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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Burning Man )'( v4: Last year was better
 
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop



:pervert: BURNING MAN GOON MEET! Friday of the event, at 4pm, 3:15 and A at Home Brew Haus :pervert:


Welcome to our fourth Burning Man megathread, where you can ask burner goons about everything you might need to know about That Thing in The Desert, and regionals and burn-related events. Share your pictures and experiences of the festival, and generally discuss how this year is going to suck and also probably be the dustiest year EVER!

What's Burning Man?

It’s a lot of things but the fundamentals are as follows. It’s a 60,000 (ish) strong, seven-day long festival that takes place in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada at the end of August over labour day weekend.

But apart from that, it’s everything. It’s a massive playground for everyone of all ages.

It’s the most mindblowing collection of beautiful art and installations you will ever see in your life, all lit up at night for miles around like a big playground. It’s DJs and dancing in a dust storm wearing next to nothing with thousands of other people while a flame thrower goes off next to you. It’s stumbling upon a parade of a thousand people dressed as rabbits demanding rights for bunnies as they converge on the thunder dome. It’s thousands of bars, all free, serving everything from mimosas to beer, horrible skittle vodka and shots of rum. It’s loads of nudity, everywhere. It’s sitting silently at the temple at sunrise on your own before chasing an art car that looks like a church you can hear in the distance playing your favourite song.

It’s a massive playground for everyone of all ages. It’s home.

And it’s almost impossible to describe! But the stories people have to share are a good place to start!



Participation and the 10 principles

Most all, almost everything you enjoy to Burning Man was provided by your fellow burners for *you* to enjoy. This spirit of giving and wanting to provide happiness for everyone makes it one of the most, if not the most, wonderful, loving and accepting environments on earth.

Participation is key – and one of the 10 principles. No one is a spectator. If someone needs help, you help. And visa versa. This can be anything, from picking up a scrap of trash you see on the ground, to offering to face paint people. Giving people gifts, food, advice. There is nothing nicer than going up to a complete stranger, offering them an ice cold beer from your cooler and then walking off – except, perhaps, someone doing the same for you! You can do anything. Climb, create, build, be someone else.

There’s other important principles – Leave No Trace is key. At Burning Ma, you cannot leave trash anywhere. Cigarette butts are a no. Do not pour out your gross flat vodka coke on the playa. Do not disgard that empty can behind the portapotties. This is called MOOP (Matter Out Of Place) and MOOP is bad mmkay.




The environment and survival

The playa [pronounced ply-uh] is an exceptionally harsh environment. Attending Burning Man is not for the faint hearted and it is an endurance test. The weather is impossible to predict. It could be hotter than 100F/37C in the day while freezing at night. Dust storms and ‘whiteouts’ – where it gets so dusty you honestly cannot see your hand in front of your face – are common, and the dust is famous for eroding your electric gear, loving up your car’s AC, dying out your skin and getting into ever available nook and cranny imaginable.

You can survive it! As long as you are prepared!



I don’t drink or take drugs, will I enjoy it?

YES. There’s a lot of misconceptions around the idea that you have to be off your face to enjoy the festival. While a lot of people are drunk or high at Burning Man, there’s SO MUCH (and I cannot stress this enough) to see and do that you will absolutely have the time of your life. And if you don’t like the atmosphere of where you are, just go somewhere else. An article here.


Okay, I’m sold. I want to go to Burning Man. How do I do this?

Tickets for 2014 - http://tickets.burningman.com/
They're gone! If you missed out, register on STEP when it opens, or in the OMG sale, or try to find someone who's selling. Don't pay bajillions of dollars for a scalper ticket. these can be voided and are against the spirit of the event a hundred times over.

Try to get a ticket through other means – Craigslist, Eplaya and other online communities. Be calm when the ticket system falls over and crashes. It’s all part of the burn maaaan.

New for 2014 is the Vehicle Pass. If you plan to drive into Black Rock City, get a vehicle pass. These are likely to be scarce this year thanks to ticket panic and there being a lot less on offer than actual tickets.

How do I prepare for a week in the desert?

Read the survival guide. Read the survival guide. Read the survival guide.

