When news came out that Dancetronauts had been banned for at least a year for being Too Loud For Burning Man, we wondered if there might be more to the story. Was this part of a bigger pushback to exclude “Broners” from our culture, an attempt to differentiate Burning Man as “more than just another EDM festival on the circuit?”
Well, speculate amongst yourselves, Burners…meanwhile, the coincidences continue to mount. Now we hear that Playa stalwarts Opulent Temple have been denied placement. Why? For not being interactive enough.
This is a sound camp with at peak moments more than 10,000 people being entertained. By the world’s best DJ talent, for free.
From Opulenttemple.org (emphasis ours):
2014 saw us go big once again. We produced and gifted our 11th incarnation of the camp, doing so for our 7th time anchoring a corner spot. We built a new (partially) crowd funded DJ booth we called Armagan, aka OPod 3.0. We also built new 3D screens for visual mapping known in OT slang as the snowflake screens, new I-beams and support structure to put the raised stage platforms together, and a custom made 3 shower stall on a trailer. We moved warehouses, did upgrades on our fire effects manifold, built a paneled LED light effect DJ booth for indoor events, threw 16 fundraisers, and we bought a swing set. We also founded a new 501c non-profit organization called Sacred Dance Foundation to formalize with the IRS what we always been in action, a non-profit community, gifting an experience in the hopes it will do a small part to plant seeds of goodness in troubled times.
So yes, we’ve been extremely busy, expended a high amount of financial and personal resources last year to make it all happen and ended up with a considerable amount of debt. It took us quite a few events just to come back from the deficit so we head into this year’s burn needing a different and less risky experience. Our core team has never had a year since starting or joining OT where we haven’t produced a large sound camp. It takes a massive coordinated group effort each year to raise enough funds to bring our production to the desert and I’m sure you know that we, like every other sound camp, do it all with only the support of our community, without any help from BMorg. We attempted to apply for a grant for our large-scale fabrication projects last year but were denied because sound camps and music are not considered art that the powers that be wish to support. While other art installation projects have access to almost $1 million in grant money, free tickets for crew and validation from BMorg, sound camps get no support even though we also contribute a highly interactive and memorable experience to tens of thousands of burners every night of the week at BM and beyond. It would be safe to say that sound camps play a big role in why many of the BRC population make the trek each year so the lack of support and respect from the organizers is disheartening… so much that they didn’t even assign us a placement for our camp this year.
So now the plan is to step back and have a different BM experience while still maintaining an OT presence and vibe in Black Rock City. There will still be a great OT camp that will be close to the many dance floors in the 10:00 and Esplanade vicinity, and we’ll still do a number of events, but they just won’t take place in our own sound camp and dancefloor. We’ve asked why we’re not getting placed and were told our camp is not ‘interactive’ enough since most of the events we’re doing are mobile. We’ll be announcing our events here in the coming weeks but definitely keep Wednesday night open for us with your creatively fabulous white attire for our annual Sacred Dance ‘White Party’, but this year on the open playa, stationed around the Flaming Lotus Girl’s Serpent Mother. We hope to enroll as many art cars as possible to link up and add to the epic party. Please contact us if your art car would like to join that sonic train and participate in the overall experience.
Thank you for the ongoing support to help us do what we do. Seems like the community based sound camps (in contrast to millionaire funded ones) are dwindling; many of the popular sound camps from years past will be absent this year: Roots Society, Osiris, Dancetronauts, Digital Apex. At this point we don’t really know year to year where the wind will blow us, but you can certainly bet whichever direction that is, we’ll be forging ahead with fire, beats, community and a mission, forever purposeful.
See you in the desert!
The only major sound camps we’ve heard that got placement are billionaire camp White Ocean and Disorient. Burners this year will also have to make do without:
Root Society
Osiris
Dancetronauts
Digital Apex
If you’ve heard of any other sound camps that won’t be returning this year because they were denied placement or couldn’t get enough tickets, please let us know and I’ll update the list.
When the Founders first announced their retirement and transition to a non-profit, then followed it up with an Anti-Burner ticket lottery, we speculated as to their motivation. Was there some perverse element disgruntled at Burners, and actually trying to destroy Burning Man from within?
I’m not sure what the motivation is, maybe you guys have some ideas. The decisions they’re making at BMHQ in the Mission just seem to be getting worse and worse, the older the Founders get. A tragedy, really.
[Update 9/13/15 5:25pm PST]
Thanks to a source for sharing this. From OT’s recent email to camp members:
This year is a unique year by OT standards because for the first year since our inception in 2003, we are not building a large sound stage / camp-central dance floor. After 12 straight years we decided this was finally the year to step back and have a different BM experience while still maintaining an OT presence and vibe in Black Rock City.
So, there will be a great OT camp…But please be clear, though there will be many dance floors in our immediate vicinity, most of the time it won’t be our own.
The camp will have limited space this year for ~120 people, including no more than about 20 RV’s. (for comparison, last year we had about 275 people by the end of the week). So by our standards will be on the mellow / intimate scale. The requested camp placement is 250 feet back from 10 & A (so essentially behind whatever sound camp is on 10 &A). That puts us well behind the usual loudness that’s generally been part of the OT camping experience but still close to the Esplanade and the action.
So that’s all they were looking for – somewhere to put less than half of the previous year’s camp. That’s the placement that was denied them, for not being “interactive enough”. So do the camps behind the 10 o’clock sound camps all have to be interactive now?
They were going to have events every night which were all open to the public.
EVENTS
Party wise we will do 5 events (only one of which is a full on OT scale blow out.)
-Tuesday Sunset: OT Happy Hour – Meet and greet for all camp members and open to the public to invite friends, live DJ’s and drinks.
-Tuesday Night: OT partners with an Art Car tba for an OT vibe and DJ mobile party.
** – Wednesday Night: our biggest event of the week – our annual OT Sacred Dance ‘white party’ – open playa locale TBA.
-Thursday Night: OT hopes to partner with a placed sound camp to synergize vibe and talent with our crew and theirs.
-Friday Sunset: OT Happy Hour – Meet and greet for all camp members and open to the public to invite friends, live DJ’s and drinks.
Would it have been so hard to reward their loyalty with placement? If not where they requested, then anywhere?
Burners on social media are saying that MOOP is the “actual reason” Opulent Temple were denied placement. This allegation has now been completely debunked, see below.
In other veteran news, Dusty Rhino was denied placement on the Esplanade, for not being interactive enough.
Let’s hope this means there will be incredibly interactive camps along the Esplanade this year, and in the back streets behind the sound camps.
[Update 7/11/15 6:34pm]
Opulent Temple themselves, perhaps fearing further ire from the Borg, have moved to downplay the situation, and distance themselves from any speculation about motivation.
Hey folks, OT here. We know people love getting drama-tastic about Burning Man, but while we appreciate Burners.me a lot for their support of music at BM, we feel this headline is a bit sensationalized. We don’t want to get pulled into some conversation about ‘war’ on EDM music, because frankly we don’t see it that way. Our scoop is in the web posting and we encourage people to read it on our site. Again in a nutshell – Unlike previous years, we don’t have our fixed stage. We never planned on having it for the reasons outlined in our post, which has nothing to do with placement. We are doing a number of OT events though, that will be at various spots around the playa, and because our camp itself did not have an interactive element, but is more of a base camp for our events around BRC, we weren’t placed. We’re still going to be there, it just makes things harder for us than we hoped it would be. We thought and wished partially based on legacy and previous contribution we’d get a reserved spot, but we didn’t. We’re not trying to call victim, it is what it is, we’re well versed in being disappointed in decisions from the org and we choose to be there with open eyes. It had nothing to do w MOOP either, for the record… There was zero mention of MOOP in their reasons for their decision. Thanks for everyone’s support and we look forward to seeing everyone out there, especially Wednesday night at the Serpent Mother. Peace.
