MASSIVE FRIENDLY EVENTS Planning a Crowd Friendly Mardi Grass all to all those who want to walk the path of peace and creativity and end the War on Drugs. Let's work together to make the 1999 Nimbin "Let It Grow" Mardi Grass and Cannabis Law Reform Rally a joyful, artful and safe and a powerful, media effective call for cannabis law reform in NSW. Let's send a clear, people power message to the NSW Drug Summit that will follow the week after. Let thousands of ordinary people be seen parading and dancing for freedom from the injustice of these bad laws. Let it be beautiful. Nimbin HEMP has appointed Graeme Dunstan as "Crowd Controller" of the 1999 Nimbin Mardi Grass with responsibility for overall crowd management of the event. Graeme, a cultural organiser and festival maker for over 25 years, was responsible for managing the Keeping Nimbin Nearly Normal community policing project which drew up and implemented the successful crowd friendly, crowd management of last year's Mardi Grass. "A happy crowd is a manageable crowd", said Graeme. 'Like last year we will be working to make the event both a beautiful and crowd pleasing celebration of the hemp harvest and also a clarion call for cannabis law reform." "Like last year we are expecting a crowd of up to 10,000 and national and international media attention", he said. "Together with the Nimbin Police, we are taking a harm minimisation approach and working with the Lismore City Council officers to plan and ensure that the impacts of the event on the non participating residents of the village are minimised." During Mardi Grass the organisers will be working closely with Radio Nimbin, which expects to be broadcasting during this time. This means that residents and visitors approaching the event will be able to tune in and get up to date information about the program, traffic, parking conditions and so on. The Mardi Grass will be preceded by a two day voluntary crowd managers training session in Nimbin Hall on the weekend of 23 & 24 April. Sgt Neville Plush and Graeme Dunstan will be leading the training and anyone and everyone (and especially Nimbin residents) wanting to help out with the crowd management is welcome to participate. Fifteen undergraduates from
the criminology course at Bond University have already given notice that they will
be participating in the training and helping out with the crowd management as a
practical experience in community policing. They will be receiving course credits
based on their Further Information: |
Media Release 31 March 1999 Making Mardi Grass Artful ... The Nimbin HEMP Embassy has
opened a HEMP Arts Factory and is calling for volunteers to help prepare flags,
banners, lanterns, parade imagery and signs for the coming Nimbin "Let it
Grow" Mardi Grass and Cannabis Law Reform Rally Friday 30 April to Sunday 2
May. "A happy crowd is a manageable crowd", said Graeme. "Ambience is everything in crowd events and so we are working to make the Mardi Grass visually splendid as befits a creative community like Nimbin creatively celebrating the hemp harvest and protesting for cannabis law reform." "Like last year we will be making and deploying a host of candle and paper lanterns to mellow out the crowd and create enchantment in the village by night" he said. "We will also be putting out avenues of electrically lit lanterns to enhance the street lighting of the village". Graeme designed and installed the street lighting at the last Woodford Folk Festival. He is well known for the mass lantern and fire spectacles that he produced for the Lismore Lantern Festival (93&94), the Woodford Festival (92–95) and more recently for the Eureka Stockade commemorations in Ballarat, Victoria, last December. He is well known for turning riots into safe and artful celebrations (Byron Bay NYE 95 and Bondi Beach 96). "We need painters, sewers, bamboo workers and makers of all kinds", Graeme said. "The big challenge is to rebuild the central icon of the Mardi Grass Parade, the Big Joint which, with age, has become a very saggy and loose joint". Interested volunteers should call the Nimbin HEMP Embassy 6689 1842 or call in person. Backpackers especially welcomed.
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