Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ve heard about autonomous vehicles, or self-driving cars. It’s moved so far out of the Google/Silicon Valley bubble that late night talk shows are cracking jokes about the emerging technology. The sophistication inherent in these vehicles has been expanding in leaps & bounds, to the point where entire towns have been built to test them. The tech is so good now that there’s not even a point to having a steering wheel. As it starts to move into the realm of policy & actuarial models begin to incorporate these cars, it’s time to give ourselves a break. At the risk of sounding self-important, let’s think of what we can do with these things besides reduce congestion, eliminate drunk driving & dampen carbon emissions worldwide. The nice things is that some of these cars use the same parts as the regular cars, so if you already have a site when you search about car parts as garage chief you can still use it for a self-driving car.
While I know this is totally impossible for this year’s thing in the desert, I’d love to put it out there to get you thinking about it while you’re roving the playa. I think Google & all of the self-driving car companies need to start field-testing these things out at Black Rock City. I think we’ve seen hundreds of people injure themselves biking in the darkness, everyone has heard or experienced a story where they’re moving around in the dark and someone doesn’t have the right blinky shiny.
So let’s put these bad boys to work. Just think about it. shuttle service to & from the temple, the DMZ & the man. Chart an expedition to the trash fence & sip cocktails on the way out there. Swarms of autonomous vehicles that follow art cars, having little micro-parties inside of them, while connected to their sound system. I think the people who are developing these vehicles should most certainly think long and hard about investing hardware & experiential gifting to their design arc.
Yes of course people are still going to want control options, and because of the fact that it’s on the playa, maybe they could have them. or maybe it could just be a nice little exercise in “letting go.” I’ve always thought of Burning Man as what a colony of settlers would look like, when we finally get to places otherworldly. I think the futuristic, neo-urban vibe could not only be enhanced by the cars, but building in an automated transit system is possible there more easily than any other art/music festival in the world. But, it would also be hilariously expensive. And this is where all those 1% camps come in. Hey extensively wealthy people who go to the plug & play camps on the outskirts, want to get around & see the cool things, but don’t want to talk to anyone, got an idea for you. What if, y’all funded this stuff, in exchange for having your own personal/slightly better transports. Here’s how it looks: the tech illuminati that hang out at BM just magic’d up a “hazard test” for the technology, brought it to the playa, got everyone to sign a second death waiver, and then can access the service to transport ice, get to the deep playa, or just make it from 10 to 5 without having to bike in the 1pm sun. Obviously, priority would be given to Rangers, Green Dot transporting patients, children, the elderly and that one time you swore you saw a pregnant woman on playa. Transport could have BM radio piped in and be re-directed during events and help ensure people aren’t traveling through the deep playa stoned as fuck.
In exchange, the 1% get future vehicles on playa, and of course, I assume their personal rides would be better than the ones your average attendee would interact with. This, for everyone who has forgotten the time, is the experience most people who don’t have access to art cars experience anyway. This would also give them a way to prove they have something to contribute, even if they don’t want to leave their plug & play camps outside of the IncuBubble rides they’ll be testing out. Some of this may be tongue in cheek, but I think this is definitely within the realm of the possible. Especially with the micro-deployment that could be tested out, in addition to the more sophisticated feedback you’d just happen to get because of the breadth & depth of technical experience and straight up lifestyle of the different burners using your product.
People keep asking for their jetpack as proof that it’s the future. Forget jetpacks. I want my robot car. Specifically, I want a robot car to take me from party to party on playa & when I get bored of that, I want to be able to tell it to follow whatever art car replaces the Dancetronauts juggernaut. It’ll drive along matching speed & direction, possibly even broadcasting the audio out of the speaker system inside of my pod car. Perhaps a couple of channels, illustrated by what color the pod glows. Kind of like Silent Disco headsets, but with cars. Do you agree?
Part I of this post, about how the Dancetronauts were asked to take at least a year off from Burning Man by the DMV Council, has attracted a lot of attention within the community. On WordPress it has been read by 30,000+ people; more than 6,000 of those readers shared the story on Facebook.
I can see some of the content from the Facebook on-page shares. This is a more accurate gauge of the community’s real sentiment than the predictable “shoot the messenger” troll attacks directed at Burners.me in the comments here and elsewhere. These have ranged from threats of violence to comparisons with Rupert Murdoch, complaints about being too long winded and complaints about not including enough details, and the usual accusations of half truths, lies, and poor grammar and spelling.
The Facebook share commentary I have seen so far is almost entirely on the side of Dancetronauts. Here’s a sample:
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People are dismayed at yet another anti-Burner move from the organizers of the allegedly charitable Burning Man Project. If BMOrg thought they would placate a couple of dozen disgruntled complainers with their heavy-handed punishment, well now they have more than 6,000 disgruntled Burners upset with them.
The most egregious thing about this affair is it really seems that the main, true reason behind the Dancetronauts ban was the Decommodification principle.
To me, Directors of Burning Man running hotel camps with 50 paid sherpas and hookers Mistresses of Merriment provided to their customers, only handing out drinks to their VIP guests who paid $16,000 to get a wristband, is a serious Decommodification issue.
Compared to that, A DJ all excited about the track he worked on all year for Burning Man, getting on a microphone a few times to offer it for free to all the people dancing in front of him, is really not that big a deal. OK, chastise them, force them to make a public mea culpa for their sins so that others get the lesson too, then let’s all go back to being friends and throwing awesome parties together.
Members of DMV Playing Freebird at the Temple burn, as a tribute to a fallen comrade? Snoop Dogg rolling up on the Temple playing gangsta rap? In the eyes of some, this is worse – but I’m not saying this was inappropriate for the circumstances, or that the perpetrators deserved any kind of punishment. It’s Burning Man, not the Public Library. It’s chaos. It’s loud, it’s wild, it’s funky, there’s stuff you can dance to everywhere, and if you don’t like one art car’s music, it’s incredibly easy to find another one.
The real tragedy last year was the death of a Burner, crushed by an Art Car towing a heavy trailer sound system – the same style of rig that Dancetronauts have, except the Dancetronauts have an unblemished safety record. There were also a number of terrible suicides in the community. It’s not just Burners dying: we saw the death of financial transparency that we had long been promised, with the opposite happening when the accounts were removed from the Afterburn reports. The Simpsons promoted Burning Man as a hallucinogenic drug fest. Exotic designer drugs are now being distributed there, causing medical research-worthy trauma events . Many camps have been devastated by the ticketing process, and are scrambling to get tickets for everyone. The information on sexual assaults is being kept a close secret for the first time.
All these are really quite serious issues that BMOrg should be addressing with the community. Instead, their energy goes into defending plug and plays, defending their Directors as long as they possibly can no matter how obscene their Ten Principles violations are…and punishing Dancetronauts.
THE PLOT THICKENS
Dancetronauts had no clue that they had any issue with BMOrg and the DMV until a month after Burning Man closed. They knew that they had been placed on probation in 2013, although the details of that were rather vague; but they packed up and left Burning Man without receiving a single complaint. As far as they knew, the probation was no longer an issue, and they had performed every night through the whole event without any problems.
Little did they know that even as the embers of the Man still smouldered on Sunday morning, the knives were coming out for them.
According to the DMV, Dancetronauts (not an art car, that is the Strip Ship and Bass Station trailer) received more complaints this year than any other vehicle in the history of the event.
Of course, the event is double the size it was 10 years ago, has 20,000 more people than it did 3 years ago, and has now been effectively “mainstreamed” and Bucket Listed by BMOrg’s mammoth PR campaigns in Default world media. Your mom’s hairdresser came to Burning Man to see cool shit, could we please turn the music down she needs to sleep at 11 every night.
More people at Burning Man + more mainstreaming = more spectators = more complaints. I think that can be expected in general. But leaving that aside, what of the complaints themselves? Were they all genuine? Or was there something else going on, behind the scenes?
It is my belief that the Dancetronauts were the victim of a vicious, nasty, and petty smear campaign, launched against them on multiple channels within burningman.com. This was designed not just to generate as many complaints as they possibly could, whether sincere or via “sock puppet” accounts; but also to hurt the Dancetronauts, to shame them, to negatively affect their chances of raising money to bring their Art Car to Burning Man in the future.
It was important to me to separate this post from the last one, because any speculation here is from me, not the Dancetronauts. I am not part of the Dancetronauts. I feel they have been unfairly victimized, that BMOrg need to make peace with them and allow them back this year, perhaps with a few provisos.
For those who felt Part I was one-sided and not long-winded enough because I did not include all the correspondence from BMOrg, you will be pleased to see in Part II that I am including many, many messages from BMOrg and their various agents, some paid, some unpaid, all communicated to the world via the Internet in a multitude of forums and formats. It would have been inappropriate for me to just share a few DMV emails, without providing this broader context of what was actually going on – which was a co-ordinated attack across multiple fronts.
THE PROCESS
What process was followed here, in deciding that Dancetronauts had to take a year off? The feedback process, FLIP, was meant to collect all the feedback by October 15. After that BMOrg needed time to digest it all and talk about it and see what could be done to make the event better in future. That is why they did not really address the community’s Commodification Camp concerns until December 2014 – if anyone remembers that time, which seems so long ago now, there was a real feeling that they were stalling while they scrambled to come up with a PR strategy to get the egg of their faces. But what they told us was “these things take time because we have to listen to everyone’s feedback and discuss it and investigate it to get to the truth of the matter”.
Dancetronauts went through the same feedback process, right? All the feedback collected by October 15, then thought about and discussed, then decisions made and reported?
Nope.
What about the Mutant Vehicle Sound Policy? Did they go through that process?
Nope.
So what process was it?
It seems that Dancetronauts were victim to the “real way Burning Man works”, which is different from the official way that BMOrg indignantly insist on. This highlights Selective Rule Enforcement, and the Two Burning Mans – the fairies and rainbows facade you get from Voices of Burning Man; and the real one, how things actually work. A dysfunctional dystopia, where volunteer dictators gleefully punish thousands based on the capricious whims of a few.
TIMELINE
Saturday, Aug 30, 2014: the Man burns. Dancetronauts get there early, positioning themselves at 6 o’clock, the same spot they’ve been in the last 5 years.
Fire Conclave starts, and runs for 15 minutes. Some performers found it hard to hear the beat over the bass coming from Dancetronauts and other art cars. Others reported no problems.
It is the longest Man burn in history, taking about 2 hours to finally collapse. Many Burners and art cars left before the end. Dancetronauts were still playing music at The Man, hours after he burned to the ground – entertaining thousands. They had no idea they had caused any problems, since they received no Mutant Vehicle Sound Policy complaints. Not on Burn night, and not at any other time during the event, despite the fact they threw many loud and large parties, including at art burns like Embrace.
Sunday, Aug 31, 2014: John Curley writes a post from the Playa at blog.burningman.com:
…we admit that we were waiting for the Man to fall last night so we could escape the sound. Yes, yes, we know the saying, “If it’s too loud, you’re too old,” and maybe that’s true. But honestly, we always thought that one of the corollaries of radical self expression was that your actions not impinge on another’s experience, and let’s just say there was lots of impinging going on last night. We do not expect to hear a DJ exhorting a crowd in a way that might work at spring break in Daytona Beach, but doesn’t work on the playa. At all.
Plus, we’d like to be able to HEAR the burn. Not just the exploding shells and fireworks, but also the crackle and pop of the flames, the whoosh of embers falling, and, last night, even the climactic crash of the Man’s big legs.
But no. Last night that was not possible. And yes, we might be the slightest bit cranky about it. We’re not saying that there shouldn’t be sound and celebration, because this is the big finish, the Bacchanalian moment. But there’s got to be a way that the sound cars don’t take over the experience. It’s not your show, comma, dude.