[Update 7/11/15 7:00pm]
Thanks to MzFit for helping clear this up. Despite the haters’ claims (which we can put down to disinformation, or maybe familiar smear campaign tactics), OT was green for MOOP last year. They had a single red dot, which presumably was dealt with. It was a lot less than most camps, including most camps that only had one MOOP mark.
[Update 7/14/15 9:03am PST]
This is from last year’s Piss Clear BRC Weekly. It reveals some of the Founders’ attitudes towards EDM and ravers:
White Ocean got placement. Dancetronauts and Opulent Temple got punishment. One is a billionaire camp (the founder owns 50 private jets), the other two are long time Burner camps who have put years into the event. Draw your own conclusions…welcome to Burning Man 2.0.
[Update 7/14/15 11:28am]
Someone suggested that 300 camps were denied placement this year, but officially it was 95. See the comments to this story for details.
From Opulent Temple:
For the record – 95 camps that asked were not placed (not 300). From our placement communication: “More camps requested Theme Camp placement than we have dedicated space for and as a result, we were unable to place 95 camps. Unfortunately your camp is one of these unplaced camps.”
Secondly, though yes – our in-camp interactivity was low (we know), it’s not like it was non-existent. Our interactive elements in the camp will be a large & plush public shade area open to anyone to come enjoy. (The same we always had on Esplanade for anyone to come chill) + 2 public sunset happy hours with guest DJ’s and drinks. + we’ll do 3-4 ‘mobile’ events and out about BRC, with Wednesday being the biggie. We’re doing more at our camp than some placed art car based camps that do nothing at their camp except park their art car when not in use.
Lastly, having some time to reflect, we say the reality of the placement thing is not that serious, it’s just been blown up because some have thought our normal big sound camp wasn’t placed, and we never intended to do the sound camp. It’s just the redundant, and consistent illustrative principle. We were, admittedly, hoping and assuming that our years of huge output of contribution was good for something in the consideration. Now we know it isn’t.
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As we’ve seen in comments above, the dance camps attract Burners that drop tons of Moop. The dance camps can’t clean up the Moop that the Burners bring, even though they’re trying real hard. They’re good at setting up a party, but they’re bad at getting anyone who comes to take responsibility for their Moop. The people who come and drop Moop don’t come by the next day to clean it up. And Burners.me says, “Hey, it’s not the dance camp’s problem! THe Magical Burner Fairies should be coming in and waving their magic wand over the Playa to make it all clean!”
So it’s left to the cleanup crews after the Burn to restore the Playa. And when there’s huge amounts of Moop, then it’s a problem for the cleanup crews. But apparently those are the Magical Burner Fairies that Burners.me is thinking of. After all, out of sight out of mind, right? If the party is awesome, who cares about the cleanup crew that has to spend days restoring the Playa picking up drug baggies, sequins and glow sticks?
The Org probably doesn’t feel the same way about it, and neither does the BLM.
Now a lot of dance camps are going mobile. If you’re in one place, then all the Moop the Burners drop at your dance camp gets connected to you. If you go to a different place every night, then the BMORG just finds tons of MOOP on the Playa and can’t figure out who left it there. So it’s not connected to your dance camp and you can say, “Hey, I wasn’t responsible!” The Moop is out there on the Playa and it’s 100% the cleanup crew’s problem.
It seems like they’re trying to do an end-run around the Moop issue and shift responsibility onto the crew that cleans up after the Burn. I guess the cleanup crew are the Magical Mooping Burner Fairies and we should just all leave our trash out on the open playa from now on!
Good point
And from my experience, moop is not neutral or random, but an indicator of the character of the mooper. I am good with them not coming to my Burning Man.
…Of course you could play the BOrg obfuscation game, and want to “Radically Include” people who don’t follow the Tin Principles. Maybe the moopers don’t break enough of Larry’s principles. They just need to show more initiative …or more money.
http://burners.me/2014/09/14/commodification-camps-and-the-tin-principles/
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Has it occurred to anyone that perhaps the BMORG doesn’t want Burning Man to turn into another EDC?
My God, man, you’re like a thunderbolt straight from Zeus’ hand! People, why hasn’t this occurred to us before!?
We have been too busy reading the other comments?
Has it occurred to anyone that Burning Man is created by the Burners, not BMOrg?
Has it occurred to anyone that the current NV burn attendance is determined by the BOrg ticketing and NOT the burners?
Short of a transfer of the ticketing decisions to the veteran burners, how about… For any camp that has a clear presence outside of the NV burn:
1. No camp placement.
2. No DS tickets.
3. No advanced entry.
After all, you can see them somewhere else, and NV burn space and attendance is at a premium. Placement and DS tix should be for *UNIQUE* NV burn camps, like Thunderdome. Camps that you can see in the default world should go fish for tickets and space like everyone else. And if they don’t make it, they can still do their other venues.
Sure, existing camps could re-brand themselves, and come up with something new and different. Which would be good.
I think the real problem is you start getting into a situation where your rules have rules. I don’t think the org is interested in curating who is attending as long as there are enough core camps generated through the directed ticket sale. I personally think they should go back to the lottery for the rest, just so server speed isn’t a factor. I think the org feels this is a social experiment and they want to see where it goes naturally with as few tweaks as possible.
How is selecting core camps that can be found elsewhere “an experiment? ” Maybe have 7-11 sell the ice? Have the NV DMV license the art cars?
How is not giving privileges rules on rules? Would you call the Bill of Rights or the Magna Carta rules on rules? More accurately: rules on rulers so they cannot manipulate others. You know, like deciding who gets the land.
I just think it’s more than they want to manage.
I’m still in favor of doing away with directed tickets entirely. Imagine what unexpected beauty and chaos the citizens of BRC would come up with if camps came together solely out of those who lucked out and got tickets? Maybe Thunderdome wouldn’t be there or some other large, perennial camp/installation. To that I say: fantastic! I’m 100% in favor of smaller scale art and sound, and coming to BRC with no idea what will be there. Seriously.c
Even better!
There I’ve gotta disagree. The point of directed ticket sales is large projects require lots of participants and if you don’t get enough of your crew out there…no art. It’s not a matter of different art…it’s a matter of no art (or cool camps) or only art paid for a delivered by the one percent. Directed ticket sales is a compromise, but I don’t think you can get around it.
I disagree that “no art” would be the result. Smaller art, maybe. The absence of old perennials, probably. Less of a spectacle, surely. All things I’m in favor of.
And you know, art isn’t what makes Burning Man what it is. Big art installations are rarely that interactive, and tend to inspire gawking more than anything else. Smaller art would put the focus back on interaction and away from spectacle (and spectating). No more fabulous backdrops for your selfies? Awesome. Maybe the bucket listers would stay away.
