Albion and Barsham Fayres/Fairs in East Anglia, England, 1972-86. A lovely record of some splendid olde-worlde, idiosyncratic festivals including many horse fairs.
Festival Eye magazine features news and info about the more alternative-style festies, mostly UK-focused. Worth checking out some of the older issues.
Free parties. These developed out of rave and spread around the globe.
Here are a couple of links.
The first is to the site about UK parties 1990-94, which includes some rarely seen footage of Castlemorton Common. Lots of old news coverage, plus links to sites featuring particular sound systems such as DiY, Circus Warp, Bedlam, Circus Normal and the Spirals.
And a second link to the Malfaiteurs site on Facebook.
A fire festival in Switzerland. Small, vibrant and growing. Totally off grid. Nothing for sale. Bring what you need and to give away. Arts structures are built AND all burned at the end of the festival. Also features music, dance and all sorts of creativity. The title is a word game (apparently) meaning avanti, forwards towards the fire, and let's go...
Fusion Festival in Germany every year. Very much a 'different' kind of festival. Check it out!
UK-based, George is an important commentator/writer on the edges of festival culture. His books on festivals, radical gardening and music are situated in the cracks and margins between social activism, popular culture and academic study. He describes himself as “a British academic with a longstanding research interest in alternative cultures and living practices, festivals and gardens, participatory arts and media, music, protest, peace, disability, and social movements.”
Not the festival…but a link to variety of street buskers, musos, nomads and more, performing around the historic Somerset, UK town. Enjoy!
Much-mythologised Swedish musicians. Proto-type hippies, mask-wearing, commune-dwelling Psycho-Nauts. Making a lot psychedelic waves round the world festival circuit.
A couple of links to their strange worlds…the second being an official video of the band…
Jonathan Downes is the editor of Gonzo Weekly – a UK (free) online alternative music magazine. Mostly retro stuff – for instance, a lot of Hawkwind-related material.
Jon is also the co-ordinator of the Centre for Fortean Zoology. That website is dedicated to the search for hitherto ‘unknown animals’. They play host to the annual ‘Weird Weekend’.
Perhaps the ultimate free cultural spaces band so far known to the world. They evolved out of the Californian scene of the mid 1960s to become the nexus of the free-festival, love-ins, be-ins and all that was the ‘hippy’ evolution. And their exploits on the Magic Bus with the Merry Pranksters gave birth to the never ending gigs that are the stuff of legend. Millions of Deadheads worldwide still believe that the Grateful Dead will live on for ever...as does the artwork associated with them.
Links to the official Dead site. And to a vast archive of their music.