What to bring:
Check-in: August 20th
You are welcome to check in at the reception area between 15:00 and 18:30.
You need to have been through check-in and received your wristband before you can be served dinner. It will be served at the outdoor serving area from 18:30 – 19:30. The Opening Ceremony will start at 20:00 in the Heart Tent.
Check-out: August 25th
On your departure day, the last meal is breakfast. It is served between 08:00 – 09:00.
To “check out” means to remove all personal belongings from your room before 11:00.
Bring any rented sheets to the drop-off boxes in the corridor. A late check-out fee of a minimum of 200 SEK will be charged for people in rooms that have not been emptied at 11:00. If you’re camping, to check out means to have packed your tent & removed it from the field. We ask all of you dear participants to have left Ängsbacka by 13:00 latest and kindly ask you to respect that and organise your travels accordingly as it tremendously supports our logistics.
Activities program and experiences
Once on-site you will find presentations of the workshop holders, musicians, healing session givers, and other offerings such as the Shop, Holy Tree crafts and instrument shop, tea ceremonies, Simsala Chai, and much more in the “Festival Gallery Tent” right outside of the café! The activities offered during your stay will be shared via screens, in the format of the current and next day’s activities.
What you should not bring or use
Food
We serve three vegetarian meals per day. They are all included in your ticket. Vegan and gluten-free options will be presented in a clear and visible way. Unfortunately, we can not cater to very specific diets/intolerances/allergies. There will be a separate queue for children & parents to make it easier for you 🙂
Health & Safety
Please take really good care of yourself prior to and during your stay with us. We expect you to cancel your participation if you, close to the start of or during the event itself, are carrying a contagious virus that may cause an immediate health risk for other participants. Even with these precautions we are aware that we can not prevent contagious viruses from being present at times and we ask you to implement best hygiene practices (cough in your elbow, wash your hands, etc.).
If you have any life-threatening allergies or illnesses we ask you to bring your own medication.
We will have a medical support team onsite who can be reached via the Safety team (whose number will be displayed in the Info Gallery Tent).
Hygiene
You will find many places equipped with hand sanitizer. Please use it. If you borrow a yoga mat for a class, there is disinfectant available to use before and after practice.
Healing Circle
The Healing Circle offers personal sessions for bodywork, energy healing, massage, counselling, and other forms of therapies/modalities. Make sure to bring your own towel to your session to lay on. You can book and pay (by card only) your session through Ängsbacka’s booking terminal in the Festival Gallery in front of the café.
Café
Änsgbacka’s café offers delicious hot & cold drinks as well as yummy cakes and snacks. The only payment methods accepted there are card & Swish (a Swedish payment app).
Sellers’ market
On the first day of the Gathering there will be a little market where you can purchase handmade products from ecovillagers. Some of them might be equipped for card payment, but most of them will very likely request cash payment. Make sure to therefore bring cash in €.
GEN Europe merchandise
GEN Europe will offer stickers, t-shirts, tote bags and more (ethically sourced & recycled!) for donations via Stripe payment.
You can take pictures only if everyone in the picture has consented to it. Besides, taking pictures and videos in workshop spaces and during sharing groups is not allowed. Our dedicated media team will be taking photos and videos at the Gathering! We will use the videos and photos for GEN Europe and Ängsbacka public communication only. If you do not want to be in any of the photos/videos, you can signal yourself to our team and so any photo of you will be filtered out during the editing process. That way we can bring consent and relaxation for everyone 🙂
To ensure a safe and connecting experience for all festival participants, Ängsbacka is an alcohol and drug-free venue. If you are intoxicated or in possession of alcohol or drugs, you will be asked to leave the premises immediately.
Ängsbacka co-exists with the locals of the small town of Molkom. This relationship is very valuable to us, and something we wish to continue to nourish.
The public road that runs past Ängsbacka is shared with our closest neighbours and we are expecting you as a visitor to fully respect signs and instructions, especially in regards to unloading and parking of your car. The same goes for tents and caravans – these can only be pitched/parked in designated areas and absolutely not in the nearby forest, as we do not have permission for this from the owner (the municipality of Karlstad).
Some of our neighbours have animals (cows, horses), and on behalf of the farmers we ask you to refrain from any interactions with them.
Finally, we ask you to pack swimwear for visits to the nearby lakes. There is no nude beach in Molkom – the culture is to wear swimwear.
Ängsbacka is located in Molkom, 30 km north of Karlstad and is easily reached by bus or car. It is about 3-4 hours from Oslo, Stockholm and Göteborg. More detailed instructions can be found here.
As an eco-friendly event, we strongly encourage you to travel by shared car, train, bus, or boat and to avoid flying.
For those of you who have an electric car, we want to inform you that we unfortunately do not have the possibility to charge cars at Ängsbacka.