We can use my camp this year as an example. We’re scrounging around for tickets like everyone else, and yet our art project is awesome, SUPER interactive, while still being doable for whoever ends up making it to the playa. And it’s fucking mobile. (Seriously, it rocks.) What exactly is the downside of that being the majority of art out there? I see none, while the upside is more focus on the people around you. You’re more likely to interact with the people responsible for the art if it’s smaller scale. Our project doesn’t exist without outside participants, there’s nothing to gawk at. The whole thing will cost about $4000 bucks, split amongst 10-20 people.
I get it. Typically my favorite art projects are smaller. That being said I’m a big fan of audacious. I’m a big fan of “how the fuck did they do that”. I’m a big fan of seeing what a hundred people can create when working together. I do think directed tickets should have an emphasis on bringing new art works and camps.
The way Transformus works is that camp applications are due a week after the first round of ticket sales. You find out what you have in the way of people/tix, and go from there. Placement and early entry all then follow from camp approval.
…And in case Burnersxxx comes in his RV, there is a “special” RV parking area for “special people” who need RVs. The rest of us have to do with tents :), which makes it very old school and approachable. No walls of RVs. Of course there is about 5% of the people that go to the NV burn, about 3,000. Management is all volunteer. And they announce when they are looking to put new people on their BoD.
…Oh, and everyone is expected to volunteer, even virgins. BIG volunteer sign-up system with lots of quite specific jobs and shifts. The on-site overhead is the burners volunteering.
Can we please stop lumping in all genres into EDM? Those of us who are serious about the music cannot stand to be lumped in with the EDM crowd. Serious house, techno, etc music has absolutely NOTHING to do with EDM. It doesn’t sound the same and the people are way different. Thanks.
https://skyy22.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/a8w1rvq_700b.jpg
I only listen to dance music while at Burning Man for dancing. Does OT play just one subgenre? I don’t know, every time I’ve walked by one of the big sound camps, it sounds like that epic trancey crap. Whatever it is Pink Mammoth plays, that’s what I like. And talk about an awesome sound camp, PM is just about perfect for my tastes. Relatively small, varied age range, non-douchey, not too damn loud, and they serve great drinks. And hey, they’ve stayed the same size for years now, somehow resisting the urge to “go bigger.” Bigger ain’t always better, unless we’re talking about human penises.
No..no we can’t. I am old. I hear “bump, bump, bump”. I shake my butt a little bit. It’s not pretty. No offense meant, but no…we can’t hear the difference. It’s a psychology thing. After a certain age you brain stops being able to hear new types of music. So if you play “Art of Noise”, I’ve got you. Past that, I can’t help.
Further proof that it’s mostly old people hating on EDM at Burning Man.
I didn’t say I hate it. I don’t think it should go away. I like to shake my butt to “bump, bump, bump”. I said I can’t hear the difference between the different kinds and I just think people should moop their shit.
Plus, when I was 16 in 1978 I hated disco. So age isn’t the primary factor. It’s moe a factor of not being able to escape something.
hater
“Further proof that it’s mostly old people hating on EDM at Burning Man.” No, that is misdirection from the problem, which is the NIMBY. I suggest that you organize a group of people who are willing to camp in the “dead zone” around any/all dance camps. And filling the dead zone with the dance camp RVs does not count.
For mobile dance camps, they should be kept below 80 dbA as measured at the edge of the “crowd” they can amass. If you measure more than 80 dbA at any other camp, where that peak can be attributed to the mobile dance camp, the dance camp must reduce their volume.
And absent the dead zone, impose that same limitation for stationary camps. That’s why they should direct their sound to the open desert, NOT the open playa where there is art.
Be original and creative! Copy the Silent dance camp idea. If you want to blast your brains, bring a Bluetooth or FM headset, and tune into the camp channel. Hell, I might join you, but playing tango on my MP3 player.
I am old, I hate EDM. Other old people I know hate EDM. I know young people that hate it. That is why we do not play it and avoid listening to it when possible. Silent sound camps sound good. I would be there with my player loaded with CCR, Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Greatfull Dead. But changing all those cassettes is a drag man.
Even if it was mostly old people, so what? It’s a sizable population.
Just turn down you hearing aid, old man!
Eh!? What’s that you say, sonny? There’ll be no more Social Security left for you? Ah, right. Sorry?
Fuck old people, and fuck silent discos while we’re at it. [disclaimer: I am an old person and not a fan of dubstep]
“Fuck” any camp that you can see somewhere else.
Can we please lump together all problematic dance camps – EDM, salsa, disco, tango – under the “EDM” label for the purpose of these common traits:
1. Most burners would NOT want to be camped next door due to the disruption, noise, and inability to do their own thing. They create a functional dead zone.
2. They “need” a bunch of directed sale tickets.
3. They are the same for 20 minutes or 20 hours – a largely indistinguishable experience that is not materially differentiated by those who participate. Their “interaction” is restricted to the participants doing the same thing, making them interchangeable.
Please?
Oh fuck off. EDM is meant to be an umbrella term and has been one for the past 20 years. It’s only in the last few years that snobby ravers have started insisting that EDM is a name for whatever genre the mainstream stuff falls into. Yes, there’s only a subset of artists that the mainstream media pays attention to when they write about EDM, and maybe those artists fit in a similar subgenre. Whatever.
What would you have for an umbrella term? Techno? Rave? Electronica?
Rock music doesn’t have this problem. Rock is a hugely encompassing metagenre at this point, but if rock fans were like “techno” fans, rock would only be the stuff that sounded like Buddy Holly.
Nicely put.
OT is not being punished. I’ve worked on my village’s questionnaire (the document filed that informs placement what you will be doing) and with placement and they make no bones about the requirement for interactivity in your camp. This is because placement equals Early Arrival Passes, which are for building. Using other people’s spaces and the open playa doesn’t count unless you are building. OT isn’t going for that this year and they were honest about that. Taking placement and EAPs makes you a living room camp, which negatively effect the experience for everyone. This isn’t just the b’orgs rule, its also the BLM’s rule. People who do not build using EAPs essentially extend the festival’s start and end times. This is a big no no from the BLM which is why camps can be fined and denied placement next year if parties or events happen before the gates open.
I think its important to note that over 300 camps were turned down for placement this year because of lack of space. This may sound funny given the size of the city, but to maintain its no-curation policy (and to keep the BLM happy), it only provides about or under 50% of the space for placed camps. It would be a sad day if 300 camps who intended to have interactivity had to sit this year out so that OT could have a living room camp on prime real estate. Its not about loyalty, its about fairness. I think this is why OT is being so cool and respectful about the situation.
I do agree that the B’org is passively hostile toward “rave” culture in that they do not apply grant money to any installation with a DJ or dance music. I don’t like that, but I get it and am happy to work with the support from the community instead of the support from the B’org. They do place sound camps and that I feel is a good compromise. As for white brocean, they do not get favor. They follow the rules like everyone else.
**I do not work for Burning Man in any capacity nor do I speak for placement, OT, or my camp/village. My motivations for posting are to balance this sensationalism with facts**
For the record – 95 camps that asked were not placed (not 300). From our placement communication: “More camps requested Theme Camp placement than we have dedicated space for and as a result, we were unable to place 95 camps. Unfortunately your camp is one of these unplaced camps.”
Secondly, though yes – our in-camp interactivity was low (we know), it’s not like it was non-existent. Our interactive elements in the camp will be a large & plush public shade area open to anyone to come enjoy. (The same we always had on Esplanade for anyone to come chill) + 2 public sunset happy hours with guest DJ’s and drinks. + we’ll do 3-4 ‘mobile’ events and out about BRC, with Wednesday being the biggie. We’re doing more at our camp than some placed art car based camps that do nothing at their camp except park their art car when not in use.
