Robino Around The World in A’dam

While the Istanbul heat was ever-present last weekend, I spend three days in a forest, enjoying the fresh shades of the trees and a refreshing breeze from over the hills.

Though, the forest was not empty as it was turned into a small town of fifty thousand, all there to enjoy the fifth edition of BarisaRock (Rocking for Peace) festival – with free entry and normal prices for drinks and food a unique festival for Europe.

There was a special atmosphere at the festival. Not only could you see most people walking around with smiles on their faces all the time and partying until early morning. But chances were also high that you encountered some form of protest for even cheaper beer, the right ‘to get drunk’, free toilets or even against techno-music at the festival.

Barisarock is organised by volunteers and has a budget of only 5000 euro. The main idea is that enjoying music should also be possible without sponsors and commercial interests. It is therefore not just a festival for music but it is also a political act as it started as a free alternative against the commercial Rock’n Coke Festival that takes place one weekend later, for which you pay seventy euro and high amounts of money for food and drinks.

Another great thing of Barisarock is free the space which is available to anyone willing to perform or to organise something. Apart from funny protests there were also serious debates and different types of gatherings at the festival, as well as exhibitions, forest-games and theatre all day long.

For me it was a revelation to experience such an event. I was one of the only foreigners present, and it was pretty cool to be part of such a huge Turkish musical gathering.

Also, I was quite amazed to see that people are still able to organise such a free event. In all European countries festivals have since long been eaten alive by commercial interests, but these people have been able to pull it off: three days of festival with free entry, camping for free, normal prices for food and drinks and no sponsors or any other commercial activity allowed.

The free festival movement started in the sixties and seventies. But it died long ago, so I thought until this weekend. The last time I was at a festival was Glastonbury, in 2000, when I saw David Bowie as little as my pink. In the 1970’s Glastonbury also started as a free festival but during the 1990’s it became one of Europe’s biggest rock-festivals with entry-prices over 200 euro.

I remember very well how I and a friend hitchhiked from the North of England all the way to the South to join the festival. Obviously we didn’t have the money as we were students but with tens of thousand others we climbed the fence and got in without paying, as a protest against the price-policy and the right to enjoy music for free. It was therefore more than great to be able to join this festival in Turkey, which is part of that very same movement.