Image: John Curley
Expecting silence from art cars while the man burns for 2 hours because you want to hear the sound of the embers cracking is kind of foolish. Isn’t that what the temple burn is for?
Although Mr Curley (I’m a fan BTW) complains about the DJ on the mic making it sound like spring break, and the loud music making it hard for him to listen to the crackle of the flames, when he talks about the Fire Conclave there is no indication that there was even the slightest problem. He appears to have been in the 6 o’clock position, with BM founder Crimson Rose – is this the “we” he is talking about?
Tuesday, Sep 2, 2014:
Burning Man officially ends at noon. Before the sun sets on that day, burningman.com is already coming out against the Dancetronauts:
Wednesday, Sep 3 2014 – the burningman.com hate campaign is now in full swing.
At 9:37am, the first mention of Dancetronauts appears in the comments on John Curley’s post at blog.burningman.com:
Meanwhile, on ePlaya:
Stabby? This is not the first time this bully has threatened violence, including to myself. It’s amazing to see how this community based on Radical Inclusion and Self-Reliance, has elements who think the lynch mob/witch hunt mentality is the only way we can solve problems. Shouldn’t we be banning the violent people, not ones who peacefully put on shows to entertain the masses?
15 minutes later, another call to action:
And DMV are on the case already. They want us to know that this goes all the way to the top.
The thread is not even a day old, it’s barely a day after Burning Man ended, and already the bosses in the DMV Council are “following it”. Is this part of the process? DMV decisions are made based on what gets said on ePlaya and Reddit?
His comments on the thread suggest he has already been communicating with DMV about it, and they have already decided what the crime is and what punishment they will dole out:
He joins in the “torches and pitchforks” call for vandalism. No need for any feedback process, since this is a hate fueled lynch mob:
Thursday Sep 4, 2014:
It’s been a day, time to rally the troops again!
The hate campaign now spreads to social media, with a co-ordinated attack on Dancetronauts Facebook page – again, suggesting that the punishment had already been decided by someone, somewhere:
The spite is palpable.
Friday Sep 5, 2014:
Mere days after the end of Caravansary , Dancetronauts are already accepting responsibility and apologizing, saying they feel terrible about interfering with some of the Fire Conclave performers.
Meanwhile, the ePlaya team are still out in force across the Interwebz, spreading their message of hate and anger to as wide an audience as possible.
Sep 8, 2014:
Stop chatting among yourselves, people. Let’s FOCUS on hating the Dancetronauts.
Sep 10, 2014
The official moderator is forced to intervene, to tone down some of the threats of violence and vandalism:
Sep 11, 2014 – Simon pulls back from his earlier stabbing with pitchforks pitch, and turns to emotional hate instead.
“Shame is how we punish…that is all we need really to change things”.
Really? You couldn’t have changed things by just saying to Dancetronauts “people were pissed off about the DJ, can you please have no music on Burn night, take the mics away, and watch it around art installation burns”? To me, that seems like it would have worked just fine, ended all problems, and the Dancetronauts sounded very amenable to that – in fact, they were even suggesting it themselves. Of course, compromise and resolution like that doesn’t feed anybody’s NPD power trip.
Sep 13, 2014:
Eric The moderator’s caution has toned down the hate a bit, so it’s time to amp it back up with some helpful suggestions of ways to get Dancetronauts:
Interesting idea to try to channel the Plug-n-Play outrage towards this art car scapegoat.
Sep 26, 2014:
Chef Juke from the DMV Council gives Dancetronauts the first official notification of any kind about complaints against them.
On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 4:41 PM, DMV Hotties <dmv@burningman.com> wrote:
Mutant Vehicle: Strip Ship & Bass Station
Registration #: M14-0543
Owner: Philip Plastina
Phillip, We are writing to you regarding numerous reports of incidents involving your vehicle at this year’s Burning Man. The DMV received multiple complaints regarding the Strip Ship & Bass Station this year, falling into several categories.
This email primarily notes two of them: Sound levels and promotional activity.
1) Sound levels On a number of occasions, the sound levels of the vehicle, especially while in close proximity to art installations/events was perceived to significantly exceed the levels outlined in the Mutant Vehicle Sound policy: (http://www.burningman.com/on_the_playa/playa_vehicles/sound_policy.html) Specifically, we received a number of complaints regarding your vehicle’s sound volume at the Alien Siege Machine Burn event, the Temple, and most notably at the Man Burn. It is also important to note that your vehicle was CONDITIONALLY invited for 2014 due to sound level complaints in 2013. This means this is the second year in a row that participants have had issues with the sound levels of your vehicle.
2) Promotional activity On a number of occasions, again most notably at the Man Burn, we recieved reports of DJs on your vehicle promoting their upcoming albums. This directly conflicts with the Decommodification principle of Burning Man.
In addition to the two areas of concern above, prior to the event there was an additional issue raised with your offering Early Admission passes as premiums on your indiegogo fundraising campaign The DMV takes all complaints regarding vehicle operation at the event seriously and we work to follow up on every complaint, big or small. That being said we want to clearly indicate to you the significance of the level concern that has been raised with your vehicle this year, both with the DMV directly and with other areas of the Burning Man organization. In the month since the event ended, the DMV has received more complaints regarding Strip Ship than we’ve ever received regarding any other vehicle, by a far margin. We are asking that you please reply via email with any information you can provide related to the above incidents and concerns.
Sincerely, -Chef Juke for the DMV Council
Note that Dancetronauts was not even at the Temple burn, nor did they sell any Early Access passes to anyone. False accusations get made in the complaints, but never retracted.
Since Chef Juke brought up the Principles, let’s take a look at the two most relevant Principles here, Gifting and Decommodification:
2. Gifting Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.
3. Decommodification 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.
Where is the “direct conflict”? Commercial sponsorships? No. Transactions? No. “Get the track I made specially for you for free, come and see me and I’ll give you a CD?” Sounds like Gifting to me, not Advertising.
Oct 1, 2014:
“The system works”…what system is that? Clearly, it is not the official feedback system, because that is still open for another 2 weeks at this point. No, he is talking about their system of using burningman.com as a platform for shaming, ostracisim, derision, threats, and other forms of social punishment.
Oct 7, 2014. Dancetronauts are notified that they’re banned from SF Decompression
Hi Travis, We won’t be placing your group this year at Decompression because participating groups must be in good standing. Unfortunately, there were numerous complaints against Dancetronauts on playa. Until that is resolved, we are unable to place your group. You can seek further information from DMV, as they received the bulk of complaints from participants.
Sincerely, Jan, aka Blondie
DMV have received the bulk of complaints, Dancetronauts have been banned before they can even respond…and yet for every other type of complaint, BMOrg still needs time to collect all the feedback to incorporate submissions in this review process, and make decisions as part of their annual staff debrief process.
October 10, 2014:
JackRabbit Speaks, v19#4, Oct 10 2015
The 2014 Afterburn has now been published…there is no Q & A section. Another empty promise. Note the acknowledgement that the Will Call line and Commodification Camps were the main source of complaints.
Burning Man Theme Camp Organizers, Facebook Oct 10 2014
See that: “we respond thoughtfully (read: slowly) because we have to look into all of the allegations and offenses. There is no smoke screen. We’re trying to get to the truth…[we] are not out to take advantage of Burner communities. On the contrary, we are out to help them grow and replicate”
Except that by then they had already decided Dancetronauts fate, feedback process be damned. The most active members of burningman.com were deliberately targeting them to shame them, hurt them, shrink their fan base, and otherwise negatively impact their ability to operate. About as far to the opposite of “grow and replicate” as you can get.
Submit your feedback about Burning Man 2014! Our Feedback Loop form is open until October 15. http://t.co/4omjwiQJqH
Even though BMOrg couldn’t respond to anyone while the feedback process was still open, Dancetronauts were expected to respond to them in just 2 weeks:
On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 11:11 AM, DMV Hotties <dmv@burningman.com> wrote:
Phil,We still need to hear back from you regarding this. The DMV follows up on all complaints regarding Mutant Vehicle operation and we want to hear from you regarding the incidents lists.Also please note that your vehicle’s future licensing may be affected based on the complaints and/or if you do not respond.
Sincerely,-Chef Juke for the DMV Hotties and Council
Dancetronauts replied quickly, and promised to follow up more formally:
Couple things I’d like to interject before a formal response which will only adhere to the facts. Because the exaggerations are being a little blown out of proportion. For instance we were not even at or in attendance for Temple Burn.
And I would like the opportunity to review the complaints to decipher which are even accurate or indeed from numerous people and not just the same handful who are re-creating them. As far as, what I can gather, see in posts, it’s a handful of the same disgruntle’s. Some who did not even attend the burn, yet still campaigning and gathering their friends to further continue to make complaints which are not even accurate. Something unknown to the public, is Dancetronauts has been being attacked by a group of ‘haters’ who have been harassing us and referring to as the ‘Douchetronauts’. This is something we have dealt with and I think every larger camp who might get more attention from others, naturally creates jealousy and sabotage. Now that we goofed up, here’s our chance and let’s get everyone who dislikes us (for any reason) to jump on the bandwagon… YA!! Let’s get em’ kicked off the playa! YA! Biggest [culprit] is ex-member of Roots Society Simon De Playa, who got burned for having sound complaints and music violations years ago, apparently he feels the need to call out and jump on anyone else now in the same fashion he was crucified to the cross on. The complaints, attention and gathering complaints from him and his forum posting and him repeatedly making it not even about the issue, just personal attacks on Dancetronauts. To, I believe it was yourself? Or someone from [ePlaya admins], whom even interjected with the notice, of violent, vandal and illegal threats should not be involved. Very burner like, I am glad these are the complaints and ‘burners’ whom you are taking seriously. But our 6 years as a theme camp and even longer, as art car owners, are the ones being punished.
…A DJ/producer shared his music. Offered a free download of his album and talked about a track he worked on all year, especially for Burning Man, called ‘Coming Home’ that he then offered and handed out copies personally, however many of his (100) copies he brought out, as his playa gift.
Rude, obnoxious, breaking the rules, shameless self promotion, is left to the interpretation and the complaints you received. We can cover all in our formal response once we get down to the facts of the multiple instances we are in fraction of. Because being threatened of not being able to bring our art, creation(s), theme camp and spend another $XX,XXX next year to bring it again… is a very personal and bitter feeling right now, so please excuse any passion that may dilute our sincere work and effort that we make and try to be flawless on. Honestly, we try really hard to make everyone happy, to obey the guidelines, to be be perfect. Truth is we’re not, we are regular people and humans who make mistakes and this year we made a few. We take great pride and responsibility with our privilege of having and art car, which is why we haven’t seriously screwed anything up. We have made some mistakes…. What those mistakes actually affected? Or how many people it actually impacted,in a negative, unforgiving way? Though when these things happen, we lose fans and the following, it sorts itself out. We become the black plague to them and they poison as many people around them as possible to feel the same. We take that heat, not BM, not DMV… we are not unsafe, we are not reckless, we have not harmed anyone, we are BURNERS! And to now not even be allowed to bring the ‘Strip Ship’ with no sound, no fire, no performers, etc to S.F. Decom and still be denied to participate with the other camps, okay, we will swallow it.
On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 5:54 PM, DMV Hotties <dmv@burningman.com> wrote:
Some clarifications may be in order.
We originally sent our email to Phil directly as he was listed as the applicant for the Strip Ship and Bass Station. We added you as you were included in the message regarding Decompression. In regards to Decompression, the event team checks with the DMV regarding Mutant Vehicles invited to ensure they are in good standing with the DMV, given the number of complaints we received this year, this was not the case. There are any number of vehicles that are not invited to decompression each year, yours was just one.