Lastly, having some time to reflect, we say the reality of the placement thing is not that serious, it’s just been blown up because some have thought our normal big sound camp wasn’t placed, and we never intended to do the sound camp. It’s just the redundant, and consistent illustrative principle. We were, admittedly, hoping and assuming that our years of huge output of contribution was good for something in the consideration. Now we know it isn’t. It makes logical sense to follow the letter of their policy (our base camp is not interactive enough to be placed), but it removes too much of the human element, in our opinion, and that’s where it hurts. The dynamic between the sound communities and the org already feels like way too much -take- on the org’s side, and very little -give-, and this only reinforces that frustrating reality. The Borg not doing anything differently, so it’s not like we’re being set up with false expectations. We know very well this is the deal, play this way, or don’t play! That is our choice and we own it. But- that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t hurt when you’ve given so much of your time and energy into something with so little in return from the org that’s benefiting from it. Obviously the love of the community means the world to us and has kept us coming back, but one naturally also hopes those benefiting from your efforts, including financially, would do better by us. Can’t say we expect it or feel entitled to it, in some ways we know better, but can’t stop hoping, though we’re getting there. A good lesson in holding things lightly and manifesting alternatives.
So this whole thread has been much ado about nothing. Thanks burner.me, burnersxxx. Is the BLM thing also blown this much out of proportion?
Yes by bmorg and the reno newspaper http://burners.me/2015/07/09/blm-to-review-chocotacos-if-bm-lifts-their-safety-game/
“A good lesson in holding things lightly and manifesting alternatives.” That’s what makes life interesting.
This, “it removes too much of the human element, in our opinion, and that’s where it hurts.” shows respect all around. You have mine for stating it and they way you have responded on this site, with class.
Thank you, and your mates, for all your awesome gifts over numerous years.
The BMOrg stated numerous times, after the prior burn, of that they were assisting the rich plug and play camps be interactive. Might the issue, in reality, have been interactivity, all the BMOrg needed to do was email Opulent Temple and request OT throw a happy hour each day and play sets on a small sound system, and they would place OT in the desired place. But, the BMOrg did not even desire to do that, which is much less than they are doing for all their rich mates.
The Burning Man Project bylaws state the term of each board member, other than the terms of the six, is two years. It might be awesome might the Project replace some of their rich mates with awesome Burners, whom represent the community, and whom care about the community, in the manner of yourself, Halcyon, and others.
great comment, thanks for sharing the details. I did not know that 300 camps were denied placement this year.
It’s an interesting point. When I first started going I was told Thursday was a big day because that is the day many camps really finished setting up what their camp was offering. That makes sense if you have to start from scratch on Monday.
I would say the opinions of the founders that you added at the end there are right on point. EDM is fine, but Burning Man isn’t a rave and it isn’t a music festival and we don’t want it to become either. BM has its own unique culture and if we aren’t careful it could be overtaken by EDM culture. When two cultures collide, one invariably devours the other. That Romero’s original theme for “Night of the Living Dead”.
And, “I Am Legend.” The book, not the movie versions.
Yes, that is also true.
Thanks for clearing that up, I have adjusted the story accordingly.
That big red swathe across the Esplanade from OT was their dance floor. It should be considered part of their responsibility as a sound camp to MOOP their guests’ leavings from their dance floor.
Their “guests”? You mean, 10,000 Burners dropping by and MOOPing everywhere?
I would think this would be an issue for the larger EDM community that wants to be part of Burning Man. There seems to be a belief they are being marginalized, but when you can look at a moop map and tell where the sound camps are, isn’t that a problem with the raver community and their failure to see Leave No Trace as their responsibility. Perhaps rather than creating a false narrative that the EDM community is being shunned you could look at yourselves and ask why some people don’t appreciate what you bring. Perhaps the problem isn’t the type of music, perhaps it is the mess that is left for others to clean up.
Blaming the gifters for the actions of the spectators. Classy. How about looking at who gave tickets to virgins at the expense of veterans, and the lack of leadership from the leaders, if you want to point fingers as to why the community is losing touch with once important values like leave no trace and radical self reliance.
You’re saying BMORG is directly altering the ticket queue to favor virgins? (I’m not surprised you’re saying it, I just don’t buy it.)
I’m sure the OT crew does as well as they can cleaning up the crap left by thousands of spectators I mean participants in their interactive installation. Seriously though, if a crowd that large isn’t going to clean up after itself, that leaves an impossible task for the OT crew, or any large sound camp. I’m wondering that if that kind of dance area MOOP continues, if the size of sound systems won’t start to be regulated. Maybe move more and more to the mobile method, a la Robot Heart. I don’t know.
I thought you were a leader. Are you saying it’s too much to ask that the sound camps educate the people in their audience to clean up after themselves?
“You’re saying BMORG is directly altering the ticket queue to favor virgins?” Maybe not that exactly, JV, but what they are doing has that effect. For whatever reason, their ticketing process, entirely and carefully under their direct control, yields 40% playa virgins. If it looks like a skunk, and smells like a skunk, it’s a skunk.
The solution is to put more of the choice in the hands of the burners. Instead of orchestrating who gets tickets, like the redundant EDM camps, give the choice to the veteran burners. Give normal gate-price advance sale ticket codes to past burners, based on past years of attendance, using ticket sales email addresses, That would let the burner community – those that made the event a success – choose who comes.
“Blaming the gifters…” is like blaming the flypaper.
you should come and see the monumental effort and the incredible force and money spent to haul away 20k pounds of garbage before you judge. You should see the 30-40 huge black costco size trash bags filled every morning from Moop, the leave no trace is a great idea but not reality. Burners leave their trash every where on the dance floor and people on their vacation spend hours picking up trash and sorting massive amounts of recycling. Labor of Love! You should see the bill for the huge container that was rented to just haul away moop garbage from the dance floor and then the monumental effort with rakes and line sweeps for 2-3 days with 100 people to pick up every single feather, cig butt, sequence piece, hair, every speck that is left on the dance floor 3-6 feet down. Its part of the reason OT deserves a break and these hater comments about moop just make me realize you don’t know what you are talking about or you should come and get involved and lend a hand and then lets hear your impression and opinion. I would love to know what you would do differently.
MOOP is the fault of the shithouse Burners who dropped it, not the awesome Burners who threw a kick ass party and invited everyone.
And what does that say about those who “participate” at sound camps? “If you don’t build it maybe they won’t come.”
I would even question the use of the term “burner” to those who dance and moop at sound camps. Reminds me of the way the porta-potties would be clean until Friday, when the weekend “burners” would come when there were gate ticket sales. They are not people I need to be around.
