Rainbow Gathering — Aurelijus Banelis

A hippie festival through a geek's eyes. What can be learned from an anti‑technology festival, and how its ideas are close to the "NoTrollsAllowed" or Open Source communities.

I usually never miss the "NoTrollsAllowed" festival — unless there is Covid, a honeymoon trip, or... friends talk me into travelling to the European Rainbow Gathering in Bulgaria (2022). So I think it is symbolic to tell the story of the hippie‑gathering phenomenon.

During the talk I plan to:

Introduce where the Rainbow Gathering comes from.
How and why an anti‑technology "mini town" works:
- No microphones, no phones, no electricity – yet it communicates across kilometres.
- No clocks, no supervisors – knowledge sharing and workshops (what it has in common with "NoTrollsAllowed").
- No money, no single leader, illegal – yet things do not fall apart.
- No police or security service – conflicts get resolved.
- Open to everyone, yet naturally protected from trolls.

I will not try to convince you to try a Rainbow Gathering yourselves, but rather to illustrate where we forget that it is possible to think differently. To illustrate, I will use the European 2022 Rainbow Gathering in Bulgaria – in size and location, they differ.