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Posted : Aug 7, 2013 12:36
Great news indeed!
Very good job on mainstage, with these vigvams which provide shade.
Timetable?
justine11
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Posted : Aug 7, 2013 14:59
travelling to ozara festival solo, arriving tomoro (thurs) afternoon at budapest airport- is it possible to;
a) make my own way to festival with public transport, train etc
b)buy a tent and mattress in the town of ozara
looking forward to meet you all my friends:)
ThLuKs
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Posted : Aug 15, 2013 13:46
Hi guys!
I thought I'd write a review of my experience, because it was a review by another Ozorian that gave me a good feeling and made me want to come to the festival, even after hearing about the police razzia last year.
First of all, we heard that the razzia was mainly targeted at Israeli mafia buses loaded with drugs and weapons and protected by diplomatic license plates. I think this is a very good reason, because this is not what I want at a psytrance festival. Small dealers yes, organized crime definitely no.
Now about 2013:
Me and a friend arrived by train Thuesday afternoon.
The shuttle bus was stopped and checked by police. It took maybe 20 minutes in total. The officers were very professional and quite friendly. They checked the inside of the bus and the baggage storage with dogs. They checked one guy, because the dog had spotted something on his baggage, but then they let him go because it was a false positive.
The atmosphere at the gate was very nice. A group of people made spontaneous live music, some guy was giving massages. People had fun and getting the ticket checked was relatively fast and the whole waiting area was shaded by a big circus tent.
Once inside, we were in a bit of a hurry because we wanted to put our tents up before seeing the opening ceremony and Shpongle.
We hauled our bags into the forest, which was already full of tents and caravans, and on the second attempt found a small spot where we could stay. Surely there would have been better spots if we had the time to search, but it was shaded by the trees and that was good enough.
Making our way to the main stage, we were quickly drawn in and fascinated by the scenery. The fantastic buildings and decoration in general are made with a lot of love and creative ideas. The whole festival area is like an enchanted playground for grown up children And it is huuuge!
There are so many art pieces to be seen if you just wander around aimlessly.
The people are all very relaxed, friendly and respectful. If somebody bumps into you, the immediately say sorry and make sure they did not disturb you. Most people take good care of their garbage. On the general festival ground you almost never see any waste on the ground. The community knows that it is much nicer to party in a clean environment and uses the many garbage bags that are installed everywhere.
A slight expection is the dancefloor of the mainstage. Here people would make small heaps of waste, instead of just throwing it on the floor everywhere. That way the majority of the dancefloor was litter free and people would easily see where to put their waste.
And this happens for a valid reason I think: Nobody wants to leave while dancing and trancing just to go throw something in a garbage bag.
The first night I threw my cigarette butts on the floor (always making sure to put them out, for the barefoot dancers) but I quickly stopped and collected them until I passed the next garbage bag.
There are also crews of garbage collectors around all through the day, and the more each visitor takes care of their own waste, the easier the life for the collectors. The main stage is closed for a few hours each afternoon and completely cleaned up.
The festival is extremely well organized, a big thumbs up for the crew!!!
Drinking water is readily available from taps all around the festival ground. Waiting time at the bars was minimal, even during peak hours when the sun was roasting us at 40° celsius. The exotic food in the market street was delicious and clean, the vendors very friendly.
My friend had some stomach trouble after eating french fries from one of the other vendors, but I think you shouldn't eat that anyway, there's so many better dishes to taste
There was enough shade for all the people who sought it. The main stage is partially shaded by the decoration. There are many big tents and trees all around, so nobody has to sit in the sun if they don't want to.
The toilets were cleaned twice a day, around 8/9 in the morning and evening. Compared to other festivals they didn't look too bad, but there's always a grizzly few...
To the organizers: What would be a big improvement would be to refill the toilet paper more often than morning and evening. After 2 hours it was usually gone. People need to take a shit at all odd times through the day.
Festival security was always present somewhere, but never disruptive. A few times we saw a police car passing, but no action.
Aside from the main stage, which played psy and a bit of progy all through the festival, there are the other stages to give you some diversity. The Chillout dome had some nice reggae and dub during the day and the usual chillout sounds during the night. The Dragon Nest stage had a lot of wildly different live music. When passing the Pumpui tent I never heard anything that made me want to go inside, but it sure was different from the rest.
I would even take friends to Ozora who are not psytrance fans, because there is so much else to see and do and different music to hear.
I was at Burning Man in 2006 and arriving at Ozora and seing all the unique buildings and art installations, it felt like coming home. As much as I gathered while reading about Ozora, it seems it is heavily inspired by Burning Man. To me, the vibe was the same, people were in the same state of mind. Open, friendly, caring, creative, responsible, communicative, fun.
I only ever felt this unique mixture in Black Rock City, and now I've finally rediscovered it at Ozora, much closer to home It is a place out of time and you begin to wonder if there was a way to make this way of living together permanent. It would be so nice if people always behaved like this in daily life.
I will most definitely be back as soon as possible and bring my friends!
Ozora is my new home.
