The 2nd World Congress of the Hedonists International has finished and everybody has returned from Riebau. At this point, we want to thank everybody who conquered their way to the Altmark! First of all, our thanks go to all of you. You have been the best audience that a festival-congress could ever have! You have been much more than an audience – you have been an active part of the whole congress. You made it what it turned out to be: a small world, in which 300 people have found out in a self-determined and responsible way, what is possible if they just gather and kick off doing the things they want to.

Of course, we want to give our sincere thanks to all the contributors, technicians and DJs as well, and last but not least to all the folks who just came a few days earlier to help. We thank the musicians and artists for the program filled up with punk rock, rock n’ roll, boom-boom and all kinds of wonderful hippieshit. We are grateful for the people who enchanted the area with beautiful decoration, for the team who did the cinema floor and the kitchen crews who provided us with delicious and healthy food. We bow to serious lectures, philosophy and funny hoax. We are happy that you had so much fun and pleasure. That you pestered the contributors with so many questions and thrilled them with your interest. We are overwhelmed by your determination to join in and make the congress such a special place. We have fallen in love with your spontaneity and the smile in your face that has made others smile as well.

Especially, we would like to give props to the people of the „Traumschule Riebau“, who have invited us to their place and let us „do what you want“. We thank the inhabitants of the village, who endured us (and our music) during all four days without grumble. Such a tolerant place isn’t easy to find – we did not get any complaint at all.
Now, we are primarily sad that it’s over. We will take some weeks to decide whether to do it again or not. Anyway, these beautiful memories in our heads are tempting us : )
Please contact us if you want to join us, if you know about a nice potential congress site we should explore or if you have any idea about what should happen at another hedonist world congress.
We are looking forward to hear from you!

Additionally a little information:
We had a few journalists at the congress, who – in our opinion – made some very apposite contributions. Unfortunately, they are all in German.

Unabhängiges Radiofeature
Neues Deutschland 15.6.11: Hightech am Lagerfeuer
Funkhaus Europa 14.6.11: Bericht vom Weltkongress
ON3 Radio 15.6.11: Radikal-Aerobic für Anfänger

During the next days we will upload some podcasts and sheets of the lectures, too.

There are more photos here.

Liebe Freunde des Guten Lebens für alle,

dank unserer Busgesellschaft haben wir heute Abend überraschend einen größeren Bus für die Fahrt zum Weltkongress zur Verfügung. Damit haben noch einige Kurzentschlossene die Möglichkeit sich auf die Reise ins wunderschöne Riebau zu machen.

Um noch eine Karte zu ergattern reicht eine kurze Mail an stefan@bassliner.org die ankündigt, dass ihr den Bus um 18:30 Uhr vom Ostbahnhof nehmt. Inhalt z.B. “Hallo Stefan, ja ich komme mit”. Notfalls könnt ihr auch so vorbeischauen, ob es noch ein Platz frei ist.

Viele Hedonisten sind schon hier in Riebau und sind bestens gelaunt. Über 100 Stunden Programm sind fertig und das festlich geschmückte Gelände ist bereit euch zu empfangen.
Link zum Programm http://hedonist-international.org/worldcongress2011/?page_id=22

Wir freuen uns euch und bis gleich!
Karen Elliot und Luther Blissett

This year, the Hedonist International celebrates its World Congress for the second time. On the site of a former border barrack in Riebau, a small village near Salzwedel in Saxony-Anhalt, there will meet advocates and masterminds, dancers and friends of a good life for all.

The Congress will consist of three topics: protest, party, and action. They will be filled with a wide range of talks and workshops held by political activists, old and new communication guerill@s, scientists, musicians, philosophers, and artists. Please visit http://hedonist-international.org/worldcongress2011/?page_id=318 for further details. There are some talks in English, and we will do our best to provide some basic consecutive translation for the rest.

It seems clear that a hedonist congress without singing and dancing is like summer without sun. That’s why the congress program will be surrounded by music and performances, cinema, and art. After the two congress days Friday and Saturday, the whole thing will end up in a whole-day and open-air dancing workshop on Sunday.

Hard to say if this Hedonist summer camp can be called a festival, a conference, a political gathering or an open air. We assume: something in between all this, with some bits of everything in it. We are sure that it will be a colorful and pleasurable experience.

We want to make sure that people can come to this memorable event in a comfortable and cheap way. From and to Berlin, we have thus organized some shuttle buses which bring you there at the cost price of 8 Euros one-way. The Hedo-Liner (buy tickets here) goes on Thursday and Friday evening from Berlin to Riebau and from Riebau to Berlin on Monday. Please book now! We need to plan the buses and their costs, so it would be great if you arrange to book before June 3rd (Friday) noon.

We are looking forward to meet you under the sun of Riebau!

More Info on the Congress:
http://hedonist-international.org/worldcongress2011/?page_id=310