If you are unable to arrive as planned due to medical reasons you will be able to get a refund according to our booking and cancellation policy. If you fall sick during the actual stay and hence need to leave, your refund will be adjusted to the value of the remaining days minus 400 SEK (35€ more or less) administrative fee.
Please read further here for other policies that apply to all during their stay.
This year Ängsbacka’s booking team will support all the participants with questions on food and accommodation. Please also save this Info Pack so that you can check in on it again if needed! If you have any questions you can of course contact Ängsbacka’s booking office via their contact form here.
If you haven’t booked your food & accommodation with Ängsbacka yet, please do so ASAP! Here is the link. We regret to inform you that at this point all indoor accommodation is fully booked and the only options available are therefore to bring your tent, campervan or book your own accommodation offsite.
For those of you who have an electric car, we want to inform you that we unfortunately do not have the possibility to charge cars at Ängsbacka.
Welcome dear families!
We are very pleased to offer you a wide range of activities for children again this year. This year, we will be co-creating the programme together with the children based on a wide variety of offerings to inspire and engage the body, mind, and soul.
We hold an online introduction for families on August 12th from 17:30-19:00 CEST. You can join with this meeting link. In this meeting, we will review site & safety, introduce ourselves, and introduce the programme. You can find this event in Google Calendar through this link.
Taking Care of Your Children
We offer activities within our program streams and support you as parents to feel safe, at home, and welcome. However, we do not take responsibility for the care of your children while you attend workshops. Please organise yourselves with other parents and participants – a board to organise and note your needs for childcare will be in the family/children programme tent. Please take good care of your children so that they stay safe and help to share the play equipment in a relaxed manner.
A few important reminders:
Find the Full Letter to the Families Here!
We invite you to help us co-create this space with the children. If you have a workshop/activity offering, please submit it here!
We hope we have thought of everything and that everyone is feeling comfortable and safe. The Children Programme coordinators Eva (eva.goldfarb@ecovillage.org +49 157 32472798) and Elisabeth (elisabeth_m.wenninger@yahoo.com +43 6803017513) are available for questions, challenges, and organisation in the area of family and children.
On behalf of GEN Europe, we would love to highlight a few points of participation to create a collective safe space at the Gathering for all. Please see our invitations below:
Aspirations and Collective Boundaries
Here are the participant aspirations and collective boundaries for the Gathering to help us navigate the social waters. We ask all participants to read this carefully and reflect upon it before arrival – we hope it will make the experience even more enriching for everyone.
Ängsbacka’s Guidelines
Ängsbacka has also developed their guidelines that they practise as a community since their foundation in 1996. We invite you to read them here and to practise them during the whole Gathering.
Onsite Translation
At the Gathering, we will offer partial translation. We will have a team of volunteer translators, who will support you to the best of their abilities. In the bigger sessions (the opening and closing ceremony, as well as the morning circles) they will be available to translate in designated areas, please keep an eye out for this. The voluntary translators will also wear a sign, so that you can self-organise translation in the workshop spaces. There will be no organised translation of the workshops.
Programme Translation
You can find all of the workshop descriptions on our website:
The Programme – European Ecovillage Gathering
To have this page translated into your language of choice, go to Google Translate – websites and copy the URL of our programme page in the field.
We will only be able to show the English version of the workshop descriptions on the screens onsite.
Meet The Ecovillages
As in previous years, we are excited to again be offered the “Meet the Ecovillages” market – this year, right on the first day.
This way you can sell your products at the GEN Europe Gathering, though please note that GEN Europe will take 15% of your income, and you must comply with Swedish tax laws. If part of an ecovillage, network or/and project, you can showcase your offerings within designated zones of the Market and on site you will be supported by the Dream Team with the set-up.
If you would like to be a stallholder at this year’s market, please find more details here including the registration form.
Community Resourcing Circle (CRC)
This year the Community Resourcing Circle (CRC) is going into a second round offering the chance and the mesmerising experience of the power of community to get started and flow through flourishing projects together. Applications for this year’s circle on the second day of the gathering are open on a roll-in basis; so if you know of an ecovillage project in Europe that is fitting the details on the GEN Europe website don’t hesitate to spread the word. Let’s create the world we want to live in together! Check out the call for further information here!
For any further questions or curiosities about the academic and cultural background behind the CRC, contact Olgaki and Pedro at olga.talantopoulou@gmail.com and pedro.castro@gen-europe.org
Ecovillage Tours
We are excited to announce our partnership with Ecovillage Tours for an exclusive tour to explore sustainable communities living across Sweden, immediately following the Gathering at Ängsbacka, August 26th-31st. You will visit established ecovillages and innovative projects focused on permaculture, “folk” schools, and experience true Swedish culture, among many other highlights. All info & booking here: Sweden Ecovillage Tour.
Thank you for reading all this information carefully and with great attention. We so much look forward to meeting you all and enjoying this beautiful co-creation as one big family filled with love, peace, and joy.
In community,
The European Ecovillage Gathering Team & Ängsbacka