PS: Because of the police checking people before entry, there was very little weed and hash to be found, especially the first 3 days. Mushrooms, LSD, DMT, Nitrous and Speed were available though.
ATA
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Posted : Aug 16, 2013 13:51
This was my third year at Ozora (2011, 2012, 2013) and although it was the least impressive year I think it was also the greatest experience at Ozora (due to my amazing friends and the great mainstage lineup!).
As usual the Ozora buses were on time and easy to use; I'm not really quite sure though why you still have to print a form to give to a guy, to get a ticket, to swap with another guy for a wristband?!
I expected to get stopped by the police on the way in and it did happen, it was a little scary at first but honestly it seemed pretty much for show (and the police were also obviously very hot, tired, and annoyed). Our bus from the airport was stopped, our passports were taken and we were made to get off the bus; two police walked through the bus (I didn't see ANY dogs) while all the passengers were subject to very sporadic searches. The guy who searched me literally opened my rucksack and then said it was fine (no pat-down etc) and they did not check our bags in the hold of the bus at all. I was expecting this to happen but it still set a pretty nasty tone for the start of the fest and took up a lot of time. The police were pleasant and the guy who collected our passports even joked with us a bit, however you know that if they had have found anything then you would have been absolutely fucked.
On arriving at the festival I was a little pissed off to find the buses don't stop at the ticket tent any more, not so much of a problem usually, but in the ridiculous heat this year it kinda sucked to have to walk extra. As per usual Ozora had their grand total of 2 presale and 2 cash booths, it took us probably about 2 hours to get our wristbands! We did arrive in the middle of the day but seriously this is a problem every year and they never do anything about it.
The festival itself was very nice but it lacked the "wow" factor for me this year. Every previous year when I've been to Ozora I've been shouting "Holy shit, I thought last year was amazing!" when first seeing the stages. This year my friends and I were saying "maybe they haven't finished yet" to each other when we first saw the stages. The chill stage honestly looked unfinished compared to 2012's amazing deco, it was a cool concept for the chill this year but it looked sparse and lacking in complexity, the lighting was incoherent and far too bright, the amazing projection mapping and LED screens of last year was replaced with some small artworks and some very simple projections. Outside the main dome area in the "brim" of the chill hat shape there were literally just some bits of wood (not even painted it seems) stuck onto the structure, it just looked bare and sad. Also the floor was sand this year, much better than hard ground but the carpet of 2012 was SO nice in comparison, sand got in everything and although it was nice to dance on it was pretty annoying. The sound was good as always but I can't say the chill lineup really excited me much this year. It also made me a little sad that they only seemed to have one projection for the outside of the chill this year? I on;y remember seeing one anyway.
The mainstage deco again was cool, but severely lacking in complexity and impressiveness compared to 2011/2012. The lightshow was really basic compared to what ESA used to do and the structure of the stage deco was very similar to previous years, just nowhere near as nice (I couldn't help look at the centre of the stage and see loads of unread emails? super weird pattern to choose); the mainstage was still enjoyable to be in though, especially at nigh. The addition of the huts around the mainstage was nice (although they provided little actual shade during the day) and added a lot of shape to the stage, the projections on these were super nice and I enjoyed them a lot. The sound at the main was really great, it looks like Martin Audio had different rig running this time but as always it was very clear, detailed, and punchy without being too overly loud or allowing the bass to muddy up everything as some rigs do. The mainstage lineup was great, I especially enjoyed the dark/hitec nights! Beardy, Drumatik, Megalopsy, Kashyyyk, and Guiseppe on friday morning was one of the most enjoyable nights of dancing I've ever had, I think I entertained quite a few people with my light gloves :3
My main problem with both the stages: THERE WAS NO UV! I saw a total of about 4 UV lamps at the main which lit up nothing and there was no UV covering any of the dancers at the chill. Being a UV loving retard and reading in the Ozorian prophet how they wanted people to wear lots of fluro stuff etc I was super pumped, I got painted up and dressed in tons of UV stuff for the opening only to find I didn't shine at all ;___;
The toilets were cleaned really well this year, almost every time I went into a toilet it was spotless!
The food didn't seem as good this year, the official Ozora food was the same as it always was but in the market I had a hard time finding much vegan food, especially that wasn't super difficult to eat in the massive heat. All I could really eat was falafel (the falafel people were awesome!) stuff like fries/rice, veggie burger and salad. I lost around 3kg in the time I was at Ozora WATER: Wow, every water point had great pressure this year and was very clean, cold, and tasty! In previous years some of the taps have just been a trickle but this year it was always very easy to fill your bottle.
Security was perfect as always, I always feel safe at Ozora and the security are always friendly and don't intrude. It seemed to be a different company this year but I recognized lots of the guards from previous years so maybe they just changed the company name. This year was the first time I saw someone having problems, I don't know if it was a freakout or someone who snuck in with no wristband or what, but there was a screaming woman at the Pumpui one night being dragged to the medical tent by security, she screamed at me wildly in German as they pulled her past. Other than that the people at the festival seemed awesome as usual, I had some great moments with strangers and everyone seemed happy and in the spirit of things; the energy of the place did seem different this year though, it wasn't quite as joyous and crazy as before. One thing I do want to say is FUCK people who drop metal beer cans on the mainstage floor, your carelessness could cost someone their entire festival!
