Staggeringly beautiful 2020 ~ikonoklast~

Gates open 10am Monday 30th December – Gates close 12pm Thursday 2nd January

iconoclast | Noun |One who attacks or criticizes cherished beliefs or institutions.

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Acknowledgement of Country

This event takes place on the traditional land of the Kolakgnat people of the Gulidjan Nation. Land that was never ceded. We recognise their ongoing connection to the lands and waters. And the profound importance of their culture and dreaming, which has spanned tens of thousands of years. We pay respects to their elders, past present and emerging. We also recognise that any talk of climate justice must include First Nations Peoples justice.

Once upon a time...

"In a galaxy in the middle of fucking nowhere. We decided to try and have a party like we knew we wanted to. Half party, half social experiment, half hopelessly romantic utopian fantasy, half hedonistic debauchery, half art, half arsed and half crazy ethereal dream. At least we got to get out of Dodge while Melbourne burned in it's own hubris."
Dharma & simon

Dharma and Simon are at it again with another New Year offering. The sequel to Staggeringly Beautiful 1 & 2, and jewel in the crown of the party series that began with Escape From Melburn, Escape From Melburn Again, and Escape From Melburn Again Again. Clearly we like to do things in threes.

what the hell is this?

Staggeringly Beautiful is for people who love partying and dancing their arses off, but who have grown to realise that unchecked hedonism probably won’t defeat the Cylons.


Staggeringly Beautiful 2020 is an iconoclastic melting pot.
And we’ve got the spoon.

We’re going to party like there’s no tomorrow which is easy because those of us who have taken the time to look into the science of climate change know that change is coming faster than we think and with an intensity we haven’t considered. ‘Tomorrow,’ in a broad sense is looking like a vastly different proposition to today. So we’re laying down some challenges to bring awareness to the garden of earthly delights.

hang on, what actually is this?

Oh, sorry.  Tired of the figurative already? Okay in a literal sense Staggeringly Beautiful is a 3 day micro-festival for 100 people 2.5 hours out of Mordor.

It features…

  • A collection of organised activities, ad hoc events, random surprises (that are actually cleverly curated), other random surprises that are actual random surprises.

There is:

  • Lots of participation, engagement, connection and mutual creation.
  • State of the art sound, understated art and a range of favourite DJ’s who, lets call it for what it is: mostly play that genre commonly referred to as techno.
  • Beauty that ranges across multiple modalities and various forms.
  • Camping and gardens and orchards.
  • A lake, a courtyard, a rambling villa with a long room, a kitchen, a costumery, a communal sit down feast.
There will be dancing, discussion, activities, films, games, sport and at some point in the proceedings, we realise we have become a community.  

And that’s why it’s Staggeringly Beautiful.

The emphasis

The ecological footprint of party culture is our focus this year. We’ll be drawing on the 7 Ways to Climate Consciousness framework as inspiration for fun and creative ways to participate: interactively, constructively, passionately. 

We are encouraging innovations in sustainable partying.
The personal, interpersonal and collective ecological impacts of partying are in desperate need of visitation by aliens. We are those aliens.

There are myriad things we can do individually and as a community to reduce our impact. But how do we stay awake and aware enough to make satisfying choices over the course of a day, and over the course of an event?

Implementing change requires being present to the attitudes and values that drive our choices. How conscious we are is driven by these choices. We love the ideas offered in 7 Ways to Climate Consciousness for this very reason…it doesn’t tell you what to do, it invites you to consider why it is you do it. Likewise we invite you to participate in this event and engage with the challenges not as a set of rules, but as an experiment in collaborative exploration. 

PRE-EVENT CHALLENGES​

Pre-event things to do:
 

The challenge starts with us

We need to acknowledge that as event organisers we don’t tick all the boxes. Whilst we’re encouraging the exploration of ecological awareness, we’re not yet doing all we could be doing. But we’re on a path of improvement and we’re not letting the shortfall be our downfall. We invite you to assist us to make better, more informed choices. There will be space for that at the event.
 
Could be better:
  • The event is powered by the regular power grid
 
Good stuff:
  • Toilets use no water and are fully compostable
  • Some of the water is tank water
  • Recycling facilities throughout the event
  • Food and waste composting throughout the event

Part 1. Event Facilities

  • Camping – A plethora of Staggeringly Beautiful options from:
    •  The Orchard of Elfin Nooks at the front,
    • The Fae Forest Fringe at the right side,
    • The Field of Dreams at the left side,
    • The Heights at the back and

    • The Grasslands of Grandeur at Lakeside at the back and down the hill (the quietest area for those who are family oriented & or noise averse)

  • 2 Toilet Temples -At the front of the main building, and down by the lake, these compostable drop toilets use the same system devised by Folk Rhythm & Life Festival, a locally designed ecologically friendly system that turns our human waste into bio-available compost. They are comfortable, private and if EVERYONE puts a double hand-full of sawdust on top of their deposit, the whole thing remains clean, benign on the nose and an opportunity for quiet repose and gentle reflection, whilst you judge the shit out of the things written on the walls.

     

Staggeringly Beautiful - A 2020 Vision, will once again be situated over the grounds of Wolfgangs Palace, just west of Colac, 2.5 hours from Melbourne. The grounds offer:

  • Shower Sanctuary – freely available for everyone to use, what? No tokens? No rigmarole? No doors? No hot water? Yes to all of that. One shower is in a little shed and offers privacy, the other is above the world renowned and epically majestic Star Bath (see below).

