This does not seem to be a secret club, but like most things in this world if you are networked in with the right people information vital to you or your community is available. In this case there are courses offered and workshops like:

• dealing with controversy / problem community members
• managing events taught by the one and only $tephen Raspa
• social networking by Will Pants who is the author of the JRS

Those are just some examples.

The additional benefit is networking itself and making strong contacts that might include your regional contacts. If you are not active in your geographic community this might be a window to do more and become a stronger force and evolve as a leader.

The leadership summit is for Regional Contacts and Community Leaders. The events class mentioned previously will give you the structure of building a regional, decom, precom or other event where you are protected legally and AND… if done right BMorg will help you promote it.

QUEER SUMMIT

WE the queers, in a formidable and fierce union, live by the 10 principles on and off the playa. There is a passive attitude by a lot of people on how and where the Queer Burner Culture fits into the Burner Culture as a whole. We are radically inclusive even if it is on the D-L (down-low) but offer a lot to the culture and are not always recognized for it.

Cost: Sliding scale will be asking for $25.00 / attendee for food and event expenses. No one who wishes to participate will be turned down for lack of funds

The proposal

Queer camp leaders, community leaders, get together for our own summit before the Burning Man Leadership Summit to talk about issues in our communities (geographically) and with our queer community relationship with the lifestyle.

Here are some initial agenda items proposed and with your feedback we will add more:

• your community (geographically) and your queer community; what is the relationship? Do you mesh? Share experiences and table for dialog
• your leadership and the relationship with BMorg; do you have an exchange of dialog?
• your vision of the present and future; if Burning Man is just a big party to you then you are probably not reading this
• Question: Should the LGBT+ community have their own Regional Contact(s)?
• Gay, Lesbian, Trans…
• standing out: Even Burning Man has said that the future of Burning Man is in it’s Regional Events; indicating that the desert event cannot go on forever and will end one day:
• Is it time for a Regional Event sponsored by or hosted by Queer Burners, open to all, and form a production team to make it happen?
• what you want brought to the Leadership Summit; what you want communicated to the Regional Contacts as a member of the community or a budding leader?

Dialog is already brewing and some discussions already on the table. It is time to actively reach out to BM Queer leaders. The one VERY IMPORTANT thing to remember is the word Queer before any of these terms is NOT EXCLUSIVE and not derogatory. We have some great hetero or hetero-adjacent friends that are a part of the community of all genders.

March 16th to the 18th / 2012 in San Francisco

If you can make it to the city we can help you with housing and food. You can chose to stay in a hotel on your own dime, but we are a community and have a lot of members in the SFO area that are there for you, too.

The Weekend will look like this:

Friday: Cocktail Reception: Meet & Greet

Saturday:

• 9:00 Morning knosh: Coffee and pastries; bacon too!
• 10:00 Round Table and Break out
• 10:45 Groups
• Sexuality
• Art and Culture
• My Geographic Community
• Conflict Resolution
• 11:50 Main Hall
• 12:00 Lunch
• 13:00 Main Hall: Speakers
• Should we have our own Regional Contact through BMorg (Scott Kay/Toaster) and who/what should it/they be?
• TBA (If you want to be added please let us know through the contact page)
• 15:00 Theme Camps: How, What, When and Where
• 16:00 Break
• 16:20 Groups 2
• TBA
• 17:00 Main Hall: Closing Ceremony
• 21:00 Party at REBEL

Sunday:

• Walking/Bus/Train/Trolley tour of Burning Man in the Bay Area
• Art in the Community: Karen Causito’s work, Gothic Ray Gun Rocket Ship, Bliss Dance and much much more…
• The ARTery Project

This will change slightly over time and your contributions and suggestions will also fill things in. Please let us know via email through the contact form of your intentions.

VENUE: TBA but will be centrally located and easily accessible by train and bus. It is not recommended that you rent a car as parking in this city is hell and expensive.

PLEASE RSVP ON FACEBOOK IF YOU CAN [LINK]

Leadership Summit Attendance Form and Fee Payment

How many people attending?

Paying for 1 2 People 3 People

Burning Man is what a person brings to it and the experience taken from it is individual. However, the participants around you in this experimental city (it’s citizens) are more Caucasian/Heterosexual than anything else. Many seem to be affluent but that data is less scientific than personal experience; really about 50/50.

