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The festival, described as an impressive undertaking by John Malson, President ofSyndicate Cosmetics, provides a venue for local and regional acts of diverse talentsto expose themselves to audiences normally outside their fan-base. The One FamilyGathering offers a chance for us to come together as one and celebrate our diversityin a safe environment, said the festival s creator, Bud Weather, an alternativelifestyle consultant with General Specifics LLC, Seattle.
This is a gathering of true equals on all levels and points of view or expression, said Sean Smith, One Family Gathering s communication facilitator. The festival usesa set of online tools created by Google that allow for collaborators to share andsimultaneously edit documents. This set of tools is called Google documents and isstill in beta testing.
Weather, an eight year veteran of festival production scene, says he is developingthe festival as an answer to the problems that have arisen with other festivals. Because we make significant use of Google s tools to create and manipulate thedocuments that define our organization, we have been able to develop a bottom up structure where facilitators on any level can make changes that effect the wholefestival, Weather said.
For the One Family Gathering, 70 performance groups are currently being selectedincluding Jahson Ites, Jack Burton, Seraphim, Cntrl Alt Delete, DJ Sticky, DJ4NORML,Dj Eff, Min.d, Transient, Electric Avenue, Dough Boy, Ben's Jazz Kit, Rat CityRukas, Daphnie, Jensen, Tommy Dean, Hippinshlog, The Ronz, Norman Baker, Bijhan,Naugahyde Nights, Renegade Minstrels, Wehrwolve, Pressure Suit, Essential I,Huckleberry, SpiritMoon, Laurianne, Matt Zeltzer, HannaH*s Field, Deep SleepNarcotics Company, and many more. These artists are being selected from a largenumber of genres ranging from break-beat techno and Celtic melody to Seattle punkrock. Weather explained that, these performers represent a broad cross section ofpeople who all consider themselves to be, Family .
Only a few weeks old, the One Family Gathering has managed to organize and develop athree-day outdoor music festival, rave, and barter fair from the ground up usingGoogle facilitated tools to collaborate online. The One Family Gathering is poisedto be the first event attempting to combine the elements of trade culture withInternet collaboration.
More than 4000 music lovers and alternative lifestyle enthusiasts are expected toconverge on central Oregon May 2-4, 2008, for the One Family Gathering. Set in thehigh desert, One Family Gathering promises to entertain with over 70 musicperformances, a trade market, exceptional food vendors, and much more.
