Burn After Reading magazine has a good article on Prepare for the Playa, which is on this weekend. It’s a great day out with the Burner community, as well as an excellent place to go shopping for “feather and leather” or whatever this year’s Burner look is going to be. Help the “Burnerpreneurs” make some money!

Now in its sixth year, Prepare for the Playa, is an invaluable resource for burners both as a venue for artists to showcase their wares but also as a way for burners to sustainably shop for Burning Man supplies. Prepare for the Playa has it all- from el wire, to playa coats, to goggles, even eco-friendly and burner made reusable baby wipes called Action Wipes! Prepare for the Playa started as burner ware fashion shows and Playa University workshops but it quickly grew into the fun full-fledged bonanza it is today.  In the words of Nikki, “You don’t have to necessarily buy something to be a part of it.” There’s a photo booth, hoop workshops, fashion shows, free clinics, sneak peak of playa art like Anubis and The Neverwas Haul and even virgin burner make-overs! The Playa University clinics provide burners with valuable knowledge about all things Burning Man, including tu-tu making, costume repair, evap pond construction, dome building, showers and power basics. Nikki feels it’s important to include the burner basics through Playa U, it ties into the entire idea of sustainability and radical responsibility we uphold on Playa. The Playa U clinics are applicable to everyone. Nikki says it best herself, “Even if you’re not a builder and you’re not into tools and 4x4s and evap ponds, you still probably want to shower at some point during the week.” Learn how to make a dome, get some crafty bits and bask in the glow of our community this Sunday, July 15^th at the first Prepare for the Playa of the year.

The event will be shaking things up from 12pm-7pm at Café Cocomo at 650 Indiana Street in San Francisco. If you can’t make it this Sunday don’t sweat it- you can try again on August 5^th (same location and time).

Filed under: General Tagged: 2012, city, commerce, fashion

In the past, “leather and feather” has been a very popular look amongst all the cool kiddies on the Playa. Last year,  LA Weekly published a great guide to Burning Man style, and “Neo Tribal” was named the #1 look.

It seems radical self-expression only goes so far. You want to wear the most stylish fashion? Sorry, that’s against the rules, it’s banned.

Feathers are outlawed, just like dogs, plants and firearms. If they find any feathers during the vehicle inspection at the gate, they will be confiscated.

[UPDATE: Bobzilla has let us know that confiscation would be a joy compared to what BMOrg have in store for you if they find feathers. No matter if you've been in line for 5 hours, they will make you turn around and dispose of the MOOP in the nearest empty public trash area you can find: you'll have to go back at least as far as Gehrlach. If you arrive on Thursday or Friday with feathers, you might be trekking back to Reno to find an empty trash can. Because of course, people would drive another 6 hours to throw their feathers in a trash can if BMOrg tells them so. They definitely wouldn't throw them out on the side of the road or anything, people who bring feathers LOOOOOVE the 10 principles and LNT, they just didn't know all the details...]

No word yet on if BLM agents or BRC rangers will be doing on the spot fines and seizures on the Playa if you manage to smuggle a mohawk or two in. Keep your feathers on the DL, just in case.

What to wear at Burning Man then? It might be easier to just go naked. Here’s a girls’ guide to fashion and makeup on the Playa.

USA Today has some practical (if kinda frumpy) tips.

This Burner thinks making the feathers out of leather might solve any MOOP issues.

Don’t worry, when you escape the confining regulations of Burning Man for the freedom of expression that’s enshrined as your Constitutional right in the Default World, you can bust out all the feathers you want at the Grand Sierra after party.

Following on from the Inflatable Tent and the Inflatable Bike Helmet, now we have another invention that seems brilliant for protecting Burners from sandstorms, second hand DMT smoke, Segway piloting, or rain (yes it does happen on the Playa people – be prepared!)

Billed as “an umbrella with no hands”, the NuBrella (launched in 2008) is a pop-up, strap-on, fully shielding, protective environmental cover.

For less than $50, you can see where you’re going when you’re walking, and you take up less surface area on the sidewalk. Short people probably love umbrellas, but for tall people they are a real hazard.

Here’s the ABC News interviewing the inventor on inversion’s impossibility in his innovation.

“It’s not really intended to replace the umbrella, it’s a new line item to the world for more inclement weather conditions and then the hands free just evolves it to a whole ‘nother level”

Fertility 2.0…Umbrella 2.0.

I just ordered two from their online store. We’ll see what mischiefery we can pimp them out with.

I can see why people might feel a bit strange wearing this on city streets (although you’d be one of the least strange people in certain parts of San Francisco). For Burning Man I think it’s awesome. Even if it’s not raining, there is so much scope for attaching EL wire and leather feathers.

video?id=4440183

Looks like the drag queens and shemales will be romping around the Playa in full force this year.

ROMP OF THE PLAYA HOOKERS: TRANNIES FOR TRADE
“Calling all drag queens!  Come join us in your finest fashion! Immediately following Friday’s 3-5 pm “Nu U Glamover” workshop, our gaggle of street walking glamazons will stop at nothing in search of mayhem, booze, and art car rides in the 10th annual event…this year titled …’The Romp of the Playa Hookers: Trannies for Trade’. We’ll meet on Friday, August 31, from 3:00 to 5:00 pm at Comfort and Joy Village located at 7:30 and Edelweiss.”

ROMP OF THE TRANNY GODDESSES
“Join us, on thursday at noon and bring a dress or your best DRAG for our traditional Drag makeup and costume workshop followed by the ‘Romp of the Tranny Goddesses’ at 2:00, next we all board an art car ‘DiscoFish’ for a ride to the man and back with a few fun photo ops and stops between.  Stick around after the romp as we return to Comfort & Joy for a playa hunks judging at the Pink Gym and round out the night with a drag cabaret show at midnight hosted by Comfort & Joys resident drag queens Mona and Amanda. We welcome new performers and seasoned queens as well! Thursday, August 30th 2012 2pm – 4pm”

If you don’t want to dress up as a woman, perhaps you could go as an animal instead? Laughing Squid has put us on to this site in the UK, which offers large-size animal tails. Their tails are available to purchase in the form of Lizard, Squirrel, Lemur, Dinosaur, Lion, andFox.

Over at the Instructables site, Burner Joshf has put together a collection of some fantastic tips and tricks for virgins and veterans alike.

Tips include how to make a fire skirt, angel wings (hint: hide them like they were drugs, if you don’t want to get turned away at the gate); furry bikes, miniature hot air balloons, even a light-up electric umbrella.

Look out for this Burner on the Playa – pretty much the opposite of a darktard.

San Francisco’s local 7 x 7 magazine has published a guide to where to shop for your outfits. It’s by no means complete – check out the Trunk Shows like Prepare for the Playa, Etsy, and the Tibetan Gift Corner on Haight.

Now that another Outside Lands is under our belts, what event can playful San Franciscans look forward to next? Why, Burning Man of course!

In less than two short weeks, about 50,000 people will be Playa bound. If you’re one of them, you better hit the stores ASAP to get your outfits together before everything sells out. Here’s where to start:

P-Kok – The Lower Haight location of this eclectic boutique is a Burning Man accessories dreamland. Glittery shirts, textured tights, neon body suits, leather man purses, feathered hats, furry vests, and lightweight skirts, dresses, and pants perfect for the desert are just a few of the gems you’ll find in P-Kok at totally reasonable prices. 791 Haight St @ Scott. 

Foxy Lady Boutique – Foxy Lady has not only a fabulous selection of sexy lingerie (like lycra ruffled hot pants), but they have dozens of colorful wigs and a truly awesome medley of fishnet stockings. 2644 Mission St @ 22nd.

Piedmont Boutique – A classic SF stop for all kinds of Burning Man doodads and fetish wear including rings, rhinestones, boas, tutus, and makeup. If you want one-of-a-kind costume accessories, this is the place to get them. ”We make everything: all the clothing, hats and earrings,” says Uti, the owner of the 39-year-old store. ”If someone has a special idea, we can produce it locally in two days.” 1452 Haight St @ Ashbury.

Fabric Outlet – Are you one of those super crafty Burners? Then the Fabric Outlet is the spot to go for the DIY materials you’ll need to sew up your very own marvelous get-up. They’ve got endless yards of tye-dye animal style ruffles, striped faux furs, stretch lace, designer trims, and loads more. 2109 Mission @ 17th.

Fantastico – One of those stores that seem to have everything (kind of like the East coast Christmas Tree Shops), Fantastico is the best option for extra frills. Come here for glow sticks, neon wire lights (perfect for lighting up your bikes and backpacks), petticoats, feathers, ribbon, fake diamonds, disco balls, and the list goes on. 559 6th St @ Bryant.

SF Party – With an entire page of their website dedicated to Burning Man, SF Party is ready for the burn. Look for lots of glow-in-the-dark items, leis, and ready to wear costumes. 939 Post St @ Hyde.

Buffalo Exchange – Your clothing is going to get trashed while out on the Playa (trust me) and Buffalo Exchange is the place to stock up on new and gently-worn clothes and shoes that you might not mind beating up a bit. If you have the patience to dig, you might score a few eclectic Playa pieces like a shiny purple vest or fluffy suede boots for cheap cheap cheap. 1555 Haight St @ Clayton and 1210 Valencia St @ 23rd. Crossroads Trading also a good bet.

The Burning Man website also has a long list of resources for ordering your Playa gear online. Lastly, don’t forget your goggles, dust mask, and spray bottle, you’ll be sad if you leave any of these at home.

via Where to Shop For Your Burning Man Costume | 7×7.

Vogmask ship quick from their Vacaville distribution center. I ordered 5 – some extras for my friends, gifting doesn’t have to be to strangers

Geeked Info has some useful tips for dealing with dust. I’m with the author – after a few Burns, you learn to prefer the bandanna to the Home Depot dust masks. If it’s super dusty, you can pull it up to cover your whole face (the stuff can sting, particularly if you’re in an art car).  As long as you got something!

Almost every year, a few weeks before Burning Man, word starts coming back from the playa that “it’s going to be dusty this year”. Most people that have been to the playa shrug this off with “it’s dusty every year”. This year however is a year to remind people that sometimes dusty doesn’t just mean annoying, it means potentially dangerous. As many know, 2011 had some of the best weather the event has ever seen. (No seriously, it was better last year.) Low winds, no dust storms, and almost perfect temperatures. This year may prove to be the exact opposite due to severe drought, high winds, and a lot more people to kick up dust.

Everyone’s gauge for what “dusty” is differs. My first year I showed up with a box of dust masks, full goggles, and even a two filter respirator. As the years have gone by I’ve made several trips back and forth to the playa for Burning Man and Juplaya and I now find myself usually running around with a pair of sunglasses and a bandana and calling that good. I still pack my respirator and googles just in case though as the playa can be an unpredictable and harsh mistress who doesn’t have a safe word.

Advice for Surviving Dust Storms at Burning Man

(You’ve already read the survival guide, right?)

1. Always have goggles and a dust mask on you

You can have them in your camelbak and never use them, but the one time you need them you’ll be glad you have them. Get a pair of goggles with replaceable lenses so you can have clear at night and tinted for the day.

2. Carry a GPS with your camp and other useful waypoints marked

Two years ago we found ourselves out in deep playa at night when a whiteout hit. We literally were walking blind except for my GPS. Without any sort of direction, it’s incredibly easy to get lost in a no-visibility situation and humans can’t walk straight. I’ve been using my Garmin eTrex Vista Hcx at the event for 4 years now. You can download GPS map files for Black Rock City here. Huge thanks to Will Keller for making these every year.

3. Stick together in a whiteout

It’s surprising how easy it is to lose friends in a whiteout, especially when it’s dark. We tend to use a “call” to keep everyone together. Pick a word or sound and whenever someone yells it, yell it back to them. It helps in keeping everyone aware of where everyone else is. Also it’s handy for quick cat herding when you want to leave crowded events on playa. And remember, megaphones can be used for more than just snark.

4. Get off your bike

If you’re riding your bike (or driving a car for that matter) and a whiteout hits, the first thing you should do is get off your bike. If you can’t see 2 feet in front of you, you don’t know what you’re about to hit. It could be rebar, it could be art, it could be a person, it could be a car. Chances are you’ll only be able to ride slightly faster than walking anyways, so be courteous to everyone else and walk it to shelter.

5. Tie down all the things

If you have any sort of structure, secure it. Carports are incredibly dangerous when they turn into tumbleweed. Even on the good weather years, a sudden gust of wind can send a carport flying. We like to use 3 ft pieces of rebar and multiple ratchet straps. Flying objects are probably the most dangerous thing during storms.

6. Get to shelter (carports, cars, RVs, etc)

Most of the dust storms we’ve experienced have been waited out in a well-secured carport with all the walls down. It stops some of the dust, provides some protection from flying objects, and that’s usually where the beer is. In really bad conditions, you want something a little stronger in between you and the dust and slightly larger flying things. Cars and RVs are better than carports for this. But for no reason should you try driving in a whiteout.

