Paleo 'instant community' ready to rock

After four weeks of construction in a Nyon field, the 34th annual Paleo Festival is ready to welcome thousands of music fans over six days, starting Tuesday. This year, organizers are again stressing environmental awareness with green buildings and features such as reusable cups for drinks and subsidized transit services co-ordinated with special trains to discourage concert goers from driving to the event, expected to attract almost a quarter of a million people. The Paleo Festival, one of the Lake Geneva region’s biggest music events, is set to get under way in Nyon on Tuesday with British rock groups Placebo and Kaiser Chiefs among the headliners on the main stage.

Gossip, the American indie rock group, and Swiss folk singer-song writer Sophie Hunger, are also featured on opening night as the 34th annual festival gets under way with 227,000 fans expected over six days.

Despite the financial crisis, the event in the Vaud community east of Geneva had little trouble selling out tickets, as 200,000 were snapped up by fans within two and half hours when they went on sale back in April.

But organizers are promising 1,000 extra tickets will be made available each day at 9 am on the festival’s website and through Ticketcorner outlets.

People have already begun to set up tents on the sprawling grounds, located in a field north of the Nyon city centre, with 7,000 people expected to camp during the July 21-26 event.

With buildings dedicated to India in a “village du Monde,” and a beehive or “ruche” housing circus acts and street theatre, the festival will create a temporary community that daily attracts around 45,000 people.

Recent heavy rain prompted worries, but Paleo spokesman Christophe Platel said the grounds are now dry. “We had to reschedule some building works,” he told Swisster. “But everything is fine . . . the field is in good shape.”

Crews have spent four weeks setting up structures for the various theme areas on the site, he said.

Among the novelties this year is a three-level wooden “terrasse,” offering a vantage point for 1,000 people to watch concerts on the ground floor, along with a bar and food counter, Platel said. The second and third levels offer space in the structure across from the main stage for VIPs and sponsors.

The wooden construction is consistent with the festival’s commitment to sustainable development, Platel said. To discourage litter, Paleo is selling drinks in reusable plastic containers with a two-franc refundable deposit, he said.

The idea is to provide an incentive for festival goers to return the cups, which are washable, rather than throw them in the trash. The goblets can be returned to the festival’s various bars and “eco-points.”

The festival is also trying to encourage ticket holders to leave their car behind, especially given the strong likelihood of tailbacks on the Lausanne-Geneva highway, due to construction west of the Vaud capital.

In fact, the festival, run by a non-profit society, is paying the transport authorities in Lausanne and Geneva to offer late-night transit service, coordinated with special trains put on by Swiss Federal Railway trains. The festival site can be directly reached by train from Nyon on the route to St-Cergue.

Promoting environmental awareness has become one of the hallmarks of the festival, founded by Daniel Rossellat, who remains president of the society running the event. Rosselat, a member of the Green party, was recently elected mayor of Nyon.

Paleo's tribute to India, meanwhile, features an installation with steps leading to a pool of water called Ghâts of Teppakulam, where concerts, shows and entertainment are planned. Ethnic food and crafts will be available at various stands.

As in past years, architecture students from Geneva’s Haute école specialisée (HES-SO) have designed an unusual building for the festival, this time one inspired by mangrove swamps.

Music from the Woodstock rock festival, celebrating its 40th anniversary, will be piped into the “Mangrove:Back to Roots" installation, consisting of 2,000 square metres of tunnels and passages created with willow branches that people can walk through. Special lighting will create a different ambience at night, a place for concert goers to chill out and space for an alcohol prevention stand.

With a budget of 21 million francs, the festival includes in its lineup of entertainers other British groups such as Franz Ferdinand (Wednesday) and Snow Patrol (Thursday), as well as US bands TV On The Radio (Friday) and Cold War Kids (Saturday) and American singer Tracey Chapman (Saturday).

But Platel said the show he is personally looking forward to the most is Young Gods, a veteran Swiss group noted for its “industrial rock” sound, set to perform Wednesday in front of a giant screen showing scenes from the Woodstock festival. The band will perform original music and recreate songs from the famous festival in New York state.

For more information check Paleo’s website: www.paleo.ch