Ethnicity at Burning Man, was recently discussed and a blog writer who posted on blog.burningman.com noted the distince lack of African American, Asian and Hispanic people out there.

“…according to the 2010 Black Rock Census only 13% of event attendees consider themselves to be a person of color – noticeably lower than the national population of 28% (according to 2010 census data – although it’s not entirely comparing apples to apples).” -quote from post

“White people in America have a working assumption that they can go anywhere and be reasonably safe.  Historically, that has not been a realistic assumption for minorities.  For too many of them, for too many generations, it has been essential that they avoid dangerous environments and heed warning signs.

“White people expect that they’re going to be okay,” I was told.  “Black people think that they need to be prepared for something extremely bad to happen.   That means differences in behavior.” - another quote from post

On the other hand, in the same reasons given by the writer, the quickly growing queer population, seems to be much more diverse in color and economic reality. Camp Dickstracted for example is an almost all Hispanic population.

“This might be coming form a different mindset in another discussion similar or close to this one as the demographic I see that is more diverse is the queer population. It is growing out there… more diverse… and often plays in their own burner reality out there. “ – quote from comment made

Please feel free to check out this great post: [click here]

- Authors note: I looked for relative images through google image search for this piece and not a single person of ethnicity of than Caucasian showed up.

• black people at burning man
• asian burning man
• people at burning man

weird

Someone on the list said: “Stop bitchin’, it works for Flipside…“* Newsflash flower girl, this ticket feeding frenzy is not the same thing. If there were a million or so hits on the ticket site and hundreds of thousands registered because Burning Man was on their bucket list… or gee it sounds so neato… where does it leave the returning members of the community?

Admittedly, changing to the lottery system was scary and the answers missing… many within the community are still staring wide-eyed into their email boxes waiting.

“Unfortunately your chances have been greatly reduced. Due to so much attention brought to our fair city via the timely release on the day of ticket lottery opening of “oh the places we’ll go” (over 1 million hits during the ticket registration) the release of a televised Burning Man story in Europe, countless sites & people touting “GET YOUR TICKETS NOW” all over the interweb. This facebook page alone gained over 8,000 new people during the two week registration period. No one but BMorg will ever know the exact number of registrants, but with all the buzz put out there at the exact time the ticket lottery was open, yours and my chances of getting our cherrished ticket went down significantly. Still keeping my fingers crossed I WIN the opportunity to BUY a ticket!”

- Posting on the Burning Man Facebook page

There was an interesting survey leading into the registration that one might hope will give weight to whomever gets the golden ticket. While eagerly waiting for “Fertility 2.0″ some have already resigned themselves from going because of this ticket nightmare.

Some have resigned themselves to seeing what they could get in the final 10,000 tickets at $420 each.

The best thing is a wait and see attitude and not take this as a smack in the face by BMorg. Be positive and hope for the best. Burners don’t do conflict or drama.

When the Lottery was announced there was fear and loathing… we have yet to see if it was all worth it.

While we all chomp at the bit for Burning Man 2012 (yet unthemed) but rumored (sigh) to be Fertility 2.0 (sigh again) other carrots are being dangled in our faces as well. Tickets this year will be highly coveted as it looks like once again there has been no increase in the allotted attendees for the 2nd year in a row (unconfirmed).

Keep that eye on the prize and get that ticket now or as early as possible to avoid the drama of last year’s sold-out status. This year WILL sell out again… now it is a matter of how fast. This ambiguous and mixed emotional lottery is either gunna cause a swarm of panic or turn people off and only the aftermath will tell. If Tier 3 sells out then the lottery was successful in this estimation.

Regional Events

Digressing, other amazing events also opened for ticket sales too. Regional events are micro burner events on various scales throughout the world.

• Lightening In A Bottle: seriously popular regional is out there selling tickets already…
• Forgotten City 2: Las Vegas new regional announced ticket sales last week…
• Element-11 in Salt Lake City announced ticket sales and dates, but the exciting this is they increased sales up to 1000 from 600.

These are just a couple of examples. Many of the upcoming events are HIGHLY coveted and sell out fast! When you see these and can afford them… GO!

For newbies BE READY! Join local burners and get involved in your community. How do you find them??? The first and best place to start is the regional list on the BurningMan[dot]Com web site.