7. Embrace the experience

Once you’re sure that you’re in a safe place and your friends/neighbors/etc are too, embrace the experience. Anger, irritation, frustration, yelling, worrying, and being scared won’t make the dust go away any sooner. Weathering a dust storm on the playa is an experience you won’t get anywhere else.

via Surviving the Dust At Burning Man | Geeked Info.

I remember what a shock to the Burner Eco-System it was when Town and Country magazine did a piece on Burning Man’s Krug-swilling society set. My how time flies!

Now, not even a mere year later, Burning Man is declared dead by no less a source of chicness than Modern Luxury – famous for such titles as “San Francisco”, “Miami”, and “Dallas”. What’s next – a turnkey Burning Man theme camp of your very own, in Robb Report’s annual “unique gifts” guide?

The journalist Adam Fisher attended 4th of Juplaya this year – which I guess can no longer be considered a secret, if it’s in Modern Luxury.

Juplaya, I’ve been told for years, is an insiders-only affair, a Burn for true burners, a scene only accessible to the manifestly hardcore.

     “When I go to festivals, I want to feel like I can do drugs and fuck out in the open,” said Hot Sauce, a pixieish thirtysomething blonde whom I met on the playa. “And I can do that at Juplaya.” Her friend Menkini, 33, demurred, but only slightly: “I just want to drive fast and blow shit up.” (The two activities haven’t been allowed at Burning Man proper for years.)

     Hot Sauce and Menkini’s idealized fever dream of the countercultural festival—rife with public sex and bounteous pills and explosions strafing the open desert—will be familiar to anyone who has been to Burning Man (and a lot of those who haven’t). The jaded-burner refrain is as predictable as it is constant: You should have been here a few years ago when it was really wild.

These two sound like a couple of chicks I’d like to have at my party!

The author touches on a current hot button in the Burner community, people being paid to work in camps:

Though it’s hard to notice on your first—or even your tenth—visit, the tracks of the capital-E establishment are now everywhere at Burning Man. You can see it at the improvised landing strip/airport set up every year for the jet-in crowd. You can see it in the art, such as the 40-foot-tall sculpture Bliss Dance, which was the star of Burning Man 2010 and has an estimated value of $1.5 million. You can see it in the camps: A decade ago the festival was plastered with prank flyers announcing that Hilton was building a burnable full-service hotel on the playa. Today there is a hotel, and it’s no joke: “Ashram Galactica” comes complete with a concierge and rooms that are doled out each night to lucky plebes. None of this ostentation would pose a problem if it didn’t introduce the one thing that is supposed to be strictly verboten at Burning Man: services—and with them the inevitable servant class to provide them.

 The author is almost embarrassed to admit that he enjoyed waitresses taking his drink order (like any of us can enjoy in any bar or restaurant in the world), or sleeping on clean sheets (again, really not such an in your face example of the 1%).

photo by Peter Ruprecht

I’ve even found myself at camps where a waitress came to take my order, and where the community art-building project was outsourced to hired artists. I’ve experienced the festival both ways: as a commoner, sleeping in a pup tent and surviving on gorp and jerky, and as a guest of the new burner elite. And though there’s nothing like arriving by Cessna and sleeping under clean, freshly changed sheets, many fear the effects of too much civilization on an event designed to be anti-all-that.

Cruising the barren wasteland, looking for a good time, the distant thump of Ghost Bass from the Fish Tank drew the author back to the party girls.

Finally, after rolling down the window to catch the warm desert breezes, I thought I heard something: It was just a thump carried on a gust of wind, but unquestionably a techno beat. “Ghost bass,” my buddy proclaimed. We chased after it, and this time we hit pay dirt. The bass emanated from a giant fish—really an art car called Fish Tank, a piece of rolling sculpture in the shape of a toothy anglerfish, complete with tank treads, a wraparound couch, blinking lights, a booming sound system, and a rotating disco ball. Jumping out of our SUV, we joined the party. The crowd was all we were hoping for: attractive, scantily clad, and clearly enjoying themselves. Whether their high was natural or chemical I could not say, but it was infectious.

     Soon I found myself in the midst of a passionate conversation about (what else) Burning Man. “The burner tail is eating itself; it’s imploding,” said my new friend Hot Sauce, recently transplanted to San Francisco by way of London. An eight-time Burning Man veteran, Hot Sauce is a stalwart of one of the biggest, flashiest, most high-profile camps on the playa—the New York City–centric Disorient. But after not getting her ticket in the lottery this year, she was having second thoughts about her allegiances (she eventually caved and bought a ticket). “Last year at Burning Man, I had the overwhelming feeling that I was being watched,” she told me. “There were police spotters everywhere, scanning the crowd. We’ve been at Juplaya for days, and I haven’t seen a cop yet.”

      Not 20 minutes later, two Pershing County sheriffs rolled up in a police truck to check on us. They displayed a surprisingly tolerant attitude about the Juplaya hijinks there and elsewhere. “I haven’t seen anyone really be a jerk,” said Officer Nathan Carmichael, “although there have been some education issues.” He cited the risk of fireworks setting nearby pastures ablaze, and of skinny-dippers inadvertently fouling the local hot springs.

     “Everybody is here because they don’t like authority,” said Officer Thom Bjerke. “I don’t want to arrest anyone, but my job is to get them to comply with at least the spirit of the law.” His main concern, he emphasized, was the health and safety of those who were on the playa. “It’s not Burning Man—there’s no safety net, and no medical staff out here,” he added, registering the massive fireworks being set off in the distance. “And it’s so easy to blow off a hand.”

Or a tire. The Pershing County officers were probably much happier with Juplaya because there was very little nudity and almost no kids.

For a glimpse of what life is like aboard the Fish Tank during 4th of Juplaya, check this out – you probably want to hit mute, there’s a lot of wind noise. No parade speed here! Check out the impact of hitting the playa serpents at about 0:30, yee-haaw!

Some Burners can’t understand why I would criticize the giant Bank of America advertisement Burn Wall Street. Well, while all that has been going on, other Burners are also giving it hard to Ka, the creator of this amazing outfit. What’s wrong with you, Burners? We understand that Feathers Won’t Fly, but there’s a point where too many rules results in a not-what-it-could-have been party. I think we saw that this year with only about 30% as many art cars as usual.

What are the more important rules to follow? The 10 Principles? Leave No Trace, above all others? I can’t see where Ka violated any of them. The Survival Guide? I saw plenty of LEOs with firearms and ATV’s. Why are they allowed to break the rules? Because they have a permit. It would be better to have a “costume permit”, in case someone wanted to express themselves going as Big Bird, than to say “no one can ever go to Burning Man as Big Bird”.

There have to be exceptions made when people go to these lengths to express themselves. Ka’s outfits made it into Rolling Stone, fer crissakes!

Ka in Rolling Stone

What she has created here is truly art, and greatly adds to all our experience. Check out the other amazing art on Ka’s blog. She says “Not Accepting Shame At This Time” – and nor should she! Shame on the Burner-than-thou idiots who sent her nasty mail:

I received a very heated email shaming me for wearing feathers to the playa this year. I would like to address this for any others who may be concerned or have the same sentiments. I understand the issue of feather moop. I agree that feather boas and any loosely adhered crafts and costuming should be left at home. The feathers on my embodiment are tediously glued down so much that one rarely falls. I did drop two at burning man this year, and picked them both up with my toes and asked a friend to pocket them for me. I always ask my friends who accompany me to keep an eye out for any dropped feathers. On top of that, I pick up all moop, especially feathers, I see throughout the week, and always do an painfully tedious mooping session before leaving the playa. I know how some may see this embodiment as disrespectful to the rules, and I do every thing I can to compensate and to be responsible for myself, my own moop and the moop of others.

Some say I shouldn’t wear this art, the most profound work of art I have created, to Burning Man. It is funny, how in a place with not many rules, where the artist is supposed to be free.. that by dressing in my sacred form, I get shamed for being the “offensive” and “disrespectful” rule breaker. This feels completely contradictory to the many stories I hear from people who have witnessed this art on the playa, and how it transformed their experience into something healing and beautiful. Many have said to me that seeing this feathered angel was one of their favorite and most profound moments at Burning Man. Photos of this work have also been featured as the Burning Man photo on a European festival website, Paris Vogue in their Burning Man article last year, and now the Rolling Stone. For some reason, it sticks out to people enough to feature in prominent magazines, yet ultimately it is against the rules.

Ka, our advice to you is just ignore the criticism – like, er, water off a duck’s back. Burners will always complain about everything, you just have to learn to tune out the fools. They’re just doing their own form of radical self-expression, they think they’re being helpful and good when really if anyone listened to them, they’d wreck the party.

What I find even more interesting, and quite confusing, is that I received my Burning Man ticket from dancing in that feathered embodiment at the Burning Man Artumnal fundraiser with Seraphim, and we were asked to perform that very show at center camp. I am sorry that some people have chosen to experience so much offense from this offering of love, that I was asked to share on the playa.

Don’t be confused. Some people are just dicks. The real people love what you do, and very much want you to stay.

The bay area visionary art burning man community who are highly respected burning man artists, introduced me into this community. When I would ask about the no feather rule, I was told unanimously, “they’re really just talking about boas and cheaply made things that will fall apart… Your work is different…

Ka’s paintings are as amazing as her costumes

Yours are glued down extremely well… Its so amazing.. You should definitely bring it.. Etc.”. I entered into the Burning man community surrounded by people who supported this art, encouraged me to bring it to the playa, and so I believed it was okay. After attending burning man several times, it became harder to take the rule seriously when every person I knew and half the people i saw wore feathers.. Lots of them. Most of these people were veteran burners for many years. Yes, true, I am a naughty rule breaker,and so are the many long time burners who came before me, and apparently I shouldn’t have listened to them or followed their example. Through the six years of attending BM, it became even more difficult to take the environmental issue of feathers, which turn to dust so quickly, seriously, when I found myself surrounded in toxic pollution on the playa.

I saw so many feathers at Burning Man this year. Like, I saw more feathers, than I saw people taking or smoking drugs (including coffee and cigarettes – but maybe not alcohol). There have always been a ton of feathers at Burning Man. This is a rule like “you may only drive at 65 on the I-80″ or “don’t play Freebird at the Temple Burn”. It’s Burning Man, a giant Moopy festival in the middle of a wasteland…not the Presidential Inauguration or the Louvre.

True Burners would love to see your art. Look, we’ll ask them. I say come back next year with twice as many feathers! What, like a bird has never flown over the Playa in 130 million years?

The most popular post we’ve written, by far, was the Music of Burning Man 2012. So I think it’s safe to say, Burners like music.It can be a long way from Deep Playa without an art car, so why not take your tunes with you?

JammyPack

This year we got some great mileage on the Playa out of the JammyPack – a musical bum bag. We like this device on the beach, or even just for walking the streets.

This weekend I was shopping for headphones, and came across this great backpack from Skullcandy and Camelbak – with integrated stereo. Speakers and controls in the straps. Everything you need, in a single, Playa-camouflaged item. Unfortunately it seems like they don’t make them any more, but you might be able to track down an old one.

Any other Burners got tips for attaching music to your bike or person?

Camelbak Hellion SC

Thanks to Burner Enki from Vienna, Austria for posing this question on Facebook:

What do you call a [collective noun] of Burners?

PlayaSkool, Fertility 2.0

Some ideas so far:

cacophony

misdemeanor

felony

conflagration

drove

dusting

infestation

kindling

bevy

…come on Burners, other suggestions?

“Other” ideas so far, 11:06pm 1/27/13:

Burning Man have changed their privacy policy, and are asking Burners to create Burner Profiles in order to apply for tickets. The data is owned by the multi-entity hydra which is the various Burning Man for-profit and non-profit organizations, and it is shared amongst any of their “affiliates”; if they suspect you of violating any of their many legal contracts or other things, they can sell your information to anyone they like. Oh, and if someone takes over Burning Man, the policy could be changed at any time.  At least that’s how I read the contract – I call on any legal eagles out there to correct me.

this infographic is from 2009

Although this news is a couple of weeks old now, I missed it while on vacation at the beach. I think they’re going in the wrong direction – this is a 1990′s Internet approach, not a 2013 one. A quarter of the world are on Facebook now, more than a third on the Internet: 2.4 billion people, up 566% since the year 2000; 4 billion email clients. 634 million websites, increasing at 51 million per year. More than 5 billion people with mobile phones, more than 1.1 billion on the Internet with smart phones; more than a billion people a month using Facebook. Facebook processes 2.7 billion Likes per day. People are sharing data, not trying to own the content created by others.

Think about this.

