What is Boom?

It’s a hot summer in Portugal, the morning of August 16, 1997 and 3,500 people share a place in a Mediterranean forest. The air is warm and filled with the smell of pine and cork trees. Art, color and people emphasis the landscape as music paces the day.

Seated in a chai shop, a couple in their 30’s speak in a freestyle manner, recreating themselves with the game of word association, they laugh. Around them people are happy with that special joy of living something for the first time. Indeed they were living it: it was the Boom Festival. It was not just men, women and children that were experiencing something new, the festival organization – Good Mood Productions – moved by the idealism of joining the worldwide trance communities under the same sky, was also on the adventure of walking down an unknown path.

Founded by Diogo Ruivo and Pedro Carvalho, Good Mood and the Boom Festival were visions shared by these two young people and their closest friends. Supported by dozens of unknown activists, they began to build a collaborative event platform to create and develop new ideas envisioned by people from different artistic and cultural backgrounds. This special confluence of ideas, art and culture transformed Boom into more than just a music festival over the years. In 1997 Boom was an electronic music event, featuring Goa Trance to be precise.

The festival was small, occupying an area of 5 hectares in Herdade do Zambujal – an agriculture farm amidst a forest 60 kilometers south from Lisbon.

Compared with what Boom is nowadays, the first edition was a kind of inexperienced happening. There were two music areas, Dance Floor and Chill Out, camping and caravan parking, flea market with ten stalls and three vegetarian restaurants. Tickets cost € 30,00 and were sold in five countries: Portugal, Sweden, Germany, Holland and Austria. In order to provide potable water to the participants, the organization constructed a well by tapping into an underground lake for the local mineral water. Botanical forms inspired decorations and the colors were vividly fluorescent.

“It was like Goa”, recalls Rio from Japan, “All the people that we’d seen during the season in India were at Boom, so there was a familiar atmosphere at the festival that was maximized by the curiosity and will of contact from the Portuguese.”

Nuno Santos, a local from Lisbon, describes that first edition on a more emotional level:

“There was an unforgettable atmosphere. We had parties of not more than 500 people in Portugal at that time and suddenly we got ourselves among the global movement. There were freaks from all over the world and we met hundreds of people. What caught my attention deeply was the wide variety of ages, one minute I was playing with children and the next minute I was speaking with an elder of 60 years. It was a dream come true. Six months later I was in India with friends that I made at Boom. ”

The Boom Festival in ‘97 was at the peak of Goa Trance before it split up into a wide variety of sub-genres. The main stage featured memorable acts from Technossomy, Green Nuns Of The Revolution and Mammal, all lit by the visual wizardry of the Danish Photon crew. If there were a track that summarized the ‘97 edition it would be Doof’s “Mars Needs Women”.

The spirit of sharing was infectious and on the last day the organization gave a free breakfast to everyone. Between August the14 and 16 of 1997, everyone felt the neo-mystical and detached ambience as a special moment. The Boom made a huge impact on a local level while showing that Portugal was a privileged country for the development of the Psy-Trance sub-culture with its mild weather, gentle people, pristine nature and relaxed social atmosphere. This mutual relationship between Boom goers and the Portuguese environment is still today an important factor as people often associate the positive experience of coming to the sunny and singular country in Southern Europe as part of the Boom Experience.

The next edition was booked for the full moon of August, 1998.

“When I got to Boom in ‘98”, says Miguel Vieira, a designer from Oporto, “I saw this green and yellow giant dragon and I didn’t understand for what purpose it was there. Then I saw the point – it was for the Baby Boom!” The surprise was common for the 5000 people that attended Boom, and the reason was not just Baby Boom.

The festival changed in many ways compared to 1997. Firstly, a change in the internal organization split the team in two parts: the production team working in the office, and the field team building all aspects of the festival grounds. Secondly, the number of people increased, in 1998 there was 20 people working compared with a crew of 10 in 1997. Thirdly, it was decided that the Boom should be a means for the crossing over of musical influences and thus emerged the “Expansion Area”, where Techno, Drum ‘n’ Bass or EBM had their place.

The festival area was not more than 10 hectares with three music areas, 6 restaurants, 15 stalls (with ethnic handicrafts and clothes), 5 chai shops, 15 showers, 35 WCs and a Baby Boom area. In ‘98, the emphasis was to show performances all over the venue with the work of dozens of artists.

