Nostalgia rising Online to Offline: ZNA Gathering: A retrofuturistic celebration

Abstract

The ZNA Festival (PT) is a proof that the feeling of nostalgia and the desire to go back made possible the return to the lost paradise of many ravers. A decade ago, web 2.0 allowed grouping people into "nostalgic groups", visibly cohesive and with a sense of community inclusion and with identities marked by their festival experiences in the late 90s. Behind ZNA Festival is the Facebook group "ZAMBU" created in 2011 by one of the founders of Boom Festival, who however withdrew from this event. The initial idea of this FB group was to bring together people who follow the evolution of Goa Trance movement in Portugal, based on nostalgia, revivalism, and old school identities of the golden age of raves in Portugal. The ZAMBUS (designation of group members, now extended to the event-goers) are today mostly between 35 and 50 years old, their favorite music genre continues to be Goa Trance and their share this nostalgia physically every 2 years, since 2013. Ten years after the first (re)encounter, beyond its retro-futuristic statement ZNA is surely a nostalgic event that fuels its frenetic dance-floor with previous 2000 odysseys dropped by the most renowned artists. If the digital world enables the creation of people, groups and communities, it also has the ability to regroup them, as happens in this case study. In addition to the old school individual and collective vs. nostalgic experiences, nowadays ZNA also allows new generations a direct immersion in the roots of this culture, which mainstream events inevitably lose.