Dancetronauts Moop Map was ALL GREEN maybe they can just take their spot, lol
Of course we MOOP the dance floor. HOURS and the majority of our Strike team spent in line sweeps, magnetic rakes, fine tooth combing for layers and layers of MOOP. We know from years of dealing with it, it’s extremely hard to get even a yellow when you’re on the corner, but please know it’s not for lack of trying. This is not an issue particular to OT, this is for any corner camp with high volume. So many people roll through leaving their shit we pick up every night, morning, and day, then again at the end of the week. We leave Tuesday or Wednesday post burn and other crap can be dropped or blown into your camp area on the high traffic corner and this also contributes to how hard it is to make it perfect. But – we try.
if it’s indeed a “war on EDM” among Burning Man community, it’s very sad. It’s an essential part of Burning Man, and what’s not interactive about dancing and music? If they don’t plan any events at the camp itself, maybe they should have been given a place somewhere on the outskirts, instead no placement at all? This would at least secure that all campmates stay together…
There is nothing wrong with EDM, but it is hardly integral to Burning Man. If all EDM disappeared from the playa this year, Burning Man would still be awesome. As a matter of fact, a few less people who believe dancing to someone else’s music is all the participation they need might be helpful. If the population of Burning Man was reduced by 20k because of no EDM then we could get some real radical inclusion. If EDM is part of your Burn, good for you. If it is the reason you go, go to EDC instead.
As an artist that looks to get my ticket through providing visuals at the major sound camps, the lack of support by BMORG for sound camps is incredibly disheartening. Every year, visualists, sound engineers, and countless stage and lighting designers donate our time (and computers, cause Playa destroys laptops) to making the burn an incredible music and arts experience. Yet, despite this, artists like me have to fight to aquire camp tickets, which are increasingly in short supply. To make matters worse, many camps that do recieve tickets that are supposed to be allocated for staff sell them secondhand, in order to subsidise the increasingly large cost for booking big name artists. Camps like Roots Society, Osiris, Dancetronauts, Digital Apex, and Opulent Temple give visual artists like me a chance to share awesome visuals outside of the traditional festival scene, allowing us to take risks, and be more creative than somewhere like EDC, Ultra, or Wonderland. It’s a shame that BMORG doesn’t seem to value us.
Wait a minute…are you saying big name EDM artists are being paid to appear at Burning Man? AND are being given tickets intended for Burners. That doesn’t sound like it’s in line with the spirit of Burning Man. Just seems to me another form of commodification. Hopefully Burners.me will do an expose on that.
Coming soon, after our exposé uncovering chicken prices at Costco.
Something’s wrong with those chickens. Chickens don’t get that big naturally.
Please note that Pooh is channeling me in these posts. Apparently he did not have enough to drink. That is all.
why such radical opinions? who said EDM was the only reason for me (and potentially, according to you, for another 20k people) to go to Burning Man? And even if so, so much for radical inclusion if you think we shouldn’t come because of that. Dancing to someone else’s music may mean very different things to different people and in different contexts. Maybe it’s not a big thing for, but some people feel like they discover the universe dancing to EDM. And hey, ballet, for example, is also nothing but dancing to someone else’s music. Would you argue it’s not artful enough because of that? In any case, even though I said that EDM was essential, I didn’t mean it was the sole reason – far from that, there are many others. But what’s unique about Burning Man (and a couple of local spin-offs), is that it blends so many different subcultures; e.g. where else would I be able to dance naked to some of the top world DJs? Here come naturism and EDM together – just as an example.
How many EDM camps are enough? How do we know your DS tickets are not keeping a brilliant naked performance of The Firebird off the playa, where the audience does their own interpretation au natural?
Hey folks, OT here. We know people love getting drama-tastic about Burning Man, but while we appreciate Burners.me a lot for their support of music at BM, we feel this headline is a bit sensationalized. We don’t want to get pulled into some conversation about ‘war’ on EDM music, because frankly we don’t see it that way. Our scoop is in the web posting and we encourage people to read it on our site. Again in a nutshell – Unlike previous years, we don’t have our fixed stage. We never planned on having it for the reasons outlined in our post, which has nothing to do with placement. We are doing a number of OT events though, that will be at various spots around the playa, and because our camp itself did not have an interactive element, but is more of a base camp for our events around BRC, we weren’t placed. We’re still going to be there, it just makes things harder for us than we hoped it would be. We thought and wished partially based on legacy and previous contribution we’d get a reserved spot, but we didn’t. We’re not trying to call victim, it is what it is, we’re well versed in being disappointed in decisions from the org and we choose to be there with open eyes. It had nothing to do w MOOP either, for the record… There was zero mention of MOOP in their reasons for their decision. Thanks for everyone’s support and we look forward to seeing everyone out there, especially Wednesday night at the Serpent Mother. Peace.
Thanks for clarifying.
What was your color on the moop map last year?
Mauve 😛
Uh huh
Dear POOP bear … you should just change your name to just POO. Your a straight up neg nancy and that goes way more against the “spirit of burningman” than anything else said here… if you cant forgo putting a negative spin on everything maybe its YOU that doesnt belong out there.
Thanks for responding and clarifying, and focusing the conversation back on what it should be…the cool events you will be having in your 2015 configuration. Look forward to finding you on open playa and getting my boogie on.
War on EDM is the new War on Christmas
Death to the non-believers!!!
After reading the article, it sounds like there was no plan to have Opulent Template set up as a sound camp like it was before. They wanted their base camp to be placed, so everyone had a place to be, but the camp would serve no purpose other than sleep and feed their people. Decision seems legit, if not ungrateful, for more than a decade of amazing gifting.
In related opinion, I’m glad that interactivity is being addressed for placement. Last time I went to BM, I was really saddened how many streets I walked were just walls of trucks and RVs.
Each day I walked one or two full letter streets, and you expect the outer rings to be simple campsites with not a lot to offer street-side … but even like D-E-F were just parking lots for entire blocks! :’-( I felt like a lot of camps circle up their wagons so they get a private courtyard for dues-paying members in the middle, and the street-side is a barricade. I felt pretty locked out, so I skipped last year to think about if/where I fit at BM anymore.
I think there’s a balance somewhere for public/private, but I miss the feeling of going for a walk in any direction and being in a sea of endless creativity and interaction. Too many streets are just parking lots these days.
Walking past a DJ booth holds very little interest to me. And “we serve drinks at our bar” is not reason for placement either, y’all. Zzzzzz.
From my perspective, the walls of vehicles and tents is in reaction to perceived law enforcement escalation. When I started at the Burn, I felt like everyone had their camps open to the world, but with hearing rumors of LEO searching entire camps because they saw one person smoking pot, camps have isolated their private spaces so that nothing can be “seen” from the street.
With that said, I still feel like plenty of streets at the Burn are full of great little camps. One of my favorite activities, and why I love the Burn, is to wander the burbs in search of adventure and random connections!
I would love to see mixed zoning though, where placed theme camps are not up against each other, but open camping allowed. How you make that work without people making large land grabs, I haven’t a clue.
I’d love to see less placed camps.
Thank you, Cynthia. Saw a little of that beginning the last time I went, and that was several years ago. And it was at the 7:30 circle. A circle that is 80% RV backs? Epic fail. I don’t need an excuse to go to the Abstinithe Camp.
From your update:
“So that’s all they were looking for – somewhere to put less than half of the previous year’s camp. That’s the placement that was denied them, for not being “interactive enough”. So do the camps behind the 10 o’clock sound camps all have to be interactive now?”
Yes, all placed camps have to be interactive. But it does appear OT was planning on interactivity, however, according to one commenter, whom I’m guessing has actual information, OT was told specifically that the reason they weren’t getting placement was due to very high MOOP levels in years prior. So, really, there is no scandal here.
OT have made a massive contribution for a decade. And now BMOrg are punishing them. I consider that pretty scandalous.
