~ The 43rd Whole Earth Festival ~ May 11 – 13, 2012

43rd Whole Earth Festival

The Beginning is Here
… May 11, 12, & 13, 2012

The mission of the Whole Earth Festival is to envision and create a community driven festival of education, music, and art.

U.C. Davis Quad
wef.ucdavis.edu
Drug & Alcohol-free & zero-waste event

PLEASE, everyone, do NOT bring any drugs to the Festival.
Whatever you choose to use, please do so at home and NOT on campus. WEF’s goals include being a drug-free waste-free celebration of life. So bring an empty cup, leave your dope in the car, and come dance with us!

Whole Earth Festival was born when an art class taught by Jose Arguelles had an “Art Happening” on the University of California, Davis campus in 1969. The students used art to involve visitors in the ultimate goal of learning about activism, wellness, and the environment. Whole Earth Festival aims to ignite passion, propel creativity, and leave visitors with inspiration.

Following the United Nations declaration of “Earth Day” in 1970, the third “Art Happening” in 1971 was renamed “Whole Earth.” Later, Whole Earth Festival was sponsored by the Associated Student’s Experimental College, and has since become a self-sustaining unit. The Whole Earth Festival has evolved over four decades into what can be seen every Mother’s Day weekend on the U.C. Davis campus.

Follow @WholeEarthFest

The Whole Earth Festival (WEF), an ASUCD unit, is a huge, FREE, eco-friendly three-day music, dance, arts, crafts and education festival which takes place in Spring during Mother’s Day Weekend. It’s the closest thing to Woodstock we have. It’s a must-see Davis event. Tons of folks who are committed to sustainable living and environmental harmony make a pilgrimage to Davis for the WEF, and the UC Davis Quadarea is lined with art & craft tents, music acts, massage tables, food and a child care area. Various workshops occur throughout the weekend as well. Of all the festivals that take place on campus, this is one of the most organized. Volunteering is quite the experience, plus you get a free shirt if you do.

The WEF uses dozens of volunteers (known as Karma Patrol) for the festival. If you want to eat some good food from our garden mixed up by the CoHo and get a dank shirt for free, you should come out to the volunteer meetings. They are held every Wednesday of Spring Quarter up on the second floor of the Memorial Union. They are workshop/info/community oriented with free food and a knowledge sharing from all ends…

If you want a booth or your band wants to play, January is the month to contact the WEF. The WEF office is located in 260 South Silo and shares an office with the Experimental College.

A little known fact is that Whole Earth Festival is one of the few ASUCD units that receives no subsidy. To put it in perspective, Picnic Day (another annual UCD event) receives over $20,000 a year in funding from student fees. WEF is self-sufficient.

Many people partake of Marijuana at this event. If you wish to use mind-altering substances at this event, please refrain from drinking alcohol. You see, the stoned swagger and the drunken swagger are opposites of each other. If you get drunk while others are stoned, you’ll run into people and nobody will be happy. If everyone tokes up, everyone swaggers the same way and collisions are avoided! In the words of the prophet Dylan, “everybody must get stoned!”.

In reality, all kind of mind altering substances are taken, and a good portion of the crowd are wandering around just enjoying the event sober. Some of the activities and information being imparted are worth enjoying and taking in with an alert mind.

Unique things to check out

Thanks Jerry

• Every year a man comes with a cart full of “Peace” pendants that he gives out for “free” (suggested donation minimum $1). He never stays in the same place at the festival. He makes hundreds of pendants each year and he’s expanded his collection to include the word “Peace” in other languages. Keep an eye out for him.

• The man can be sighted elsewhere too. From Humboldt to Gay Pride in SF. I make a habit of giving one back to him whenever I see him and taking a new one. —ChristopherMckenzie

• Chocolate covered frozen fruit. Enough said.

• Beach Hair Accessories; there’s a woman that collects metal beach trash and makes it into fine jewelry and hair accessories. A little pricey, but well worth the lifetime warranty. If you break anything that you buy from her, all you have to do is send it back and she’ll weld it again for you!

• The Recycling and Composting effort is very successful. In 2004, only 420lb (3.5%) of the festival’s waste went to the landfill. The rest was recycled or composted.

• Most people do not realize that every item that is thrown away at WEF is eventually dumped onto a large table and sorted by a volunteer. While this may not sound like an appealing idea at first, it is actually one of the most entertaining and coveted volunteer positions. Try it out, it may be the only time you get to legally go through someone’s trash and you might even find a groundscore. It’s amazing what some people throw away.

• The dish system is like no other. When you buy food, you pay an extra dollar for the plate. To get you dollar back, you return the dish to one of the 2 dish return sites on either side of the quad.

• The Whole Earth Reusables Cooperative (WERC) runs the dish program for the weekend. It is one of only a few of its kind, and in some aspects is making waves on the campus, and in the festival / event world. Everyone from those damn hoopies to Camtroller and the 3rd floor ASUCDers are using the plates…

• Have a seat on the bench that was made during the 2004 Whole Earth Festival.

• The Students for an Orwellian Society attended in 2004, attempting to convince everyone at the Festival that they should avoid drugcrime and sexcrime. As expected, the response was less than enthusiastic. However, it’s quite amusing to see an Orwellian trying to convince a hippie that fascism is the way to go for more than half an hour.

• In 2004, KDRT broadcasted live from the festival for the first time, a tradition that will assuredly continue into the future.

• There is a drum circle of epic proportions.

• Watch for an Ananda_Marga booth!

Things lost to time

• In the pit of Wellman Hall there was a DJ Stage that played all day and til 10pm at night… Known as the Sunken Garden some years and other years simply as the pit, it has some kind sound down there. Alas, in 2011, there was a reported beating, sexual assault of a 14 year old and rape of a 16 year old. UC Davis decided to close the doors on the DJ stage before the investigation was even complete. Fred Wood, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs wrote in a public statement, “we are sending message that people cannot come to our campus and behave this way.”