This is a big one, especially as many of us come from far away and are limited by what we can carry on the plane. You’ll probably be in a tent, if you don’t go for the RV option.

Some essentials that you need to remember to get. Remember you cannot buy anything on the playa apart from ice and coffee. Some camps will give away food or drinks – this is to be viewed as a bonus and definitely not a way to subsist.
  • Water. A minimum of a gallon per person per day. More if you intend to cook, wash yourself or dishes .
  • Food. To quote Alfajor, OP of the previous thread, “. This is pretty hard, especially for first-timers, but you can't rely on anyone else but yourself. If you can't think of anything, at least pack a bunch of bagels, MREs, salami, granola bars and stuff that doesn't spoil easily.”
  • Lights. There’s no public lighting and there are bikes, art cars and all kinds of things running around the playa at all hours of the night. At the very minimum, a headlamp worn around your neck will do. At the best, EL-wire (which you can buy online and is really fun) LEDs, battery operated Christmas lights. You want to glow like the beautiful fairy you are.
  • Toiletries. Suncream! Chapstick! Wet wipes! All of the obvious, as well as a small amount of white vinegar which you can rub on your hands and feet to counteract the alkalinity of the dust which can cause some skin problems for some people.
  • Dust mask and goggles. When a dust storm whips up around you, you want to have these on you.
  • A fabulous cup. Bars do not provide cups, most of the time. Having a cup (ideally with a carabiner clip) allows you to handily enjoy all the booze, coffee, lemonade and other liquid delights on offer on the playa.
  • Clothes. It’s very very hot in the day. It can be very cold at night. Some years, it’s been cold in the day. Be prepared. Bring a hat with a string so it won’t blow off your head non-stop. And if you’ve ever wanted to dress up like a nun/a unicorn/a man-robot-bear-pig hybrid in a tutu, now’s your chance.
  • Your ID (if you are over 21 and plan to drink.) Most bars will ID you. One genius solution to the anxiety of losing your ID is to photocopy it, glue it to your cup, and leave your real ID in your tent.
Here is an extraordinary packing list that is a bit on the excessive side, but still excellent reading. - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AnZUbqyodtS2cGpZMG4yaWY2SDJYVTlyUkExOVBNWFE&output=html



Do I need a bike?
Yes! 100%! Wait, no! Not at all!

Lots of people get around Burning Man by bike, but it can be a bit of a hassle trying to organise to get one. It’s definitely nice to have, but not an essential – look into registering with a rental service like Kiwanis (asap though, as they’ve just opened and it will sell out soon.) Make sure you know what you’re doing after with it. You CANNOT leave it on the Playa as trash. Some people prefer not to have bikes because it allows them to walk around, and take in and interact with the festival more, rather than nipping from A to B.


Should I join a camp? How do I find a camp?
This varies from what you’re after, but I would personally recommend joining a camp, especially if you’re in your first year. It’s a great way to meet people, get involved in building and make friends, and enjoy communal shady rest areas you wouldn’t have if you camped solo.

Expect to pay camp fees, though they can vary wildly depending on which camp you’re in and how much is provided for you. $100 is a good baseline, but I met people out there who paid $400, $500, some of which didn’t even cover food fees, which the campers had to bring in with them. Camp fees usually help the camp with storage, transport, infrastructure, as well as nice additions such as communal shade, a shower with an evap pond and so on.

Finding a camp can be daunting if you don’t have a clue on the first way to start so look on Eplaya, Burning Man facebook groups, and talk to burners. Which brings me nicely to my next point.

And come to the on playa Burner goon meet up! It happens every year usually midweek I think. Or so I hear. I've failed at every attempt to get to one.)

Regionals and burners near you
This is an important part! Get to know your local burner scene. Look online to find out about local events in your area, and get involved. Burning Man pub meet ups are a wonderful way to meet people, and a great way to find out about camps, bikes, rideshares and other resources you’ll need out there, as well as being the best drat night out in town.

Additionally, I've attended several regional burn events (Nowhere and French Burn Weekend) and they are absolutely wonderful. If you don't think you can make it to Burning Man, consider going to a closer regional!