How many Commodification Camps got placement this year?
Oh I agree, the commodification camps shouldn’t get placement either, we’ll see how that plays out. Still, should camps be treated differently based on how big they are? Should OT get a pass on MOOP violations just because the raise a lot of money? Hell no, in my opinion.
The answer is zero
And you know this how? I thought you couldn’t post here any more, BTW?
Keeping it to a minimum.
Hilarious. Glad to hear you managed to resolve your own technical difficulties WRT browser use on the World Wide Web.
Making a contribution last year and the year before and on and on doesn’t bear on this year. Apparently OT wanted camping space for 120 people (which is a LARGE camp) and were going to use that space to throw 2 parties. That doesn’t cut it for interactivity. If it was a 5 person camp, maybe two events would get you placed, maybe not. Most art/MV support camps are pretty small.
As a contrast, my camp is open Sunday night, then from 2-6pm & 8-2am M-F, and 2-6pm sat. & sun. We do this with less than 50 people. That’s interactivity.
Our camp had less than a dozen people when we were last at the NV burn, and we were open every night. But more importantly, visitors directly interacted with us and what they said/contributed constituted over 50% of the camp. Without a visitor our camp did not happen at all. THAT’S INTERACTIVE!
BTW, when we did the camp at Transformus last year, by the consumption of alcohol (part of the camp activity process*), we estimate that at least 25% of those who came interacted with us. Many times people were waiting in line.
* And before anyone goes ballistic, we had substitute non-alcoholic options. Also, Transformus had wrist bands and UV hand stamps for underage people.
OK hipsters…here’s my spin:
OT is uber cool, they have developed a “brand”….and with their ‘fundraisers’ in SF, probably have a huge income. They are a 501C3 group so their finances should be transparent. There’s no doubt there are volunteers, as well as staff that must be paid to move things around and build things……but how much $$$ are generated, and who gets the money??
But as Burningman gets the enormous visibility that has occurred over the past 6 years, I can see the “brand” becoming like “Buddha Bar”, and what’s next, a CD “as heard at Opulent Temple BurningMan” ??? Can they sell their “brand” to Glastonbury??
I think that’s the motivation of the BORG.
You may well be right. Yet another theory as to “what is their real motivation”, that is different from the ostensible reason.
It is BMOrg who need to be transparent, not OT.
Does the BMORG need to communicate to the public the reason for every camp that gets denied placement, when they already communicate the reason to the camps in question?
The latest info I’ve heard is that OT wasn’t planning to have a sound camp this year, just do stuff on the playa, but wanted placement anyway. Anybody heard anything about that?
Yup, read the comments here; poster Borris spoke with Syd; their support crew camp didn’t get placed.
The sky is falling the sky is falling bok bok bok bok!!!! Hilarious.
I emailed OT asking if a clarification of this situation will be posted on their site, because they really spun this whole thing.
The rumor you heard is true, see update.
Good update. If MOOP was the real reason, then so be it. I think the BMORG is finally enforcing longstanding rules, from sound levels to MOOP levels, which I support fully.
I thought I’d check. Here’s last year’s MOOP MAP. http://z9hbb3mwou383x1930ve0ugl.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/MOOP-MAP-2014_DAY-8_3500w.jpg OT were at 10 and Esplanande. Totally red.
This shows their camp was green. The open playa area outside their camp was red. That is a small but important distinction. There was a single red dot inside Opulent Temple on the official map from the ORG. Here is the link to that map which is a bit higher resolution – http://blog.burningman.com/2014/09/environment/moop-map-2014-resto-love-letter/
It’s been incredible to watch how quickly some segments of the community piled on board with this false information. “Oh their MOOP was red, they deserve it!” When the MOOP was green.
The discussion is still going on, with others now trying to say “the area NEXT to Opulent Temple on the open Playa is their camp too”. Meanwhile, multiple people from OT have specifically confirmed that MOOP was not a factor in the decision to deny them placement this year.
What I believe to be the most amazing is how little Burners know in regards of the funding of these camps, and others whom gift the awesomeness of Burning Man. How they are NOT funded is by the $30.5 million of ticket sales, the sound camps, and other camps whom provide entertainment, do not even obtain free tickets. The mutant vehicle owners are not funded by the $30.5 million of ticket sales, they do not even obtain free tickets, except of a few whom are mates with the BMOrg, and are included within their movies. The artists are solely funded near to one third of their costs, and they must sign a most horrible contract, even the temple is funded of solely 25 per cent of their costs from the $30.5 million of ticket sales.
There is an idiom in regards of do not look a gift horse in the mouth. Burners are not paying for these awesome gifts, yet, the BMOrg, whom has made million of dollars of cash towards their pockets upon these gifts, and many Burners, treats them with an utter lack of the proper gratitude they are due for their awesome gifts over numerous years.
In 2009 I spent quite literally 100% of my non-retirement savings building an art car. It was awesome and totally worth it. I got zero help from the BMORG, nor any gratitude. Should I have felt slighted?
Kudos in regards of your gift. Within 2009, ticket sales were solely near to $10 million, and there were no profits. At present, ticket sales are $30.5 million, and the BMOrg refuses to disclose where the ticket money goes. The BMOrg places numerous plug and play camps, filled with spectators, but does not even provide gratitude towards camps whom have spend many hundreds of thousands of dollars purposed to bring their awesome gifts to the playa.
Might the issue have been solely in regards of a lack of interactivity within 2015, Larry, and Marian, were of the ability to request of Opulent Temple to throw a few events from their placed spot, but they did not even desire to discuss these matters with Opulent Temple prior of denying placement to them. That is not what honorable people do.
We don’t know the specifics of that interaction. This post is rendered almost entirely moot based on latest info, so it’s very possible that the BMORG did ask OT to schedule some events in camp to justify placement, and that OT would not or could not accommodate that. And so BMORG decided to award placement to some other, possible brand new, sound camp. Which is awesome! I mean seriously, why should OT take up real estate dedicated to large sound if they did not plan on having large sound at that spot?
Opulent Temple did not request placement at 10:00 or 2:00, of where the large sound camps are permitted, Opulent Temple requested placement within the city.
250 feet back from 10 & A (not 10 & Esplanade) is hardly real estate dedicated to large sound – unless something new is going to be tried this year.
I am inclined to believe OT over BMOrg, but as usual, BMOrg remain silent, and speak only through their minions. Thanks to their holocracy, no-one probably knows what’s going on anyway. Plausible deniability, and the ability to sow confusion as desired.
Sorry, I hadn’t read your update yet before posting that comment. At any rate, how much credence do you give the statement about MOOP levels? Sounds like she’s an insider with direct information. And if she is correct, do you believe that the BMORG should communicate to the community at large the reason for each camp that get denied placement? Or maybe just the big ones? Don’t you think a Burning Blog post is coming about the OT situation, based on the interest we’re seeing?
I give her comment zero credence – even she herself has admitted it was false. She is not an insider with access to any special information.
Well if we can’t believe a random person on the internet, who CAN we believe in!?
Reblogged this on International Symposium on Human Identification .
If they wanted to get rid of OT they have been red on the moop map for as long as I can remember and I’d back the Borg if that was the reason. This seems like curating to me.
Actually – in reading the information from OT it says that there are several large camps that will not be in attendance this year – it does not say that they were denied placement.