There was some cool stuff and deco for the site built this time like the tree dudes, playground etc but I really wish they had have put that time and effort into making the stages amazing
It seemed like there was a lot of extra stuff to see and do this year and some nice alternative music on the Dragon Nest stage. I come primarily for Psytrance so I didn't really explore these things, but some of my friends did and said very positive things.
Drugs: I had my own LSD so this was not a problem, most other stuff seemed pretty easy to get if you asked around and the prices were not much different to usual. Weed/hash was a little more than standard prices and there was obviously a bit of a supply problem, but we managed to get enough to feed our 20+ strong group and still have some left to give away when we went home. It was nice not to be hassled to buy drugs all the time but everyone was quite paranoid and on edge all the time with selling. I heard some people say the police made some raids into the festival to get some dealers but I can't confirm or deny this. I bought MDMA and speed on the first day from some French guys in a van and they were still there on saturday night when I went for some more speed
The heat was brutal this year, over 40c most days and really no way to cool down anywhere. I like to party during the night and sleep during the day so I ended up getting very little good sleep, obviously this is something out of the organisers control but it would be nice to have some of the water mist fans, like the one they had in the medical tent, placed in the bars/haven etc. The heat kind of spoiled things for all of my group a bit, but we made the most of the festival regardless.
Dispite having an amazing time this year I feel like this was probably my last Ozora. I can imagine the police getting more and more serious every year and there are a MILLION other festivals I can go to without feeling under serious threat from local law enforcement for just wanting to dance and have fun with people. As I said before the energy seemed lower this year and there didn't seem to be as much love put into the organisation and set up of the festival; I had a the best experience but was ultimately disappointed by the festival itself.
turkeyphant
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Posted : Aug 17, 2013 20:23
Just got back from Ozora. I have only been once before and that was back in 2007. At the time, it was probably the best festival experience I ever had.
Going back was not a disappointment - this year was utterly lush too . Even the 40C+ heat and failed code red storm warnings didn't stop a beautiful full power festival. Literally about 20x as many showers as last time I was there which really helped. Some of my other favourite things: cheap beer, boroskola, €5 fizz and reasonably priced ice cream.
All the built-up semi-permanent infrastructure there was incredible. Soooo much has changed to the site in the last few years. In particular, the Dragon's Head was gorgeous, the chill-out structure is amazing and I really appreciated all the crafts and games workshops and the first attempt at a cultural/lecture area was superb (if still a little too overpowered by flaxen-seed yoghurt tapestries). Sad to see the spinny swings have been mostly decommissioned/'elf 'n' safety'd though.
As for police, etc. I got on the plane still unsure about the licence but everything was rocking when I arrived. Waltzed straight past police road block on the way in and way out (just don't do the guilty slow and suss, power on past like you're nothing to do with it! but certain substances were a little dry on the ground once inside as it seemed everyone was looking for weed and anyone who mentioned K got a lecture and a dirty look from the Germans. No problems with trippier stuff though and the police never ventured near the stages.
Music was a nice mix of different styles and set-times were in general strong and well timed. Had a good boogie every night, chillout was great and I loved the daytime vibe in Pumpui. trance wise, in particular, the night of Beardy, Drumatik, Megalopsy, Kashyyyk and then Giuseppe absolutely killed me. For serious. Gorgeous sunset that morning too.
Seemed a little smaller than videos from 2012 despite being an off-Boom odd-numbered year - I imagine some got scared off by the licence issues plus it's getting rather dear these days. Still I'm sure it was a success for the organisers. One niggle - the sound was of course good but certainly could have been a lot louder. Too easy to hear talking in the middle of the dancelfloor and I certainly remember it being much stronger back in 2007.
A lush lush festival topped off in a perfect way by a sublime evening watching the Perseid meteors on the last night after the main stage finished <3
Obligatory shit video:
ATA
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Posted : Aug 17, 2013 23:13
I think they just took the swings down for the storm warning, seems like the kind of thing that would go flying off and smash someone to little bits during a big bastard storm (thank fuck it never happened!).
Edit: Also there were a LOT more people this year than in 2012, it was actually pretty small 2012. Neither year has been close to the hugeosity of 2011 though.
ATA
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Posted : Aug 19, 2013 16:32
Also interestingly it seemed like they used L-Acoustics for the sound system rather than Martin Audio this time? It was pretty nice!
vajjjaaaaaj
WATER: Wow, every water point had great pressure this year and was very clean, cold, and tasty! In previous years some of the taps have just been a trickle but this year it was always very easy to fill your bottle.
. Even the 40C+ heat and failed code red storm warnings didn't stop a beautiful full power festival. Literally about 20x as many showers as last time I was there which really helped. Some of my other favourite things: cheap beer, boroskola, €5 fizz and reasonably priced ice cream.
- Free Parking
- ChillOut Area
- VJ
- Deco
- Eco Friendly
- Children Zone
- Workshops/Market
- Water Access
- Transportation
- Discounted Presale