Reshaping Poland’s Community after Communism by Helena Chmielewska-Szlajfer

Author:Helena Chmielewska-Szlajfer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

The Festival Space: Commerce and Community

Following in the footsteps of American Woodstock and Jarocin, Woodstock Station was designed as an open-air event close to nature. The space in Kostrzyn is a green meadow the size of over 200 soccer fields surrounded by a forest. The small town is roughly 1.5 miles away from the festival site, and the location of Woodstock Station is close to the train station, making it accessible to people without cars. Because the vast majority of the festivalgoers use the railway to get to the event, special train cars are added each year. In addition, the Grand Orchestra of Christmas Charity provides moderately priced buses from major Polish cities,23 and carpooling has become increasingly popular since the aughts. Those who to get to the festival by car usually come a day or two before its start in order to find a parking space on the field (there is no parking lot) and put up their tents close by.24 Although, at first, the festival space appears chaotic and messy, it is organized to make it feel both open and safe. The main paths to the site are kept clear so that they can be used immediately in case of emergency. The festival site is marked by a tall, light, and portable metal fence that serves more as a sign than an obstacle. Upon entering, on the right side of the main path, one notices a huge stage raised 16 feet above the ground, over 50 feet tall and 200 feet wide; it dominates the vast festival area. Save for the empty space in front of the stage, the rest of the somewhat-hilly area is filled by a mass of tents, creating an almost favela-like landscape. One of the first things one notices after entering the festival space is a field hospital tent by the entrance and a “mushroom” close to the front of the stage—a water sprinkler that makes a muddy bath for people to play in, evoking the images from the 1969 Woodstock festival . Crowds of people can also be found waiting in line to bungee jump from a tall crane nearby. Some do somersaults in the air, others jump in pairs, holding each other tightly. In general, people present there make the event feel lighthearted; in this, it is quite similar to the atmosphere of the Grand Orchestra of Christmas Charity drives in the winter.

Close to the stage are also ATMs of one of the event’s sponsors, the Polish bank Pekao SA (in 2017, it was the private bank mBank, since companies owned by the state—such as Pekao SA—have been withdrawing from partnerships with the Grand Orchestra of Christmas Charity and Woodstock Station since the 2015 victory of the Law and Justice party), and a small press center building that is usually packed with reporters editing material. Most of them are Polish, usually from local and regional radio stations, but journalists from Germany and Spain are not an uncommon sight. Further down the path

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