Seems like the community based sound camps (in contrast to millionaire funded ones) are dwindling; many of the popular sound camps from years past will be absent this year: Roots Society, Osiris, Dancetronauts, Digital Apex.
From the other articles we do know that Dancetronauts were denied a MV license for this year.
Is there any confirmation that Root Society, Osiris and Digital Apex were denied placement or were they just choosing to take a year off as OT did in 2013? Root Society has taken a year off a couple of times before – I am not sure about Osiris and Digital Apex.
Personally – I LOVE to go dancing at the big sound camps! I’d just like to know a bit more about what is going on with the other camps before including them all together in the same boat here.
BMorg grew the party by coopting the EDM crowd. If I wanted an EDM party I’d rather go to EDC and sleep in my own bed (for a few hours). With the ticket scarcity issue and 40% newbie population each year we no longer need the rumors of the appearance top DJs to strengthen ticket sales. Burning Man can return to the interactive experience that defined it.
For many attendees Burning Man has become nothing more than Coachella with camping. It is antithetical that BM should even be compared to such events.
Might the BMOrg have desired to direct the ticket sales towards the awesome Burner community, they might direct 40,000 tickets towards the Burner community within 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015, but, the BMOrg desired to replace the Burner community. The BMOrg had numerous opportunities purposed to direct ticket sales towards PARTICIPANTS, in the place of towards spectators, including of people whom desire to spectate at the awesome EDM sound camps, but they did not desire to do so. The BMOrg does not even direct tickets towards mutant vehicle owners, except for solely a few, or permitting volunteers to obtain tickets for their mates whom were participants in the awesome community. The BMOrg does not even direct tickets towards prior artists, or prior volunteers, whom have participated awesomely in the throwing of this crowd sourced party. The BMOrg had the opportunity to build the community in due of their sales of tickets, in the place of replacing the community in due of their sales of tickets.
Both right. I wonder if the BOrg BoD is trying to salvage the mess that the Larry LLC has made of the event.
This is awful and an affront to the hard work Opulent Temple has been pitching for the last decade plus. OT has never paid a DJ, never paid a worker to assemble something, and always busted their asses in the sun to produce one of the best sound camps at Burning Man, year in and year out. Not only do they thanklessly toil at the burn, but also in San Francisco where they throw up to *12* fundraiser parties each year in order to gift a $100,000 production to up to 10,000 eager burners at once. If you can’t keep the different varieties of dance music separate, allow me to explain: Opulent Temple is not “EDM” and has had its roots in the San Francisco Burning Man scene for over a decade, and is not some Johnny-come-lately millionaire rave experience funded by a famous bro-happy trance musician. It is entirely funded by the community, has always upheld the principles, and has succeeded completely in spite of years of disrespect from Burning Man. If Burning Man wanted to “send a message” to an “EDM” camp, they should have picked a different one.
While I agree with most of your comment, I think for the purposes of this story it’s fair to classify Opulent Temple as within the genre of Electronic Dance Music, rather than some other musical genre. From the Our Vision section of their web site:
THE MUSICAL VISION
We’re obviously firm believers in the beat, the transcending properties of mind blowing electronic dance music (EDM), both to open the heart and make the ass shake depending on one’s preference and the moment. We value diversity in the range of world class artists that play our camp, as well as the camp dj’s who build it so get to play what they feel.
“…last decade plus.” Bingo. Mix things up. 🙂
Would you do away with Thunderdome for the same reason?
What?! Thunderdome is 100% interactive, like our camp.
The test is: if the camp is literally dead without participants, that’s interactive. One of my favorites was the MST 3000 Camp, where we had to do the heckling. If the experience is largely dependent on, and varies entirely with who is participating, that’s an interactive camp.
If the camp gets tickets and is the same regardless of the open participants, that’s wrong. It’s entertainment. Fight for tickets and space like the rest of us,
Which one?
My understanding is that OT did not plan to bring their sound camp this year. Their crew has scheduled OT parties in other locations, both in the city and out on the playa. The crew requested placement; due to the lack of interactivity in their camp plan, they (the crew) did not get placed. OT as we know it did not request placement.
The post from Opulent Temple – quoted in its entirety in this story – paints a slightly different picture.
They say in their story that they were going more mobile this year. They don’t call their 2015 camp a sound camp, just a camp. Non-interactive camps don’t get placement. Plus, I know people who’ve ‘lived’ there, so I asked around.
Did you read the article, burnersXXX. It does NOT paint a slightly different picture. The article concurs with gaminwinch.
I first read it as they were adapting to a more mobile experience due to the lack of placement, but now that I reread it, it does seem like part of the reason they got denied placement was due to most of their planned events for 2015 being mobile, based on this sentence from the post:
“We’ve asked why we’re not getting placed and were told our camp is not ‘interactive’ enough since most of the events we’re doing are mobile.”
You know, have OT events all over the playa sounds way cooler anyway. Seriously, where’s the downside in all this?
What I understood from talking to Syd (head of OT) is that they requested placement for a camp without a stage. They weren’t planning on doing a large sound stage this year. Placement denied them that (basically a support camp for mobile parties they are planning to do with various as of yet undisclosed mobile sound systems). So not exactly the way you picture this.
If that’s the case, they could have made that clearer in their blog post. As written, it’s spun as OT being victims of the BMORG’s whim.
gaminwench, let me get this straight, you are suggesting that this blog ONCE AGAIN over-exagerrated what is essentially a non story in order to promote its “OMG OMG OMG!!! THE ORG ARE SO MEAN!!!!” Propaganda?
says the guy using this blog to promote his theme camp
I agree with JV, Randy and the others that I would not miss the EDM aspect. The creativity of other venues without the EDM scene are superior for me.
The NV burn without EDM is a good way to make more space for things more creative.
Silent Disco for Bluetooth headsets rules!!!!!
I feel like EDM is a big part of the reason Burning Man is becoming a mainstream. Personally, I think fewer sound camps, fewer sound cars, fewer big name dj’s would be a plus in the long run. It’s sort of devolved into a competition to see who can get the most people to their camp, who is getting the bigger name to play at their camp. I’m not saying ban EDM, but maybe we need to step back and hit the reset button. We already have Coachella and Electric Daisy, if Burning Man goes back to what it was and there’s one less EDM event, is that a bad thing?
There are alternatives to EDM, Come by Planet Earth one night this year. 🙂 This is our schedule for 2015….
[img]http://i.imgur.com/UhIdmYP.jpg[/img]
http://i.imgur.com/UhIdmYP.jpg
Thats one bad ass jukebox
We camped across from planet earth two years ago and it was looped shitty music all day. Cat scratch fever multiple times a day as no one attended at your wack party. You guys just kept the looped mix cd playing. Over and over and over. We had to convince people visiting our camps not to cut your cables. Intro first rodeo yuppie shit.
As usual Pooh Bear and Honey will be spending lots of time at Planet Earth.
No djs just shitty Colombia house music club greatest hits CDs. Like living next to death guild or voted best camp. But it’s over and over with bad pop music and no one listening or dancing.
OPULENT TEMPLE DOUCHETRONAUTS
Typo… I meant to say OPULENT TEMPLE does not = Douchetronauts.
