Practical info

The Nibana Summer Festival is the kind of thing you can't really explain, but understand once you've been there. But hey, let's try.

Nibana is a one week fully immersive experience where everyone's invited to explore much of what life has to offer and to be their most authentic self.

In a way it's like a big 250-people retreat. There are Nibana ceremonies led by experienced ceremony leaders and you'll have a unique personal journey throughout the week that will take a different shape and form for everyone.

You could also call it a festival. You can roam around the festival grounds explore. Where retreats tend to focus on a single topic, Nibana allows you to try many different things. Experiment, then stick with it or change your mind. Do whatever feels right to you. Play. Connect. Reflect.

Nibana also has many similarities with burns. Sander's participation in Burning Man (2011 and 2018) has been a major source of inspiration for Nibana. The feeling of ultimate freedom. Dropping the plan, trying new things and embracing whatever the day will bring.

Nibana is a co-creative event. What that means is explained in the co-creation section below.

How you actually spend your day is 100% up to you. We offer a structure, which makes it easier to co-create this week together. On most days the structure looks like this:

 
The schedule might still change over the coming months.

Following the success of the Nibana Conscious Winter Burn 2020, we're now making the Nibana Summer Festival 2021 a fully co-creative event. This means that everyone makes three contributions of about three hours each during or before the event. What happens when a group of people commits to contributing to creating the experience together is hard to explain and amazing to experience.

Wondering what you can do? There's a bunch of possibilities and you really don't need any skills. We always need people to cut the veggies.

• Offer a workshop, organise an activity, create an experience
• Create an area/tent of your own, decorate a toilet, and so on
• Decoration before the event (which is like a festival in itself)
• Being on the registration team or offer inga welcoming ritual
• Helping in the kitchen
• Tidying the grounds, looking after the wellness area, preparing spaces for workshops
• Transporting stuff to or from the festival grounds
• Joining the Emotional Support Team
• Joining the Intimate Playground team
• Being a photographer
• Making music
• Providing Medic First Aid

The program will be largely co-created online beforehand, but last-minute additions during the week are more than welcome.

Yes, we keep Nibana completely free of drugs and alcohol. It’s really really not allowed.

Nibana is full of opportunities for personal growth. It’s a safe environment where we take responsibility for our own actions and can trust others to do the same. We believe that this can be best achieved when we’re sober.

Sometimes, it might take just a tiny bit longer to loosen up, but when you learn to do so, it’s a skill that you can apply to all aspects of your life.

Added benefits: real human connections, crystal clear memories & no hangovers.

To protect everone's privacy, taking photos of other people is not allowed unless you have the verbal permission of everyone in the photo. We highly encourage you to switch off your phone for entire duration of the event.

Some of the participants will form the media team. They'll be very sensitive about when to take photos or not. There's a signal to indicate you don't want to be in a particular photo (cross your arms in front of your chest), photos can always be deleted upon request and there will be a wristband system that allows you to indicate that you don't want to be recognizable on any photos.

Please know that many participants feel this way. Especially if they attend for the first time. So if you feel that way, maybe just allow yourself to feel that way.

Also know that we strive to create a gentle environment where nothing is ever expected of anyone. We take this very seriously and have used our co-creating process to create a number of tools that help making Nibana a safer space, much of which you can read about in the festival booklet.

We have the terrain guide & rules that define how to navigate the terrain in a respectful way. There are guidelines for intimate interactions between those that offer workshops and their participants. We have general consent guidelines to stimulate safe and enjoyable interactions for everyone and collaboration values to support a healthy environment for those who are working a team shift. Finally we've created a checklist to support us in creating safe & inclusive spaces.

We believe sexuality and nudity are a natural part of life, which is why we've thought very carefully about how to include them in Nibana. We offer a broad program and Conscious Sexuality is just one of six workshop themes. So if you want, you will be able to find it.

All genders are allowed to be topless on the terrain. We do ask that you generally wear some sort of bottoms. Full nudity is welcome in the wellness area, in the Intimate Playground and during certain workshops and activities, in which case it will be indicated during the workshop (and ideally beforehand). Being nude is never expected of anyone. Wanna suddenly dance naked for a while on the dancefloor? Go for it. But put your bottoms back on before you dive into that stack of pillows.

The Intimate Playground, which is a wonderful tent where you can safely and comfortably explore sexuality. There will be workshops and sometimes a so-called open space. During open space can explore your sexuality while the area is being looked after by a team of spaceholders.

The Intimate Playground is in very carefully selected spot on the terrain. Meaning it's easy to find and just as easy to ignore. And there'll be always plenty of other stuff going on, so if you don't want to have anything to do with the sexuality part, you will still have a full Nibana experience.