Next, we only are considering the complaints that were made directly to the DMV through email or through Burning Man’s FLIP online feedback system. We did not consider complaints posted to forums, etc. or complaints that were duplicated in forums/email
In regards to the temple, the complaint was that your vehicle played loud music near the temple, not at the temple burn specifically.
Finally, we certainly will forward you text of the specific complaints. We wanted to get a general response from the Dancetronauts prior to going into the details of the complaint.
To be clear, our main focus is trying to get a clear understanding of what happened, the validity of the complaints we’ve received, to make sure you and your team understand the scope of the complaints and work to find a resolution to the issues raised.
I also should note that while there certainly was a small group of interconnected folks who lodged complaints right after the event, the complaints were not by any means isolated to any one group or duplicated. We received complaints from a large number of Burners who were not connected including some from within the Burning Man organization as well.
Sincerely,
-Chef Juke for the DMV Hotties & Council
Again, FLIP was still open and BMOrg were refusing to address the 97% of other complaints there.
How does Chef Juke know which Burners are interconnected, and which aren’t? He states he is “certain” thatthere was an interconnected group of Burners who came out swinging for the Dancetronauts, immediately after the event. You can hardly argue that this is all just a conspiracy theory being invented by Burners.Me, when BMOrg’s own team heads are openly acknowledging it themselves.
What was the nature of these connections? The idea that those “within the Burning Man organization” were “not connected” to any of it seems unlikely, and directly contradicts later information from the DMV Council.
Oct 27, 2014:
On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 8:10 PM, DMV Hotties <dmv@burningman.com> wrote:
Phil,
To clarify, we asked you for a response to the fact that the DMV had received a number of complaints about your vehicle sound and Promotion activities and we didn’t receive a response until we included Trav. Trav indicated that his comments were not the formal response and implied that one would be forthcoming.
As far as the DMV is concerned the concern and the issue has not been resolved and we certainly need more discussion regarding both what happened on playa and what, if anything, needs to be done to resolve any concerns.
Please do follow up with us when you are available.
Thanks for your email. As I noted to Trav, we’ve compiled the specific complaints about the Strip Ship and Bass Station that the DMV received via email and the online feedback form; these are in the attached file. The DMV reads ALL of the feedback sent to us and we would suggest that you do the same.
Please review these specific concerns from your fellow burners regarding your vehicle and let us know if you have any further thoughts on the feedback.
Sincerely,
-Chef Juke for the DMV Hotties & Council
At this point, Chef Juke seems to have been quite reasonable. It seems like this situation can be resolved, and that is what Dancetronauts are trying to achieve. Note that on Oct 27 he is speaking for the DMV Hotties, by Oct 30 he is speaking for the DMV Hotties AND the Council.
The next Dancetronauts heard from BMOrg was 6 months later. Wally Bomgaars has departed (is this Chef Juke? If not, who is he and why does he get mentioned?) Terry Schoop has taken his place. Suddenly, there is no possibility of compromise. There is only the ban.
What happened between October and April? Did the smear campaign turn into a less traceable whisper campaign, and go offline?
April 9, 2015:
On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 9:58 AM, DMV Hotties <dmv@burningman.com> wrote: Hello Philip & Trav –
I apologize for the delay in getting back with you as I’ve just recently taken responsibility for DMV following the departure of Wally Bomgaars.
Our continuing concern is that your responses don’t address the core issues raised by DMV and by participants.
The key responses you sent us are:
1. “People have a choice to move away from a loud vehicle…”
In terms of the Man Burn, this is not a reasonable answer. Participants who have selected a spot to watch the burn cannot be expected to change locations in the middle of a packed crowd when a loud mutant vehicle parks behind them. Nor is it reasonable to expect them to do so.
2. “Dancetronauts bring famous DJs to the Playa…”
This has no bearing on the issues of music volume or civic responsibility.
3. “We have a safety team…”
Again, this has no bearing on the issues of music volume of civic responsibility.
4. “Other vehicles are loud…”
That other vehicles may have issues does not excuse yours from having to follow the rules that all mutant vehicles are required to abide by. The DMV is having discussions with all other vehicles that we received complaints about.
It’s important for you to understand that the complaints about your sound levels on Burn night are serious and include complaints from two Burning Man founders, several members of the DMV Council, other Burning Man staff and the DMV Manager (Wally Bomgaars) personally. It did drown out music from other nearby mutant vehicles.
5. “Lots of people like us…”
Again, this has no bearing on the issues of music volume of civic responsibility.
6. “We followed all the rules…”
No, you didn’t, Your vehicle clearly violated the Mutant Vehicle Sound Policy. The concerns we need you to address relate to the Mutant Vehicle Sound Policy and to civic responsibility. As noted in the MV policy:
“Keep in mind that if we continue to have the level of complaints and issues that we have been having for the past few years, we may have to take greater steps to limit large sound on vehicles. Please consider your impact on the community and help us all keep sound on MVs a positive experience.” To recap:
The DancetronautS mutant vehicle was issued a conditional license for 2014 based on sound policy violations from 2013.
Following the 2014 event, as previously mentioned, we received more sound complaints about the Dancetronauts mutant vehicle than any other vehicle in the history of the event. Despite multiple requests, you have not provided a satisfactory response to these complaints nor provided a plan to address them for 2015.
Additionally, in 2014, we were notified Dancetronauts were offering among other things, Early Entry passes and access to their mutant vehicles as a perks as part of your Indiegogo fundraiser. Early Entry passes were created specifically to allow artists, theme camp organizers and mutant vehicles owners early access to the event site to prepare for the event. It was a violation of the Early Entry pass policy to offer them as a perk.
This combination of infractions and your inability to provide a satisfactory response and resolution leave us no option but to deny a license to the Dancetronauts mutant vehicle for 2015. You are welcome to apply next year for 2016.
Sincerely,
Terry Schoop and the DMV Council
“They’re welcome to apply” – some Burners might read this as “they are guaranteed to be let back in 2016″, but I don’t. At all. What more could Dancetronauts do to return to “good standing”, if they aren’t allowed at the events?
Terry here is speaking for himself and the Council. His reductionist responses come off as snide and dismissive. The whole tone of the email says the decision has been made, and the hate for Dancetronauts seeps through. “Inability to provide a satisfactory resolution”, what is he talking about? They have been trying for more than 6 months at this point to find a satisfactory resolution, apologizing to everyone, and suggesting things that definitely would avoid the problem this year. While BMOrg just ignored them, leaving them in limbo.
The key words here are
complaints from two Burning Man founders, several members of the DMV Council, other Burning Man staff and the DMV Manager (Wally Bomgaars) personally
Wally himself did not mention to Dancetronauts at any time that he was one of those affected by their burn night actions. But now that he has left, he is named as part of the hate/punish group.
I don’t want to clog up this post with Dancetronauts’ responses to this since I have already posted them, you can read them at the end of Part I. They were thoughtful and apologetic, and offered practical suggestions as a resolution.
April 29, 2015:
From: DMV Hotties<dmv@burningman.com> Date: Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 5:23 PM Subject: Re: Mutant Vehicle incidents on playa (PLEASE RESPOND)
Philip & Travis –
Thank you for your thoughtful replies, which the DMV council has reviewed.
The decision of the council – that Dancetronauts needs to take a year off – stands. You are welcome to apply again in 2016.
– The DMV Council
Key words here: The decision of the council that Dancetronauts needs to take a year off.
The DMV Council is supposed to be dealing with Art Cars. The art car here is the Strip Ship, and its Bass Station trailer. But it is the Dancetronauts who they want to punish, not just the Art Car: the entire crew. That’s who is being un-welcomed officially from an Invisible Council at burningman.com and 2 Burning Man founders – after months of silence and zero effort from BMOrg to accept any kind of resolution or compromise.
Thanks for reaching out, and I appreciate the apology. Speaking for my own personal experience, the only complaint that I raised was the voiceover advertising of an album at the event on Friday, the alien siege machine burn. Yeah the music was loud and no it wasn’t my personal taste, but it’s Burning Man and part of being out at a big burn is it’s going to be loud and you’re going to hear a whole lot of different music. The advertising bugged me a lot, which is why I remembered it and followed up after the event. I volunteer with Burning Man year-round to help run the ePlaya community, and as part of that I see and hear a lot of participant feedback. While I’m not involved with the DMV or any part of their decision making process, I have to say that I was shocked at the kind and number of complaints that people were voicing. I think the ship is a fine piece of work, but have never followed Dancetronauts closely enough to know DJ schedules so I couldn’t really say whether it was just one person doing it, but it sounded like advertising was happening all week. It probably also doesn’t help that you guys operate as a commercial production company. Hooray for being successful, but when you turn the camp name into a commercial brand that makes things particularly tricky. I don’t have any advice there, you might want to reach out to Opulent Temple or Space Cowboys to see how they walk that line (from what I’ve seen, OT uses the Opel Productions name for their commercial operations). Though I didn’t experience it myself, it seemed like there were a number of complaints about the velvet rope/VIP area. The person getting into it with me on twitter defended the practice as a fire safety move, but that sounds like a pretty flimsy defense. It’s Burning Man, anybody who’s been through a burn or two probably knows the difference between fire safety line and only letting friends and ‘hotties’ through. Good luck in finding tickets, and good luck in weathering the bashing. It will probably continue for a while. Based on the feedback I’d seen it sounds like there are people out there with an axe to grind. PS – if it helps, what we used to do when I was at Space Island was keep the mic and cable with the driver in the cab of the truck. That way we had it in case we had to make an announcement, but it wasn’t something that someone on the decks could abuse easily.
See the issues being conflated here? Dancetronauts running a professional production company was not expressed as one of the issues by the DMV at all. Neither was this “velvet rope” stuff. “Selling Early Access passes” was a minor mistake that was immediately corrected and removed from the web in less than 24 hours, no such transaction ever took place. But somehow Terry managed to throw that on the pile of justifications despite all evidence to the contrary.
June 14, 2015
We publish Part I of this story. ePlaya flares up again.
It’s not clear if Trilobyte and the rest of the volunteer ePlayans get any form of compensation – either cash, free tickets, or a chance to purchase tickets in the Directed Group Sale. Or do they just volunteer their time on these forums for psychological gratification?
Where are these rules? What rules were broken? Surely it should be easy to point that out, given the severity of this ban. I can’t find them in the Mutant Vehicle Sound Policy, so where are they?
Other Mutant Vehicle owners want to know too:
THE COMPLAINTS
So what was the end result of this unprecedented social media campaign of drumming up as many complaints as could possibly be gathered?
Eventually, the DMV provided the entire list of complaints to Dancetronauts, which you can read here. Could this file have been tampered with? I guess, but I trust my source, and see no reason why it would be.
BMOrg insisted that these complaints were collected only from emails to DMV@burningman.com and their official post-event feedback process. However some seem to be word-for-word identical to complaints at burningman.com, on the ePlaya discussion forums and the Voices of Burning Man blog. It is hard to match them up since the complaints file provided is Anonymous; this also made it hard for Dancetronauts to apologize to the 32 people affected.
There were an unprecedented number of complaints last year in general: more than 400. More tourists (replacing Veteran Burners) = more complaints.
We may never know how many of the Dancetronauts complaints were direct emails to DMV and how many were through the feedback process, called FLIP. In the same way we will probably never know how many “more than 400” really is. Let’s assume it’s a 50/50 split and there were 420 complaints about everything.
Dancetronauts got 33 complaints in total. One of these was a duplicate – same complaint twice. So really it was 32 – apply our assumption from the feedback form, 16 out of the 420: 3.8%. Who got punished or asked to take a year off for the 96.2% of complaints BMOrg received last year that weren’t about Dancetronauts?
