Dragon Festival, S. Spain, FREE, late March 2007

[William of Walworth]

Theres loads of food on sale on site, cafes, takeaways, veggies, meatfests, indian, thai,fish 'n' chips and of course spanish - to name but a few. Top Breakfasts and wraps at the Green Dragon. There's hundreds of bars selling almost anything you need. But remember there's no tap water on site.

[droitport]

Anyone on here travelling down from MADrid?

[William of Walworth]

euh, just want to say that it cost 14euro to go with the bus from madrid to granada or 7euro from malaga to granada, you will easy find a ride from granada to orgiva without problems. if you come to granada 2 a 3 days earlier. and granada is the nicest big city i ever visited.

see you maby at the fest

[William of Walworth]

Buses in the Orgiva/Dragon Fest area ...

[William of Walworth]

(and I must must must get my flight sorted <kicks self>)

[droitport]

there are busses who cost 4euro from granada to orgiva, but every young and old people go to orgiva from granada to party, so a lift is assured

[mollymoo0oo0]

euh, just want to say that it cost 14euro to go with the bus from madrid to granada or 7euro from malaga to granada, you will easy find a ride from granada to orgiva without problems. if you come to granada 2 a 3 days earlier. and granada is the nicest big city i ever visited.

see you maby at the fest

[William of Walworth]

there are busses who cost 4euro from granada to orgiva, but every young and old people go to orgiva from granada to party, so a lift is assured

Edited February 27, 2007 by William of Walworth

[insurgente]

joder, if i'd known about this last year i woulda trekked down from valencia before/after las fallas

Edited March 1, 2007 by insurgente

[mollymoo0oo0]

I'm still really up for this, but it's looking less likely to happen since i've spent the last 30 days celebrating my 30th birthday (why not? ) and have been left a bit tired and very broke, lol...

still, my friends brought my tent over from london and my mate here's still up for it, so all hope is not yet lost... gotta find out about these coaches still, mind you *mutters something about there's never enough hours in the day when you're busy having f.u.n. *

[Delicate Flower]

If you fall short of the two extra mates, I could, depending on timing, share a car (and costs) with you -- would you be going from Granada to the fest on the Friday, and back to the airport on the Monday?!

[mollymoo0oo0]

still trying to make it to this!! and still looking for the cheap coach info... let's see what happens!!

[William of Walworth]

Brand it on my forehead and announce it to all my fellow veteran, hardened Festographers ....

W of W IS A STUPID TWAT WHO IS WHOLLY UNWORTHY OF THE NAME OF FESTOGRAPHER!!

at self .....

I only left flight booking far too late didn't I?

NOTHING available to/from Granada, not even via Madrid, or to Malaga (2 hours bus away from Granada ), for Friday to Monday. Not even ill-timed flights or 2-single-ticket-combos, nothing kicked it at anything under £140= minus insurance.

The very sensible, helpful and travel-hardened Aussie lady in STA (Student Travel Association), Imperial College (close to where I 'work' ) searched EVERYWHERE including airlines the STA had no deal with.

It was obvious in retrospect that leaving flight booking til the Monday before travel** was a recipe for disaster. Even more obvious generally that I should have got my shit together much earlier, but I was ignorant and complacent -- haven't been on a plane since 2002.

**Very slightly in my defence, I was very ill -- to the point of being bedridden -- for 2 and a half days last week, but I was too busy concentrating on recovering in time for my trip to Hebden Bridge the weekend just gone, to be concentrating on what I should ..... oh well at least the Yorkshire climate was sunny and warm ... at self

I'm absolutely GUTTED to miss this festie and will read reports with major envy, but I hope you all have a stonking Dragon of a party and that the weather is really kind.

Next year!

<Books ticket to Endorse It In Dorset immediately, for comfort!>

<looks forward to this coming Friday off in, erm, SE17 ... >

<kicks self 37 times>

Edited March 15, 2007 by William of Walworth

[Delicate Flower]

Shame on you!

Really is a shame, was looking forward to putting a face to the name.

Ah well, next time. Will let you know how it was.

[mollymoo0oo0]

For all those that are making it to this, have lots of F.U.N. ...I really wanted to go, but to be honest I'm quite knackered after non-stop visitors we've had this past couple of months so I'm going to be doing lazy stuff all weekend instead!!

maybe i'll make it next year when the walworth one gets his ticket booked in time!!

m.x

[William of Walworth]

maybe i'll make it next year when the walworth one gets his ticket booked in time!!

m.x

[Delicate Flower]

No time for rehab, arrived home at about 10.30pm Tuesday night, washed a week's worth of Spanish dust off, went to sleep, got up, went to work for a twelve hour day and have just recovered myself enough to get online!

More reporting soon, but it was great! Proper old school crusty festival, with non-stop music, everything you could possibly want (with the exception, perhaps, of toilets* and showers) available cheap and all the time. Danced a great deal, spent a great deal of time wandering in a haze of bliss, talked to loads of lovely people - mostly from UK, Spain, France and Germany, revelled in the scenery...all good!