I live in [middle of nowhere] and none of my friends want to go! Should I go half way across the world alone to Burning Man?
Yes. Absolutely. And you wouldn't be the first. As long as you prepare adequately, you’re likely to have the time of your life. It costs a lot of money and time to get set up properly, but as long as you’re prepped, you’ll be grand.


Burning Man resources

Photos
There's a million photos of Burning Man everywhere but here’s a couple of galleries to start you off.
Videos
A shitload of videos, because more is more!!


Are Daft Punk playing?
Trash fence. Sunrise. Don’t miss it.

Goons on the playa!
Photos of us, by us, around us, etcetera.

urei posted:

Funny because the first thing that a greeter said to me when I drove into burning man was
Greeter: “Are you bringing any drugs or alcohol into the camp ground?”
Me: “Uh…”
Greeter: “Why the gently caress not? Go and have a good time!”
Me: “OK!”
what a great way to start the week.

BlueBayou posted:

On the last morning we were there, my friend and I went out for a ride… just to see what we could find, no real destination in mind. We rode past a big ole white tent where there were people drinking and as we passed someone inside called out and asked if we wanted to take the Whiskey Taste Test. Hell yes we did.
Turns out it was a big camp full of Texans with weird poo poo written on the walls such as ‘Time for pie” “God drat this is some big hippy nonsense” and my personal favorite “‘Go drink water’ is the new ‘gently caress Off!’” Anyway the whiskey taste test was pretty simple. The bartender had about ten bottles from different kinds of alcohol (so like gin bottles, vodkas bottles, whiskey bottles etc), but they were all filled with whiskey… and he told you they were all filled with whiskey. You picked a bottle and he’d pour you a shot. You’d down it.. and then the test – “Did that taste like whiskey?” “Uh.. yes.. of course..?” “YOU WIN!!!!” “What do I win?” “Another shot!!!”
We stayed there most of the day. Helped move a broken truck on to a flatbed tow truck. Watched a guy fall asleep in a chair with his shoes on, get drawn on, then taken away by medical once it was determined he was really out of it. Then we ate a while bunch of their leftover food, played in their giant pit full of stuffed animals, and watched some people in the next camp over set a car on fire.
Wandering around during the day and finding a place to stop for a drink was always the best.

minato posted:

Everyone has a Burning Man Moment. My favorite last year was going for a 2am bike ride out into the desert. There couldn’t have been a soul within a mile’s radius of me. I noticed a small winking light off in the distance and headed towards it. In the middle of nowhere, it was… a parking meter. My friend’s moment was when he was caught alone out in the desert in a sandstorm. He was wandering aimlessly for a while, safe but disoriented, when out of the dust a bus slowly rolled up to him. The driver leaned out and offered him a hot dog.

spite house posted:

In ’01 my campmates and I were hanging around our geodesic dome at about 10 in the morning, eating corned beef hash and gradually emerging from our collective stupor, when we heard a very loud voice with a thick Russian accent hailing us from the doorway. “HELLO MY FRIENDS!”

It was a mid-30s dude in a disheveled 3-piece suit, brandishing an enormous bottle of Skyy vodka. “I LOVE AMERICA!” he said. “I COME FROM RUSSIA! IN RUSSIA IS RULES, RULES, RULES! HERE? NO RULES! VODKA FOR MY NEW FRIENDS!” We turned the Skyy into Dusty Marys (vodka and V-8, ice optional) and got to know our visitor.

It turned out that he was an academic at some backwater college in Russia, who had been at a conference with a bunch of Berkeley heads. The Berkeley heads took a liking to him and invited him to Burning Man. He flew from Moscow to San Francisco and thence to Reno, where the Berkeley camp scooped him up and took him straight to the playa. He had never been to America before; Burning Man was his introduction. Of course he had to know that Black Rock City is not a realistic representation of an average American city of 40K, but I still can’t even imagine what that must have been like.

He was old enough to remember Soviet life pre-glasnost. We asked him why he wasn’t drinking Russian vodka. “I DO NOT TRUST RUSSIAN VODKA,” he said darkly. “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY PUT IN.”

