This appendix offers sequences of participant commentary selected to illustrate four key traits of the ConFest community: co-operation, tolerance, autonomy and immediatism.

· co-operation (as individuals take responsibility together collectively desired outcomes are achieved):

It is amazing that ConFests seem to come together and are self-governing - an organisational co-operative philosophy for the people by the people. (Karrabul)

[W]hen you operate something you control, and co means to do this equally with others. In a number of North American communes they use co as a personal pronoun instead of he, she, it and they. So here's to ConFest Co-Operators. I'm proud to be one of you. (Daniel DTE News 73, Nov 1992:4)

[It's about ] doing your bit and not sitting back and getting entertained and served on like we do in the cities, ya'know, watching sport on TV and being passive. It's about being active and taking part. First timers get overwhelmed, but usually they go back with a whole different way of looking at their lives. (Prion)

You get this ambience of solidarity, this ambience of wanting to be somewhere and be part of it. (Rick)

The People themselves create ConFest and overcome difficulties. The people themselves are the most powerful ingredient for a ConFest. (Sage)

· tolerance (an open respect for, recognition and celebration of, difference/otherness):

I conceive [ConFest] as an ideal model for the celebration of cultural diversity. (Les)

[A]ll complementary contrapuntal dependent arisings [must be permitted to] dance in propinquity in the Confest space - otherwise it would not be a syncretic syzygetic synergistic GOD [Gathering Overcoming Differences] experience. (Kurt Svendsen 1999:163)

ConFest is a neutral zone where people from all walks of life can come together and ... glimpse other ways of living. (Fulmar)

[ConFest] is a celebration of strangeness ... [It's OK to be 'queer' or a 'freak'] it's even good to be strange ... the one thing that all of the organisers have in common is being strange. They're all strange. And we wanted space where it was OK, where our strangeness was acceptable, and therefore ... cause we were all strange to each other as well, that needed a lot of tolerance and a recognition that there is valuable stuff in other people. (Cedar)

An approachable atmosphere [where] complete strangers often hug each other ... [and have] an open mind to the many different theories, and beliefs preached by the exponents of many different groups such as pagans, anarchists, Ananda Marga, Reiki, etc. etc. (Nilgai)

This is probably unique in Australia ... ConFest I think is unique in that doctors, lawyers, ferals, wrinklies like me, can mix together around community camp fires. And I feel comfortable walking into camp fires [with] teenie boppers to what ever mix. I'm accepted. And that's beautiful. (Trev)

· autonomy (a trusting and safe environment where people are accorded freedom to experiment and permission to express creative energies):

Ordinary human communities can create safety themselves without the need for a State or the police or social control methods. So what we're trying to create is a ... model ... that's non-violent, that's empowering and that builds safety ... Strongly anarchist if you know what I mean ... It's not about social control as in controlling people's behaviour. It's the opposite. It's about encouraging peoples to express and experience their life to the fullest. But it's saying that we've all got a right to feel safe all the time, and everyone's responsible for their own safety ... [Safety] is a prerequisite for rebuilding human communities that work ... We not only need to fight the state and corporations but we need to rebuild human communities on an ecological basis. And ConFest is a little bit of that. (Anthony)

I love coming here because I feel safe at any hour of the day or night and I don't feel the need to edit my thoughts as I do in mainstream society. (Anna. message left on confest.taz.net.au)

[There is] an appetite for the bizarre ... It's like a letting go of all of the constraints of normality and having the appetite for seeing the most bizarre expressed. But it's gotta be done, not pretentiously. There's a certain sense of authenticity. You can go totally wild in what ever way, as long as there's a true expression of yourself in there, that's the ConFest Spirit. Authentic absurdity. (Marko)

[It is] a safe place for releasing pain and dropping the facade. At ConFest you can't avoid intimacies, and I've noticed that in the safety of the caring nature of this place, people drop their guards and the real them comes out and with that comes a lot of pain of why they've had to wear a facade. (Sassafras)

ConFest is structured to give everyone a go at learning: practical things, intellectual things, spiritual things - all with the overriding principle of obtaining greater freedom of expression ... [As] an arena to develop one's gifts ... I was given here a chance to develop stories the way I wanted, and was given full appreciation for it! (Saiga)

I've known a lot of people to go to ConFest feeling isolated ... [and] find in the loving response of so many people [that they are] able to open up and come out and be ... themselves. (Isha)

We've always suppressed individuality in Australia, even um exceptionality has been suppressed - the tall poppy syndrome ... I found that that's not the case here in this environment ... In this context I found out a few things about myself through the potential to create, which I can then take out with me. And I really wanted to enrich the society ... So ConFest made me feel like working for the planet cause I found a forum where I could actually work to enrich it. So I could introduce ideas, and my creativity, and I could work to create space for a process to occur. So I felt useful. Consequently, by the third ConFest I was involved in the site setting up. (Marko)

· immediatism (relatively unmediated experience - palpable, sensuous, familial connection with others and the environment):

I was immediately struck by the way people returned your gaze - intimate eye contact was the norm ... not an exception. Everyone there smiled at you, whether they knew you or not. I had never seen so many beatific people, so many healthy, untroubled people. (Simon K)

ConFest is about experiencing a closer tie with nature by camping in a simple way. It is about shedding the artificial social trappings and conditioning of a consumer-orientated society ... Dancing nude around the fire to a drum percussion group at night - I just love this and where else can one dance naked around a fire, with a hundred other participants, but at ConFest, and feel safe and happy? (Corella)

[Its about remembering that] we are one big family ... we are all brothers and sisters regardless of what tribe/group we identify with. [And] about getting back to the Earth/planet and nature. (Wogoit)

ConFest supersedes any other event in that 4,000 people can live in such a close village atmosphere, in complete harmony and simple organisation ... [It is about] connecting with those who might guide one to deeper, finer living and loving skills. (Rosella)

[It is] about connecting with others, sharing ideas and letting loose - taking off those clothes and inhibitions ... I hugged everyone in sight for two days and was in love with the world. (Tungoo)

A celebration of the life force and a sharing of healing energy. (Dalgy)

(Here) loving friendship is extended to more people than just the ones you know ... When you leave ConFest, you have something in your soul that wasn't there when you arrived. You take it with you back to 'reality' and that makes a difference. (Ariel)

A converging of like minds in a modern village/market setting - New World tribal style ... [It is] important in the way of bringing people together in the realm of possibilities of new communities, events, projects, music, introducing new skills ... [and] supporting existing skills. A respite from 'normal society' [and proof] that there is an echoing growth of people demanding revolution from our Babylonian lifestyles. (Kanga)