I have tagged each complaint based on what it was about. There were many complaints that mentioned more than one issue:
25 DJ plugging himself on the mic (Decommodification violation)
12 Total noise complaints (Sound policy violation):
11 Noise on Burn night
3 Noise at Alien Seige machine
1 Noise at the Temple
6 Don’t mention Dancetronauts at all
6 Specifically mention other art cars also causing problems
8 Refer to the online smear campaign as the reason they felt compelled to “chime in” with their complaints.
Here are some examples from the complaints, that show how ePlaya and other online commentary inspired them to write:
I came across a thread on eplaya about the art cars with large sound systems specifically the dancetranauts during the burn and just figured I’d chime in as someone who attended burning man for he first time this year.
***
XXX from XXX here. we’re well know to the BOrg and absolutely love you guys. i’m gonna chime in on this one
***
My first burn and bummed at Danctronaut DJ plugging himself during the Man Burn It was suggested we email, so just want to chime in
***
I found the ePlaya thread about blaring, self-promotional art cars and I 100% agree.
***
This address was given by a DMVer on ePlaya I know there is some of discussion about the Dancetronauts art car and the way they promoted themselves at the Man Burn. I was too far from the art car to comment on that…They should be allowed at the Burn, for sure
***
A friend of mine mentioned that the Department of Mutant Vehicles had been receiving a number of complaints about the Art Car music situation at this years Man Burn, and was looking for comments.
***
I suspect I am not the first, nor the last, to send an email regarding this problem, but I wanted to make sure my voice was also heard in this
***
All the comments you heard about Dancetronauts are true…Just throwing in my two cents
***
I’m sure you’ve heard from others, but I’d like to add my voice condemning the behaviour of the dancestronauts
The similarity in language amongst some of these complaints is suspicious. And these are just the complaints that explicitly mention being encouraged to write in – we can assume that still others were encouraged even if they don’t mention it.
I wager a guess that the vast majority of the 400+ overall complaints BMOrg received last year were also for Decommodification violations, but of a different kind. What the community was most upset about was the exclusive wrist-band only VIP Commodification Camps, at least one of which we know was run by a member of the Burning Man Project Board of Directors.
It appears that, despite an unprecedented number of complaints, those involved in the Commodification Camps all got off scot-free, no punishment at all.
The Burning Man Project articles of incorporation were changed from standard legal speak to be uniquely based around the 10 Principles and the partial clock-face layout of Burning Man. The Directors are all specifically bound to uphold the 10 Principles, even though there is technical loophole for them because they are just directors of the “Project” and although the NV burn is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Project, apparently the directors can do whatever they want at Burning Man and don’t have to uphold the Ten Principles there. Bizarre, right? But a legal loophole nonetheless. When you spend $10 million on lawyers, you can’t argue that such loop holes are there by accident.
COMPARISONS
Michael Franti wrote a track about Burning Man called Let It Go, and was nominated for a Grammyan Oscar for it. Are they going to ban Franti now? Or what about Missy Higgins, and her for-profit Burning Man song, We Ride? These tracks are not gifted for free, to get them you have to spend $20 to buy the soundtrack album for Spark: A Burning Man story off iTunes. BMOrg was involved in the production of this movie and took an ownership stake which brings them royalties; as far as we can piece together, the rights to all royalty streams and intellectual property were transferred to Decommodification LLC before the Founders gifted the remainder of Burning Man to their tax-exempt foundation. So every time a copy of this soundtrack and DVD gets sold, Decommodification LLC – and by extension, the 6 founders who are its partners – gets paid. Is this not a worse Decommodification violation than a DJ handing out free CDs? These artists are specifically profiting from Burning Man, they’re not gifting anything.
David Best gets paid to make Temples all around the world. Photographers put their professional watermarks on Burning Man photos, and earn money by taking them. Should we ban them?
Green Tortoise sells safari tourist packages, and gets a free advertising post from BMOrg talking about how great they are. This isn’t Commodification? But gifting a CD is?
How do Burners have a better experience of Burning Man, when we see awesome Burners like Dancetronauts getting unjustly punished by unseen Special Interests, for doing things others blatantly get away with? We’re told the Ten Principles are “just guidelines” now. We see rules being enforced Selectively, rather than one set of rules being applied equally to everyone. Decisions are made on the whims of any number of dozens of “chiefs” or secret “Councils” who think they are important to the event. These chiefs often disagree with each other, sometimes to the point of lawsuits. Complainers get attention, just like in an HOA. Burners get ignored as much as possible. Then propaganda, “spin”, and smear campaigns are employed to manipulate the masses.
The trick to navigating this dictatorship is sucking up. If you suck up to BMOrg – at least to the right people there – or even better, if you are someone they want to suck up to – then you can do whatever you want. Like, Google can use the Burning Man logo to make their search engine seem cool, and monetize Burning Man footage through YouTube. Facebook can make a shit-ton of money advertising on the side while we’re on their Burning Man pages. Denis Kucinich and Grover Norquist can use BM to promote their political careers to new voter blocs. Fest300 can plaster their branding all over their Burning Man promo videos – but DJ Sander van Doorn gets punished for doing the same thing. 210 people with registered drones have to obey safety rules, but Fest300 can blatantly flaunt them because their boss is on the BMP Board.
In this world, Burning Man: The Musical is just fine, because a Google employee is behind it. No matter that he’s never even been! On the other hand, Johan the Dome Guy who has busted his ass helping fellow Burners on the Playa for 20 years, went to the effort of creating Burning Man: The Board Game as a camp fundraiser, only to have it callously banned by BMOrg “in the name of protecting our brand”. It totally conformed to their rules for camp fundraisers, but a few insiders decided “this must be stopped” and so it was – accompanied with another smear campaign running in the community about Johan’s motivation and character. The Pee Funnel camp got banned for the accusation that they thought about selling tickets on the side, even though BMOrg themselves ultimately confessed they had actually been doing exactly the same thing for 2 years, more than 1500 times. Not to trap scalpers, like Pee Funnel had claimed: the Burning Man Project were selling tickets to the sold out event direct to VIPs specifically to make money from the difference between face value and the sale price, ie actual scalping. Who got punished when we exposed that?
This punish mentality is just horrible – we saw this same thinking with the Paul Addis affair, where BMOrg were absolutely determined to talk up the damage as much as possible to get it treated as felony arson, which led to Addis doing time in jail, ended his legal career, and ultimately contributed to his tragic suicide.
Can you have rules without punishment? Of course. That’s how the city works already. Most Burners follow the rules and self-enforce. Whatever you’re into, everyone is there to have a good time. Punishment should be the last resort, not the first thing we leap to before we’ve even heard all the facts.
This situation reminds me a bit of the Iraq War and the WMDs. They decided they wanted to go in, and made up the reasons to justify it afterwards. Gathered whatever evidence they could to support their case, no matter how spurious.
Even after all the dedicated hardcore campaign of hate, spanning months – all they could flush out were 32 complaints, 6 of which didn’t even mention Dancetronauts.
Let’s put this in perspective. 32 complaints, out of 65,992 people. We know many of the complaints were from BMOrg founders, staff, and volunteers – a group of 3000 or so who don’t get counted in the population. This is less than half of one percent of BlackRock City, and only 3% of the total complaints for the year. Is that really significant? Especially when they probably happily entertained 20%+ of the population over the course of the week (15,000 people)?
The #1 restaurant in the world is El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain. Check out their TripAdvisor reviews:
If they made all their decisions based on the 29 haters, the 1000 people who rated it Excellent or Very Good would never get a look in. You don’t get to be the best anything in the world by focusing on complaints, you get there by focusing on excellence.
Similarly, Apple has many people who dislike their products and prefer alternatives – but they’re still the most valuable company on this planet. A small number of people complaining, should not outweigh the very large number of people who love the Dancetronauts and think they should be invited back this year, next year, and every year.
CONCLUSION
The decision seems to have been made that Dancetronauts needed to take a year off before Burning Man ended, and the plan to ensure this happened was underway as soon as its perpetrators got back from the desert. The idea was to motivate as many people as possible to report problems to the DMV email or via the FLIP form; encourage everyone to share their complaints on burningman.com; and use Groupthink techniques to encourage the pile-on of hate. Shaming and childish naming, “Douchetronauts”. Spread lies about them. Put the word out in the community, these guys were terrible, these guys must be punished, these guys are ruining Burning Man. Find as many sheeple as you can who will go along with the rest of the flock.
Who was behind it? This was specifically answered by Terry from the DMV Council, when he felt the need to emphasize that the complaints were coming from 2 Burning Man founders, supported by BMOrg employees. It was also answered by Chef Juke from DMV, who acknowledged that there was an interconnected group of complainers who attacked Dancetronauts from the very beginning.
The attacks all originated out of various burningman.com platforms, and appear to have been co-ordinated. There is a similarity in days and timestamps, between things being said on ePlaya, on Reddit, Facebook, and on Voices of Burning Man. Many of the complainers appear to be connected to each other and the Org.
Some might feel this story is much ado about nothing. But it’s clear from many of the comments that this hate campaign is still going on, and some Burners feel the need to crucify Dancetronauts for things they didn’t even do (e.g. playing music at the Temple). Dancetronauts pled guilty and apologized for everything they did do. They are not questioning it. And yet, the hate is still there! Where is the forgiveness? Where is the inclusion?
The actions BMOrg took to punish them have created a sour taste in the mouths of many thousands of Burners, and have not made Dancetronauts feel welcome at the event – despite their repeated efforts to compromise and conform. So the solution to punish has not really created any resolution, since those outraged by the problems appear to still be outraged.
We’re all human. There’s always going to be a few people who want to complain, and a vast majority who remain silent. How do we work together to make things better? Not how do we hate and punish and shame each other, that is Default world bullshit that has no part in Burner culture.
Worst practice: banning an art car because a couple of senior BMOrg people don’t like them, then attacking them year-round on social media to smear their reputation.
Acceptable practice: following the sound policy and cautioning Art Cars that cause problems
Best practice: working with Art Cars that cause problems to make sure they’re educated, treating them like valuable customers and contributors who are welcome, taking an Inclusive rather than Exclusive approach. Making sure the rules are clearly stated and consistently applied. Providing an independent arbitration process for dispute resolution.
Of course, Burning Man is not a Democracy. Not even remotely close. It’s a $30 million corporation, housed within a tax-exempt charitable structure, and operated as a “do-ocracy”. This means Burners do the work, and the Ruling Group benefit. In this scenario, Larry is a benevolent Philosopher-King like Plato spoke about, a dictator who only cares about the good of his people. This model requires a dynasty of kings to provide continuity of rule to the people. The Egyptians did pretty well with it for thousands of years, but slavery was a big part of their culture. The pharaoh didn’t give a toss about justice or fairness amongst the slaves.
Show some mercy, BMOrg. I get that a couple of dozen people were pissed at Dancetronauts on burn night. And now many thousands more are pissed at BMOrg for banning Dancetronauts. So what has been achieved? Who won? How did Burning Man get better?
Let’s have objectivity, consistency, fairness, and transparency. Let’s also have compassion, empathy, leniency, and humanity. Dancetronauts have apologized, they’ve offered to make changes. This decision out of the blue to ban them, after 6 months of silence, and years of great contributions, is excessive and churlish. Please show some leadership and over-ride it, welcome Dancetronauts back this year and let’s see how well they behave. If they do the same stuff all over again, then I would be the first to say “they deserve a ban”. It is very hard to see how that could happen at this point, though. Seems to me they already learned their lesson, and further punishment will not bring further benefit. A show of leniency would go a long way to restoring faith in the Ruling Group from the Burner Community, and would be good for morale.
