills'. Isolation in nuclear families and false consumerist values could be countered by learning about 'mutual support' on rural communities. 'Standards of health and nutrition are low ... learn how to care for your body and mind'. 'We are alienated and distanced from each other ... learn how to network'. 'TV makes us passive and apathetic. Take control. Join in and enrich your life with music, drama, poetry'.

Baringa II (1984/85), described as 'a celebration of earth-conscious people', demonstrated well the combination of the Conference/Festival components. The theme for this event was simply 'Peace' reflecting the national and global anti-nuclear outrage at the time, especially the growing numbers of nuclear powered and and/or armed warships docking in Australian ports (indeed, it was The International Year of Peace). In the wake of Sydney's Peace March and Rally in April 1984 (in which 100 000 participated), and a blockade of the uranium mine at Roxby Downs in South Australia in August (and the film The Day After), ConFest would hold a 'group visualisation for peace'. The occasion attracted a host of activist organisations such as FOE, The Daintree Action Group, Redfern's Blackrose Anarchist Bookstore collective, the NDP and Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) (Paul White 1985:28).37 The event featured a 'Wimmins' village, and for its participants, it would mark the beginning of the final year of the UN 'Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace' (1976-1985). Later, in 1986, the 'Peace Train' (a mobile peace education resource unit) stopped at Glenlyon III as it travelled the nation visiting co-ops, festivals and country centres around Australia before terminating at Magic Garden for DTENEA's inaugural All One Family Gathering.

Yet the Baringa events (especially Baringa I: 1983/84) had also precipitated the future alignment of ConFest with Australia's 'cult of the New Year' (ConFest and New Year are now inseparable) and the steady domination of the Festival element, which, in today's promotion, is invariably intonated as the event's foremost attraction. In the late 1980s and early '90s, the social and political activist presence declined (the Political, Anarchist, Environmental and Women's villages did not have the presence they had had previously). This trend has invited a host of indictments and ridicule. In May 1994, George Schmidt stated 'we haven't done what we set out to do, to guide our younger brothers and sisters ... we haven't given them the tools. ConFest is now no more than a delightful psychological wank'. Criticising the organisational structure of the Society (in June 1994), David Cruise believed DTE had 'not honoured its charter ... as it was expressed in the early days ... we have lost the path ... the incumbent group of current directors have lost the conference process'. Schmidt, in the Moama '93/94 handbook (6), expresses his concern that ConFests had become 'el-cheapo camping holidays'.

The Society had begun with fathomless depths of creative input and co-operative enthusiasm. The steady decline of the conferencing process is one reason why 'energy' (DTE volunteers) and ConFest populations ebbed rather dramatically at points throughout the eighties. After Glenlyon II (1982), though a small Exhibition of Alternatives was held at Collingwood Education Centre in July 1982, there was not another event until Baringa I (1983/84) near Wangaratta. Despite attempts to reinvigorate the co-operative essence of ConFest by promoting later events at Glenlyon (1986 and 1986/87) under the banner of 'Co-operation', Glenlyon IV (1986/87) was reputedly 'down in energy input' as the Society lost members (and their valuable skills and resources), the result, according to Ron Fletcher, of factionalism, power struggles - the 'shafting of opponents' - and the absence of consensual process (R. Fletcher DTE News 57, Oct. 1987; DTE News 59, Aug. 1988). The drained 'energy' prompted Fletcher to urge the Society to investigate the possibility of forming regional groups in rural Victoria or perhaps expand interstate, thereby returning to a national organisation with each group acting as resource bases for one main annual festival (DTE News 58, March 1988).

The dearth of on-site volunteers at ConFest has been of critical concern. Members of the Black Rose Collective, who co-ordinated the Self Management village at Baringa II, indicated at an early stage, that DTE organisational structures made access difficult for ConFesters. The extremely informal nature of the site structure 'consisting predominantly of highly motivated individuals each doing their own thing and coordinating mainly through a complex web of personal relationships' renders ConFest quite impenetrable for newcomers:

The people who want to get involved can't find a way in; most people with grievances about the way things operate can't find an appropriate forum to air them or get things changed, whilst the organisers become grossly overworked, withdrawn, bad tempered and/or resentful. In short the whole situation becomes intensely alienating for everybody concerned. (Alan et al. 1985:12)

Site workers thus also find 'little or no time for their own education' - workshopping. The Black Rose Collective intimated that the further separation of organisers from workshops is possibly the root cause of the decline of the conferencing dimension: 'If the organisers themselves are shying away from educative processes then they are hardly likely to provide a continuing forum for other people in this area' (ibid).

The on-site organising of events in the latter stage of the second phase is indicative of the Co-operative's direction at the time. As echoed in workshops and other infrastructural arrangements, events appeared to be largely controlled by a small minority. At Moama II (1994/95) a centralised workshop district appeared where several marquees could be found all within short walking distance. The arrangement was designed to be efficient - it was made practical for participants to locate and move between workshop sites. However, since workshops were largely centralised and mixed, the unique potential of the event was circumvented. This structure meant that uniting around an explicit theme in a relatively removed sub-space (village-nucleus) was precluded. With planning 'dictated' by a small group, the ethic of responsibility and the effect of autonomy thought to render ConFest desirable was seriously challenged. Curiously, the event also heralded the appearance of the 'Nothing in Particular' village, perhaps a cynical, almost nihilist reflection on the direction the event was taking. By Moama III (Easter '95), there were further indications that the co-operative ethos was waning as significant workloads were undertaken by contractors.

The Society was then challenged by the breaking down of ConFest's Conference process coupled with its co-operative ethos. To prevent such a loss, members chose various strategies, therein defending the boundaries of tradition. For example, ConFesters purchasing tickets for Moama I (93/94) were provided with a handbook which stressed that they 'take responsibility for [their] own needs and feelings' (6). The handbook included 'a participation ticket' allocating participant's duties (front gate, garbage, toilets, staffing information, odd job person, car park attendant, fire/security, and children's village helper) which they were obliged to undertake for one hour of one day of the event.

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