Burners.Me is just one of 60 million WordPress blogs. A few times, we’ve made the Top 100 WordPress sites in the world.  Right now, our Alexa ranking is consistently in the top million websites in the world – ie the top 0.15%. Here’s how we stack up versus the official sites, funded from the $24 million a year at the gate, the $12 million a year non-party budget, etc.:

• Burners.Me – # 145, 865 in the US; #924,682 in the world; 87 sites linking in – we’re top million, have been almost top half million at our peak
• Burningman.com #15,665 in the US; #59,555 in the world; 5,552 sites linking in
• Burningmanproject.org too small for US data; #3,455,512 in the world; 60 sites linking in 
• Blackrockarts.org too small for US data; #1,431,325 in the world; 293 sites linking in

And we’re not doing anything to make money from this. Just sharing our opinions, about a culture we love, and feel like we’ve been a part of for many years. You don’t have to agree with us, we welcome for you to comment here and disagree and share your own thoughts. We respect freedom of speech more than anything, definitely more than Burning Man’s 10 Principles.

I would really love for any readers of this blog to be able to post their own videos, photos, and stories. Some of the more adventurous Burners have been doing this anyway, and have been rewarded by the promotion of their project to tens of thousands of people per week. We promoted at least a dozen kickstarter projects last year, for example.

I use wordpress.com and I haven’t found an easy way to integrate the ability for anyone to upload their own photos and videos yet.

So today I’m trying a new additional platform where you can start your own discussion topics and share your own content, burners.ning.com. It’s rough and it looks like crap right now – that’s why we need Alpha Testers. Help us with ideas about how it can look and work better. Do you have any photos or music mixes from your times at Burning Man, that you’d like to share? Burning Man related stuff you’ve posted to YouTube? Post ‘em, tag ‘em. The ones on Flickr are too hard to find and discuss, in my opinion. Tribe had a moment of blossoming but died some years ago. Anything on ePlaya is clearly owned by BMOrg. And Reddit – who served 37 billion page views in 2012 – has now seemingly been Tar’get’d by the Cop-y-Right Wing.

Let’s make this an online community for Burner content, that is more in line with the free and open spirit of the Internet. We ask anyone who is interested to please help us out, create yourself a free profile at burners.ning.com. Share as little or as much data as you want, hell make up a fake name, we don’t care – it’s the Interwebz! Upload some of your Burning Man photos, share some of your stories and music.  We will use the Creative Commons Attribution License – the content you choose as shareable can be used by other Burners for whatever they want, as long as they’re not profiting from it without acknowledging your ownership. The license does not erode your copyright ownership over your own digital information, it just describes a way that others can share your stuff on the Internet if they like it – without everything being red tape and a huge pain in the ass.

Whether this idea works or not is up to you, Burners. There’s nothing in this for us, in fact it’s only going to take more precious time and effort to administer; but it seems to me like the right thing to do. Or at least, to try…”there is no try, only do” – Yoda.

Information wants to be free! The world has benefitted so much from Open Source licenses and the philosophy of sharing and mutual benefit that underpins it. Not so much so from the Patent Trolls, suppressing brain-children because they want to own everything. These digital robber barons want to retain exclusive use of the invention, and restrict others from using it; this is the philosophy that led the world’s greatest scientist Nikola Tesla to die penniless, and is the opposite from that espoused by the Pirate Party about our obligation to share our culture heritage with others (for example).

Bruce Sterling? Now that’s a Burner from WAAAAAAY back. Is it a coincidence that Burning Man has eerie similarities to the sorts of things going on in the second video above – while it is being discussed as one of the similar events to the Davos World Economic Forum?

this infographic is from Russia…not sure what it all means!

We search images.google.com for photos related to “Burning Man”, we share them under the Fair Use provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. We’re allowed to do this, because we’re discussing an event in popular culture. Wherever possible, I attribute photos, and always if we get requested to by the photographer. Sometimes we have taken photos down – being polite will get you further than threats for this one. But that’s for this blog, burners.me – me and some of my friends commenting and sharing our opinions about Burning Man.

burners.ning.com is for everyone – please post everything, share everything, let’s have a Burner repository independent of the BMOrg…because we all have no idea who is going to be running the BMOrg in 5 years. Criticize us all you want, open dialog with a view to progressing to better solutions is what’s going to make this community better – but don’t be hurt if we defend ourselves from your barbs.

If any Burners have graphic skills and an inclination to make this easier for the whole community to use, please help us make it look nicer. And anyone with Burning Man related mixes, please post it in Music, let us know what year and camp it’s from as well as the DJ name if possible.

If it’s meant to fizzle and fails, then it fails… no skin off our nose, at least we tried something; but if you can help all of us by using your graphics, Internet and Social media skills to help build the global community of Burners: join our free alpha trial and share your ideas about how we can make the Burner world a better place. And please post all your Kickstarter projects there.

by Whatsblem the Pro

The Machine – Photo by Douglas Hope Hooper

Burnal Equinox is coming up once again on Saturday, March 2nd, halfway between Burning Man 2012 and Burning Man 2013. There will be multiple celebrations of the Equinox in various parts of the world, under various names; Portland, Oregon, for instance, has their annual Halfway Home party.

There’s even a virtual Burnal Equinox held online as part of Burn2 in Second Life. . . which is a bit of a full-circle proposition, as Linden Labs founder Phillip Rosedale was originally inspired by his experiences at Burning Man, which he first attended in 1999.

As far as events go, the main hoopla seems to be in San Francisco, which has been holding Burnal Equinox events since 2006, and at the Nevada City, California event, now in its third year.

The San Francisco event, billed this year as an “art salon and mixer,” is themed. The 2013 theme for SF’s Burnal Equinox is “Technology as Savior,” which is explained in more depth here:

Through a multitude of technological devices we have expanded our sense of what is real, what is possible, how we relate and what we find gratifying. We can text one another instantaneously across oceans, meet online and converse with groups of strangers at any given moment about the trajectory of asteroids, express our opinions to political leaders via on-line petitions, and expand our social network of “friends” seemingly without limit! We watch reality shows about other people’s lives and create virtual versions of ourselves as we fly through the Interwebs in enhanced real-time. Miraculous devices have become so ingrained in who we are, how we work, think and relate that we could not imagine life without them or the immediacy and satisfaction they offer. And why would we?! Technology is SAVING our economy and way of life, even as it reinvents everything! That is its magic! That is the miracle! It reinvents itself and our relationship with it in mysterious and accelerating ways! There is no problem Technology cannot help with. Nothing Technology cannot and will not do to enhance our lives and save us from any number of impending destructions! Technology WILL SAVE US, even as it helps us relate to one another in better and more convenient ways!

The San Francisco event will be held from 7PM to 3AM at Public Works, 161 Erie Street, SF, CA 94103 (between Division & 14th St. in the Mission). Please note that this is a 21 and over venue. Tickets are $20 at the door, or $15 with donation of art supplies for Hospitality House’s art program, which puts art supplies in the hands of the homeless and indigent. Supplies especially needed are watercolor brushes and paints, watercolor 140’ paper, quality marker sets, canvases, working sewing machines with all necessary parts included, and craft and jewelry supplies.

For more information about the San Francisco Burnal Equinox event, please visit the Flambé Lounge 2013 special events page.

According to Marketing and Community Outreach Committee member Coryon Redd, the Nevada City event, which is not themed, began in 2011 as a concert by the band Albino. At the urging of local burners, it was expanded into a full-blown burner event with the help of Gretchen Bond, director of the Miners’ Foundry Cultural Center in Nevada City, California.

Redd will be running an event at Burnal Equinox called “Jedi Training School.”

I also spoke with the Nevada City event’s archivist, Kathleen Hoffmann, who gave me this snippet of history: “Our event started in 2011 and has grown larger every year. In 2012 the event doubled in participation. This year we joined with Sacramento Valley Spark, a non-profit organization of and for the burner community.”

I asked Kathleen what she has in store for us. “This year,” she says, “the event is busting at the seams with bands, fire effects and performances, theme camps, art cars, gifting, performance artists and SHENANIGANS!”

From the Nevada City Burnal Equinox press release:

Gold Country Burnal Equinox will be a celebration of self-expression and creativity inspired by the Burning Man event, complete with art, fire performers, fashion shows, costumes, and theme camps. It all takes place at The Miners Foundry, located at 325 Spring Street in Nevada City.

Three stages of entertainment will feature live music, DJs, and performance art. Bring yourself and be yourself. Playa wear is welcome and encouraged. This all-day event begins at 2:00 p.m. and continues until 1:00 a.m. Tickets are $20 in Advance and $25 at the door.

Uchronia – Photo by Douglas Hope Hooper

Advance tickets are available online from Vendini and Nevada City Box Office. You can also call Nevada City Box Office for tickets at (530) 265-5462, or buy them in person at the Briar Patch Co-Op, 290 Sierra College Drive, Suite A, in Grass Valley.

If you are interested in contributing, volunteering, performing or have questions, please email burnale2013@gmail.com

For more information please visit: http://sacvalleyspark.org/?page_id=686

Is your community having a Burnal Equinox event? Tell us about it in the comments!

by Whatsblem the Pro

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

A major five-day fashion show in India last week featured a much-ballyhooed grand finale: designer Manish Arora’s latest line, inspired by his visit to Burning Man.

From the Times of India:

Arora, whose new collection was a beautiful amalgamation of Indian and Western outfits with multicolored embroideries, explained the inspiration behind the theme of the show.

“Last year I went to a festival called Burning Man which happens in a desert of America. I got inspired by the place, I always wanted to go that place and I went on my 40th Birthday last year so the collection is based on that,” he said.

No doubt this will inspire mixed feelings in a lot of burner hearts. This is the world of high-dollar (OK, high-rupee) haute couture, blatantly capitalizing on the Burning Man trademark. On the other hand, maybe there shouldn’t be a Burning Man trademark. . . and perhaps this penetration of our culture into so exotic and faraway a milieu as Indian high fashion should encourage us and even flatter us a little.

No matter what you think about it, it’s impressive that Manish Arora’s burn-inspired line wasn’t just included in the show; it was the grand finale, and was apparently hyped half to death. Asian Age covered the event, and had this to say:

For those who were waiting for it to happen with bated breath, it did. Yes, the grand finale of Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week 2013 at Pragati Maidan happened without any glitch. And grand it was.

The show area reserved for designer Manish Arora’s show took almost a day to prepare. In fact it was cordoned off for the entire day and the junta wasn’t allowed to be seen near it.

The show finally started after the expected delay and the guests were greeted with a wide runway — black and glossy, open-air opera like setting and an international band waiting to blow our minds with their insane music.

Manish’s experiences at the Burning Man festival in Nevada resulted in the making of this astounding collection.

The show was divided into two segments.

The first one kicked off with geometric motifs and borders along with lustrous holographic stones, dull gold and beads were put together to create illusions of the Burning Man. Indigo, black, pink and green were used as the base to let metallic gold stand out.

Sequined, embroidered peplum and balloon dresses, fitted pants, sweatshirts and pencil skirts were noticed along with over-sized tops, coats, knitted dresses.

While the second part saw models wearing leather turbans with long, distressed hair peeping out, leather trench coats, jackets with Chinese collars, long and short dresses, shifts, shorts, overcoats and interesting knitwear. Neon embellishments shone bright on cuffs, collars and corset belts.

Breaking the tradition of a Bollywood celebrity closing the show for the finale designer, model Bhawna Sharma sashayed down the ramp in the showstopper outfit and bid adieu to the week.

This is what Manish Arora looks like:

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

. . .and this is what Manish Arora thinks we look like, as translated through the mirror of his subcontinental big-money fashion sense:

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

Photo: Ramesh Sharma

by Whatsblem the Pro

Cosmo: Too irrelevant to make fun of since the ’70s (Image: Harvard Lampoon)

Anna Breslaw, writing about sorority life for Cosmopolitan:

“Greek life lost me when, as a freshman, I heard a rumor about sorority pledges having to sort Froot Loops for their pledgemasters all night long. In the dark. (I’ve also heard wayyy worse, but I don’t want to scar anyone.) It’s always seemed to me, like Scientology or Burning Man, a cult for the lost, the lonely or the drunk.”

Uh oh, Anna. . . a cult for losers, really?

The members of the Burning Man group on Facebook, always notorious for their wonderfully snarky vitriol, seem to have taken notice:

Sam Davidow: A writer for Cosmo bagging on sororities. And drinking. And cultish behavior. And comparing burning man to all three. Let’s see if she wants to go! Maybe she can camp with Krug.

Steve Foxfur Fox: Lost, lonely and drunk? Sounds like a country music cult, lulz.

John William Fairclough: I tried to get lost there, but every time I looked up, I was at Burning Man. Have you ever tried to get lost while you were home?

Sam Davidow: Here’s another gem by her, in which she writes “Since I was 12 I’ve had an unappealing, didactic distrust of people with the extreme will to live. My father’s parents were Holocaust survivors, and in grade school I received the de rigueur exposure to the horror— visiting geriatric men and women with numbers tattooed on their arms. . .”

Jake Gin: “How the cancer victim at the center of the AMC series justifies my skepticism of Holocaust survivors” It must be nice to go through life with no hope of ever finding a clue. Ya know, just blissfully babbling away.