From the will to surprise in 1997, ‘98 was a year of reinforcement. Still operating under the design of music as the main axis of the festival; from Kox Box to Quirk (the latter, like Coldcut were crossing image and music content in anticipation of the DVDJ-era), Etnica and Olli Wisdom – the latter with a memorable move colliding Psy-Trance with Underworld’s classic anthem “Cow Girl” at sunrise.

“I saw all the dance floor at the same place, everybody in unison” says Wulf Schmidt, a German living in Spain.

Euphoria was a common experience of both the public and the organization. There was a sense of mission accomplished and the Boom was gathering momentum through its solidification. But was it Boom’s path to be a strictly music festival?

At the end of 1998 a decision was made that would change Boom forever: the event must be the outcome of a creative process that does not obey market criteria, neither sponsorships nor external agendas, and must be done with patience and passion. It was imperative for Boom to be the result of a maturation phase, with the development of ideas and thoughts. Only in that manner could it feed new visions of arts and culture to the world. Boom became biannual from this moment onwards.

The consequences were immediate. During the August full moon in 2000, free from the containments of time, a revolutionary line up was presented. Besides the music areas of Chill Out and Dance Floor, Boom boasted the interaction between psychedelic music and two other universes. One was the knowledge brought through a novel “Conventions Area” with presentations and workshops about themes such as nanotechnology, virtual worlds, ufology, exobiology, ecology and cognitive freedom. The second, a “Journeys Area” presented music genres like Drum ‘n’ Bass, Nu-Jazz, House, Electro, Reggae and Techno. The idea was to fuse genuine expression in both arts and culture.

“It was history in the making”, recalls Briton James Hewstone. “There wasn’t anything like that to date. The most curious aspect was that years after 2000, there were Psy-Trance festivals with much bigger artistic names that never could recreate the same spirit. I think the reason is because Boom 2000 opened the psychedelic music scene to new areas and integrated it with mysticism, alternative science, arts and a spirit of relativism to the system. It was not an open air underground discothèque like most of the festivals. In 2000 it embodied a real sense of the word festival”.

In 2000, 10,500 people attended. It was too many people from all over the world for a venue of 15 hectares to receive. Some problems occurred due to an over-crowding of the space. The festival was developed for no more than 7,500 people. Three days before opening the gates, travelers invaded the venue. On the following day the information system collapsed with a short circuit that started a black market selling wristbands in the gap of the control.

For the first time Boom resembled a sample from society, as thousands of people from different social classes, positive habits and negative behaviors were unleashed every second. Despite the human tsunami, the security corps maintained a low-profile and humanistic approach.

There was a cyber-cafe with Internet connection, 10 restaurants and the fl ea market with 20 stalls. Chai shops were meeting places with a usual relaxed and social mood.

The forest became a theatre for psychosocial strategies executed by the Boom participants; creative means of self expression, different approaches with both verbal and non-verbal communication, affective relationships and the reinforcement of a collective identity. It all was developed at a fast speed and in a tiny space, creating diverse idioms and cultural matrixes.

Born out of a social system of interchange, group membership and forms of knowledge, to use the concepts of Pierre Bourdieu, the Boom moved from a festival to capital generator: social, cultural and symbolic.

When it was finished everybody was enjoying both the massive adhesion and the surprise. For the Psy-Trance scene grew above all expectations. The cultural area was a success. Boom was no longer a happening for a small tribe and group of enthusiasts; a change was needed urgently.

2002 was a troubled world. On the same date of the Boom there was another festival happening in Greece, and it was the first time that the scene had to split up and choose between festivals. The majority of the crowd who were motivated by music went to Greece, where a line up with big names was expected.

In Portugal, Boom started a new era with a new venue: from a forest in Southern Portugal. Boom went to the shores of a beautiful lake in the mountain region, inland.

The cultural part of the festival got an unexpected input with the presence of visionary artist Alex Grey. The festival paradigm had changed: the conference area increased significantly and music was no longer the main raison d’être. A partnership was created with Invisible Productions from Canada and there was a solid conviction about the importance of a space where thinking was generated about the self and society, different realities and new mythologies. This move attracted a vast contingent of people from North America, mainly from the West Coast of both Canada and the USA.