HappyHelmet posted:

As I mentioned before, in 2007 I was volunteering with the Rangers. It was my first time volunteering, and while I have to say it was pretty great being a part of the Rangers sometimes it felt a little too much like work for me. Regardless of that it was Thursday morning, and I had made sure to take Thursday off. Why Thursday? It happens to be one of the biggest party nights at the event. Typically by Thursday all the theme camps have finished getting fully setup, and there is also a large influx of new people who come in that day as well. Also in regards to 2007 it was widely rumored that Paul Oakenfold was there, and would do a set that Thursday night. Personally I’m not that into the guy, but hey, Paul Oakenfold what the hell right?

I was with a theme camp during this year, and had gotten into the event a few days before the masses had started to arrive. So its important to note I was 5-6 days deep into an on again off again marathon alcohol bender. I’d sober up a bit for when I had Ranger duty, but off duty it was all water, beer, bourbon, gin, and a bit of coffee to keep me motivated. I was at that point where you can no longer tell if your drunk or sober no matter how much I drink because your body just doesn’t know what the gently caress anymore. Anyways, back on track, its Thursday morning, and I’m chilling with my camp mates drinking a few beers. I explain that tonight is gonna be a good night to drink up, and have a good time. It was agreed that we would meet up at the camp later in the evening, and I made plans to go out with a few of the less douchey ones. In the meantime I decided it was time to hike across the playa to the steam bath camp I had found earlier in the work, and clean myself up a bit before the night-time festivities. I mixed up a bottle of gin and juice (heavy on the gin) slung my bag over my shoulder, and was off.

I left the steam bath about an hour later feeling clean from having sweated off some of that dust, and by now it was pushing 1’o clock. The sun was really starting to heat up (2007 was a very hot year). Naturally the “Margarita Dome” that was less than a block away was the next stop, and soon I was chilling in the shade sipping on an icy margarita shooting the breeze with some random other people that were hanging out in there. I don’t remember exactly how long I was there, but it must have been an hour before I left to head back toward camp. Needless to say between getting cleaned up in the steam bath, and the booze I was feeling pretty drat good at this point.

When the dust storm hit… When it hit I was roughly half way between the Man, and the side of the horseshoe that my camp was on. I was totally exposed to the full extent of the dust storm. I literally couldn’t see 3 ft in front of me, and was being pelted by a barrage of pea sized chunks of playa. I inevitably stumbled into one of the wooden lamp posts that line the street out there, and hunkered down as best I could for shelter. Another fellow camper in the same predicament stumbled over, and did the same. I still had a bit of gin and juice left so we passed the bottle while we waited it out.

After 10-15 minutes the storm finally sub-sided enough that I was able to high-tail it over to the camping area where the tents help provide some shelter from the dust storms. As I reached the Esplanade I caught the smell of rain on the air…

spite house posted:

The Tuna Guys are a bunch of grizzled fishermen from the San Juan Islands, who catch about two tons of albacore to bring to Burning Man every year. They know how to transport it so it stays fresh and safe, and they will give you as much raw tuna as you can put back (in my case, that’s a lot.)

It turns out that sashimi is the perfect playa food. I can’t even tell you how unbelievably delicious it is. The Tuna Guys are so popular that their camp isn’t mapped; if it were their supplies wouldn’t last a day. You have to ask around to find out where they are. In addition to their amazing tuna contributions, they are also super-sweet and awesome. (And they love barbecue.)

spite house posted:

Ha! Playaritas own, and by "own" I mean "would be absolutely awful anywhere but Burning Man". Here's a short list of specialty playa cocktails. Virgins will probably be aghast, but JUST YOU WAIT.

Playarita: lemon-lime Gatorade and tequila.
Playakaze: same but with vodka.
Dusty Mary: vodka and V-8.
Playadriver: tangerine Emergen-C and (you guessed it) vodka.

All to be served in either a sticky plastic camp mug with a layer of dust at the bottom of it, or a dented Aqua-Fina bottle also with a layer of dust at the bottom of it. Purists will say that ice is inauthentic, but if the ice came right out of the same cooler the beer is sitting in, they might allow it.