  • Star Bath & Shower -In the open air beside the Shower Block, and replete with it’s own shower (cold) is the world renowned & epically majestic bush bath.

  • Star Kitchenelle -Auxillary Kitchenelle for everyone. This year the Main Kitchen is open for general use only on Monday in preparation of the Communal Feast. Feel free to get involved & heat up or cook what you need to if you have a contribution. For the rest of the time the Star Kitchenelle is available 24/7.

Part 2. Event Activities

  • Communal Feast – Plant based – If you want to bring meat you can, but don’t.
  • Vast collection of incredible DJ’s and Producers playing live on Dr. Ishtars Funktion One Doomsday Array across 1 indoor and 1 outdoor arena.
  • 20/20 Visioning – Exploration of who we are and how we want to be in the world through participatory experiments in reflection, dialogue & intention setting.
  • The Great Clothes S.W.I.T.C.H : Someone Who is Transforming Consumer Habits. Bring along  up to 3 items of clothing you are willing to part with (clean, good condition) and S.W.I.T.C.H them for up to 3 new garments. 
  • Victorian Warm Climate Curling Team tryouts. Featuring current team Captain Simon Slieker. 
  • Flying Disc masters education panel. Learn about the ‘Way of the Disc’ from self avowed masters. Followed by the Annual Flying Disc Skill Shots Open and Public Invitational Classic.
  • Wolfgangs Palace Orienteering Challenge. Find out why Orienteering is just as funny as the First World War. The perfect way to see the Wolfgangs and be back home before Christmas. 
  • Community Short film Screening. We are officially receiving submissions from our community. Please send your offerings to: dharma_and_simon@simonslieker.com. Including a special 5th anniversary presentation of ‘Unlocking Top Gun: Power Poses for Life’, film screening and live performance by cultural demysticators Dharma & Simon.
  • The Inaugural DJ OLYMPICS, featuring 2 new events: Extreme Dj’ing and Deck Pest Hurdles.
  • The triumphant return of, the Wolfgangs Palace Costume Room (back by popular demand). Fast track to exorcising demons of the past and awakening possibilities for future self. Save yourself thousands in lifetime therapy costs. Including:
    • Dream in the Future Costume Calendar 2020 photo shoot – Dress up as your fantasy future self and bring it forth. Take your place in the calendar for immediate 2020 release. 
  • Awareness Through Movement – Eco-Somatica, sound, movement, experience
  • Problems and Solutionaries: sharing your innovations. See the FORUM to enter the PROBLEM and share your SOLUTION > everyone benefits.
  • Letter writing station and accompanying pin board.
  • Sustainable Travel Bureau: We’ll be encouraging catching the train to Colac and we’ll have pick ups and drop offs. See FORUM for details.
  • Wine Unmasked – A wine education workshop where we remove the influence that a label has on a wine and we explore what is inside the bottle.
    ** All wines used are vegan wines.
  • Coffee Scrub making workshop – exfoliate 2019 from your body and cleanse your way into 2020.
  • Hosted Discussions:
    • Personal drug taking politics: when choices about ‘I’, affect ‘We’, where does personal responsibility start and end? Let’s talk about it.
    • Balancing the need to hedonistically de-frag against environmental impacts: let’s talk about it.
    • Mobilising party culture in the new era of environmental non-violent direct action. Do PLUR and non-violent direct action intersect? 
 

Part 3. Event Challenges

We’ve been finding certain elements of ‘Party Culture’ lacking, and in some cases disturbing. The biggest one is:

Disposable mentality: throwaway culture. Privileging the immediate reward over the wanton waste. Food packaging, tacky one off costumes, consumables, plastic, camping accoutrements, glitter, toys. The list goes on. What can we do about it?

  • Solutionaries. Show and tell ideas forum: come together and share the problems and challenges you encountered. Where you were thwarted and where you prevailed. If you’ve come up with novel work arounds and solutions share with the group, so together we get better. We will have a live forum at the event. 

  • The Disposable Free, Re-purposing Camping Challenge: in preparing for this camping and partying adventure can we adopt a mentality of fixing broken stuff rather than buying new stuff. Re-puposing, recycling, upcycling to make your camp site awesome. 

  • The No Plastic Challenge: Is it possible to set up camp with no disposable plastic?

 

Breakaway reality: the hedonistic break from reality is welcome and for many it’s a pressure release valve from the high stress day to day

  • Collect your rubbish over the course of the event and see what you can reduce it to. Wolfgangs Palace has general waste bins, recycling bins and composting. But each year we leave them with a mountain of rubbish in those bins which need to be processed and taken to the shire tip. So how aware can we be about the waste we’re generating? What is it you’re putting in the bins? Could it have been avoided? How little can each campsite reduce their waste footprint? What does this look like collectively? We’ll have ways to tune in to this.

  • Awareness Challenge: It’s all good and well to say “let’s be more aware.” But how do we make that a tangible possibility when our awareness is informed by values and attitudes both visible and invisible? Our choices extend beyond the personal, they reach into the world around us. So at this event we invite you to check in with yourself as you go about your business. 
  • Ask:
    • How does this affect me?
      The immediate personal consideration

    • What is the effect on community? 
      Communal level of consideration

    • How does the this impact the ecosystem?
      Ecological oversight
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Ticketing

Staggeringly Beautiful 2020

  • 155 Nalangil Rd. Nalangil. Victoria. Australia