The Dancetronauts Strip Ship is one of the most popular art cars at Burning Man. The vehicle rises vertically on a scissor lift, and shimmers with a rainbow wall of LEDs. The entire thing is a giant light installation, and easy to spot. It sometimes tows behind it a custom made sound stage called the Bass Station – DJ booth, speakers, amps, dancing podiums, all hand-built, home-made, and self-contained.
Image: Curious Josh
Dancetronauts + Bass Station/Opulent Temple White Party, Control Tower 2013
For seven years, Dancetronauts have been bringing their show to the Playa. Not just DJs – a whole uniformed crew, lights, and beautiful dancers the Dancetrohotties. To help raise the funds required to put their show on every night for a week, they have also been taking the Strip Ship and Bass Station to other festivals: including EDC, Coachella, and even NASCAR. Sounds good, right? Promoting Burner culture to a wider audience is the entire purpose of Burning Man, now that it’s a non-profit – isn’t it?
Image: Raphael Vandon/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Well, the Fun Police at BMHQ have banned Dancetronauts from Burning Man and related events for at least a year. Why? For being “too loud”, and because one of their lineup of scores of DJs got on the mic and tried to gift the crowd his music.
Let’s take a look into the details of what happened. For the TL;DR crowd:
The main complaints were:
1. Dancetronauts was too loud on Burn night, drowning out the drums for some fire performers in the LA Fire Brigade, part of the Fire Conclave located at 6:00
2. They had a DJ who got on the mic, said his name and that he had a new album coming out he wanted to gift to the crowd for free
Dancetronauts acknowledges that these things happened, and have taken full responsibility for these screw ups, and they’re very sorry.
They spent half the year negotiating with DMV, trying to work out how to do better next time, and how to restore themselves to “good standing”.
The main guy from DMV quit during the negotiations.
The DMV Council banned them for at least a year – they can’t even bring their art car without the sound stage. The were also banned from the SF Decompression.
Too loud at Burning Man? Is there such a thing? Isn’t the whole point of going hours and hours away from civilization, spreading a city out over 1000 acres, and having miles of Deep Playa space for art cars, that we can all make as much noise as we want? If there is one place in the world you can go to turn your stereo up, surely Burning Man is that place? If not Burning Man, then where?
In the city, it seems that there has been a distinct shift in recent years – and the direction they are going is more yoga and TED talks, less parties. Noise volume is now officially limited to 90 decibels and stereo power to 300W. This is about the sound of a hair-dryer, and the power output of an iPhone speaker dock.
Philips 300W iPhone dock
Is there music as loud as a bar or nightclub in Black Rock City? Ummm, yes! Like, everywhere…It’s not a festival, it’s a whole city, and there’s stuff going on in the city itself at 1000+ camps – not just out on the Playa. At least, that’s the Burning Man I remember.
The Fun Police will no doubt say “your radical self expression doesn’t over-ride your civic responsibility, if your neighbors want it quieter turn it down”. This is one of the classic battles in the Default world. Young people who want to boogie down and whoop it up to their favorite music, face the wrath of irate neighbors and police knocking on the door.
Don’t we go to Burning Man to get away from all that?
A very interesting discussion on this topic has been going on recently in the Burning Man Theme Camp Organizers facebook group. It highlights the difference between this new Burning Man 2.0 and the former pre-shark Burning Man that many of us “After Burners” so fondly remember. Jennifer says:
We know at least from all the years past that LOTS of theme camps threw events throughout the week that had loud sound – we’ve been to some of them! They are some of our very favorite camps even…people like Red Lightning, Sacred Spaces, District, Entheon in the old days (I was camped there when they were on F), lots of others. These people had loud music and drew crowds and made the whole city fun because you could always find something awesome to do in every neighborhood….not just at 10 & 2.
So I know we aren’t the only theme camp not at 10 & 2 who throws an event with Sound. Are you having similar issues? What are you doing about it? Is the city going to be literally silent and dead everywhere but 10 & 2 and deep playa?
It’s an impossible choice for us to make….no party but the placement we want or throw the party and a placement that no one in our camp is on-board with.
Many in our camp are considering not coming back in 2016 to burning man with how it’s going now given how so many of us can’t get tickets anymore (50+ people so far w/o tickets many of who are speakers performers and team leads) and now we can’t throw a party that hundreds of people say is an event they look forward to and can’t wait to attend. Doesn’t burning man want camps like ours to throw events like this? Events like I imagine many of you also throw? Isn’t that what makes burning man so amazing? I thought burning man was wanting to support theme camps doing this kind of stuff? Since when do people go to burning man expecting to have complete peace and quiet? I’ve always had it that when I hear loud stuff going on all the time it’s part of the fun and magic of a city that never sleeps and has something for everyone at any time of day or night.
Very well put, and very good questions. She follows it up with another great set:
Question about the city though….Is it the intention of the BMORG to be fairly silent within the city and have all sound only at 10 & 2? Will there now from this point forward not be any camps within the rest of the streets having parties and events? It used to be that 10 & 2 had the larger sound camps that had musical programming day and night every night and then other camps within the city also had events throughout the week day and night but at camps whose whole purpose wasn’t sound/music all the time? Is this what’s happening? Just curious if this is their intention given we aren’t the only camp that isn’t a big sound camp that has events? Is there a moratorium on all that now? I’m curious if anyone knows the intentions and if the old days of music and events happening throughout the city all over are over and being replaced with quieter day time only programming? Is District going away? Sacred Spaces going away? Others who do events but aren’t strictly a sound camp (like we are not really a sound camp with only 1 event)? Curious if anybody knows their intentions.
And this, I think, is something all Burners want to know. Are they trying to “turn down” Burning Man? Stop there being so much music? Take the life out of the city, to force people onto the Esplanade and the Playa? Or is there some sort of war on against EDM at Burning Man?
If we’re lucky, we’ll get a blog post explaining it all on Voices of Burning Man. Until then, us Burners have to try to figure it out for ourselves.
In reply, Lana says:
It’s hard for anyone to say what the ORG’s intentions or plans are, unless they put it out officially. There’s always speculation, rumor and conspiracies out there. But right now it seems everyone off the esplanade, portals, plazas And 10 and 2 are just expected to have their noise relatively limited to the confines of their own camp, in the wee hours especially. To your neighbors it should sound like a radio on volume 2 or 3 in their bedroom, not 6,7,8,9 or 10.
And Elias says:
It is officially published —
“Within the city, a maximum power amplification of 300 watts is permitted, producing sound amplification not to exceed 90 decibels, when measured at 20 feet from the source.” <http://burningman.org/…/black-rock-city…/sound-systems/>
Nobody is accusing the Dancetronauts of EVER playing too loud in a residential neighborhood, they have always been super-respectful of all of Burning Man’s rules and principles. But what about Art Cars on the Playa in Burning Man 2.0? Can they still play music when the Man burns? Or is the Man burn supposed to be like the Temple burn now, silent. Respectful. Instead of howling and cheering and screaming, finding an art car with good music and settling in by it for a few hours as we wait for the show to get started and the Man to finally burn down…we’re all supposed to just hold hands and sing kumbayah?
If an Art Car points its speakers towards Deep Playa, what does the volume have to be? How do they measure it – is there a standard distance? Who decides what is “too loud”?
Mutant vehicle sound systems can be classified into three levels.
Level 1: Normal car stereo / average living room (under 90dB at 30 ft)
Level 2: Dance Club or Theatre (90dB and up at under 100ft)
Level 3: Large Dance Club, Arena, Stadium (100dB or more at 100ft or more)
Note: All dB levels refer to maximum potential DBA. The important thing here is the impact of the sound itself. The numbers (dB) are guidelines and the important thing is the impact your sound is having. Vehicles with Level 1 systems may play anywhere playa, but must be mindful of your volume and surroundings, especially in quieter areas in the city or later at night.
Vehicles with Level 2 systems may only play at high volume on the open playa (not in or pointing right into the city streets) and must be mindful of where you are playing — e.g. around art pieces, burns, etc. — and turn it down when appropriate.
Vehicles with Level 3 systems may only play at high volumeat 10:00 and 2:00 by the Large Scale Sound Camps, with speakers pointing out to the deep playa.
If you get more than two warnings about your sound system, you may lose your MV license and the right to drive it for the rest of the event.
What level is “High Volume”? It is not stated in the sound policy. Who is responsible for letting the Mutant Vehicle operator know that there has been a noise complaint? Rangers? DMV? That is not clear, but it seems that no-one actually AT Burning Man last year was tasked with this. Or if they were, they didn’t get the “punish Dancetronauts” memo – because there were no complaints to Dancetronauts at the event itself.
The Mutant Vehicle Sound policy states quite clearly that noise levels get measured, and if a sound system volume is in violation of the agreed noise level, they will be warned. After they have received 2 warnings, if there are any more problems their Mutant Vehicle license will be revoked for the rest of the event.
That’s the policy. If Dancetronauts caused any problems under the Mutant Vehicle Sound policy, then as the policy states, they would have been notified of this.
Dancetronauts were cautioned about their noise level after 2013’s event. That year, for Cargo Cult, Opulent Temple took a year off as a major sound stage – but teamed up with Dancetronauts to throw a massive White Party at the Control Tower. This year, Dancetronauts threw an even more massive party at Embrace. Featuring DJs Diplo (Grammy-nominated) and Skrillex (6 Grammies, #9 DJ in the world on the Forbes list), it was one of the biggest parties on the Playa of the whole 2014 burn, creating memorable moments for a major segment of Burners. At least 20 art cars came to join them, using FM radio to synchronize everyone’s music together. Another 30 art cars came and joined in the party too. So 50 art cars, and tens of thousands of Burners over the course of the night. Basically creating the celebration for the gigantic Embrace art installation, which everyone got to see burn the next morning. This amazing Burning Man experience was not brought to you by the Ruling Group of BMOrg; instead, it was thanks to a lot of hard work and Gifting by the artists – including the musical performers.
'At BM you are not valued by what you have or who you are but by what you contribute' Harley Dubois @feastongood#feast2014@burningman
These are some good Burners, right? The kind we want? They brought all that for free, put on huge shows, entertained hundreds of thousands of people over seven years. Isn’t that what makes the party, a whole bunch of art cars getting together around an amazing mega-sculpture, celebrating next to it before we burn it? It’s not just me thinking the raves at Burning Man are great, these dance floors are packed with people.
In this video of the Thursday night party at Embrace, the music sounds loud, but not excessively so – you can clearly hear the cameraman talking. Dancetronauts have hand-built a custom system that can play loud, but not so loud that you can’t talk to each other in the middle of the dance floor. An audio accomplishment they should be praised for, not punished for.
And no-one complained. Are you kidding me? These people are all rocking, watch this or any of the other many videos of Dancetronauts Burning Man 2014 on YouTube. No-one measured their sound levels and found a violation at any time during Burning Man 2014. No-one contacted a ranger, to say that Dancetronauts was causing a problem. Dancetronauts didn’t hear anything the entire week – which surely would mean that their noise levels were fine, right? Especially since they were under extra scrutiny after the previous year’s caution?
The complaints that led to the Dancetronauts ban were almost entirely around an incident on Burn night. One of the Fire Conclave groups, LA Fire Brigade, found it hard to hear their drums because the Dancetronauts art car was playing music. No-one informed the Dancetronauts of this problem, although by some accounts people close to the fire conclave tried to get the DJ’s attention by booing.
Then, the DJ got on the microphone, and told people that if they liked his music, they could get his latest album for free. He did this either 1, 3, or 5 times depending on the various accounts of the complainers.