Rained a bit on Saturday, just enough to damp down the dust but was mostly sunny and lovely. Didn't take many pics and those I did were mostly of mountains and haven't worked out how to post them...and I really need to get some sleep!

*sigh* festival fever is upon me once more...

DF xx

*I know there were about four on site, but they were never where I needed them to be!

[purlpower]

Glad you enjoyed yourself Delicate Flower. It was great to play in the sunshine this year instead of looking out on a bunch of soggy folk! Dragon is a truly special fest, I can think of nothing like it.

Next year: we make it even better (and dig more compost toilets!)

[William of Walworth]

Bumped because we've been discussing this festival recently.

My utterly flakelike failure to get to Dragon Festival in March has been a source of irritation at myself and kicks aimed at my own arse ever since ...

I went to nine full festivals and several one dayers over the season in the UK this year, and mostly had a fantastic time, mudbaths apart (although even those were fun if you doubled your intoxicant intake ).

But I so much want to get to Spain in March 2008!!

Now that I am no longer a solo festival goer, my lovely companion in festival crime has expressed very strong interest.

Dragon Festival is now pretty much the next significant festival to come up .... only six months folks ... ahem

Edited September 28, 2007 by William of Walworth

[William of Walworth]

The official Dragon Festival website appears to have gone down sometime in the last few weeks. Perhaps those hippies aren't keeping up with their web hosting rental!

The Dragon Festival Myspace page appears to have nothing very up to date, and nothing about dates for 2008 yet.

I am concerned that the thing may be going tits up. We have plans to go, and really want to know whether Dragon Fest 2008 will go ahead, and the dates it will happen. The dates we think this festival would happen, on the basis of 2007, are Friday 14th to Sunday 16th March 2008 -- the weekend before Easter.

Any help or suggestions on finding out what's up, would be most welcome.

Edited October 22, 2007 by William of Walworth

[purlpower]

Hiya folks

Have spoken to my Orgiva contacts and it seems that the festi is going ahead. As always with the Dragon (because nobody really is 'the organiser' - it just sort of happens....) plans are sketchy at the moment but I am reliably informed that it is almost certainly going to be the weekend of Friday 21st March - Sunday 23rd as the Dragon happens whichever weekend is closest to the 21st.

Keep checking the Myspace and other Dragon related sites and I suspect there may be more info available soon.

Stay lucky.

[William of Walworth]

I'm so fukken excited if that information about the date is true -- THANKYOU, purlpower!

Because the w/e of Friday 21st/Saturday 22nd/Sunday 23rd March 2008 will be EASTER WEEKEND.

x 10,000

We will save 2 days holiday for that, only need to take one extra for this, now ... the Tuesday after Easter Monday, for one day off only, we'll have a fukken fantastic weekend, including (for us) some quiet togetherness time in Granada after the festival. Alhambra Ahoy!

<goes to bed very happy at this prospect>

[purlpower]

I really hope it is true too! I am in Orgiva this coming weekend so I'm going to try and find out more and check if Dragon has ever happened at Easter before.....watch this space.....

[William of Walworth]

Beating you to it purlpower, are you still in Spain??

The now newly updated Dragon Festival website is very recently back up.

The dates for the 2008 Festival (subject to being allowed) will be Thursday 20th March to Sunday 23rd March 2008 (ie, as predicted, EASTER WEEKEND)!! :angry:

This is grand news!!

We will go ahead with getting plane tickets soonest.

But there is a downside : click the 'Latest News' star on the DragonFest home page for this .... apparantly one or two rogue (overstaying) sound systems, and particularly, tonnes of litter ....

Talk of requests for all festie goers to pay 1 Euro towards clearup costs (fair enough) and stronger pleas to them to clear up their shite (even fairer enough).

I hope none of this jeopardises the festival for 2008, and that the loose collective of English and Spanish organisers are able to pacify the authorities, overcome the problems, and get Dragon happening again for 2008.

We are so much there if it goes ahead!

Edited November 7, 2007 by William of Walworth

[purlpower]

Way Hey Great News! Good work Willie (can I call you Willie?!) I am just back in the UK after a couple of lovely weeks in Spain. While I was there my friends were at some of the meetings mentioned in the newslink which you provided from the official dragon site. Sounds like waste was a major problem last year (as you might expect with such a huge free festival). Anything we can do as participants to make the festival more sustainable, in every sense of the word, sounds like a good idea to me.

Everyone going to the dragonfest should be considering the following: Why not take your own reusable plates, cups or glasses instead of using disposable ones at the food and drink stalls? Use the dug compost toilets provided (or better still, arrive a couple of days before the festival and help dig them)? At the very least we can use the recycling facilities onsite and take away as much of our own rubbish as possible. Little gestures person by person can make a big difference overall.

So glad you have been on the ball and checking the links William, hope to meet you at the festie next year!