La Pl'Asse, Paléo's “off” festival
All photos- courtesy Jonas Parson
For many people, the festival doesn't end when you leave the main entrance. A whole ecosystem arises around Paléo, giving people who don't have tickets a chance to party, and those waiting for the doors to open something to do. Just across the road you can find the Pl'Asse, Paléo's 'off' festival. This free area, filled with food and clothes stalls, boasts a small stage with different activities organised all day, and ending each night with a Dj set. This is were the festival-goers, forced to flee the grounds at closing time, but still desirous to dance, end up to finish the night in style. A special mention to an amazing tea stall, situated about half way down the right side of the Pl'Asse, which serves wicked Masala Chai and delicious white chocolate and saffron brownies.
The camp-site can be found on the other side of the Pl'Asse. After having for many years a reputation of a lawless jungle of danger, the camp-site has been cleaned up a bit since Paléo introduced a bracelet access to the camp-site, limiting the entrance to people with tickets to the festival. Around 12'000 festival-goers camp here each year, building some pretty impressive structures. Camping at Paléo is a very serious matter! Activities and games are offered during the day, such as this “Pétong” tournament, a variant of “Pétanque” played with your shoes!
The party goes on all night here, and if you find yourself in the camp-site at 4 in the morning, you can find huge groups of people dancing through it with portable amplifiers, inviting everyone they meet to join them.
Moving...
Horses are used to pick up the rubbish
Wood is given away for free in the camp-site
Here are the portraits of three encampments Living In Nyon visited.
Walking along in the camp-site, difficult to miss this big orange structure, covered in graffiti. Made of a wooden structure covered by tarpaulins, it hosts several tents and a lounge area.
, a group of British campers (most of them grew up in Switzerland) live here. It took them a day to build this, harder work than a few years ago, when they were about twenty people helping to set up camp. They were all spending the week at Paléo, a festival to which they are faithful, as they have been coming here for a while now, and it is one of the only festivals they come to.
One of the most beautiful and impressive sites was made of tarpaulins stretched between an incredible orange caravan and a great old yellow school bus. I met
, from near Zurich there. The caravan and bus belonged to family and friends from their village, with whom they were here at Paléo. They too were only faithful to Paléo,and had been coming for the last three years. Their highlight of the week was Santana, who played last night.
Further on, near a very Swiss group of caravans, complete with letterbox and a row of flowers planted in front, I came across a group of people, living out of a camping car, the
(the blue goat camp-site) I stopped because of the sign offering to recharge your phone with solar energy at an open rate (“prix libre” is a concept where the person decides how much she wants to give for what she is paying). I stopped to chat with this group of friends from Valais, who were really into finding alternatives to energy production, and were testing their new construction in the camp-site, with some rather rewarding results! People came and used their installation, often trusting them with their phones for a couple of hours. They deplored the fact that people just came and went without stopping for a chat, as if they were scared or shy. But the “prix libre” worked great, and they had already received things like cherry tomatoes, cool beers, food, and a bit of money, people often paying more than they would if the price had been fixed, supporting this great project.
have been coming for a long time to Paléo, and they explained that this was one of the only festivals where it was possible to build stuff on the camp-site. Apparently all of the other festivals (specially in the German part of Switzerland!) are much stricter, and do not allow fires, etc....
Street theatre in the camp-site
A very Swiss entrance
As one might have noticed, the stalls here are ruled by Cardinal and its crappy lager, which is just about the only beer sold on the grounds. If you were to want a better beer, it would be impossible to find one, as Cardinal,one of the main sponsors for the festival, forbids the sale of any other beer. But there is one solution! For several years now, “La Brasserie de la Côte”, a brewery from above Morges, has set up camp in the underground terminal to the Nyon-St-Cergue train. This is the perfect place to enjoy a nice glass of craft beer before taking the train up to Paléo. Here is Thursday's video "best of".