Now, it’s important to note at this stage that Dancetronauts have completely acknowledged that this happened. They are very sorry. They were in the same 6 o’clock area that they had been for the past 5 Man burns, and nobody had ever come to them to let them know there was any issue with the music – if that had happened, they would have immediately addressed it. They had no idea they were affecting any fire performances, they are huge supporters of fire dancing.
They have apologized in person to the members of the LA Fire Brigade who were in that part of the Fire Conclave’s performace, and resolved the issues going forward to stop them happening again. They have gone out of their way to make personal contact with every complainer they can identify, to share how sorry they are.
They have gone to great lengths to try to make amends for this mistake, and put things right. Their whole crew care deeply about Burning Man, it is a huge part of all their lives and they are just devastated to be told they can’t come back this year.
So what is BMOrg trying to achieve here? What motivates a decision like this, to PUNISH? I am really struggling to comprehend it, and that is why I asked Nomad to write his guest post on NPD and the BOrg – thanks, Nomad.
In this case, we don’t even know who the decision makers are – or what their process was. The “DMV Council” are officially the ones who made the decision to ban Dancetronauts. So who is the DMV Council? Good question – there’s nothing on the Burning Man web site about it. Most of you probably don’t spend a lot of time going through burningman.org looking for stuff, but I do – and I find it incredibly hard to navigate. So if I missed the section where the DMV Council is listed, please point me to it. I used the Search function on the site for DMV Council, nothing comes up in the last 8 years. I can find nothing in the Afterburn report, there’s nothing in Jackrabbit Speaks. We don’t know who’s on it, how they get appointed to it, and who’s watching over them to ensure that decisions are made properly and impartially – if indeed that is the motivation of this Council. To all intents and purposes, to art car owners the decision making group is a “black box”. Do they operate independently of the Burning Man Organization, make their own decisions? Are they guided by the Ten Principles? What powers of punishment do they have? Is there any ombudsman, any oversight, any way to object if these decisions made in secret seem unfair?
We do know that the head of the DMV Council, Chef Juke, just up and quit in the middle of Dancetronauts trying to work out what they needed to do to maintain their good standing. Another long time Burning Man team member out the door, not making the transition to the Brave New World of Burning Man 2.0.
Here’s some video of the night in question. You can see how far away Dancetronauts were parked from the perimeter, and how many people were happily rocking away in front of them. Sure, the music is loud in front of it, but they are by no means the only art car playing music when the Burn happens.
In this video you can clearly hear people talking while the music is going and the:
You can clearly hear the drumming here over the music:
Here’s some other video of the night in question. Fire conclave is happening, you can’t hear any music from Dancetronauts. This is at about 2 o’clock.
BMOrg told Dancetronauts that they had received “hundreds” of complaints, but when they actually handed over the entire set of feedback comments they had received, there were 32. Leaving aside (for now) any questions about the legitimacy of those complaints, let’s look at their composition.
6 didn’t even mention Dancetronauts, and were just about loud art cars in general. That BMOrg would even consider throwing these in – 20% of the complaints – smacks of scapegoating. Dancetronauts are being held up as an example of something many others are doing, because they’re the convenient target du jour. Some of the complaints were for more than one problem. There were 25 complaints for the DJ plugging his album, no matter that it was free. This is considered a “Decommodification Violation”, despite the fact that there is no commercial transaction involved.
There were 11 complaints for noise on Burn night. Every single one of these also complained about the DJ plug. 4 of them specifically mentioned other art cars in their complaints also.
So we’re now down to 7 complainers who had an issue just with Dancetronauts volume on Burn night.
Is that how Art Cars that are loved by the majority of Burners get banned? And parties for thousands of people get stopped? Because of 7 people? Is this the city we want to call “Home”, a city where a few complainers get to call the shots?
The complaints show very clearly that the real problem was the guy on the mic, not the volume. So why not just ban the mic? And not just for Dancetronauts, for every art car? Why do they have to single out these guys?
Sure, I get that rules are needed to make the city work, particularly now that it’s this big. In this case, what rules were actually broken? The Ten Principles aren’t rules. OK, so a DJ offered his art for free with a microphone. It’s Gifting, it’s Self Expression, it’s Immediacy, it’s Participation, but I’ll grant you that it doesn’t appear quite so great on Decommodification or Civic Responsibility. Which Principles count more than the others? Do people, Mutant Vehicles, and entire camps get banned from Burning Man now, for Ten Principles violations?
The Mutant Vehicle Sound policy is a set of rules, but there is no indication Dancetronauts violated any of them. Their speakers were pointed towards deep Playa, if they had been at the 10 o’clock or 2 o’clock positions for the Man Burn then they would have been pointed towards the city instead. In the policy, it is suggested that Level 2 systems be turned down for Burns, for all we know they did turn their system down that night. I’m sure it was capable of going much, much louder. Nobody measured a noise level or gave Dancetronauts a warning that their Mutant Vehicle was “too loud” – whatever that actually means.
It’s not the first time this sort of thing has happened – the example a few years back of Freebird at the Temple springs to mind. Did anyone get banned from Burning Man for a year over that? No. There was no punishment whatsoever.
Is this really the way to make Burning Man better? Art cars that entertain thousands of people, with no problems for years, get instantly banned the moment there is one slight fuck-up? No-one bothers to mention to them EVEN ONCE at the event, that there’s any kind of problem. No-one is interested in working with them after the event, so that they can establish foolproof methods of preventing these incidents from happening in the future. The thousand people merrily dancing to the Dancetronauts for every disgruntled Burner complaining doesn’t matter, 1 complainer trumps 1000 Burners.
Even if the only way that BMOrg can make Burning Man better in the long term is PUNISH BURNERS based on complaints, couldn’t the rules and consequences be more clear? Couldn’t BMOrg follow their own Mutant Vehicle Sound policy, and give them a caution? If not, if there was such a history of problems from a group that nothing was working and the only recourse was therefore punishment: couldn’t the punishment just be “don’t bring your sound system for a year”? Why does it have to be “your whole crew should take a break, we don’t want your art car back”? Why do all of the people who contribute to the camp have to pay the price for a single DJ’s actions over a few seconds, where is the Radical Inclusion here? Where is the loyalty and gratitude for their Communal Effort, Self-Expression, Gifting, Participation, and Immediacy? They are valued members of our community, a camp and car and crew much beloved by the majority of Burners. BMOrg should treat them that way.
Banning Dancetronauts for a year won’t stop art cars playing loud music on Burn night, or otherwise breaking the Mutant Vehicle sound policy. Dancetronauts pled guilty, immediately stood up and accepted responsibility, apologized, made peace with the LA Fire Brigade, and promised that they had learned their lesson. They seem to have tried really hard to put this right, rather than taking the attitude of “fuck you we do what we want”. What more could they do? They made suggestions like “banning DJs from using the mic” or “don’t bring the sound system to the Burn on burn night, keep it in Deep Playa only or even leave it at camp”. Surely either of those would have shown that they had acknowledged the problem, and had made concessions to reflect their understanding of it. Would it really have hurt so much to say “OK, apology accepted” and give them the benefit of the doubt?
There will now be hundreds of other noisy art cars to take Dancetronauts’ place in the complaining ears of the few grumblers who go to Burning Man seeking peace and quiet and tranquility, but can’t be bothered Radically Self-Relying on earplugs. Instead, they expect 20,000 people to leave the dance floor immediately, so these Special Burners can take a nana nap. Some of the Founders might be coming up on their Seventies, but most Burners are in their Twenties and Thirties. People go to Burning Man to party all night long until the sun rises, this should not be a newsflash to anybody. The entire city is aligned to the sunrise, FFS!
“TOO LOUD FOR BURNING MAN” is a losing battle. Silence is not going to make Burning Man better. No problem gets solved by this, just more ill-will and resentment being created against the Borg. Maybe a dozen or two people got pissed off by Dancetronauts on one or two occasions this year – but there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people dancing to their music when they played it. They sure look happy to me! And there are hundreds of thousands of Burners who have been entertained by the Dancetronauts over the last 7 years. Don’t the happy Burners count, too?
For those interested in this story, here are some further details from the Dancetronauts themselves:
Dear Terry Schoop, We want to work this out with you guys but your not really giving us a chance to.How about working along with me and throwing some options out on the table instead of telling a group of dedicated burners that have been participating in your event for over a decade that the are no longer allowed to come as a group and release the art form that resides within our hearts.This is not sitting well with any one person in our group and all in all is not fair to us at all.Whats this really about?????????? Honestly! Sound?Facts: 1.) For the duration of the week we are always out on deep playa playing our music where we are supposed to be! 2.) When we come back to camp from outer playa our volume levels are extremely low when were inside the “Inner Circle” and always have been for years. (we know what we are doing) 3.) We NEVER play by the Temple or anywhere near it and never have, That is extremely disrespectful, distasteful and absurd to even think we would do something like that! 4.) Our group is made up of solid respectable professionals age 40+ ER Doc,US Marshal,Veterinarian,Acupuncture,Engineer and so on, we are (Not Punk ass Frat boys or scumbags) 5.) We do not go into the inner city or even the inner playa we are always out past 2 and 10 unless we are driving out there at “The correct reasonable volume” 6.) Dancetronauts are drug and alcohol free and have always operated that way. 7.) 100% perfect safety record. We have no history of hazardous behavior, recklessness, or accidents.What does this all mean? We bring an element to your event that is needed at BM now more than ever (Its called contentiousness of earth) Inviting and supporting participants like us that actually abide by and follow your commandments is beneficial to the event. Dancetronauts setting examples for all the new participants that are not understanding just what BM is about is us doing exactly what you would want. Now don’t come at me like “How, by blasting Music?” because I’m getting tired of the snide comments we as a group have been receiving from the BMOrg. We do our thing out there as do many others. We also do a good job at safely running a huge mobile artistic performance stage and we have for years. We have built the stage up year after year to be bigger and better and now we are at a point where our show might have been just a bit to big for some of those at the burn. This does not mean we should be banned this just means we should figure out how to accommodate both parties so that everyone is happy and nobody comes out a looser. Well your not being fair and your punishing a bunch of hard working and loyal burners for no other reason except sound complaints that can be handled easily. Face it, your not putting the energy in to come to a resolve.I read every single complaint on the sheet you sent us. 70,000 attendees and we upset the 100 that were in front of us at the burns. It’s apparent that almost all the comments were from people that were at the Man Burn. In fact it was only one DJ that played way to loud and only one, it was the same DJ that was promoting “FREE” music. This will never happen again I will make sure of that! I have no control over what people could say so I believe it would be better to just not have a microphone. You have my apologies if this upset people. As for the sound being to loud at the man burn “and” the other art burns I completely agree that we were so loud that we in fact ruined other groups performances. I feel terrible about this and now that it has been brought to my attention I would do everything in my power to make sure we never did anything to disrupt another performance experience. I did not realize that we were being so disruptive and you have my sincerest apologies. Again please note that none of the complaints were from us being in the outer playa or anywhere else inside the event at all or any times during the event. It was solely at the art burns and we understand what we were doing that was wrong. Please understand that we are now very aware of our stages ability and will never let our sound disrupt elements of the BM event.Answers to Untruths written: We don’t go anywhere near the Temple at all nor attend the Temple burn. (any claims to us being there are false) We don’t sell anything or promote sales of anything. We don’t touch or move peoples bikes. (we kindly ask people not to put bikes in the dancing area, this is for safety) We don’t throw up on people. (personally my favorite comment we received) We don’t argue, fight or get violent. (Every issue we encounter is dealt with in a respectable professional manner)We as a group have dedicated our time money and energy into building this art car and the performance that surrounds it solely for the purpose of attending Burning Man. Way to much blood sweat and tears have been put in for this vehicle and its creators to not make it to its purposeful place.Resolve is easy: 1. We leave the Sound System at camp for all of the art burns and attend them quietly with just the Space Ship. 2. We do not allow any MC’s or Microphones on our art car anymore. 3. As always keep our sound facing outer playa.
