(That would be my handmade flags, flying up there in the middle of the photo. Feeling a little proud of myself.)I got to the site last Tuesday. It was an early start for me and my girls, as we were picked up before 9a.m and I had some last minute things to do. Like cutting the bamboo to size that I used as flag poles and packing some food, so that my girls would have enough to eat. All the crew get 3 meals a day and that included my girls, which is great. We got to site just before 11a.m and we were some of the first to arrive. I helped to unload some of the tents and the decor, as well as the poles for the dome that we were going to be putting up.
I appreciated, getting there early, as summer as arrived here, with temperatures around 30 degrees Celsius at the moment. So we had a few few hours to get some shade up, before the real heat of the day arrived. There were seven different areas within the festival. The Healing area, the Poolside Rave Retreat, the Kids Area, the Nomads social space, the Sequin Chaff, the Live Shipwreck stage and the Freakshow area. I was there to help set up the Sequin Chaff area and decorate between each area, as well a the entrance to the grounds.
First things first, we needed to get some shade up, so we got about putting up the main tent of the Sequin Chaff and then after that the adjoining Dome, which had a bar and chill out area and also included a dress up space, which was full of Sequin clothes, that anyone could borrow for the festival. Once the tent was up, which consisted of one central pole and then some huge guy ropes. It took five of us, to get it up and to secure it. It created such a wonderful space, I really do love the shape of this tent, which you can see in the picture above.
The laying out, of the Dome poles. Then it was time to lay out the poles for the dome. The owner and one of the festival organisers, had the dome building design, tattooed on his arm, which I taught was a great idea. Putting up geodesic dome, can become very complicated, if you do not connect the poles correctly. The first thing was to divide the poles, the top poles had some red on them and the bottom ones had some green. You basically lay them on the ground, in the right order and bolt the ends together, raising up the poles as you go.
The dome starting to rise up. It's pretty cool really. Once they are all connected and up right, you do go about putting the canvas on, which involves a lot of throwing and climbing, so it was great fun. It also went really smoothly, with no one losing their cool, especially as the day was really starting to heat up. After that, I helped put up a Moroccan tent for the Nomad Space and then I got to decorating the dome, i.e the bar and chill out/dress up area. But I will leave all of that for another day, as I still have some sleep to catch up on and need to get to bed before midnight, so that I can get up for work tomorrow. But I will say that it was such a great festival and I'm super proud to be a part of it.
