Rock Festival Distribution in Finland
Jaya Srila Prabhupada!
For the last four or five years we have distributed books to the crowd at the annual Tuska ("Pain") Open-Air Metal Festival in the center of Helsinki. The festival runs from Friday through Sunday during the first weekend of July.
Compared to some other rock festivals, the crowd at this one is a little less intoxicated. They mainly go there because of the music. Actually, the fact that they're a bit drunk makes them more open to being approached. This festival is really quite a good field for preaching.
The Christians had their "Finland for Jesus" bus there, trying to save the fallen souls. But their tactics just drew ridicule from the "metal heads," who continued to flaunt their upside-down crosses and various provocative anti-Christian T-shirts. Our approach was different. We distributed there in devotional clothing, avoiding Christian-style warnings about imminent damnation and the need to be saved. We just presented our literature and engaged in small talk about the bands and how the weekend was going.
Sankirtana Prabhu, the sankirtan leader of the Czech Republic, was visiting Finland, and after our Sunday feast we went to the festival together. Some people sitting near the entrance immediately showed interest in the books. They were two ladies accompanied by a young man and a professional drunkard. The two ladies had pretty authentic metal-festival outfits — blood stains painted all over their bodies, etc. But they were positive and without needing too much convincing surrendered to purchasing a small book.
Many attendees had doubts about us. They regarded us as Hindus and thus thought that we worshiped many gods in a hodgepodge way, without much philosophy. I did my best to explain that we are not just ritualistic followers but have a clear and deep philosophy.
It was fun to discuss philosophy with all those wild-looking characters, many of whom had read some of our books. Some were favorable, some not, but for the most part they were more philosophical than the average person on the street. Many had read books on various other philosophies — Taoism, Buddhism, shamanism and some were followers of the teachings of Anton LaVey (hedonistic Satanism).
It was very nice distributing with His Grace Sankirtan Prabhu. He did about ten books in less than two hours. It was good that I stayed until the end of the festival, since around that time two young men took five books, and, as on Saturday, the total for Sunday was some fifteen books also.
Srila Prabhupada ki jaya! Lord Nityananda's special mercy and transcendental special jokes ki jaya!