Sam Davidow It’s just. . . fuck, it’s mind boggling.

The backlash has just begun to hit the comments on the article at Cosmo’s own website, and promises to swell into a veritable tsunami of amply-warranted Breslaw-bashing, with people weighing in both from the Facebook group and independently. So far, the comments range from civil-but-chilly to absolutely caustic:

Michael Watkiss: Burning man isn’t a cult. And the lost and lonely often have the most interesting stories. But thank you for your casual generalization.

Sam Davidow: “It’s always seemed to me, like Scientology or Burning Man, a cult for the lost, the lonely or the drunk.” I was raised in a cult, and was an alcoholic. I’ve also been to burning man, and you couldn’t be farther off in your analogy. Are you drunk, or just ignorant?

Angi McFarland: So Sam, how often do you read Cosmo?

Sam Davidow: Well, it’s entertaining. Whenever I want broad generalizations of what “all men want”, I give it a look over, ‘cuz if there’s something that I want and don’t know that I want, i wanna know.

Peter EarthBiscuit: I’m so glad you clumped cults, the lost and lonely, drunks and sororities in there with Burning Man. Because that’s all it is! A bunch of lost, lonely, drunk people desperately trying to fuck anything that will increase their social standing and get them a better seat to the burning of the cult god at the end of the week. Bravo, Cosmo has a real gem on their staff and I’m sure they know it. Can’t wait to read your next piece, “How I know you’re a slut because you use your phone in the toilet.”

Hal V J Muskat: Why would author Anna Breslaw want to camp with Delta Gamma at Burning Man anyway? Why does she troll for Scientology? Did she NOT ever get laid at Burning Man? Why not? Could she not get laid AFTER? Why not? Did she in fact, GET LAID at Burning Man? Why?

Anastasia Marie: wtf did I just read. . .

You can join in the fun and comment too, if you’d like to tell Anna Breslaw and Cosmopolitan Magazine just exactly what you think of being told that you’re in a cult for lost, lonely, drunk people. Hurry, though. . . there’s no telling how long Cosmo is going to leave commenting open on this one. Let’s get in there and show some them that if they want burners to read their publication, they need to avoid filling it with the kind of ignorant, insensitive drivel that Ms. Breslaw seems so prone to writing:

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/celebrity/news/insane-maryland-sorority-email

The link between Google and Burning Man is long and rich. They famously used the Burning Man logo on the Google home page, and in fact the concept of the Google logo changing evolved out of the Burning Man logo. Yes, the first ever “Google Doodle” was a secret sign to those “in the know” that Google might be a bit short staffed for the week due to Burning Man. CEO Eric Schmidt was hired after founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin hung out with him at Burning Man. There’s even been Stanford University studies on the links between Burning Man and Google (a company founded on technology that was spun out of Stanford). Last year, Sergei paid a visit to our camp at Ideate wearing the glassholes Google Glasses.

Well, now it seems that Larry Page is fully embracing the concept of “Temporary Autonomous Zones“, just in time for Google’s pop-up retail launch and foray into the fashion world. Here’s the Verge:

Google CEO Larry Page is holding a rare Q&A session with attendees of today’s Google I/O keynote, and he’s been offering up some pretty unfiltered answers. In response to a question about reducing negativity and focusing on changing the world, Page noted that “the pace of change is increasing” and said that “we haven’t adapted systems to deal with that.” Specifically, he said that “not all change is good” and said that we need to build “mechanisms to allow experimentation.”

That’s when his response got really interesting. “There are many exciting things you could do that are illegal or not allowed by regulation,” Page said. “And that’s good, we don’t want to change the world. But maybe we can set aside a part of the world.” He likened this potential free-experimentation zone to Burning Man and said that we need “some safe places where we can try things and not have to deploy to the entire world.” Google is already well-known for coming up with some pretty interesting ideas — the idea of seeing what Page could come up with in this lawless beta-test country is simultaneously exciting and a bit terrifying.

Here’s what he actually said about Burning Man, according to the Huffington Post:

I like going to Burning Man for example; I’m sure many of you have been. That’s an environment where people can try out different things, but not everybody has to go. I think that’s a great thing too. I think, as technologists, we should have some safe places where we can try out some new things and figure out what’s the effect on society, what’s the effect on people, without having to deploy it into the normal world. People who like those kinds of things can go out and experience that.

The Chrome Zone, Google’s new move into retail

Burner Larry envisions a “Tech Burning Man“, an anarchist’s Utopia:

“There’s many, many exciting and important things you could do that you just can’t do because they are illegal or they are not allowed by regulation. And that makes sense, we don’t want our world to change too fast. But maybe we should set aside some small part of the world … I think as technologists we should have some safe places where we can try out some new things and figure out: What is the effect on society? What is the effect on people? Without having to deploy it into the normal world. And people who like those kinds of things can go there and experience that.”"

You mean, like mushrooms? Ayahuasca, perhaps? It all sounds very John Galt.

This is conceptually similar to the ideals of the Peter Thiel-backed non-profit Seasteading Institute, and their plans to create on-shore Charter Cities in places like Honduras. Indeed, Seasteading were all over it, quickly launching a petition at Change.Org where you can vote to support Larry’s concepts (so far: 553 supporters of the 1000 needed for…umm, something). Seasteading sent this letter out to their followers:

Change.org petition to Larry Page, CEO of Google:

The last great advance in governance technology was the American experiment with democracy more than 200 years ago. While democracy has brought health, wealth and happiness to billions of people, we also sense that modern governments are slowing down meaningful reform with one-size-fits-all policies. The clash of old rules and rapidly evolving technology leads us to believe that innovative systems of governance could serve humanity better than modern governments do today. We believe a new frontier is needed to once again test out new ways of living together.

In his keynote address at Google’s I/O event on May 15, the company’s CEO and cofounder Larry Page said, ”There’s many, many exciting and important things you could do that you just can’t do because they are illegal or they are not allowed by regulation. And that makes sense, we don’t want our world to change too fast. Butmaybe we should set aside some small part of the world … I think as technologists we should have some safe places where we can try out some new things and figure out: What is the effect on society? What is the effect on people? Without having to deploy it into the normal world. And people who like those kinds of things can go there and experience that.”

We applaud Page’s call for the creation of safe places for experimentation, and seek to promote two viable options: seasteading and startup cities. For five years, The Seasteading Institute (www.seasteading.org) has been conducting research into the potential for permanent, innovative communities – floating at sea. At the same time, The Seasteading Institute’s allies have been working to develop startup cities in existing nations where experiments in governance will be welcomed.

We welcome Page’s voice in the call for a new frontier where innovators can chase their dreams. We encourage Page to invest resources into advancing these initiatives by collaborating with The Seasteading Institute and/or by assigning a team at Google to investigate and advance free-experimentation zones.

The Huffington Post suggests that these “techno-libratarian” (sic) Google zones will be out of the government’s eye:

Google employees have attended company parties in Burning Man, derived costumes, maintained internal email lists devoted to the festival and in 2007, even produced a 37-minute online video on how to cook during the event.”

“As once, 100 years ago, churches translated Max Weber’s protestant ethic into a lived experience for congregations of industrial workers,” writes Turner, explaining Burning Man’s pull for so many of the Bay Area’s tech boosters, “Burning Man transforms the ideals and social structures of bohemian art worlds, their very particular ways of being ‘creative’, into psychological, social and material resources for the workers of a new, supremely fluid world of post-industrial information work.”

While Page’s idea conjures images of the Island of Dr. Moreau or Bioshock’s underwater Randian dystopia, Silicon Valley luminaries looking to create a safe space to experiment away from the government’s intrusive eye has long been one of the most ambitious expressions of the region’s techo-libratarian impulse.

We’ve covered the links between Google and Burning Man before – enough so for them to punish us with a relegation to the penalty box. Type “burning man” into Google and you will have to wade through 19 pages of search results before you find us, the largest blog about Burning Man, with the most original content on the subject. You will pass through several pages reposting our content first, including mainstream media sites, and several pages with nothing whatsoever to do with Burning Man. This is in contrast with Page 11 at Bing and 14 at Yahoo.

Much as the idea of libertarian neo-tribal Utopias and hi-tech pop-up communities appeals to me, do we really want the Fortune 500 companies being the ones to create our “experiments” with different authority systems? Wouldn’t it just be more of the exact same old paradigm, wrapped up in different packaging?

Which I guess brings us to a deeper, philosophical question: is Burning Man a creature of the Art world, the Corporate world, the Civic Government world, the Music World? Or the Tech world? Is it a child of San Francisco Bay Area, or is it something that could work in other places? We can see how the freedom of Temporary Autonomous Zones led to an explosion in art and innovation; we can also see how the growth of this temporary city led to issues of money, governance, politics, safety, and ultimately, power and control.

Google already knows a great deal about our identity, knows when we’re home, knows if we have a dog, predicts what we’re going to think before we do. Now they are going to see and hear everything we do, and know what our responses are to each situation we encounter. Where do we go? Who is with us? What do we say? Do we raise our voice? Are we lying? In 5 years, Google say, they will publicly be operating at the level of at least human intelligence – AKA, the Singularity. AKA, “why the future doesn’t need us“. Do we really want them to know everything we get up to at Burning Man too? Isn’t this the last place to get away from the All Seeing Eye of Big Brother?

You think Google at Burning Man and these other “free” zones only means access to a search engine, if you want to look up something on your Android phone? Think again – Larry’s just sold his vision for the ever-extending tentacles of the Google Megamind at their annual I/O Developer Conference in San Francisco’s Moscone Center:

Page didn’t sell products, he sold a vision. It’s a vision of a world where technology is an ever-present assistant freeing us from the drudgery of remembering phone numbers, calendar reminders, or ever being lost again. It is a world where everyone has access to the latest in ideas and education. And where those who already have the access and the technical skills bear a responsibility to help spread the best technology has to offer to everyone else

And where Google will conveniently remember everything for us. What’s next, Art Cars that drive themselves? Some of the best times I’ve had at Burning Man started with me getting lost.

I, for one, welcome our new Hive Mind overlords.

You might have heard a lot of the hype about the new documentary about Burning Man, Spark. It’s screening tonight in Reno at 7:30, then playing to 1400 people in Washington DC, heading to New York City, and playing to 500 or so up my way in Santa Rosa on July 9.

There is a plethora of other documentaries about Burning Man. Like, Dust and Illusions – the film Burning Man doesn’t want you to see, or the excellent Emmy-nominated Current TV coverage of a few years back (now seemingly deleted from the Current.TV web site, since its acquisition from Al Gore by the Arabian network Al Jazeera).

So what makes this one different?

Well, for one, the Burning Man founders have been quite prominent in attending its premieres around the country. That certainly wasn’t the case with Dust and Illusions. It debuted at SXSW in Austin this year, to mixed reviews. And the BMOrg have been behind it too, talking it up in the Jacked Rabbit Speaks and the official Burning Man web site. They even went so far as to create an entire online portal called Spark – which at the time I thought was a coincidence, but read on, perhaps not…(I’m not sure I can pin the coincidental name of nearby town Sparks, Nevada on BMOrg but if anyone has any Burnileaks style info on this, please send it in!)

Just like the 7 Scandals besetting Our Prez right now, the leadership of Burning Man has yet another new scandal to contend with, thanks to the hard work of a perceptive Burner investigative journalist. Scribe is the author of The Tribes of Burning Man, probably the best book about Burning Man’s history (although if you want photos, Tomas Loewy’s Radical Burning Desert gets a lot of use on my coffee table).

He’s also a writer for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and their specialist on Burning Man. His recent 5-page cover story raises a lot of questions about the Spark Movie, and how much truth the Burner community is actually getting from the founders and leaders of BMOrg about what is going on.

A documentary called Spark: A Burning Man Story is arriving on the big screen, with dreams of wide distribution, at a pivotal moment for the San Francisco-based corporation that has transformed the annual desert festival into a valuable global brand supported by a growing web of interconnected burner collectives around the world.

Is that a coincidence, or is this interesting and visually spectacular (if slightly hagiographic) film at least partially intended to shore up popular support for the leadership of Burning Man as the founders cash out of Black Rock City LLC and supposedly begin to transfer more control to a new nonprofit entity?

Radical Burning Desert by Tomas Loewy

Filmed during last year’s ticket fiasco — in which high demand and a flawed lottery system created temporary scarcity that left many essential veteran burners without tickets during the busy preparation season — both the filmmakers and leaders of Burning Man say they needed to trust one another.

After all, technology-entrepreneur-turned-director Steve Brown was given extensive, exclusive access to the sometimes difficult and painful internal discussions about how to deal with that crisis. And if he was looking to make a film about the flawed and dysfunctional leadership of the event — ala Olivier Bonin’s Dust & Illusions — he certainly had plenty of footage to make that storyline work.