That’s one hell of a typo. lol
yea I put in (Greater / Less Than) and it filtered out, I think this blog thought it was an empty tag.
ahh doh. 😀
“not interactive enough” it seems a new thing over the past few years and I believe it is warranted. I am not sure how many camps I have wandered past and there is no interactivity or very little… sound camps are not interactive. They are a performance based environment and generally dead during the daytime… so if the camp wants placement they just have to step it up by being interactive at all times in their camp – whatever that looks like… same thing happened to us last year and we did get placed once we redesigned our camp to be more interactive. This year we are going back again and placed and we have almost constant interactivity (except late at night). Good luck to OT next year and I look forward to seeing what camps come up with this year for more interactivity!
“sound camps are not interactive. They are a performance based environment”
Yep.
Although I disagree with you no camps needing to be interactive all the time.
So you are saying that 11 plus years of being one of the larger interactive zones accounts for nothing and doesn’t merit shit?
I guess it counts for something. Bragging rights, maybe? It doesn’t and shouldn’t guarantee placement every year, though.
Hey, I’ve danced at OT, the logistics they pull off are incredible. I have empathy for the members of the OT camp and their disappointment on a personal level, same as I do for the 2-person camp that had their art car denied a license on playa for not enough decoration. But will I miss OT at the event? No, and I don’t mean that in a malicious way. When I come across a major camp or installment that I’ve seen in years prior, my heart kind of sinks a little. It’s comforting at first, but it erodes the sense of wonder.
It gets in the way of your desire to be a spectator.
Meanwhile, no loyalty or gratitude is shown to literally hundreds of people who must have spent tens of thousands of hours and probably millions of dollars at this point to bring this show out 11 times. It is easily worth $1 per ticket, they get $0. And get blamed and shamed by the Burnier-Than-Thous for everybody else’s MOOP.
Spending money does not equal creativity. Period.
“It gets in the way of your desire to be a spectator.”
Who, me? I don’t think so. A contributor can be awed.
Many things are self-regulating, some things are not. However, sometimes the tyranny of the many should not make the experience for those around them. John Stuart Mill’s harm rule holds that the only reason to interfere with someone is to prevent harm to others otherwise let them be. Dancetronouts was fucking annoying last year – Period. I had a great time dancing in front of their art car in 2013 – I went there by choice met some great people was in awe of what they had put together – really well done. The operative word here is choice however. Last year they did not let me choose – I went to see the embrace burn and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by one of the guys dipole had brought who was screaming over the mic. People literally had tears (myself included) rolling down their faces marveling at the two heads going up in flames as this idiot proceeded to give us a play by play over the microphone full of “pay attention ladies and gentlemen as the flames rise…..blah blah blah” and I wished that I could sit and enjoy the moment and mostly I did by trying very hard to tune them out but it was difficult and every now and then they would pierce through my experience and ruin it with empty bullshit. I like electronic music…..I also think diplo is ok what is not ok is to be followed everywhere i go by what someone else thinks i should listen to.
Montag, what does any of this have to do with Opulent Temple? Nothing.
Honestly – I don’t know. I’ve been by OT and they throw a decent party.
My gripe is with Dancetronauts – they’re the ones trying to draw attention to being banned, and although I feel for them because I know they prob put a lot of effort, time and money to build their art car, I really want everyone to know that they robbed a lot of people of a beautiful experience last year. I’m sure that wasn’t their intent, and maybe had they been standing where I was they would have realized and done the right thing and told the guy on the mic to STFU….but they weren’t and they didn’t so they have to deal with the consequences of what happened.
One hell of a way to run an EDM festival! 😉
Why do you care?
Let the flaming begin but I kind of have to agree with the Org. BM to me is meant to be mostly an art festival and not a dance party. If one wants to dance, go to a dance party. I would like to see a turning back of “sound camps” ( unless they play my type of music of course )
lol good luck with that. 5000 sets in last year’s Rockstar Librarian Guide.
I meant more like the large camps. And once the tickets started to sell out. Being “all inclusive” will go out the window.
It’s harsh, but I’m all for some new blood, if only because the whole “I wonder what OT (or whatever mainstay you can think of) is gonna do this year” expectation goes against what I appreciate about the event: the unexpected. That goes for any camp or artist, not just sound camps.
The “lack of interactivity” thing is interesting. I’m wiling to bet the BMORG doesn’t see dancing to music provided by a DJ on a stage as interactive. In a sense, I agree with that assessment, for the same reason I don’t find pure music festivals interactive at all; it’s mostly staring at millionaires on a stage. But I do appreciate that a significant subsection of BRC prioritizes dancing to EDM above just about everything else at Burning Man. I agree that this is an example of exerting top-down pressure to try to influence the direction of the event. I suppose because that direction is something I agree with, I’m OK with it in this instance.
Signed,
Sheeple Groupthinker (amirite?)
you’re not right, but I appreciate your comment! 😉
if they want to move things around, dismantle First Camp and force the whole organization to live amongst the Burners and be Self Reliant. That would certainly change things up. Don’t ban major sound camps, that’s ridiculous. Unless they’ve got something better to replace them…Diddy did say he was gonna come back with a real system. Maybe AC/DC or Airbourne are coming this year?
OT were not banned. They simply were not placed.
A major sound stage, not being given placement, prevents that major sound stage from existing. They can’t just camp anywhere and set it up.
They said in their post that they’ll be there in some form. As myself and many others suggested in the Dancetronauts post, they’re adapting to circumstances and still bringing it. Awesome.
18% of Burners in our poll felt Dancetronauts had to be punished even further than what DMV did to them: they could not even come and play from a fixed sound system in their camp. Of course, that means 82% of Burners think that’s a good idea, or about 57,000 people.
Are we going to let the 13,000 haters define the future of Burning Man? And get tickets as a priority over the awesome Burners?
Prevents it how?
burnersxxx, what does your comment about the poll mean?
They weren’t planning to take their sound stage this year. They’ve planned parties in others’ camps/art installations. Their crew didn’t get placed.
Meaning that for some Burners, Dancetronauts CAN’T just come to the event anyway. They desire MORE punishment than even what BMOrg meted out.
There were 111 NO votes in the poll and 531 YES. Were there more haters than the 111 No’s? Probably. Let’s say it’s 10 times more. 1100 haters. 69000 awesome Burners. Why would any community let the 1100 haters make all the decisions? This is like an HOA or a city council. It is not the leadership required to make something amazing. If people give a lot, they should be rewarded. Their loyalty should be rewarded. These decisions seem capricious.
Now I’m really confused. Those “haters” aren’t making any decisions, unless you are comparing the “haters” in your poll with the BMORG. If so, you’re going the majority rules route, which is silly.
Yes, once again, that should be stressed. And hey, according to their blog post, OT will still be there, just in a different (and unexpected!) form. In what form? We don’t know! And that’s awesome! All those OT fans lamenting on Facebook will stumble across them on the playa and be surprised. Fantastic.
AC/DC on the playa would be fucking amazing. I danced my butt off to some acca dacca at ‘Straya Day last year and plan to do the same this year.
Also the word is OT we’re planning on bringing their full set up this year so it wasn’t going to be as interactive. It sounds like they weren;t realisitic with what they were asking for vs what they were bringing
I happen to know for a fact that Digital Apex was substantially funded by a douchey, older rich guy with a penchant for young women. Get your facts straight.
which facts are in dispute?
I think she’s referring to OT’s post, where they include Digital Apex in the group of “community funded” sound camps. I have no idea how any of these camps are funded, just pointing it out.
>with a penchant for young women.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. Are you post-Wall, sweetheart? Don’t be bitter.