With the hysteria that occurred in 2002 based on the role of music in festivals and the importance of top-DJs in the line-up, Boom’s concerns had shifted away from the music to focus on the culture, new visions about the world and environment. A large part of the site had ecological signs and messages devoted to green awareness. Alternative energies like windmills and solar power started to appear along the venue while healing zones, yoga and meditation were common.

Boom increased physically by 30 hectares and the number of people attending reached 13,000. Other traders reinforced their position in the festival with their own dimension of onsite entertainment by setting up sound systems alongside their stalls. Infrastructures and colors were based on sacred geometry.

It was not a perfect festival but every history has its ups and downs, and for the Boom it was an atypical edition. Starting off with the electrical problems and ending on the weather conditions. How could one forget the storm that shut the festival down when Eat Static was starting their live PA?

That’s nature in its magnificent unpredictability. We all know how it is in this sub-culture that loves the open air.

“I think that it was in 2002 that Boom found an adequate place. The venue with the lake, gentle mountains and an immense sky, made it possible for the festival to expand in its multiple dimensions”, says Peter Dupont, a freelance artist from Quebec and a regular at Boom since 1997 “there we have a wide perspective, almost infinite, it’s like a metaphor for the conceptual amplification that Boom is living since it’s happening there in Idanha-a-Nova”.

In 2002 a new Boom began – a transdisciplinary, intercultural and conscious gathering.

In both 2004 and 2006 the Boom developed a holistic perspective towards the art works. The widest range of entertainment ever was on offer, with over 300 music artists from Reggae and World Music bands to electronic music, 100 visual artists, 150 performers, 50 presenters, a wide array of arts, cultural experiences, and more than 50 stalls and 15 restaurants.

Boom kept its ethos of no sponsorship; no logos were seen in the venue, no corporate visual pollution whatsoever.

Pre-sale tickets sold quickly reflecting the festival’s reputation as well as the will of the people to be there. There were preparations for big projects in engineering in both the years and about 50 people were building the festival infrastructure for more than 3 months on location.

In 2004 a spectacular dome was built on the Dance Floor, surrounded by four smaller domes as a metaphor for the 5 elements of the cosmos. Every small dome was offered to a different artist – Sola (Ibiza), Cosmic Walkers (Germany) and Deliria (Mexico) – to explore the themes of water, fire, air, earth and ether.

In 2006 the bio-architect Amir Rabik and 20 artisans built three magnificent bamboo structures reflecting the intention of using more biodegradable construction materials at Boom. The bamboo was harvested in Java obeying sustainable requirements and the eucalyptus and pine trees that were used came from recycling the dying trees caused by fires that happened in Portugal during 2005 and 2006.

In that same year the sound system problem was finally solved as Boom teamed up with Funktion One, the world class sound system for electronic dance music.

In both 2004 and 2006 the site was a cultural melting pot: dozens of installations were spread along the venue, land art was punctuating the landscape and cabaret-style performances were held near the Dance Floor and around the lake. Interactive structures and kaleidoscopic tunnels were highlights. It included Mad Max inspired performers and parades of all kinds – from self-painted artists to fi re jugglers, anonymous participants with superb costumes and fashionable looks.

Boom became a huge playground for people to express themselves. During the day the majestic nature surpassed the visual domain and influenced the art works and at night a whole new world: the Boom Village. Light bulbs with artistic shapes, lasers, mutant installations, the moon pacing the rhythm, streets and restaurants in a Kasbah frenzy. The dialects between the day and night experiences were personified with the mutant art works that were spread all over the venue.

“If I can summarize it in one word I must say: wellbeing. That’s what those Boom editions were about, feeling good just because we were being”, recalls Jane Ashley, an American.

In both years Boom worked with a new theme: the environment. Together with the renowned Ecocentro IPEC from Brazil, the top Latin American Permaculture Institution, Boom made vast improvements in basic sanitation and water management, including dry toilets and biological water treatment. All rubbish was placed in recycle bins and every Boom participant was given a portable ashtray and rubbish bags at the gates.

Today Boom is a global phenomenon. In 2006, participants from 80 different countries made this an intercultural gathering where people met with no prejudice. It started as a music festival and became an intergenerational, interdisciplinary and intercultural gathering. The festival is more than entertainment; it’s an activist statement, linking new models of living based on a connection with nature, arts and culture. Celebrating the ideal of freedom, Boom is pioneering new paths for human beings to develop creatively. Human beings as one and all.

in Boom Book