But that wasn’t going to happen, not this time — for a few reasons. One, Brown is a Burning Man true believer and relative newbie who took its leaders at face value and didn’t want to delve into the details or criticisms of how the event is managed or who will chart its future. As he told us, that just wasn’t the story he wanted to tell.

“We got trusted by the founders of Burning Man to do this story,” he told us. “They were in the process of going into a nonprofit and they wanted to get their message out into the world.”

So, sort of an authorized biography then.

Well, actually, more like a commissioned puff piece corporate story:

the filmmakers and their subjects are essentially in a partnership. Brown and the LLC’s leaders reluctantly admitted to us that there is a financial arrangement between the two entities and that the LLC will receive revenues from the film, although they wouldn’t discuss details with us.

Chris Weitz, an executive producer on the film, is also on the board of directors of the new nonprofit, The Burning Man Project, along with his wife, Mercedes Martinez. Both were personally appointed by the six members of the LLC’s board to help guide Burning Man into a new era.

Usually, if you star in a movie, you get paid. At least, you get a credit. In this case, we’re all the stars, we’re the talent, we pay to go there…and they profit from our images till the cows come home. How much? No-one’s saying, but for $150k you can do a Vogue Magazine Photo Shoot out there!

“We saw it as location fees. We’re making an investment, they’re making an investment,” he said, refusing to provide details of the agreement. “The arrangement we had with Burning Man is similar to the arrangements anyone else has had out there.”

Goodell said the LLC’s standard agreement calls for all filmmakers to either pay a set site fee or a percentage of the profits. “It’s standard in all of the agreements to pay a site fee,” Goodell said, noting that the LLC recently charged Vogue Magazine $150,000 to do a photo shoot during the event.

No wonder BMOrg were so pissed at Krug. They wanted their $150k. Or at least a pallet of champagne! Wonder if Town and Country had to pay similar buck$ too. This sponsorship of Burning Man by magazines, fashion labels etc. could be very lucrative, and could explain the difference between reported gate revenues (around $22 million) and the BLM fee of $1.87m for 3% – which brings us to a total event revenue closer to $62 million. What’s the deal with the missing 40 million dollars? Is the event actually much bigger than the permits, like some have speculated? Or is Burning Man cashing in big time on books, movies, TV shows, photo shoots, merchandising, the whole shebang?

Scribe very perceptively delves into the timing of this movie, with its unprecedented access to the founders and Org; the bizarre ticket lottery scandal, which could be looked at as a “culture jam” that shook the community up and made very clear the divide between veteran Burners (not so welcome any more, time to move on) and the new generation of Burgins (welcomed with open arms). It certainly made a great story thread for them to base a movie around – stirring the petri dish of Burners, creating carefully cultivated controversy amongst their Cargo Cult subjects with strange moves like “70% Virgins”. The other aspect of the timing of note is Larry Harvey’s announcement in 2011 (on April 1, no less) that Burning Man would transition to a non-profit over the next 3 years. We’ve got less than a year to go, and the vision and transition do not seem clear even to the leaders. Indeed, the Burning Man founders seem to be stepping back from their original idea of relinquishing control.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but Scribe thinks it’s going to bring a few eye-rolling moments to veteran Burners:

More cynical burner veterans may have a few eye-rolling moments with this film and the portrayals of its selfless leadership. While the discussions of the ticket fiasco raised challenging issues within the LLC, its critics came off as angry and unreasonable, as if the new ticket lottery had nothing to do with the temporary, artificial ticket scarcity (which was alleviated by summer’s end and didn’t occur this year under a new and improved distribution system).

And when the film ends by claiming “the organization is transitioning into a nonprofit to ‘gift’ the event back to the community,” it seems to drift from overly sympathetic into downright deceptive, leaving viewers with the impression that the six board members are selflessly relinquishing the tight control they exercise over the event and the culture it has spawned.

Yet our interview with the LLC leadership shows that just isn’t true. If anything, the public portrayals that founder Larry Harvey made two years ago about how this transition would go have been quietly modified to leave these six people in control of Burning Man for the foreseeable future.

So, is there actually a transition going on to a non-profit? Well, apparently, it’s complicated:

As altruistic as Spark makes Burning Man’s transition to nonprofit status sound, Harvey made it clear during the April 1, 2011 speech when he announced it that it was driven by internal divisions that almost tore the LLC board apart, largely over how much money departing board members were entitled to.

The corporation’s bylaws capped each board member’s equity at $20,000, a figure Harvey scoffed at as ridiculously low, saying the six board members would decide on larger payouts as part of the transition and they have refused to disclose how much (Sources in the LLC tell me the payouts have already begun. Incidentally, author Katherine Chen claimed in her book Enabling Creative Chaos that the $20,000 cap was set to quell community concerns about the board accumulating equity from everyone else’s efforts, but Harvey now denies that account).

In that speech, Harvey also said the plan was to turn over operation of the Burning Man event to the nonprofit after three years, and then three years later to transfer control over the Burning Man brand and trademarks and to dissolve the LLC (see “The future of Burning Man,” 8/2/11).

Board member Marian Goodell assured us at the time that the LLC would be doing extensive outreach to gather input on what the future leadership of the event and culture should look like: “We’re going to have a conversation with the community.”

But with just a year to go until the event was scheduled to be turned over to the nonprofit board, there has been no substantive transfer, the details of what the leadership structure will look like are murky — and the six board members of Black Rock LLC still deem themselves indispensable leaders of the event and culture.

The filmmakers say that the transition to the nonprofit was one of the things that drew them to the project, but the ticket fiasco came to steal their focus, mostly because the nonprofit narrative was simply too complex and confusing to easily convey on film.

According to Burning Man’s main founders Larry and Marian, everything is just fine. They’re on track to transfer the ownership to a new structure. They can’t just put everything into the Burning Man Project, so they’re still figuring out what to do with that and how it will interact with the party event. They definitely don’t want it to be a bureaucratic tyranny, so to protect us from that they’re going to control the culture more than ever before:

“We’re pretty much on schedule,” Harvey told me, noting that he still hopes to transfer ownership of the event over to the nonprofit next year. “The nonprofit is going well, and then we have to work out the terms of the relationship between the event and the nonprofit. We want the event to be protected from undue meddling and we want it to be a good fit.”

From our conversations, it appears that a new governance structure seems synonymous with the “meddling” they want to avoid.

“We want to make sure the event production has autonomy, so it can water the roads without board members deciding which roads and the number of tickets and how many volunteers,” Goodell said. “We did look at basically plopping the entire thing into the nonprofit, but if you look at what we’re trying to do out in the world, we don’t have any interest in becoming a big, large government agency.”

It was an analogy they returned to a few times: equating a new governance structure with bureaucratic tyranny. They rejected the notion that the new nonprofit would have “control” over the event, even though they want it to have “ownership” of the event.

“You just said the control of the event would be turned over to the nonprofit,” Goodell said.

“No, the ownership,” Harvey added.

“Yeah, there’s a difference,” Goodell said.

That difference seems to involve whether the six current board members would be giving up their control — which she said they are not.

“All six of us plan to stay around. We’re not going off to China to buy a little house along the Mekong River,” Goodell said.

“We want to make sure the event production company has sufficient autonomy, they can function with creating freedom and do what it does best, which is producing the Burning Man event, without being unduly interfered with by the nonprofit organization,” Harvey said.

“That’s why you heard it one way initially, and you’re hearing it slightly differently now, and it could go back again,” Goodell said. “We don’t think it’s sensible, either philosophically or fiscally, to essentially strip away all these entities and take all these employees and plop them in the middle of The Burning Man Project.”

In other words, Black Rock LLC and its six members will apparently still produce the event — and it’s not clear what, exactly, the nonprofit will do.

“We are giving up LLC-based ownership control, we are not giving up the steerage of the culture,” Goodell said. “That we’re not giving up. We’re more necessary now than ever.”

Scribe finishes his piece by presenting the two different viewpoints at play here.

There are at least a couple ways for burner true believers to look at the event, its culture, and its leadership. One is to see Burning Man as a unique and precious gift that has been bestowed on its attendees by Harvey, its wise and selfless founder, and the leadership team he assembled, which he formalized as an LLC in 1997.

That seems to be the dominant viewpoint, based on reactions that I’ve received to past critical coverage (and which I expect to hear again in reaction to this article), and it is the viewpoint of the makers of this film. “They’ve dedicated their lives to creating this platform that allows people to go out and create art,” Brown said.

Another point-of-view is to see Burning Man as the collective, collaborative effort that it claims to be, a DIY experiment conducted by the voluntary efforts of the tens of thousands of people who create the art and culture of Black Rock City from scratch, year after year.

Yes, we should appreciate Harvey and the leaders of the event, and they should get reasonable retirement packages for their years of effort. But they’ve also had some of the coolest jobs in town for a long time, and they now freely travel the world as sort of countercultural gurus, not really working any harder than most San Franciscans.

The latter point is felt by many old time Burners, who are often under-employed and under-funded. The art is made collaboratively, and financed collaboratively. By us, not the BMOrg. Many feel that we’ve all made this event together and that the BMOrg is being unfair in their ruthless persecution of anyone trying to make a buck in the Burner commuity, while simultaneously maximizing profits behind closed doors and doing all kinds of licensing deals without any transparency. They don’t have to share the profits, it’s not communism, but at least let the rest of the Burner ecosystem profit from Burning Man too. Do they want to be Apple and Microsoft (who pay people to develop the intellectual property that they license and control) or do they want to be Open Source (where a community gifts to the commons, for the good of all)? We’ve all heard the talk, it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens in the next year if they actually do sort their transition plans out.

Burning Man 2.0 is starting to look suspiciously like Burning Man 1.0… just with less transparency; tighter control over the culture; stepped up political campaigning in Washington, Nevada, and San Francisco;  new revenue streams from new media and new markets leading to a hugely expanded scope of revenue production from the event and brand that we all co-created together – aka “we pay them to be the talent and we take care of our own wardrobe, travel, accomodation and all expenses too”; more fragmented volunteer-run organizations that may or may not be doing lots of useful stuff away from the party to give back to the community; and last but by absolutely no means least, an unprecedented public relations blitz.

Since the announcement that the founders are cashing out, Burning Man has been all over the media like never before. To name a few: the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, New York Times, LA Times, CNN, Reuters, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, GQ, Vogue, Time, Town and Country, San Francisco magazine, New York magazine, Cosmo, Salon, Gawker, the Huffington Post, Forbes, Inc, Fast Company, Business Insider… even Popular Mechanics and the Delta Airlines in-flight magazine! The UK was included in the media blitz too, with repeated coverage in the Financial Times, the Times of London, the Guardian and the Daily Mail. Not to mention a documentary on Russia Today and an in-depth story on Australian TV.

In an earlier post I raised the possibility that Burning Man’s interviews with Bloomberg could be seeding the garden for a possible IPO. Interestingly, this story was presented on Bloomberg as “The Spark That Created Burning Man Festival”. Spark again. Burn Wall Street – that’s certainly one way to get Wall Street’s attention, before you hit them up for money on your roadshow for “Silicon Valley’s Hottest Startup“.

Is there some multi-year plan afoot here, similar to Facebook’s idea to release an Oscar-winning movie before announcing their IPO (with another movie)? Or is it just a coincidence that Burning Man seems to have taken the travelling, speaking, and interviewing to a whole ‘nother dimension in the last couple of years?

Watch this space – Scribe has conducted quite a few interviews about this story, and will be bringing us more soon.

Filed under: News Tagged: 2011, 2013, bmorg, city, commerce, complaints, event, fashion, festival, future, news, Party, plans, press, scandal, tickets, virgin

Whatsblem the Pro recently published a very interesting discussion with Official Burning Man blogger (Burning Man Official Blogger? Burning Man Blog Official?) Caveat Magister. One aspect of the discussion was the way art and money have always been intertwined, in some ways it is a symbiotic relationship.

The most successful way the art world has dealt with this throughout history seems to be the Patronage model. The wealthy patron provides the artists with room, board, and materials, usually in a space that lets them get away from the conventional world to focus on their art. The Patronage model has always existed at Burning Man – if you follow Whatsblem’s icthyosaur link you can read about one such anonymous donor who by creating the Generator in Reno is enabling other Burners with a collaborative space, not just their own tribe. In San Francisco, some of the Burners I know have recently “crowdsourced patronage” with [freespace], an experiment in temporary zones that hit its Indiegogo fundraising goal and appears to have been successful.

It is the Patronage model that is most hurt by the BMOrg’s heavy handed “Do Not Use The Words Burning Man” and “we own your photos not you and we will charge magazines to publish them” approach, especially in 2013 when we live in this brave new world of crowdsourcing, social networking, and the sharing economy. “Snapchat” and “you voluntarily assign copy rights to us implicit in your ticket purchase”, are two alien dialects that may possibly never be translated into a common communication. Just as BMOrg are starting to really crack the whip and get the leash out on destroying any members of their community who dare to use photos of themselves or their camps at Burning Man – even the dinosaur content industry, which fought against the Internet for more than a decade, is now adopting the “all you can eat” inclusive, sharing economy models of Pandora, Netflix, Soundcloud, Instagram, Facebook, Hulu. Ten years ago, these guys were thinking like BMOrg are today. In ten years time, they will all be trying to figure out how to be more like Snapchat – which is a truly new business model, one that captures the zeitgeist. Snapchat away all you want, if the photos are temporary how can BMOrg ever catch you?

