The Drag Off (previously Dragon Festival) 18-21 March 2011
Dragon festival started life in 1997 and ran to to 2009 at Los Cigarrones on the riverbed of the Rio Guadalfeo, 2 km to the south of Órgiva, Spain. From 2010 in was renamed the Drag Off and held at Santa Fé, near Granada, Spain. It is always held during the month of March, culminating on the weekend nearest the March equinox and is a FREE festival.
We got to Santa Fé a few weeks before the festival and there was already people there getting ready. Over a couple of weeks tents, marques, sound systems and stalls got put up. A lot of people arrived in various trucks, buses and vans from all over Europe. The weekend before the equinox saw the party really start with lots of Spanish turning up in cars for the free party. The music was mainly techno but there was a few different sound systems so there was a bit of variety. There was plenty of stalls selling food and drink and some selling clothes, jewellery and crafts. After the weekend many of the people in cars left but the sound systems kept going pretty much non stop with lots of travellers enjoying the freedom to party whenever they wanted to. The following weekend was the equinox weekend and even more Spanish arrived in cars to dance the night (and day) away. By Monday morning again most of the cars were gone but there were some stragglers and the sound systems kept going. Gradually a few people started packing up their stalls or sound systems and began to leave. Freekuency festival in Portugal was only a few weeks away and many travellers were heading for that.
It was a nice few weeks at Santa Fé for the festival and it was great to be somewhere free with no restrictions. The downside to that was too much litter, primarily left by the people that came in cars and not enough people burying their shit. Busta ate some human shit which had something in it, probably ketamine and was off his face for a few hours bless. We did move away from the main drag after a few days as we were really close to a generator and the fumes as well as the noise was pretty horrible. Also the music got a bit much after a while as we are not great techno fans. All in all a lovely time though and would go back again if ever in Spain in March.
Below is a few photos from the festival:
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