I am humbly asking if you will please take this apology and understanding letter from me into account and please grant us the ability to bring our art vehicle to the most important event in our lives. We live and breath Burning Man and have been positive participants for over a decade please allow us to continue to grow and be a part!
We are only human, mistakes are inevitable, its what we do to correct them that matters. Let us show you this year please allow us to attend with our car we have so much invested in.
Sincerely, Captain Philip lead for the Dancetronauts.
Ok I totally understand and really do want to settle everything. As you know the Dancetronauts have been doing there thing with passion and professionalism for several years now and as we have grown we have learned many things. We always listen whenever we have made mistakes or made someone unhappy and make the changes in our lives to help accommodate the widest range of demographic we can. This is no easy task as you can never make everyone happy. But what we do try and do is minimize any negative impact we may have along our way and I feel that this is a case of that. We are very apologetic of the fact that we disturbed a several peoples experience at Burning Man with whatever we were doing as a group in our chosen area. We have been doing the same things each year at the same places so that our followers and people that are not have a really good Idea of where you might find us. For an amazing or not so fun experience depending on how you view us. There are things I don’t like at Burning Man, I let them be, That’s what its about right? Social acceptance? I have been attending BM since 1999 and know just about every aspect of how it works, Including having made very close friends with Larry Harvey and his entire family and the people that have been around him from the start. I should know more than many about how Burning Man works in entirety because I know things that the average person does not by being around the family of people that have created it.In our defense: I choose to stay away from those “Art Cars” or “Camps”. that I do not wish to be around. The Playa is an outrageously huge place and everyone has the “Choice” to be effected by something. I don’t go and scream at peoples Camp gates about how “plug and play camps are wrong” Or many of the other things that some of the people complaining about us have been doing ( when I did my research I’d found out that many of the bloggers speaking about us and causing a stink were actually attacking almost everything, even at many times contradicting there own selves.) First off we are SOBER when we operate at all times! That means everyone representing us in a suit or hottie outfit is in any way under the influence.Dancetronauts play it safe, we have a 20 person dedicated team with a US Marshall, 2 EMT’s,3 Fire Dpt and an ER DOC! To add we also have 10 spotters with CB radios reporting at all times. Our fire effects are certified by the Las Vegas Fire Department and nationwide our record with the Sheriff, BLM, Rangers is spotless and impeccable. In fact we have won their award for excellence every year since we have been on the Playa with this set up and get visited by them all every year to show us their support by shaking all our hands and taking pictures with us.We work for the utmost in respect for what we do as a group.What we did wrong? We did promote ourselves as a group,as does OT,APEX,White Ocean,Charlie,Question? and all others. We know our limitations and stay within them. We did promote our music. It is available for free as our gift! again there is nothing wrong with promoting our art for free. We did play loud dance music, as does the car right next to us (Kaliope 100,000watts, Robot Heart 100,000watts, The Mayan warior 200,000WATTS!) We did make thousands of people come together and dance and have a powerful experience that they came to Burning Man for. We did our best to be observant and execute everything we do in a professional manner. We did follow all the rules of Burning Man as we have done for years.I hope this response sheds some light on how me, “Philip Plastina” the Creator and Father to all of these Dancetronauts, moves through life with concern and a genuine heartfelt passion for everything around me. You have my sincerest apologies towards anyone we did affect in a negative way, Regards.
Dear Chef Juke,Thank you for sending the complaints. The majority of which are practically copy & pasted from blogs, posts & many of the same authors. Many we received most personally on our social pages and personal inboxes as well. Which all boils down to, IF, one DJ hadn’t made some poor word choices on the mic, you would be left with what any large art car with sound is… A few sound complaints.The majority of the complaints, repetitive, exaggerated, inaccurate and all sighting the exact same incident, which is factual, just in their own words. Yes we have many complaints, but they are all about the same thing, we had several thousand people out front our vehicle who experienced it that night. This was not an ongoing thing throughout the week or were there multiple Incidences. One night, one burn, one DJ…Too loud? Not any louder than any other large sound vehicle.Obnoxious, big yes, we win EDM and own that.Anyone who says their burn was ruined or affected by us, had the right and freedom to move and go freely. I imagine this happens all the time, all week, which is why we all choose to go, stay and be during out burn. No Victims at the burn. I am sure this will only result to people avoiding us in future years to come. Just like I personally avoid the ‘Black Hole’, Mayan Warrior or the crazy loud obnoxious punk hardcore metal camp that exists and handful of others. Hard to call some of those very harsh opinions and judgements that people want to express as actual valid complaints. People want to rant about what they like and for like and be a critic for you guys, lol. Or the additional false info like our dancers get paid or any of us for that matter. Dancetronauts, rather than douchetronauts, most deservingly should be ridiculed as ‘Debtronauts’. I don’t need to defend anymore erroneous claims.I personally, before all this, had already reached out and resolved the communication gap with the fire brigade. And that has been resolved and future resolve with the fire brigades before hand to ensure they have their show, music etc that we can help accommodate. Just like we always do, just like we did with Flameology this past weekend in Las Vegas. And if this had been communicated before and or during and not AFTER, this would have never been an Issue at all.So let’s talk RESOLVE. And obviously we are a part of a possible Larger problem when it comes to people complaining about large art cars and their Mobile sound systems. Whatever you guys decide, let it be across the board, not just single us out. We are already the scapegoat, that’s fine, but we do expect everyone to be held to the Resolve.We weren’t anywhere we weren’t supposed to be.There is no safety issues. And by the way the caution tape was in front of Boogie Man Castle because of SAFETY and his large fire effects that we team up With him for Burn Night. Other than one persons plug, we didn’t do anything we shouldn’t have.So… No mics on burn night? No music burn night?We we’re never near, aimed at Temple or even in attendance for Temple Burn.Alien Siege complaints is the same group of bloggers jumping on. There’s no other complaints nor do we have a history or record of ruining art installations, burns etc. Thursday night/Friday morning we demonstrated this for Embrace burn. I think there’s a slight difference between this years complaints and any previous years, which is funny for a group and art car which has been doing the same thing, with the same group, same art cars, same sound system, in the same spots for 5 years on the playa now. This is not a right or entitlement on our part, I just want to point out not much has changed and what has, has only improved.
Guilty of loud noise, specifically on burn night. Guilty of a dj promoting his album on that same burn night.
We are awesome and in-compliance and want resolve so we can live up to the perfect image we have created for ourselves. We already have our own work cut out for us to win back the many we let down in the such a ‘forgiving’ community. We are mindful, conscious burners who do a very good job of as hearing and respecting all rules and burners. After all we are contributors who do a lot for nothing at this event, so if we are not wanted, please make it public so we can start planning next years new camp and artcar. Because you can take away our privilege of this art car, but you can’t take away the burner. The BORG are partly responsible for this and this culture and now we are being punished for living it.
What would you like us to do?
Hi… Nice to meet you Terry.And yes it has been sometime. We have been patiently awaiting to hear back from DMV to work on resolutions with full compliance on OUR part. Since we had already been punished and banned from our art cars attending the 2014 decompressions (even our ‘Strip Ship’ vehicle which has no sound or violations). Now further denying us Is maximum punishment without any resolve. Pretty disappointing this is the BORGS resolution, without even working out any solutions with it’s artists.Sincere thanks for solely picking out items you could belittle and disregarding any attempts to resolve anything. Those items you highlighted were not said in our defense, or in anyway, not acknowledging our mistake. Which is why my clearly stated informal response to Chef Duke since, I am not the registered art car owner. Was to clear up the that the overwhelming number of complaints could be summed up from the couple hours they came from, specifically after we had one of our Dj’s promote his free album (yes, shameless self promotion, we know) & when you have 1000’s of people in attendance ENJOYING themselves and 100’s who are not within listening distance, it pissed off a lot of folks and sent a ripple through the crowd for the next couple hours of ‘F-this guy’ and who is this guy and ‘Dancetronauts’ takes the hit, no excuses.Our famous Dj’s are award winning Grammy artists who choose to play on the sound, art and stage we have hand built and created. We have thousands who appreciate it and just because some may not like the; music, style, artists, etc of what we do or offer because it doesn’t fit their ideal of what should and shouldn’t be at Burning Man, that we should no longer be invited? Hey, some people don’t like steampunk! But that’s the beauty of Burning Man, or so I thought?And my continued points of what we bring to the community is part of our civic responsibility that I was only trying to show some positive light on. That 99% of the time, we do a great job! And we do and we give a lot to the community and that the civic responsibility is not in question. There should be no impression or should we be punished by your board members that we are out of control, unsafe, maniacs and no longer invited. We are a collective alike. Conscious, mindful, intelligent, talented, responsible artists and like to have fun, again, sorry if ‘Dancetronauts’ got carried away for a moment with volume level and if we need to agree to certain parameters around our sound, time, placement etc. Then we are all ears?Otherwise this is obviously personal by your elite group of BORG members and somebody’s bruised ego has now made the impression of Dancetronauts that this hard working group of responsible strangers, you’ve never had any personal interaction with, are NOW some rampant liability or have really ruined or harmed anyone?We are guilty of the the infraction that our sound was too loud at Burning Man, on burn night, of all places, which we admit was indeed being played loud, yet at a safe volume (among dozens of others). We built this for burning, the only fully hand built custom sound system on the playa, this is our art. if you can’t bring music and play our art at burning man, then where on else on earth can you? We live and are a part of this community and EDM, which does this and supports Burning Man year round.There are no victims here. 65,000+ other people on this night who had no clue or could hear about our presence. The Art Car gets there hours early and stays hours after, year after year, we don’t move for 6+ HOURS and we are a registered as a SOUND VEHICLE. We do apologize if was overpowering to anyone else and who also couldn’t move, if it had been properly communicated we would have turned it down. And something we could resolve or work with fire conclaves in the future about. But no surprises and yes anyone who felt so entitled to their ‘spot’ could have stayed, suffered and complained OR they could have walked 100ft in another direction and been inconvenienced for that short amount of time to then enjoy the rest of their burn however they felt was best for them. I feel like I am explaining freedom, so I will stop. Since this can and may be disregarded or meaningless excerpts taken out of context like my previous email.We have ALL taken full responsibility and accountability that our mutant vehicle was being played too loud at a particular time that many felt was inappropriate. The sound has volume, which is something we can control and feel 99% of the time we do. There is solution and resolve, we can and have played at appropriate times and levels for hours, days and years. Now ONE DJ, his set and these hours, have completely jeopardized everything we’ve been working on for the past 7 years on the playa. We are a part of Burning Man & bring something that nobody else does. So many solutions and resolutions, yet our efforts for resolve go neglected for months and an email from a stranger just saying no and that we haven’t presented enough resolve is much easier? Please don’t take this away from us on account that DMV refuses to work with us on the numerous solutions that can prevent this from happening in the future;- No microphones for DJ’s or emergency announcements only – All music off at Burn Night – Or just Dancetronauts silent on Burn Night – Separate Art Car or Sound Perimeter that all cars to be behind if they are playing music. – Since Borg has their ideal ways of how everyone should burn, why don’t they just broadcast what they want to hear and all sound vehicles could play it? Sad our passion and amazing sound system and creation isn’t being utilized or there is no organization to prevent this by taking control of the entire 3hrs we were so disruptive. You want Burn to be and sound a certain way… then let’s make it happen! Rather than denying creations to YOUR event. -We would have loved to work with the fire conclave and play their music so people could hear it for their performance.We know how, when and where volume and sound needs to be, because we have been doing it successfully for 7 years and this last Burn on Burn night we pushed the limit and thank you for working with us and informing us of these occasional mistakes when they do occur. We have already discussed some of the further steps of our own to set certain volume levels that can’t be exceeded. As well as, let our Dj’s, artists and crew know ahead of time of these very important differences of playing at Burning Man compared to the default world and so on.To error is to be human, TravNasty
P.S. Last and final time. The indie gogo fundraiser was set up by a 3rd party and that small typo was taken down within 24hrs of it being posted. WE ARE FULLY AWARE and it was immediately resolved. No such offering or exchange actually took place. But thanks for bringing it up every chance you get and pinning us to the cross relentlessly about it. Wish we didn’t need to do fundraisers to raise the $$,$$$ we need to get our camp, infrastructure and art cars to the burn, but it’s either that or our tickets go to more spectators instead.