In the meantime, any Burners who want to attend Burning Man have BMOrg to deal with. They’re struggling to catch up with the 2000′s, when people could take pictures from a cellphone. They only recently decided they should try to own YouTube. Patronage? That’s a model of the arts from the Rennaissance. That would be too hard, too complicated.

“We are going to have a photo shoot in front of your art car, and we are going to make $150,000 from it, and you can not mention on your Art Car’s web site that it is going to be at Burning Man from Aug 26-Sep 2, and you can not include a 12 second YouTube video of your art car at Burning Man”…wow. Just wow. It’s reverse patronage – the artists make the art and pay for it, and the Patrón collects all the cash. And then doesn’t even just starve the artist by collecting the cash – punishes them too. Makes it as hard as they can for the artist to sell their art anywhere else, to try to make a living from the tens of thousands of people who love enjoying their work for free at Burning Man after they had to raise money themselves just to get it there and take it away. BMOrg: “You can’t claim that you painted this painting at my house. It’s my house and I make the rules!” – Burner Artist “but you just made $150,000 selling photos of people at your house in front of my painting. Can’t I even show people a photo of my painting?” 

Some people were amazed to learn that they couldn’t use photos of their camp for camp fundraisers, or couldn’t have any other references to Burning Man. Others were amazed that this was even an issue, saying “so what? These are the rules, why can’t you obey them”?

In the last week, a recent case has been brought to my attention. This case clearly shows the way BMOrg enforces these policies – robotic, like Nazis. “you’re breaking our rules, take it down”. It also highlights how arbitrary this process is – as I will show you, in trying to protect a trademark for an arts festival, and their right to monetize all images, they arrogantly assume that they own “anything” that remotely looks like “their” festival, wherever in the world it happens. What are the trademark looks of their festival? It’s a statue of a man on some kind of base, and some street signs. Other than that, it’s the stuff that we bring and display that creates the “Burning Man look”. This story is a classic case study of the unfairness of Burning Man’s approach to this issue – do they really feel that their income stream is threatened? Sadly, this is a case where there really seems to be no reason – other than “we make the rules and we tell you what to do”. If there is a reason, the overwhelming amount of good they are rejecting by judging generous behavior to be “bad” because of rules being interpreted in word and not spirit – is a crying shame. “Throwing the baby out with the bathwater”. This tale shows how the organizational structure that is at the top of this pyramid, has changed from “hey, we’ll give you guys a sandpit, you bring your toys, and let others play with them too, everyone will want to play in the sandpit because it has the best toys and people share them”… to “if you ever brought your toy to the sandpit, that’s ours forever and we’ll make as much money from it as we want, and we’ll try to stop you playing with your toys outside the sandpit”.

Welcome to the Unfortunately Not Curious Case of the Fish Tank.

A motorcycle at Burning Man? That’s against the rules! Oh, you didn’t get the memo? It’s called the Constitution of the United States of America, you should read it. Burning Man does not own United States Government parks. The Bureau of Land Management looks after 264 million acres of them. Can you park your art car amongst those acres, without having to pay a fee to Burning Man? Of course. Land of the free, home of the brave! Take a gun, there might be bears. What about on the national day of independence? Surely you have to pay a fee to Burning Man then? You’re on Federal land, with a vehicle that you once took to Burning Man! Again, no. It’s a free country, which means you don’t have to give money to Burning Man for things that have nothing to do with Burning Man… photo by Burnersxxx copyright(c) Burners.Me 2012 All Rights Reserved. This photo may be used by anyone for any reason including to make money; except for Black Rock City LLC or any of their agents or to make money for the Burning Man organization or any of its subsidiaries at any time for any purpose, whether commerical, personal, or charitable.

I first met the Fish Tank at 2010′s Burning Man, Metropolis. It liked to park outside my RV with its killer sound system blasting away while the operators took a day time nap. I loved it! And we were at 10 & J, so about as far away from disturbing the neighbors as you can get and still be in Black Rock City. I was camped with Villains and Vixens who joined the larger umbrella of Overkill. This was the first time I had been in an organized camp – organized in the sense that there were wristbands for meals served twice a day, a chef cooking for 100 people, a sound system inside a 100-foot authentic Mongolian yurt, camp workers in hexayurts, high rollers in Mega-RVs, hot masseuses on staff, live improv shows every night. That’s right, the kind of camp that haters like to hate – the dreaded “plug and play camping”. You know, as in “I got a low income ticket and I rode around on art cars for free all week. I didn’t buy one drink, people kept handing me them for free. Oh, but I hate those people in RVs, they just stay in them the whole time and never contribute anything to the party, they’re not real Burners”. A common attitude amongst the Burnier-than-thous, which completely misses the point that no people on low income tickets are bringing art cars to Burning Man or putting down their credit card for an open bar for 70,000 people. And we know the guys at the gate collecting $25 million+ aren’t either.

Radical self-reliance, or Safety Third?

The stated reason for Burnier-than-thous to be against Plug-n-Play camping is it’s not radically self reliant. But if you’re standing in line waiting for your chance at a stinky portapotty, and watching gorgeous supermodels going in and out of a rockstar bus with air conditioned marble bathrooms…is there maybe a teensy weensy bit of jealousy that could be the real factor? No? You’re just a hater, and it’s them that’s in the wrong? They are so radically self-reliant that if they need the bathroom or a shower they can have one, and you are so reliant on The Man that you have to stand in line for a stinky portapotty that you hope’s gonna have some paper in it. It’s easy to hate the guy driving past you in the Lamborghini, until you are that guy.

Let’s say that you think there’s some potential danger involved in the 16-hour plus trek back through Exodus, Reno, the mountain passes and the congested freeways of San Francisco at the end of Labor Day weekend. There are 30,000 vehicles taking pretty much the same trip at the same time, and many most are being driven by people who’ve been partying their ass off for a week in an environment where whatever you want will manifest and it’s free, and sleep is difficult due to noise, heat, dust, or FOMO. So let’s say you want to do the sensible thing – get someone to be the designated driver. Well that sucks at Burning Man, not everyone is going to put their hand up and volunteer to be that – especially if it’s not their RV.

So, deals get cut, people get paid, maybe they get a ticket and a place to stay, maybe someone kicks in for their camp dues. Which in most cases, are splitting the expenses of the camp amongst the people who camp there, not lining peoples’ pockets. And someone is hired as the driver. That person looks after the RV, keeps it tidy, keeps strays out, meets with the honey wagon and the water truck if they can flag them down.

To me, this is not only reasonable, it is sensible. If you could afford it, you’d be crazy not to do it. Lives are on the line, and the danger factor is massively amplified compared to normal driving. The statistics support this. To many Burners though, what I have just described is anathema. The worst evil in Burning Man. Rich people in RVs with camps with staff. How dare someone pay someone to go to Burning Man! Burning Man is about Decommodification and Gifting!

What about the sparkle pony who gets a free ticket, a place to stay in the RV, even a flight out there? What does she have to do to the RV owner before she is considered a whore? Sexual acts? Nudity? Just accepting the gift?

Where do you draw the line? This is a question we keep asking on this blog, and we try to highlight where lines are being drawn by BMOrg that are not fair, and detrimental to the event. And not just BMOrg, certain factions in the Burner community too. Often though, the Burners who are “line drawers” or “Burnier-than-thous” parroting the company line, are not independent spokespeople but part of factions or groups within the bigger group. BMOrg, the Theme setter, the Petri Dish controller. Memes are spread through tribes and then get accepted as unassailable truths. The Org is so vast and nebulous with its volunteers and friends and contractors, it’s become harder to tell anymore who’s a “BMOrg Burner” (aka Kool-Aid drinker) and who’s a civilian with no dog in the fight  - other than to just enjoy the party. Many of the people critical to our posts on this blog have later come out to admit they work for the BMOrg. Fair enough, we welcome criticism, and if we dish it out we need to be able to take it. We enjoy the party, but we’re not there now, so this is a more appropriate time for criticism. We call them out when they deserve it.

The idea of “don’t use the words Burning Man” and “don’t use photos of your camp” for camp fundraisers, was just so extreme for me that I believe it is a line drawn that BMOrg needs to retreat back behind. Or, just loosen the reins a bit. What is it they’re afraid of?

As far as I can deduct, BMOrg’s primary concern driving this is that others will be misrepresenting the values of their brand “Burning Man”, and that this will therefore lower the value of the brand – by reducing the maximum amount of money they can get licensing it. They make royalties from people selling movies about Burning Man. They charge $150,000 to magazines to print photos of the event. Who the photographers are, and who they work for, is not really relevant. There are many professional photographers at Burning Man, there are many amateurs too. In writing this blog, I very frequently go to images.google.com and type “Burning Man”. There’s a lot of them. In fact, Burning Man is such a visually wonderful interactive spectacle, that I would be surprised if there are many people who went there and didn’t take at least one photo. Especially now that pretty much any mobile phone is a camera, not even smartphones.

BMOrg’s stated reason for having to own every photo, video, and other type of recording ever taken at their event, is so that they can protect the privacy of participants. Which they don’t seem to be all that effective at, given how many images are floating around the Internet for free, often containing partial or full nudity.

Another reason, which seems more likely given the way this organization operates, is that they want to own as much of the IP of the event as they can, so that only they can make money from it. This “no-one can profit from Burning Man but us” idea is wrapped in ideology and the (Cargo) Cult-ish 10 Principles. The shrink-wrapped packaging seduces you that this is a party where everything is free, it’s not about money. It’s about being yourself, expressing and sharing yourself, giving to others. In reality though, their IP ownership policy has more in common with Citizen Kane or how Rupert Murdoch has run his business for the last 60 years. It’s the Mickey Mouse model – as in this is what Disney, a massive owner of content, does. We own the content, only we make money licensing the content, if you use the content and try to make money from it that’s piracy and we’ll sue.

Hollywood has spawned a whole industry, a whole economy. Hollywood is an ecosystem, with a symbiotic relationship between all the participants. When Hollywood is winning, all the people working in Hollywood are winning. More interesting projects, more jobs, more opportunities, more people. It’s a good example because we can also see how when Hollywood is hurting, that hurts many of the people in it too. We saw this in 2008 with the 3-month long Screenwriter’s strike. You’d think that there are so many scripts sitting in filing cabinets in Hollywood that they could punch them out for years without ever hiring another writer again, but no, this was a major disruption to the industry. Actors seemed to be the ones hurt most, and people who made their living renting equipment to the different productions. The catering companies. The people owning the studios, they were all fine; but the broader ecosystem was doing it tough.

Burning Man is like a backwards Hollywood. Flip the model on its ass. All the theme camps, all the art cars, all the actors, all the costumes – that all belongs to one pyramid-shaped entity. Not the one who paid for it. The one that you paid. The Man that you worship. You paid them for the privilege of owning whatever spectacle you chose to create for them. Who’s them? BMOrg. In Hollywood, an actor can come from nothing, achieve rapid success, and then reach the ladder down to where they came from to elevate others. Like Mark Wahlberg’s tale in Entourage, David Bowie playing Andy Warhol in the true life tale of Jean-Michel Basquiat, or Good Will Hunting wunder-kid Ben Affleck who is now a Director and chooses actors to get jobs in his movies.

In Burning Man’s view of how this economy should work, we Burners pay BMOrg’s salaries and expenses, and we pay them a profit to put in their pockets every year, and in addition we pay all our own expenses, we pay to create the art, we bring large amounts of supplies and give them away for free, they own it all, and if we ever want to use photos or the name of the party we created, we better stop. That’s theirs.

Fallen Angel, Basquiat 1981

In Burning Man, you bring the best costume? BMOrg will put it in photo shoots and make money. Bring a cool art car? BMOrg will put it in photo shoots and make money. Put the same photo on your web site where you try to raise funds to support the art car? BMOrg will send you cease-and-desist letters, escalating in tone, until they’re ready to sue and take even more of your money.

Think I’m over-stating it? I’m understating it. And when I say “make money from photo shoots”, each single one is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Recently we discussed their IP policies in the context of theme camps: Do Not Use the Words Burning Man. The policy applies beyond camp placement, anyone who buys a ticket is assumed by their legal department to have consented to it. So this is really about anyone using any photos from Burning Man in any way that is not clearly “personal use” (or “fair use”).

