so just back from slot festival in poland. it's held in an amazing location - an old derelict monastery and its grounds. it's sad to say but health and safety would probably never allow such a creative space in the uk! around 5000 teens and early twenties descend for 5 days of festival mayhem. it's an alcohol and drugs free site but that doesn't stop the partying. it's a festival run by christians but over half of the punters are not and they love it. there is the usual mix of arts and music and seminar and cafes and circus and club. the main music stage was in a great setting surrounded by the old buildings. there is also the most fun workshop programme with 140 workshops to choose from - everything from animation, medieval sword fighting, photography, through to making armour out of recycled items and then war!!! these workshops are scattered through the monastery building. the cathderal space is used for arts stuff - a wonderful space...
i was there for a global roundtable hosted by andrew jones (well actually i was there to catch up with andrew as he is n the team i lead at cms and with olga from belarus who came down but it made sense to co-incide it with this wider event). around 50 people from all round the world though mainly europe (brazil, germany, sweden, holand, poland, czech repubilc, england, macedonia, portugal, greece, belarus, ukraine, latvia, USA, switzerland, france, indonesia, india etc....) gathered in the festival to meet and share stories. the common factor was that they were doing mission or planting churches or organic communities in alternative cultures. i felt seriously under tattoed and pierced and it certainly wasn't your usual church network! it was amazing to see the jones on the road. not only do they manage to live in their overlander, but they had thrown an extra ten tents in so we could stay and then provided food for 30 or so people at a time. amazing hospitality on the road...
the workshop programme is genius. it's run by punters who just send in ideas of what they would like to run and they are then picked out. i think these workshops gave the festival a less serious feel than greenbelt which definitely appeals to younger punters. could be an idea for greenbelt? whilst making a comparison, the club programme is much better than greenbelt - dub step, bashment, dnb, funk n breakbeat nights plus three spaces in which it happens including a chillout space. i personally loved to see that there... but it's smaller and newer so gb has lots in place that slot doesn't. but i recommend a trek over if you fancy something different... i could have done without the polish karaoke still blasting out at 5am on the last night but hey it is a festival!
a surprise encounter was meeting a girl doing a creative worship workshop who had somehow got hold of the alternative worship book by me and doug. she was shocked to bump into me! she was wonderfully creative and we hung out sharing stories a bit. i look forward to seeing the polish contribution to alt worship - maybe we can bring it to greenbelt next year?!
Jonny - agreed - it was an amazing weekend. Another point I loved was the creativity in the cafes - they had a unique character and were set up so that folks could go for coffee (and a few eats) while listening to Polish rappers, panels and the like. It was so creative to go in for a coffee and come out with much, much more. (I really liked seeing a global emerging workshop with folks from four continents featured - the person from Europe couldn't make it alas.)
Let us also not forget Andrew's goulash (I didn't make it for the breakfast crepes) - I think a missionary cookbook by Andrew would be an excellent fundraising idea.
And the hospitality of the folks from Slot took my breath away - Andrejz and Michael really made me feel welcomed beyond belief.
Posted by: Becky | July 15, 2009 at 02:13 AM