"What IS a Rainbow Gathering?" To me it is Woodstock with amateur musicians and I'm in the band.

Every year about 10,000 hippies and freethinkers go backpacking for a week on July 1st thru 7th. The location is always different and not revealed until about two weeks before it starts. Visit https://www.welcomehome.org/ to see where and what it is. I have attended four Rainbow Gatherings. The first gathering I attended was in Pennsylvania in 1987 then Idaho, California and Utah.

http://gvan42.blogspot.com/p/what-is-rainbow-gathering-to-me-it-is.html
This is a description about my trip to The Rainbow Gathering in California 2004… I wrote this to help me remember…

Thousands of People chant OM. This photo was snapped just before I decided it was time to put away the camera and experience the event… Yes, it’s important to remember to LIVE LIFE instead of DOCUMENTING LIFE.

http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/rainbow-gathering-idaho-2001.html
I went to the gathering with a goal in mind. I wanted to play my guitar and sing in public. Yes, mission accomplished. Living in Chico, California and working at the plastics factory when there was a layoff, my wife suggested that I borrow the car and drive over to the gathering. My friend Mike Jensen wanted to go and so we checked the oil, brake fluid, transmission fluid and water and set out on a classic American road trip. We made it as far as Reno the first day and slept by the side of the road.

http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/rainbow-gathering-712014-heber-city.html

Main Circle: I feel positive with the meeting between

 the Mormon Youth of Salt Lake City and the Rainbow Gathering... 

http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/rainbow-gathering-photographs-utah-2014.html 

Greg Vanderlaan in Heber City, Utah 

Often, there is a divide between performer and audience... 

It's better when the audience is the performer. 

http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/grateful-deadhead-art-and-mystory.html 

My experiences following the Grateful Dead...

It became apparent that there was something ELSE going on in addition to "rock and roll/show business". Some times I would not bother to buy a ticket to the concert at all but was happy to play music in the parking lot. Many people DID NOT attend the concerts. They went to experience the scene that surrounded the DEAD. There was a philosophy that the band was not the center of attention.

Dancing at the Rainbow Gathering in California... Dun Dun Village...

The Rainbow Gathering is the logical outgrowth of this feeling. The people from the audience (and other like minded individuals) meet in a National Forest and have a wonderful camping trip. At this level, the band does not even attend at all.

http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/grateful-deadhead-tribute-webpage.html

In 1972, a friend of mine went to San Francisco and went to the Fillmore West and came back to our high school and said... LET"S BUILD OUR OWN.

That was the beginning of Forbes Mill in Los Gatos California... We had a light show and electric rock music every weekend at an abandoned stone flour mill in the center of town... On Wednesday nights we performed folk music. My band performed... I was the head of security and did advertising posters.

Since we had Town sponsorship of our "Teen Club" thru the organization Youth Unlimited, we had to make sure no laws were being broken or the police would shut us down. Certainly no drinking or illegal drug use or housing of runaways. My take on law enforcement was to direct potential lawbreakers to the nearby hole in the fence that lead to the wooded area next to the freeway.  I admit that a lot of laws were broken on State of California property, but that was NOT MY CONCERN. I was responsible for making sure that OUR property was crime free.

The light show was created by using four slide projectors and two spinning wheels with variable speed motors that blocked the light from reaching the white wall behind the bandstand. Each cardboard wheel had holes cut into it so that the slides would be projected in a stroboscopic manner.  Some slides were abstract art created by "crystal craze" paint and others were photographs.

We also owned a strobe light and I learned to not point it at the electric organ player because the blinking light made it impossible to see which keys were black and which were white...