An art car is sometimes built and owned by one person. Just like an art project. Usually though, it’s a team effort. And this is one of the great things about Burning Man. In Whatsblem’s recent interview with Caveat Magister, they talk about the way the LA Burner orientation is to build a garden together. They get it – bringing us together in a [free|space] of fun and play, is why we all go to this party. Likewise, usually it is a team effort to put a camp together. For larger camps, someone has to pay to rent the generators, or the port-a-potty, or buy the supplies. Usually a few people chip in, or maybe everyone in the camp pays a fixed fee to cover the budget. A large camp budget is hundreds of thousands of dollars – a major camp on Esplanade, maybe $350,000. I would name them but I wouldn’t want to Dis them…those are some of my peeps…

How big is a large camp? 50+? 100+? The camp I was in last year had about 260 people. 70% virgins. I won’t be doing that again. This year I have 20 close friends who all want to camp together, with a varying amount we can afford to spend per day. We all understand to stay somewhere costs money every day. And we want some luxuries, and luxuries cost extra. Some in the camp can afford more than others. Everyone has to chip money in, including some people we’ve never met, friends of friends. We have people coming from more than 10 countries, and even from the US everyone is coming from totally different places with totally different logistical issues.

We need systems to communicate with each other. Packing lists. A location. Walkie-talkies, GPS. Bikes. Sound system, booze. Barbecue, ways to cook. Water, tons of it. We use the Internet to co-ordinate, the latest technologies. Those of the camp with experience, share theirs with the rest of our friends on our facebook group.

But sooner or later, inevitably, money has to be spent for the camp. And money has to be collected for the camp.

And here’s where the complications begin. Money means spending. Spending means credit cards. Credit cards require bank accounts.

Do you pick one person, to be “the Bank” like when we played Monopoly as kids – everyone gives all the money to them, everyone trusts them to do the right thing, and everything goes through their personal account?
What about for an art car, where multiple people maybe from different States might be driving it, multiple people have kicked money into it and feel like part-owners. Who’s going to get the insurance policy? Who’s it going to be registered with at the DMV (the real one, if it’s street legal)?

What if it’s in the Macy’s parade in New York and Macy’s wants to take a photo of it? Who owns the rights? The person who drove it to New York, the person who built it, Macy’s? Macy’s wants to know. Lawyers get consulted.

This problem, of how more than one person can own a thing, was solved about a thousand years ago. The invention was called a Corporation. Corporations have come so far, that they are now recognized as persons by the Courts. Although they have special rights that make them even more powerful than persons, due to the fact that they’re not acutally a person. For example, you can’t jail a corporation. And theoretically it can live forever.

So many artists and camps use this simple and widely accepted technique, common in the world of business and insurance and bank accounts, to manage the annual expenses involved with attending this event. What name is the bank account in? Do we have a Paypal account? How do we get the funds from Kickstarter or Indiegogo – or Art Grants? Shall we get a Square so we can take credit cards at our fundraiser? All of this is made quite simple by having an LLC (which means Limited Liability Corporation). It provides a legal structure so that if I kicked in $5000 for a sound system on an art car, and then someone else was driving the art car and someone jumped off it and hurt themselves, that person wouldn’t be able to come directly at me for being responsible. I just kicked some money into the company for the sound system. The company can have insurance to protect everyone.

Shouldn’t these companies be non-profits, if they want to go to Burning Man? Isn’t an LLC something that’s for profit? Well, technically yes. But you need to understand that things aren’t as simple as that in this country. You can’t just decide to start a company and decide to call it a non-profit so that you never have to pay tax. That’s not how the IRS works. You’ve got to apply to them for permission. In the last couple of years we started Reallocate.org and went through this process – it took 18 months, a lot of paperwork, and the pro bono contributions of a pretty big law firm. And this is for a legitimate charity, nothing to do with Burning Man, a philanthropic start-up.

It’s not practical to go through this process just so that you can get insurance and raise funds on an art car. And even if you did, it’s highly doubtful the IRS is going to just rubber stamp approve it. “Oh, you have an art car? OK, you never have to pay tax again then”. Having said that, I’m aware of a number of theme camps or art projects that do have a registered 501(c)3 charity – this year’s Control Tower springs immediately to mind.

Control Tower is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the purposes of Control Tower must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Just because something is a corporation, does not mean it’s trying to make money. Corporations can be holding structures, ownership structures, insurable entities. Just because the structure of a corporation is not that of a tax-exempt non-profit, does not automatically mean that it is trying to profit.

Which brings us to FishTankLLC.com . A company founded by Burner Dr Andy from New Jersey, a highly respected orthopedic surgeon who in his spare time teaches at the world’s top medical colleges, and help kids in the developing world, low income kids, and kids with special needs. In the US he puts hours every week into doing this. Andy is a Merry Prankster from the old school, he loves Burning Man, he loves fun, he designed his art cars to be very open and accessible. He completely gets the true spirit of Burning Man, openness and inclusion and gifting. Everyone involved in Fish Tank go out of their way to respect Burning Man’s rules. If you see Fish Tank on the Playa, hop on for a ride, or dance away next to us! Just don’t jump off.

This company was not founded on a grand vision of taking over the world with half-tank, half-fish mobile sound systems. It was founded on a much more practical basis: the need to manage the logistics and expenses of moving these art cars around the country to various events, one of which is Burning Man.

“Wait a minute – did he just say various events?” - yup. That’s right, although this might be hard to believe for some Burgins, Burning Man did not invent art cars, and is not the only place you can see them. Like mega-art car Robot Heart, Fish Tank has operations on both coasts. And between the two vehicles, Angler Fish and Fighting Fish, they have been to:

- Electric Daisy Carnival (Las Vegas)

- Free Form Festival (New Jersey)

- Art Basel (Miami)

- Houston Art Car Parade

- Hot August Nights (Reno)

- Halloween Parade (New York)

- BUKU (New Orleans)

Some people at these events recognize the Fish Tank from Burning Man. But the vast majority have no idea what Burning Man is, even in the art car world. I would challenge you to name any other Art Car you’ve seen at Burning Man, that has been to more events outside the Playa than the Fish Tanks. It’s not easy to get to these things from Point A to Point B, it’s expensive, it’s not profitable. $3/mile minimum. Without patronage it would not happen. The more art cars go to events away from Burning Man, the more people want to go to Burning Man to see all the art cars.

Wherever Fish Tank goes, it draws a crowd. This is in Reno, most of these kids knew about Burning Man but almost none had been. They didn’t realize there was so much stuff like this there:

In fact, people love the Fish Tank so much, that when Vogue magazine wanted to do a story about Burning Man, out of all the 500+ art cars available, they wanted to feature the Fish Tank. Which of course the friendly and accomodating owners of Fish Tank helped them out with. “Sure, we’ll stay here and not do anything else until your photographers are finished. Sure, I’ll move from my seat so I’m not blocking your shot. Sure, I’ll get off my own art car so that you can take it over and pose on it”. It’s a party, it’s a city, we’re gifting, whatever we can do to help out Black Rock City, we do.

In the past, Fish Tank has been asked to provide a “taxi service” for everyone from BMOrg to DPW to Alex Grey, helping people get across the Playa. It has transported the sick and wounded to the Medical Center, on many occasions. With the added bonus that the owner is a highly skilled surgeon, who I’ve seen provide plenty of free medical assistance at the party. If you’re a doctor, you swear to the Hippocratic Oath, which says if you see someone who needs your help, you help them. You don’t swear to the oath that says “if someone is sick in front of me, I will only let  the official Burning Man medical team help them”. It doesn’t work like that. Someone’s injured, you help them immediately, you radio for assistance, someone comes out on a quad bike, it’s often easier for the art car to take them over to the Medical Center than the quad bike. Or, someone passes out on the art car, you check their breathing and heartbeat, you take them to the medical center. You maybe even stay there with them for a bit to make sure they’re OK. This type of help doesn’t just get provided on the odd occasion by Fish Tank. It’s part of what Fish Tank is all about – leading by example, and representing a higher standard of civil behavior towards one another. Helping, caring, sharing, giving. Keep it nice and keep it happy, don’t rock the boat, don’t make waves, don’t piss people off. Calm, mellow, happy. Just create smiles – miles and miles of smiles.

Every year, the Fish Tank does an “art tour” of the Playa for mobility challenged or other special needs Burners. BMOrg themselves don’t put on anything like this to make the Burn easier for these people. Without Fish Tank doing this, they’d get nothing. They’d be lucky if they got approved to get a Segway or a golf cart.

So what does Fish Tank get, in return for both everything they’ve given at Burning Man, and for promoting the art cars of Burning Man to literally millions of people around the country? Without ever directly promoting Burning Man, without even using the words Burning Man – they don’t need to, they’re bigger than Burning Man. Burning Man is just one of the ponds that these Fish Tanks go to swim in. It’s the one with the most rules and restrictions, but they go out of their way to obey and respect them.

What do they get?

Well, they certainly didn’t get any money from Vogue. The $150,000 for the photo shoot went straight into the coffers of BMOrg (minus, we hope, the 3% cut the BLM takes of any money anyone makes on the Playa).

And, they didn’t get much support from Burning Man’s on site operations crew, the Department of Public Works. Last year Fish Tank couldn’t trade an entire keg of beer for the right to use their on-Playa fuel station. Only “special” art cars that had been given the secret handshake could do that. Later we found out that a keg is a miniscule, insignificant quantity of beer compared to the amount that camps like Distrikt were gifting them. But should they really have to beg? Fish Tank brought hundreds of gallons of extra fuel, and churned through a lot of it when they helped out the handicapped, and emergency situations with injured Burners. Who decides what’s fair, and what’s just plain mean? Shouldn’t Fish Tank at least get a gas top-up after that ride? It’s not like they’re trying to steal gas for free, they’d be happy to pay.

Nope, basically all they get is one big slap in the face. A “fuck you very much”. From DPW, from the BMOrg, from the Haters and the Enforcers and the Bullies.

Let’s start with the letter:

From: Nathan Aaron Heller 
To: “info@fishtankllc.com“ 
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 8:59 PM
Subject: Use of Images Obtained at Burning Man

Greetings to you at Fishtank LLC,

My name is Nathan Heller, and I am from Burning Man’s Intellectual Property Team.

I hope this email finds you very well.

It appears you have been to the Burning Man event, and therefore you may know we take two principles very seriously: Decommodification and Gifting. We do not allow commercial use of images obtained at the Burning Man event without our prior permission. 

It was recently brought to our attention that your website is using images obtained at the Burning Man event. 

We really appreciate your efforts in reaching out to and informing the broader Burning Man community about your amazing art cars and your services, but we must ask that you please make the following changes at your soonest convenience:

We see images obtained at the Burning Man event are included on these pages of your website:

http://www.fishtankllc.com/events.html

http://www.fishtankllc.com/mobile-art.html

We also see a video with footage obtained at the Burning Man event is included on this page of your website:

http://www.fishtankllc.com/press.html

Perhaps you are unaware, non-personal use of images and video obtained at the Burning Man event is prohibited without prior written permission from the Burning Man Organization. We define “non-personal” as beyond friends and family. Guided by protecting the principles of Decommodification and Gifting, we also prohibit third party commercial use of images and video obtained at the event without our prior written permission, and we cannot permit these uses. This information is found in the Terms and Conditions for entry into Burning Man, on the back of the Burning Man ticket, in the Survival Guide mailed to all participants, and on our website. You can read the Terms and Conditions here:

http://tickets2.burningman.com/info.php?i=2386

We really appreciate your art and year-round outreach to the broader community, but we must ask that you please remove all uses of images and video obtained at the Burning Man event from your website, and please notify me once you have made the changes.

Please let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to hearing from you at your soonest convenience.

You can read more on Burning Man’s approach to intellectual property here:

http://www.burningman.com/press/trademarks.html

Best Regards,

Nathan

___________

Nathan Heller
Burning Man Intellectual Property Team
nathan@burningman.com

“Brought to our attention” – ie some burnier-than-thou thought that snitching makes the world a better place. “Dear Burning Man. I would like to bring to your attention, that this art car says it is going to be at Burning Man. AND, they have a 12-second YouTube video at their site that appears to be from Burning Man. Yours truly, Anonymous”. ALERT ALERT! MAYDAY! Call in the SWAT team!

What’s the issue? Well, Fishtank, LLC has had money contributed to it by a number of people over the years. They formed an LLC to better keep track of the various contributions, which are in the tens of thousands from multiple people. It needs annual maintenance and the logistical expense of moving an art car like this around the country is quite high. They can keep finding more backers to gift money in, or the existing owners have to keep pouring money into it. It’s kind of like a boat, in this regard. Once you get it, you have to keep spending money on it whether you use it or not, and the more you use it, the more money you need to spend on it.

In the world of boats, most familiar to the people involved with FishTank, a standard model for this is Chartering. Which the Fish Tank does not do. We know of other Art Cars which are available for rent at certain events, such as the Lady Bugs from Brooklyn. But that doesn’t work, the FishTank is for fun, the owners want to be with it when it’s at all these events. The people who might want to rent it for Burning Man, are probably already on it and putting money into its expenses and upgrades.