God I love Burning Man.

Neris posted:

I actually had a really great moment there. I was on my lovely playadate, walking with my arm around this person, and these two guys rush up to us.

"Guys! We want to try an experiment! I'm from this bar, and my friend is from that one <points to other side of street.> Our two camps need to unify, we want to bring them together, so we want one of you to go to this bar, and one of you to go to the other bar, right now, and get a drink, then meet back here, without saying another word." It was pretty fun - and the guy in the other bar who gave me the monster energy drink with vodka and cranberry was absolutely lovely considering I lost my ID earlier that night, let me have a drink, I gave him an LED finger light and he went crazy.

liz con queso posted:

Funny story, actually. My friend Jenn that brought the coconuts was at our camp alone and offering them to people who went by on the street. She stopped a couple of people on their bikes and asked "would you like a fresh young coconut?!" The two people absolutely lost their poo poo, and told her they had just gone to a little camp near us not 5 minutes earlier where you could write a wish on a rock with a pen and then put it together with all the other wishes. They'd actually written on the rock "I want a fresh young coconut!"

The next day, I stumbled upon that very same camp, and a stranger handed me one of the rocks with a wish on it. What did it say?

"I want a fresh young coconut!"

So weird. SO Burning Man.

Neris posted:

ll leave it at this. There's 68,000 people at Burning Man. I'm walking around with this lovely boy from the Duck Pond who I'm compeltely smitten with who's completely eager to dance. We end up at 2 O Clock on Tuesday night, and head into a place that looks to be serving booze, I'm not sure what I got but it was delicious (though my ID had vanished in that dust storm earlier in the night - which I got back on Saturday, miracles do happen!)

As my friend goes in, I started talking to someone.

"Oh yeah, man, it's my second year but we built a loving camp man, we serve margaritas! It's the poo poo! And I had this mermaid party earlier today and oh my god it was the absolute best thing you can't even imagine"

"Neris?"

"Uhhh... what?"

"Are you Neris? From the forums?"

And it's another loving goon . The odds, guys. The odds of meeting him, mentioning the party, and knowing that mermaid party was MY PARTY. I just about fell over. Your name was Jazz, I think? That was crazy as gently caress. Holy gently caress hahahaha. I love you guys.


Additions welcome!

Neris fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Sep 6, 2014

* # ¿ Feb 16, 2014 19:30
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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 04:48
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
Is that because of the 'Embrace' suggested design for the temple?



I'm not sure I'm digging it personally. I like the design but for the temple, it's not doing it for me.

* # ¿ Feb 17, 2014 13:33
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
After my friend lost his passport on the playa running for his life from the hot embers falling from the man burn (we were sitting at 10 O Clock), and my ID card got lost - then handed in thank go - at Lost and Found, I think I'll stick to a photocopy when I go again, just in case!

Not sure when it got more stringent though. I don't remember being ID'd ever when I went in 2011 apart from one time, I think, but this year it was absolutely everywhere.

* # ¿ Feb 24, 2014 23:36
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
poo poo, seems like this year was a hell of a lot smoother of a ride than the previous two. Congratulations to everyone who got them! Time to start panicking about playa lung I guess. Start your lung-purification prep now.

* # ¿ Feb 26, 2014 23:43
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
Get on the STEP right away. The OMG sale is a teeny tiny release of a final 1,000 tickets - I wouldn't bank on it.

If you get a ticket but aren't sure if you can go, you can definitely sell it again. I know this kind of thinking is probably what contributes to the overall panic situation around tickets but this is the advice I'd give.

Had a camp meeting the other night to bring The Flaming Merkin to Nest, the UK regional (in it's second year!) and Nowhere, the European regional which I am firmly in love with. I can't wait. Y'all gonnna love Burning Man but my regionals are so wicked, I can't get over it. Heading over for Paris Decompression in April too.

* # ¿ Feb 28, 2014 10:48
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
I'd really like to put some goon pics of Burning Man on the OP, of themselves or shots of random stuff, not necessarily gorgeous DSLR shiny pics, if anyone has any they want to share! I love the less polished, more real photos.

I have this to offer - it's our camp mid-party.


