SITE LIAISON – Freiland & Ämter

In 2019 saturday night was a little critical due to complaints on the earlier days. I was site lead that night and cycled a lot between sound camps around midnight to check and calibrate sound levels together with the other Jan. Sound camps were actually pretty understanding.

I think what would help is to find out the sound spillage the first days to be able to check the volume in some defined spots on site without walking around too much.

Since I'm a tech person: wouldn't it be useful to set up/create sound level measurement devices to send warnings if sound travels into the directions of the neighbors? Not necessarily officially calibrated devices, but just indicators for us that something had become too loud in one of the directions?

I did some research into building some devices that could continually monitor sound at various locations and periodically send that data back to a central point. It wouldn't be cheap, but probably doable. My main concern was that an SPL monitor needs to be calibrated or otherwise it's practically meaningless... but you raise a good point, if you're monitoring continuously you can at least get information out of relative fluctuations, which could be very useful.

generally speaking, I agree with you @Roko, but for instance, take a look at @Jan Thomas comment above...

My view is that 2019 showed that the "responsible hippie" approach is not working - the hippies might be responsible when sober, but the reality each night was that it required something like a "sound police" to turn off sounds systems again (because somebody decided they felt like playing tunes to no-one at 2am, at a place directly next to a quiet zone where there shouldn't even have been a sound system in the first place), or to turn down bigger systems at major soundcamps (because the DJ while being in the zone started turning up the volume).

i know what you mean and i read that, but 2019 sound concerns were not that much discussed like this time. i did the sound checks with waldo before the burn started 2019 and some smaller sound camps did not show that they grasp the importance of shooting full power of sound on my command (felt like i had to push them).
that's why i think: if we make it really really clear that sound permissions are only granted for people who try to play the rules, they will play the rules. same for dj's. they need to know that the sound lead of their camp controls volume, no one else.

i hope we find solutions. if someone wants to propose a police concept, do it. :D i am more for upfront strict communication, if someone wants to have music.


btw. what is the general approach of handling people that act against principles?

Don't get me wrong... I much prefer the self-regulation versus the sound-police concept. But as the lead of the Site Leads I am 1. reasonably skeptical of the effectiveness of both, and 2. doing my best to look out for those that volunteer for a Site Lead shift by trying to minimize the chance they're gonna have a disastrous shift, e.g. talking to the police on one end, and wandering around site trying to find the responsible person for each sound camp, etc., etc.

The safety protocols (which will hopefully get updated this year) have a protocol for problematic participants... I guess someone refusing to follow the sound protocols might warrant that approach eventually.

Sure, it will all be in the KBorg 2021 folder (the application for permit is already there). We let you know when everything is finalized. Do you want/need a deadline for it?

We talked about this with Eric. The only way to make it legal/safe is to have dedicated lifeguards... officially people aren't even allowed to go swimming there.

Nope I don't haver the contact, you will want to contact @Natacha Kromatik, who managed it for the Summer camp and is overseeing the Korg rental of the tents

Thanks Kate for the feedback from the call with Freiland :)

The way I see the sound concept is in 2 parts:

1/ The 'Protocol', defining basically where, when and how loud do we play music during that week.

2/ How do concretely apply that protocol before and during the event.

If I understand you well, 1/ should be done rather soon, in order to move the wheels with Freiland and the permit topic.

My idea is to have some exchange with sound camps leads, gather all feedbacks from last year discussion and from the survey, align with Site liaison team & Site planning team. Then, make a proposal on Talk that the community can discuss, and come to a final draft by end of Feb/begginning of March.

Would that be good for you timewise?

It would be good to keep it as a draft, with some big principles already agreed at this stage, but keeping it flexible enough in order to finalize it when the whole community and Kiez leads really start to get into planning mode.

I believe the 2/ can be treated at a later stage, when we get closer to the event and start to be more concrete. (The event is still in more than 6 months :))

If anyone wanna support that process, please reach out :)