The OM Festival was a community-based summer solstice festival that ran annually in southern Ontario for seven years from 1998 to 2004. The festival, organized by Sumkidz, featured music, dance and art, and encouraged its attendees to participate by volunteering. The event promoted free expression and a no spectator, leave-no-trace philosophy. Om drew in 3000 or more participants from all over the world. The event had multiple stages, a giant community kitchen which produced thousands of meals throughout the weekend, a healing area, and an educational hub where people shared ideas and offered hundreds of workshops on everything from knitting to independent media. The annual gathering attracted people who enjoyed electronic music, considered themselves knowledge-seekers, environmentalists, spiritual travelers and other individuals who sought the enlightenment of the human spirit. The festival also supported many musicians (primarily electronic) and artists from across Canada and internationally as well as a wide range of collectives, offering them the opportunity and funds to produce and showcase their own work and skills to a large and diverse audience.
Ideals espoused by the core group of festival organizers and participants were togetherness, freedom, volunteering and spiritual tolerance and exploration.
Former festival attendees or current Message Board members sometimes call themselves OMIEs.
The final Om Festival occurred in 2004. It ended as a result of many factors. Partly due to increasing politics and false media surrounding electronic music made it even more difficult to produce outdoor gatherings of that magnitude. Also due to an unsustainable, volunteer-based organizational structure that required several 'core' coordinators to work, unpaid, on a full-time basis for months at a time and that was not possible year after year for most.
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The Festival was organized and maintained by the Sumkidz collective, (now known as Suma). Sumkidz is a group of artists and activists living in and around Toronto, Ontario. http://www.sumkidz.org
Although the Om Festival ended in 2004, the Sumkidz continue to be active participants in the proliferation of consciousness-raising, community-based arts events around Toronto and beyond. Their main projects consist of community multimedia, art and music events and celebrations as well as alternative energy education for all ages based around their waste veggie oil-powered bus and solar powered sound system.
The organizers of the festival, aside from volunteering themselves, relied on hundreds of additional volunteers to make everything happen. Volunteers would attend meetings in Toronto several weeks prior to the festivities, and roles would be assigned, thus cultivating deeper and more meaningful relationships and community connections. The festival itself was an amazing opportunity for networking and knowledge-sharing of like-minded individuals.
Volunteers chose to work in the Kind Kitchen, on foot patrol (security and first aid), in the child care areas, on clean up, or in several other positions. Those who gave their time and effort to sustain the festival received a free ticket, although they were required to purchase a t-shirt identifying them as OM crew.
After the final Om Festival in 2004, several Sumkidz, alongside many new coordinators from the larger Om Community, formed the OM Reunion Project (ORP) and began to coordinate a smaller more intimate and less structured summer solstice gathering. The first being Re:union in 2005, followed by In:tent in 2006, Re:treat in 2007 and In:sight in 2008 and Re:Leaf in 2009. The 2010 festival, in:fuse, runs from Tuesday June 15th to Monday June 21st. The focus of the Om Reunion Project was to facilitate a more intentional community event, beyond the "party" where all participants register for the gathering in advance and are responsible for making the gatering happen. Every attendee is required to volunteer, and everyone is encouraged to share their art, whether it be music, dance, art, food, education etc... While, on many levels, ORP has been successful in creating a differently focused community, it can also be argued that this ideal is not necessarily upheld by all attendants, due to its more grassroots approach. However, on the flip-side ORP, has encouraged new participants and community willing to pour their creative and intentional energies into the new Om gathering. ORP continues to grow and evolve each summer solstice in the spirit of the Om Festival and provides an inspiring and educational retreat for many 'Omies' old and new. Information about this year's festival is available at www.omreunionproject.org
View a Vider Collage of Reunion 2006 at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7437221034614954043