Lottery registration opens today!

Queer Camps

Who are you camping with and are you going Solo???? Start your shopping now… check out the Queer Camps list on the site and it will be updated in April when the new list is posted.

Decommodification as it applies to Burning Man at the event itself manages to keep corporations and corporate sponsorship out of it. Even U-Haul trailers are taped over. 1-888-Travel America RV’s have strategically placed tape refusing to advertise even on rented vehicles for the week.

Decommodification as a concept comes from the idea that in a market economy, individual persons (and their labor) are commodified. Given that labor is the individual’s primary commodity in the market, decommodification refers to activities and efforts (generally by the government) that reduces individuals’ reliance on the market (and their labor) for their well-being. – [source]

The concept is not for the eradication of a corporate entity, but it’s dependance on commercialism as a driving influence over our dependencies and external influences.

In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience. – [source: BurningMan(dot)Com]

In 2007 the event was called Green Man and it was a year where commercialism infiltrated the event under the guise of Green technologies selling green ideas. “Pretending that environmental problems don’t exist, or just running away from them, won’t solve them, but we think turning potential solutions into mind-blowing art has a chance to make an impact.” It was also the year hamburgers were sold in center camp, oddly enough.

The premise is we are free of coka-cola billboards and that kind of influence. There is this video from the golden era of Burning Man featuring Hellco that is worth a view.

Be sure and check out @OccupyBurners on Twitter too

One of the icons of Burning Man and all things Burning Man is a community figure named Halcyon. Here is an entry from his blog:

Halcyon is a leader with Pink Heart Camp and Hug Nation. There are links at the end of his video as well as a very good series of Burning Man video hints, tips and other helpful information.

SPARKLE PONY, –NOUN, One of the Burner Principles is Radical Self-Reliance. Everyone at a Burn event is expected to bring everything they need to survive for the duration of the event — food, clothes, water and shelter. Yet this principle overlaps with another — the gift economy, where Burners share what they have with those that need. Of course there are those who take advantage of this by coming to the event poorly prepared.

A sparkle pony is a Burner who is under-prepared for basic survival but still managed to pack 2 suitcases full of fabulous outfits. He or she expects the community to take up the slack because they’re just so wonderful and drama inevitably follows when expectations are not met. – [source on ePlaya]

Radical Self Reliance

Burning Man provides a detailed survival guide on the main web site and a few cute phrases that really have import meaning:

Piss Clear!

That means stay hydrated. That means don’t be a douche and party your balls off without remembering to get plenty of fluids. All too often people do not come with enough water. Although many camps generously bring extra you should not expect others to cover your needs on any level.

The same goes with food, sleeping space and anything else needed for survival for the week.

According to the Urban Dictionary a Sparkle Pony is: A high maintenance person at the Burning Man Festival who is unprepared for the harsh camping environment and becomes a burden to their camp-mates.

What not to Bring?

It’s a good question, but the answer really is what should you bring? All those are covered in the above and the survival guide. You need to have all the essentials that will allow you to survive in the middle of no where for however many days you plan on attending.  It’s just that simple.

There are things Burning Man does ask people not to bring that is always in the guide. Anything that creates MOOP (Matter Out Of Place) like feathers or paper or anything else that can break loose and blow across the playa.

Conclusion

Avoid being a Sparkle Pony if you can. Do your research and do your due-diligence and you will have a hell of a lot more out of the experience. A prepared Burner is a Happy Burner.

More than that there is those said principles that get a gray area like nothing else, but a body of the burner community can be robust in their application of the principles. One R.C. (Regional Contact) I know called it Churchification, but an aggressive point of view versus a more laid back application run the gambit in the community as a whole.

Quite simply the 10 Principles are not the 10 Commandments. While the 10 Commandments are great for a national basic series of laws to live by, the principles are ideal for a community or communities that are part of that nation.

Talking about Burning Man

“…going to Burning Man is on my bucket list…”

- same quote from about 500 Twitter users

There is a world of difference with newbies who have a natural inclination to the Burning Man lifestyle versus the Frat Boy going out to crunch beer cans. Talking about these principles and applying them will affect these people differently potentially. Talking about ‘why‘ Burning Man is more than a week long event insights some interesting reactions.