[Update 6/14/15 5:55pm PST]
This post is blowing up within our community more than usual. And rightly so.
This situation with Dancetronauts is a great chance for BMOrg, Larry & Co, McLarry, DMV Council, BMHQ, BMPBOD, whatever group it is, to show some leadership and wisdom. Say “we realize this decision made by a volunteer team who changed their leader in the middle of it all was just a bit too harsh, so we’ve vetoed it”. They could easily just step up and show all of us Burners that they are on the same wavelength that we are – rather than that they are broadcasting on their own bizarre wavelength, and trusting that we’ll tune in and follow any commandments we hear, whether they make sense or not.
The wavelength of Burners is: Dancetronauts rock. Art cars rock. Art cars playing great music rock. If they light up and have dancing boys and girls, even better. Free parties rock. Free parties with internationally recognized award-winning musicians rock.
We get this stuff for free, people. Think about how amazing that is for a moment.
Then think about the kind of asshole you would have to be to hate on that, to punish it: not just “turn the music down”, but exile, banishment, slander, public humiliation.
Are these supposed to be the values of Burners, now that the Tin Principles are just guidelines? Is this where burningman.com wants to take us?
I have more to say on this issue, but I don’t have much free time right now to write another big post. So in the meantime I want to hear from you: YES YOU. The Burners. I don’t care if burningman.com labels you as “After Burners”, if you ask me: Burn once and you are always a Burner. I have met many people who have not Burned yet, who are clearly Burners. These Burnier-Than-Thous, though? I’m not sure about them. I’m not sure they deserve to be dignified with the sacred moniker of Burner.
Whatever your position, please share it: there is no other place for our community to have this conversation transparently. .
Is this blog I made to share my opinions about Burner culture free from any bias? DUH. It is a personal weblog. It is biased towards thinking that my opinion is correct. That is what an opinion is. Maybe yours is more correct than mine, if so: prove it. Give me some statistics, some references, some evidence, some proof: just like I am giving you here. Fight my logic with your logic!
If anyone thinks this post is biased somewhat on the side of Dancetronauts, and not really supportive of BMOrg and their various decision making groups, they are absolutely right. Even so, I have tried to stick to the facts. If anyone can refute any of the facts, please do so in the comments. Some Burners have done so already, and I thank them deeply for their contributions to this conversation that is open to all of us to participate in.
I do think Dancetronauts have been hard done by in this situation, and do not deserve this treatment from Burning Man 2.0 Inc Ruling Group. I do think BMOrg/DMV Council/McLarry/Ruling Group/Whoever the decision makers are/The Man are being unfair and unreasonable about this matter.
Is there even such a thing as “so and so ruined my Burn”? I mean, I have definitely had times out there where people – even friends and family – pissed me off, killed my buzz, negged my happy vibe because they thought their own needs were more important than mine. Their ego and desire to “do this now” butted heads with mine, and only one thing could be done – so it was either fight, flight, or compromise. HELLO! That’s frikking Burning Man. Isn’t it? Or is “fuck yer day” no longer appropriate? Instead, we must all say “excuse me, please gift me whatever you have, have a nice day, donate to burningman.org, here’s a wristband”
[Update 6/15/15 0:05 PST]
For those who are interested, or doubt the veracity of this story, you can find the entire archive of complaints here.
You can also watch the YouTube videos I posted in this article and see for yourself.
[Update 6/15/15 11:39am PST]
Several readers have commented that they thought this story was from The Onion. Sadly, not. This one is satirical, though:
One Burner has informed us that Chef Juke is still head of the DMV Council, he didn’t quit. So why did he hand-ball this interaction with Dancetronauts to someone else, after earlier suggesting he was open to compromise? He’s happy to just abuse us, rather than explain himself and help everybody get to the truth:
Please correct any facts we have wrong, Chef. If you can.
Now that it’s Monday in San Francisco, and the paid employees of BMOrg are waking up, this post is collecting the typical Kool Aid response. This includes:
None of these Burnier-Than-Thou haters ever bother to suggest which media property they would prefer this blog to be modeled on instead. If the most successful news channel in the world is not credible enough to discuss Burning Man, then the Wall Street Journal, perhaps?
The only agenda anyone has suggested for me is hate, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. I love Burning Man, that’s why I have been writing this blog for years. There is no person on earth who has promoted Burning Man more than me. If I hated it, the stories would be very different.
People who never even went to Burning Man before 2010, don’t get to lecture me that they are better Burners. There is no such thing as “better Burners” or “special Burners”, who is telling you this? If you love Burning Man too, why not write your own blog? If you can’t be bothered, then don’t say “I get Burning Man more than you do” and then dismiss me. Explain yourself. Prove your claims. Give us some references and facts, like we do.
Let me state this unequivocally: I am not part of Dancetronauts. I’ve met some of them, and they were all lovely people. Kind, welcoming, inclusive, genuine – good souls. They do not deserve this hate campaign, no Burner does: “Radical Inclusion” should not mean “except for all the ones we decide to hate”.
When I ask these people who accuse me of all this bullshit to “please give an example of the lies or half truths”, they all vanish from the conversation immediately. “You lie all the time, but we can’t find any examples; so you should just provide them to us to support our accusations”. Good one! I have spent years now asking the people who say we’re not speaking the truth, to provide even one example of that. Still, nothing.
Others have said “you only looked at one side of this story”, which is not true. I have spent a lot of hours looking into this particular story. I guarantee you I have done more research than anyone else reading this! I have now posted the entire list of all complaints. I also posted multiple pieces of video evidence, some favorable to Dancetronauts, some less so. You can see for yourself, or, if you find other recordings, please share.
Still others suggest “you should reveal every single confidential email sent by BMOrg to Dancetronauts”…and maybe I will, in a future post when an Anonymous Burner source emerges to give me those – like Decibel has done in the comments here, sharing a single email (not a chain like they claimed to have) that did not support their point in any way. Am I supposed to just throw my sources (at BMHQ and elsewhere) under the bus and create potential legal/career problems for them, just because some trolls demand it? If I don’t give readers the name and address of a source, does that mean I’m just inventing it? What would motivate me to do that? NPD?
Any regular reader of this blog can see that we have always protected the confidentiality and anonymity of our sources.
Some are saying “why don’t you look at ePlaya, that’s where the facts and evidence are”…I find this idea hilarious.
Do people really think I just woke up one day and decided to write a bunch of lies, just to spite people? Even when the trolls ask me for Further proof and I provide it, they spin that to somehow be their example of how much I am lying: WTF!!! This is non-sense. No-one at BMOrg would ever lie, of course not, a Minister of Propaganda is the same as the Ministry of Truth. Their statements are only for your own protection and to showcase BMOrg’s exemplary integrity, to truly make this Art Festival wonderful. Excellence and entertainment are the motivation, and of course making the world a better place with Propaganda.
Imagine if instead of saying “Burners.Me is lying because I have all these emails that they didn’t share”, these haters actually shared them with everybody?
What if they said “here are some details Burners.Me didn’t mention” and offered some proof of these details they’re referring to?
Would the world end? Would Burning Man be “ruined”? Or could everything be transparent and open, a discussion for the entire Burner community to have – frankly, honestly, constructively? I am all for critics making points against us, if they can back it up with something. A quote, a story, an example: ANYTHING! They seldom do, though. Above the pay grade of the cyber-trolls, perhaps. Slander, yes. Name-calling, no problem. “Give an example of the accusation you’re making”, never.
Is it a sin to publicly discuss BMOrg’s decisions now? “Oh Burners aren’t capable of talking about Burning Man with facts and information, they should just shut up and get their facts from ePlaya.burningman.com and Jackrabbit Speaks, these are the only true facts”.
BMOrg has just told us “concierges are welcome” and “concierges are banned” at the same time…nothing inconsistent about that, is there? Only the “Fox News of Burning Man” would highlight to readers that this is contradictory, and encourage them to make up their own minds – with links to all the evidence.
If you don’t like this story, and want to challenge the facts, then please share your proof. What have I said that you think is wrong? What have I said that has been misconstrued? Did Dancetronauts not get banned from Burning Man events for at least a year? Are they still welcome at all Regionals? Please share eyewitness accounts, emails, or whatever else you have. The more sources of information we have, the better! This is what transparency is all about.
[Update 6/16/15 3:47pm PST]
Decibel, Randy, Let’s Talk and others have pointed out that Dancetronauts have not been banned from any of the Regionals and Decompressions that still operate outside of BMOrg control – only the Nevada burn and the SF Decom, which is the only one put on by BMOrg.
Randy has said Dancetronauts would be welcomed at any of the Texas regionals. He has specifically invited them to “freezerburn this winter and to mscvhevia this fall”.
Valdemoort informed us that they played last month at unSCruz, the Santa Cruz regional.
One reader reports that BMOrg have previously paid $5000 to Dancetronauts to play at Decompressions, so at some point BMOrg were perfectly fine with the art car financing itself by performing at events outside of Black Rock City.
I have updated this story accordingly, although I don’t think it changes the substance of this situation in any way – banning something at Burning Man loved by thousands because of a couple of dozen complaints about 2 minor incidents is just wrong.
This is a great opportunity for various Regionals to step up and invite Dancetronauts, to show them that the Burner community still loves and welcomes them even if BMOrg doesn’t.
Let’s Talk has suggested that Dancetronauts could come to the Nevada burn with their uniforms but no art car, and participate by teaming up with someone else; and maybe they will end up doing that. Or maybe we will be lucky to ever see them at Burning Man again, given the way they have been treated.
Another reader complained that my iPhone dock example was not really a standard 300w stereo because it cost a lot. So here is a picture of a more regular looking 300w stereo.
The good news is the haters are now saying “Burners.Me is full of half truths” rather than the old “Burners.Me is full of lies”. A step in the right direction! Next will be “Burners.Me is usually true, occasionally they get something wrong but they correct themselves when evidence is presented”…
Hey extensively wealthy people who go to the plug & play camps on the outskirts, want to get around & see the cool things, but don’t want to talk to anyone, got an idea for you. What if, y’all funded this stuff, in exchange for having your own personal/slightly better transports. Here’s how it looks: the tech illuminati that hang out at BM just magic’d up a “hazard test” for the technology, brought it to the playa, got everyone to sign a second death waiver, and then can access the service to transport ice, get to the deep playa, or just make it from 10 to 5 without having to bike in the 1pm sun. Obviously, priority would be given to Rangers, Green Dot transporting patients, children, the elderly and that one time you swore you saw a pregnant woman on playa. Transport could have BM radio piped in and be re-directed during events and help ensure people aren’t traveling through the deep playa stoned as fuck.
Some of this may be tongue in cheek, but I think this is definitely within the realm of the possible. Especially with the micro-deployment that could be tested out, in addition to the more sophisticated feedback you’d just happen to get because of the breadth & depth of technical experience and straight up lifestyle of the different burners using your product.