Anyone else?

* # ¿ Mar 3, 2014 14:40
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
I'm pale as snow with dry skin. I was fine - nowhere on earth makes you more likely to be diligent about suncream and moisturising than a dry hot dusty desert.

* # ¿ Mar 6, 2014 16:49
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
Have you read the survival guide? Go do that first.

* # ¿ Mar 11, 2014 16:19
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
How serious are you about going? If you jump in, jump in, you can actually do it as it's months away. Just get on the STEP when it opens - it's way too early for people to be reselling generally speaking right now - and commit yourself to attending and this time next year you can't be saying "gently caress, i actually did it"

* # ¿ Mar 25, 2014 10:25
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop

OniKun posted:

In my experience, it usually goes like this:

"Okay, we are never doing X again. Let's do 1/4 of x."

"Well... how about 1/2 of x?"

"Okay, 4 times more x it is."

Pretty much. We are bringing a bar to the UK regional, instead now it is actually *two* bars with an additional room and the whole thing is happening in 1.5 months and nothing is done. Bring on the fun!

* # ¿ Mar 30, 2014 02:34
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
How's everyone's planning going?

I've been hitting up fairly non-stop burner related events - I attended the UK regional burn in Wales which was 300 people, rain, farmland, tea, a river that someone put a picnic table in which worked really well, a bar, and a lot of crazy partying in the boom room. And the best actual chill out room of all time that I lost about 12 hours in. And additionally there were cabins you could pay extra for that were themed (we did margaritas again for the Flamin Merkin!) Indoorness/proper man made shelters + burning is quite a strange combo!




LOOK at this loving fairytale someone built!!! There were swings! And musical instruments! I got a trumpet lesson off a 40 year old welsh woman wearing a sexy nurse outfit! God it was loving gorgeous.


Next up is NOWHERE - the European regional, which is about 1000 ish people strong and really quite fabulous, full of English, French, Italian, Spanish, from all over Europe in the Spanish desert and takes extremely dearly after my heart. Honestly after I'd been to the big burn I didn't think that Nowhere was going to be that amazing but ahhh... it's the best.

I'm also mates with a lot of the people on the Nowhere board (in fact, all of them), along with being web co-lead and running a barrio/camp kitchen (30 people, send help) means i'm getting to see a LOT of the back end organisation mayhem that you normally don't see. And it's a lot. And a whole new appreciation for "how the gently caress are we going to sort out the toilets this year" and other problems that get resolved last minute.

The smaller the event, the more you can see how the work's gone into it.

Neris fucked around with this message at 10:11 on Jun 9, 2014

* # ¿ Jun 9, 2014 10:05
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
I LOVE the idea of a Pimms stand. A drink full of fruit and lemonade and ice and mint? As an England resident I would probably cry if I came across you on the Playa. We ran a margarita bar last year at Burning Man and I'm not sure how we procured all the booze - if you get really stuck maybe drop me a PM and I can ask the booze lead....

Anyway, I'm just back, like jaymeekay, from Nowhere. And gently caress me, it was a ridiculous time. It felt an awful lot more like Burning Man than it did last year. I did so much crazy loving poo poo including

- hiking up a hill in a wedding dress with stolen sangria to watch the sunrise
- got 'married' to a friend from Ubertown while dancing to strange jazz by a fake ship captain
- ran around totally hosed in a giraffe costume
- organised a surprise bloody mary party at a friends camp to celebrate their engagement and managed to convince the sole DJ art car to come and set up for us
- gave ukulele lessons in a hammock with such bad wind I could barely see
- had a nervous breakdown and ended up crying my eyes out in the Welfare tent
- tried to run a kitchen in a dust storm
- watched amazing live jazz then ate actual loving lasagne made in a loving oven off actual loving plates CAN YOU loving BELIEVE THIS poo poo
- danced all morning in my underwear at the Gate party
- helped build a geodesic dome, sew in the carpet in the main centre structure (Middle of Nowhere) and hammered in nails in the floor of the main volunteer area drinking sangria
- skinny dipped in Poolhaus in the midday sun
- made up songs for newcomers on my uke while on my greeters shift
- had a massage workshop that I fell asleep during,d got dance lessons and all kinds of other things
- tried to escape the RELENTLESS GAZE OF THE MOON on Friday climbing out of a massive art installation
- dressed up as the little mermaid and fell over so hard while drunk (don't drink and run) that i couldn't walk the next day properly
- and of course, margaritas

Nowhere is the absolute poo poo guys. I cannot stress this enough! I love it.
Have some photos.

