BMOrg has decided to change their nomenclature. No longer will we refer to “Plug-N-Play” camping, which always sounded like the RV equivalent of a USB port to me. Now these camps are to be known as “Turnkey Camping”, and completely accepted as a standard part of our community.

If you are a group of people who set up a camp – or hire help to set up a camp – with the explicit intention of having things ready to go in advance of the arrival of others, you are probably producing what we’ve termed “Turnkey camping”. In recent years, we’ve seen a rise in Turnkey camping services, and the Burning Man organization has decided to address the issue by providing guidelines for these camps and their organizers.

Turnkey camps generally utilize outside service providers (better known as “vendors” outside our decommodified event). These services include deliveries, camp operations crews, and the organization of resources at campsites. Although camps have coordinated and pooled resources throughout Burning Man’s history, those resources and services are now more sophisticated and extensive than ever. It is now necessary that Turnkey camps be made aware of the impact they can have on Black Rock City.

Those evil Turnkeys! Imagine someone wanting to arrive at Burning Man, and the dome in their camp has already been built! Or imagine someone flying out on Sunday afternoon because they need to get to work the next day, and can’t risk an 8 hour Exodus. Shock! Horror! Traitors! How dare they consider themselves a Burner?

We’re pleased to see that after months of musing, BMOrg has realized that there’s no way they can stop Plug-N-Play turnkey camping, so they might as well embrace it.

Being BMOrg, they decided that the best way to deal with this situation is to create more rules. So, we have some new guidelines, on top of all the existing rules and the 10 Principles. In summary: no branding on supply vehicles; don’t “circle the wagons” to create a wall of RVs as a camp boundary; and you need to pay any service providers off-Playa.