What about selling tickets? That is completely against the open nature and design of the Fish Tank.  And against the Burner principles of Radical Inclusion and Decommodification. What about something like Tiki Island did – for a certain level of Kickstarter funding, you get seats for 2 people on an evening cruise. It’s possible, but just another form of ticket selling – and borderline a commercial use of the vehicle on the Playa.

So you’re left with fundraiser events and Kickstarter. And you can’t use any photos of the art car at Burning Man in any of them. No matter who took them. If there’s video of your art car on YouTube that someone else took, you can’t embed that in your site. Maybe, you can’t even link to it. People just have to take your word for it that the Art Car has been to TTITD.

Fish Tank wanted to be a bit different. If a corporate wants to use it for a big event or a photo shoot off Playa, they can book the whole thing to be at the event. It’s not like renting a car – this is a mobile art installation that has to be shipped cross-country, driven correctly, and maintained in a state of operation. If you’ve got the money, you can rent the Fish Tank, they’ll get it to you and drive you around. The ultimate limo.

But it’s not like they can do 3 of these events a week. Given the logistics, at best they would probably only get a few events per year. Which would pay for themselves and promote the Fish Tank further, but would also cause wear and tear on the vehicles and probably not leave them with enough profit to cover the storage cost and profit-forbidden Burning Man sharing.

Which left them with one other idea. They wanted to sell their own line of merchandise. This would be something they could do at any event they went to (except Burning Man). Often, after the parade is over, the Fish Tank stops, but people still mill around. Why not sell them a T-Shirt, or some quick-dry swim trunks?

None of these t-shirts mention Burning Man. None of these t-shirts have photos taken at Burning Man. They don’t even have a photo of the Fish Tank. So, how is it that Burning Man is being exploited by Fish Tank? How is Fish Tank hurting Burning Man, and what is the economic impact of that hurt? Anyone can go to YouTube and type “burning man fish tank” and see a hundred videos…but put a single one of those videos on your page, all of a sudden you’re attacking Gifting and Commodification, you’re exploiting Burning Man for your greedy personal commercial gain. YouTube, who sells ads while we’re watching videos, would seem to be the one who is actually doing this, actually making the money.

What did the Fish Tank do that was so bad in the eyes of Burning Man that they wanted to send their legal department on the offensive?

Well, let’s take a look. I will use screenshots because they may well change their web site to comply with Burning Man.

SCHEDULED APPEARANCES

2. Use of the words “Burning Man” or “Black Rock City”

Now, a word about words.  You may use the term “Burning Man” or “Black Rock City” as part of descriptive text, but do not use these words as the central adjective (or only adjective).   Burning Man does not want people confused about who is sponsoring or producing the event.  See the examples below.

 

Totally OK:

 

“A Fundraiser for Camp Forgotten Monsters at Burning Man.” Or

“A Fundraiser for the John Frum Institute Art Project at Burning Man,”

 

Not OK:

 

“Burning Man Fundraiser for Camp Forgotten Monsters.” or

“Burning Man Fundraiser for the John Frum Institute Art Project.”

 

Nuanced, but different. Two Fundraisers doing art events.

Reasonable enough, right? But irrelevant. Fishtank is not using the words Burning Man to promote a fundraiser, or an event that could be mistaken for some kind of association with Burning Man. It is using the words Burning Man to promote Burning Man! It is clearly saying that they will be at two upcoming festivals, one in Reno, and one Burning Man. They don’t claim to own Burning Man. No-one could possibly be confused about what this page says. The use of the words Burning Man is in the context of describing Burning Man. And, PS, they’re offering to gift rides for free to every single person who goes to that party. What’s in it for them? How is Fish Tank making money from this?

There’s got to be more to it than that. Well, not really. Let’s go to the next violations Nathan has pointed out:

Look familiar? Maybe, because you’re seen the Angler Fish Fish Tank at Burning Man. And you’ve seen Rob Buchholtz’s sculpture Wish, the high tech flower trees at  Burning Man. But this photo was taken at Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas. If an art piece was displayed at Burning Man once, does Burning Man deserve to get money any time that art piece is used away from Burning Man? Does Burning Man own any rights to photographs of things taken outside of Burning Man, if they were once at Burning Man?

Absolutely not. I would hope, not even for Honorarium Grant recipients – although I have to say, if it turned out that in order to get the grant you had to sign an even more onerous contract transferring the ownership of your art to Burning Man, it would not surprise me.

If you look at the photo above, it’s pretty easy to tell it’s not Burning Man. What are all those people doing wearing normal clothes? What are all the market stall tents in the background? You would think that in the circumstances (those being, not actually looking at the photo you are saying is a problem) BMOrg would open with the benefit of the doubt – “hey, we were wondering, are these photos from Burning Man, or something else”? But no, we don’t get reasonable doubt here. We don’t get innocent until proven guilty. We get “assume we’re in the right and you’re in the wrong because we’re BMOrg”.

Seriously. The guy didn’t even look at the photo. Look at it yourself and it’s clear.

Now, if these people were being disrespectful to Burning Man’s ownership policies, there would be photos all over this site of Fish Tank at Burning Man. There are none. Why is that? Surely that is because they are complying, not violating. But BMOrg doesn’t give them credit for this. It’s all or nothing – we’ll punish you for the 1%, not thank you for the 99%. No exceptions – except for the exceptions. Like, the Temple builder David Best. Nothing against David, I appreciate his art. But he was selling dinner with him at Burning Man for $1000 a pop. He certainly uses the words Burning Man to promote his career as a commercial artist, it would be hard for any major Burning Man artist not to. They should be able to.

Look at this a different way. What makes you think this photo is anything to do with Burning Man? It’s the art car, right?

We wrote about taking the Fish Tank to the Playa last July in this article: Shhhh…don’t mention Juplaya. I didn’t just write the article, I wrote the check to the logistics guys and bought the fuel. That stuff ain’t cheap…but it sure is fun. Guess what: if you go to the Black Rock Desert at other times of the year than Burning Man, it also can get dusty. And if you bring an Art Car with you , it might look like Burning Man. Especially if it’s a famous art car associated with Burning Man from Vogue magazine. But that doesn’t mean Burning Man owns it. Their permit for the commercial rights to the Playa is only for a small period of the year, anyone can show up at any time the rest of the year with art installations, art cars, theme camps, and take all the photos they want of it. They don’t even have to give BLM a cut, if it’s not an organized event.

So, what else? Well, this next one Fishtankllc is not disputing. Sure, they can take it down from their site – in fact I just checked, they already have. They can’t take it down from YouTube, it’s not theirs. The video belongs to whoever posted it, according to YouTube (part of Google). But is this really hurting Burning  Man?

Burning Man is going to make at least $25 million at the gate this year. This 12 second video – which really is illustrating the capacity of this art car to transport multiple people at any type of event – says nothing about Burning Man, doesn’t link the Fish Tank to Burning Man, and is clearly not confusing to anyone interested in the trademark “BURNING MAN” for Arts Festivals featuring some music. FishtankLLC are not throwing any such events.

Fish Tank took the link to this video down, but it is still there. On YouTube. Along with thousands of others. And, guess what? YOUTUBE IS MAKING MONEY OFF THEM. Here’s the most popular video, at 4.3 million views since last year someone is cashing in big time on all the hoop-la:

What is the problem Burning Man? Why is it OK for Google (which owns YouTube) to make tons of money out of Burning Man videos, and not OK for Fish Tank to link to 12 seconds of video hosted at that site, that doesn’t contain advertising of any sort, and really does not say anything or confuse anyone about Burning Man? They’re not showing the Man, they’re not showing any significant art work, they’re showing the Art Car they made and paid to take to your party and drive your guests around in.

Is it because you like to pick on the weak, but are afraid to pick on the real violators of your policies because that might be a tougher fight?

The more they force themselves out of the fund-raising process of the tribes, the more they will make themselves irrelevant to Burner culture. Embrace and extend, or resist and #fail.

I’m sad to say, I suspect there is some link between my past contributions to the expenses of this particular art car, their generosity in inviting me to off-Playa events with them that I covered on this blog, my recent post critical of the BMOrg’s IP policies…and this out of the blue attack from BMOrg accusing them of not understanding Gifting or Decommodification. Outrageous and unjustified charges, all Fish Tank can do is comply, there is no Ombudsman, no process of arbitration, no appeal. What’s fair, and what’s just, that never comes into the equation. It’s unfair and unjust for BMOrg to attack Fish Tank for using photos that have nothing to do with Burning Man. It’s unfair and unjust that Vogue does a photo shoot at Burning Man and features the vehicle, and Burning Man gets paid $150,000 by Vogue for photo shoots on the Playa, while the Fish Tank can’t even get a gas refill after driving handicapped kids around all day. But the greatest injustice of all, is that after everything Fish Tank has ever done for Burning Man, all it takes to incur the wrath of the BMOrg and being immediately accused of “being ignorant of and violating 2 of the sacred 10 principles” by the paid IP enforcer goons of the BMOrg…is linking to a 12 second YouTube video and providing the name and dates of the party.

If you don’t draw the line at this, then there is no line any more. Justice is over, tyranny has begun, we all mean nothing and must obey at all costs. “No spectators! You must participate so that we can monetize your radical self-expression! Content is king, the more unique the content you create for us at your expense and gift to our commercial organization to license it, the more we will be king! Do not use videos of Burning Man, unless you’re Google, then please make all the money you can from them so you can buy us!”

Wondering about all the fabulous outfits you’re going to need, for a week in the desert heat, a week in the cool desert nights, and a week in the freezing desert early mornings? That’s really three weeks worth of outfits, isn’t it? At least! Think of all the bikinis! Think of all the shoes! And sometimes it’s gonna be dusty, and sometimes it’s gonna be so hot you’re gonna want to be naked. And covered in sunscreen, of course.

Well, good news Burners. We’ve got some trunk shows coming up. If anyone knows of any others, please comment and I’ll update the list.

You can always go and swap out your costume for free, on the Esplanade at Kostume Kult (3:15)

Fellas, here’s a great selection of stores for you, compiled by an expert. I note Phoenix Rising gets #1, their stuff is great.

For the lady who has everything, here’s a bra that turns into a gas mask. Great if the big one hits.

You might like to check out Junkee in Reno, on the way to Burning Man.

Boulder, CO has one on August 10

The “Jypsy” Trunk Show has a new name! Don’t worry it still has with the same flare you’ve loved for years.  Again, Shine Restaurant in Boulder will open up there doors for us to throw down a fantastic afternoon of fashion, food and great beats. The CO Homegrown Trunk Show will be representing local artists and their creations. Sassy men’s and women’s fashions, jewelry, hula hoops and so much more. Pink Mammoths very own DJ Rolf Kirby will be blessing our ears with his smooth beats. Shine will be offering their amazing brunch, housemade beers, potions, and fresh pressed juices plus bottomless mimosas! Local, Organic, Affordable and FABULOUS!

New York Burners might want to check out my favorite store Gothic Renaissance in Manhattan. 110 4th Avenue.

In San Francisco, go get Mighty at Mighty – 30 fashion designers selling and modelling their Burner wares in a nightclub, what could possibly go wrong?

• • Sunday, 4 August 2013
  • 12:00 until 18:00

• We are thrilled to announce our 7th Annual Beyond the Fence Show at Mighty on June 30th & August 4th!

Our trunk show highlights over 30 local independent designers showcasing designs for both on and off the playa. We are very excited to be bringing you some new designers and kick off the shopping season properly

Enjoy an intimate shopping environment while listening to our resident DJ Felix the Dog and special guest!

The Designers:
ASH/N
Atousa
Aya Papaya
Blue Moon Designs
Dr. Cory
Dreamtime
Egan Thompson
Elisa Gonsalves
Ethereal Elements
Gata Designs
Gelerah Designs
Gita Salem
Glass Magpie
Griffin Wings
Grunge Voyage Apparel
Happy High Herbs
Hipstirr Belts
Invisible Hero
Jan Hilmer & Sparrow
Kayo Animae
Kracken Whip
Melanie’s Curiosities
Minerva’s Antennae
Miranda Caroligne
Miss Velvet Crème
Om Gia Tree
Opal Moon Designs
Pretty Kitty
Rock n’ Rocks
Sefirah Fierce Designs
SilverLucy Design
Skin on Skin Belts
SuperSugarRayRay
Tamo Design
The Window Lady
Tooth Gems by Foxy
Warrior Within Designs
more tba

Vendor Inquiries email: styledivisoinsf@gmail.com

There’s another show that same weekend, just round the corner at Cocomo. The good news is you can buy food and drinks at both these venues – great places for couples shopping!

Prepare for the Playa is in San Francisco, Aug 5. Organic Armor will be there.

Prepare for the Playa :

Sunday, Aug. 5th,  noon to 7 pm
at Cafe Cocomo
650 Indiana St.
San Francisco, CA 94107

Of course, there’s always Haight St. Yelp has a good list of Burner-friendly stores there.