Neris fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Jul 28, 2014

* # ¿ Jul 26, 2014 14:41
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
Updating the OP with playa goon meet info! Good luck on actually pulling it off, you dusty goons :)

* # ¿ Aug 4, 2014 21:55
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
Haha, I know the guy running the Playground Experience where Carl Cox is gonna be, his name is Yoms, he's a Euroburner, black dude with dreads and super nice. Make sure you tell him I say hi if you bump into him.

Not long to go now. Have had a couple of last minuters on my Facebook suddenly deciding to gently caress everything and just go from London, so suddenly they're rinsing £800 GBP on 13hr + flights, scrabbling for camps... god speed. This must be the only festival in the world that makes people behave like this I swear.

* # ¿ Aug 20, 2014 13:48
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
:allears:


Keep posting stories. I love the little bizarre moments.

Also holy gently caress at the 2nd degree burns. This is a timehop I have from this time last year on my Twitter.
* # ¿ Sep 6, 2014 18:27
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop

Turtle Blogger posted:

Do any of y'all have experience with playa love? I fell in love with a lady this year who lives far from me and I was curious to hear others' experiences with that happening. Specifically, what you did about it once off playa? I'm planning on visiting her in about a month to see what she is like somewhere other than the most magical place on earth.

:suicide:

I had the most loving life changingly beautiful affair of all time with this guy I met from the Duck Pond, met him at like 4am, a few hours after I arrived, and it ended so badly and shockingly a few months later. I still think about him all the time. We were insanely love-lettery blissed out happy for three months (me london, him berlin ) but basically he turned out to be a bit too mentally unstable to have a girlfriend. Or something (stopped talking to me over night while I was visiting him, I had to buy a new flight home that left in a couple of hours and he never really spoke to me again.)

YEAH that really sucked. And actually contributed a lot to my decision not to go back this year. Love, eh!

That said, I know people who've met out there and made it work, even got married. There's no hard and fast rule. Just remember people at Burning Man are not what they're like in real life, they can be so different, and it's always risky falling in love with someone that fast that you don't really know.

That break up is definitely among the worst experiences of my life. BUT that said I'm pretty sure i would have swapped it for anything else too, because it's definitely the happiest I've ever felt. The playa + love, loving hell, it was epic. Jump in with both feet. Good luck to you man.

* # ¿ Sep 9, 2014 20:57
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
You guys should see the arguing over principles, money, decommodification, commerce and so on that happens at Nowhere. It's mental, and a rabbit hole. Once you start arguing whether or not photography is self-expression as art or INFRINGEMENT of self-expression by removing radical self-expression you're basically a goner.

I actually hate the '10 principles', at least when they're listed and set out. And adds to the slightly "we are not cult promise" thing we got goin on.

* # ¿ Sep 9, 2014 23:29
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop
As usual, the temple is the thing that makes me feel the most wonder and breathtaken about Burning Man. This year's design is insane.


http://blog.burningman.com/2015/03/building-brc/the-temple-of-promise/

* # ¿ Mar 15, 2015 15:08
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop

This is quality.

* # ¿ May 5, 2015 23:34
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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 04:48
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Neris
Mar 7, 2004

don't you dare use the word 'party' as a verb in this shop

Throwdown posted:

Well, it looks like my theme camp arrangements are falling apart so I either have to find a new place to camp or just set up in tent city :(

It's pretty early in the year - I'm sure you could find something new to hang on to? Have you tried scouting out your local area? Last year I helped a UK burner get relocated from an art car camp that was pretty stressful and miserable to the local London camp and she had a fine old time - it's totally doable!

* # ¿ Jun 4, 2015 23:06
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Burning Man )'( v4: Last year was better