“She told me she was planning on going to Burning Man next year in our discussion over coffee. We were meeting in a local cafe called “Cafe Flore” that has a Burning Man    Man on the roof and is owned by Burners. We were meeting because she was going to provide me a service and was interviewing me for this service… but she kept going back to ‘why‘ is Burning Man in your life beyond some festival that happens 7 days a year?

“When I tried explaining that the 10 Principles include things like radical self reliance, radical self expression, community involvement, etc… I explained these were things that were are not the 10 Commandments.  But she countered:

‘Why wouldn’t a normal person just do the right thing? Why is Burning Man in your life beyond some festival that happens 7 days a year?’

“Not everyone just does the right things and we are looking this as guidelines for a community. It’s a culture. It’s an ideal.

“I kept the story as to why it was important to me, naturally unable to speak for others, but in her frustration she shut down our conversation obviously irritated. She terminated our business and walked away implying I had lost my mind.”

- Just Scott

How many Burners experienced this reaction? It is hard at this time to find something to compare this to.

Distilling this reaction to Fear or Anger of something that a person cannot clearly ‘wrap their head around’ over simplifies the severe response. Perhaps a psychologist can offer some insight?

General Recap

The principles are what they are. 10 great guidelines that have a wide gray line on both sides. How deep they follow you beyond the trash fence is just as individual as the participant at the event. So, if you have an adverse reaction to information about the event in the life of someone else – maybe this is not for you.

“In the course of our conversation and how she kept referring to it being just a 7 day event that begins and ends and then, as she said, ‘people return to their normal lives’ I gave her a suggestion. I said, in the nicest way possible, cushioning it and told her: Maybe Burning Man is really not for you.”

- Just Scott

So, what else can you say? Feel free to add your thoughts below.

While at Burning Man and since I have had the pleasure… no “pleasure” does not even describe… bliss of meeting members of the site in all corners. Sometimes in some surprising places.

The site and our Facebook page is really busy and it goes far beyond the numbers of registered users at each location.

• 390 People on Facebook
• 273 Fully Registered on GB
• 319 according to the backend which means about 40ish people have not finished their registration.

August is ‘shockingly’ a busy month for Burners. The facebook page in August had 100,000 freaking views!!!!! I was awestruck when I saw that information. The web site had 5,200 visitors 3,600 of which never saw the site before!

Of course in September the numbers dropped more dramatically on the Facebook to 23,500 for September, but that is nothing to sneeze at. Web site 3,160 views with 2,690 new visitors; at least according to Analytics and Insights.

Why is this important?

This is not a pat on the back for me. NO! Sounds like it maybe, but when I meet people who tell me they appreciate this site and the links/info on it I want you to see it’s relevance to us as a whole. Each one of you are a cell to a body and that body is part of a collective community and we all are so strong together irregardless of gender identity, race, orientation or social status. This site is a gift to you from each other.

On the site…

There are a few very relevant articles on the site right now I want people to take a look at when you get the chance. The last two major postings were themed with the 10 principles:

• Civic Responsibility: “Civic Results” featuring a group of giving burners in L.A.
• Radical Inclusion: “Homo/Hetro Genus of…” on queers in the Burning Man matrix

There is more. There seems to be a natural link between Queer Burners and the Radical Faeriecollective and the site will put it’s toe into that. Would love your feedback. A couple members are going to be talking about that more moving forward.

New Security

I am working on trying to find the best solution for protecting the site from Spam postings. Most of which you all never see because I have filters protecting the integrity of the site. If you have problems let me know. Too many bad attempts at logging in will lock you out. So, if 3 times you try and can’t get in use the reset feature.

Getting Traction!

I am looking for suggestions on what you want to see this site do. If you are a PHP guru and can help develop some ideas in the form of widgets for a WordPress site like this please let me know.

The guys that made the interactive maps that were unveiled this year like burnermap on Facebook and the one on BurningMan[dot]Com … I talked to both hopefully putting a bug in their ear for widgets or something for sites like ours that would benefit.

Closing

Thank you all so much for being a part of this. I will be posting this on the site as  an article for those not receiving email. About 1/3 of you are not getting email from the site. I would also like to thankComfort and Joy for their amazing support.

We also have a new domain pointing to the site and all new art! We have www.queerburners.com pointing to www.gayburners.com … after all we’re all queer.

Love&Light to you all…
Toaster aka Scott