Tag Archives: self reliance

Dec 3 2014

BMOrg Hath Spoken

image: Roadside Pictures/Flickr (Creative Commons)

image: Roadside Pictures/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Finally, more than a quarter of a year after the last week-long Burning Man event ended, BMOrg has given some official answers to the many concerns raised by the community in the wake of Caravansary. They gave us a double whammy:

Turnkey/Plug-n-Play Camping in BRC (written by “Burning Man”, probably several authors)

Equality, Inequity, Iniquity: Concierge Culture (written by Larry Harvey)

These posts only went on the “Voices of Burning Man” – their official blog. They weren’t posted to the 817,000 people on their Facebook page.

I recommend you read both posts in their entirety, because this article is going to be discussing the aspects of them that are relevant to the 115,000 Burners.Me readers. I’m going to talk about the concerns they addressed, directly or indirectly; and the ones they pretended don’t exist.

If you were expecting me to say “everything is wonderful now, BMOrg are so amazing for listening to us, let’s hug it out and party up!”…you should stop reading now, because you’re at the wrong blog. If we got the transparency we’d been promised, or got answers to most of the questions raised as “Community Concerns” here and at burningman.com .org, then I might be able to say that. But we didn’t, so I can’t – blame me for whining, rather than them for ignoring and misdirecting, if that is your wont.

Whether or not the community’s concerns get addressed, Burning Man will go on, and we can all have a good time there. Hey, it’s just a rave – who cares? “If you don’t like it, start your own”.

coyote pete sunsetFor those who do care, because they think there’s something special about this event – it’s more than just a festival, more than just a big drug- and sex- fuelled party, more than a corporate networking event – please read on. I care about this unique culture that we’ve all been creating together, and that’s why I’m taking the time to write this.

While it is nice that finally they have acknowledged some of our concerns, these posts raise as many questions as they answer.

Summary

As predicted, BMOrg have tried to downplay everything: “it was less than 1% of 1250 camps”. They make a big fuss about “policy changes”, but in the end the only real change is promising to end the practice of selling invite-only Donation tickets which we caught them at red-handed. Commodification Camps will have to have an interactive component, but they did this year too. Burning Man’s Board of Directors have nothing to do with the Burning Man event, so what they get up to at the event is nothing to do with BMOrg. Sherpas don’t even get a mention, they’re a non-issue. So are workers’ and artists’ rights. 58 Burner theme camps applied for placement and didn’t get it; 12 Commodification Camps got prime placement near the Plaza areas. Because none of them actually made a profit, it’s no big deal. BMOrg held on to 5,700 tickets all through the year, on top of the 61,000 official tickets. The Ten Principles are not rules, they’re just an “ethos”. On to the Carnival of Smoke and Mirrors now, Burners, they listened and they made a policy change so we can all be happy now.

Introduction

They are still trying to use language to re-define and diminish the issues.

The term “turnkey” has been used to describe camps with paid teams that set up infrastructure before other camp members arrive. This general definition could be applied to many camps, including many well-known, beloved and highly participatory theme camps.

[so why persist in using it? The community is calling them Commodification Camps, because this definition clearly explains the problem – Ed.]

Turnkey is a category that includes a variety of camps along a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum are camps that offer major contributions to the playa and depend on infrastructural support to do their work and provide their offering on the playa (the Temple Camp, for example); these camps have a team that provides support services, enabling their fellow campmates to focus on giving in ways that benefit the wider BRC community.

On the other end of the spectrum are “plug and play” or “concierge camps” (A.K.A. hotel camps, resort camps, commodification camps), where vacation-type experiences are sold in package deals at exclusive prices, often with no expectation or commitment by campers to contribute to the larger community. It is this latter type of camp we are addressing here

Why not just call them Commodification Camps? At least they acknowledged (once, in passing) that some people call them that. However, their response of saying “they’re all turnkey camps but some people call them concierge camps, so we’re going to talk about rich people and their luxury lifestyle, which exists in the Default world too”…is answering the wrong questions. If BMOrg really thinks this is what the community’s concerns are, they need to go to a listening workshop. Other than a few “Radical Revolutionaries” on *.burningman.com advocating vandalism, violence, class warfare, and communism, most Burners couldn’t care less how much money someone has. The whole point about this party is what you bring to the middle of nowhere to give to others, not what you do in the Default world. No Burner should be “Burnier-Than-Thou”, and no camp should be closed off to Burners.

It is the idea behind the Commodification Camps that is the problem: turning something free, based on Gifting by the whole community, into something packaged up and sold to profit a few. Burning Man is supposed to be based on principles such as Radical Self-Reliance, Participation, Communal Effort, Civic Responsibility, Leave No Trace, and particularly, 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.

Decommodification was presented to us as a core Principle that Burners live by. It wasn’t supposed to be a for-profit LLC, extracting cash from “Burning Man” which has “fully transitioned to a non-profit” – except, it seems, for the annual event called “Burning Man”.

Being a member of the Burning Man Project Board does not grant any authority to make decisions about, or influence the operations of, the Burning Man event.

Say what?

 

BMOrg’s Questions

In their post of November 11, “Turnkey Camps – Moving Towards Effective Solutions“, BMOrg told us they were listening, and posed the following questions as their summary:

Is the Burning Man organization profiting off turnkey camps?
How did turnkey camps get all their tickets?
Do turnkey camps get preferential treatment?
Were people buying blocks of tickets through the Burning Man Project donation ticket program in the days before the event? If so, why?
Are turnkey camps undermining the practice of Decommodification and Self-Reliance?
What is going to happen to the turnkey camps going forward? Is there accountability for poor behavior?

Since they didn’t bother to directly answer these in their “FAQ”, let me do it now.

Is the Burning Man organization profiting off turnkey camps?

No – not any more than they profit off any other camp. If any Burning Man Project Directors were trying to, they didn’t end up making any profit, so it doesn’t count. Anyway, Burning Man Project Directors have nothing to do with the Burning Man event.

How did turnkey camps get all their tickets?

As well as through methods available to “rank and file” Burners, it was via Invite-only Donation tickets above face value, and buying them from scalpers. They would have us believe that not a single ticket went to any Commodification Camp in the Directed group sale (aka World’s Biggest Guest List).

Concierge camps purchased tickets through all of the same avenues available to other participants and other large camps, including the early Pre-Sale, the main Individual Sale and on the secondary market. A few of these camps also purchased tickets through the Burning Man Project’s Donation Ticket Program

Invitations were sent to participants who had previously contributed to Burning Man Project, or who had expressed interest in doing so, including some in plug and play and concierge camps

 

Do turnkey camps get preferential treatment?

Officially, no. Pretty much every camp is a turnkey camp. They all said they would have interactive elements, and pick up their MOOP. Commodification Camps get no preferential treatment whatsoever, other than special access to tickets, placement in large, dedicated areas in K street, early access passes, and a lifting of the requirement to be packed up by Tuesday. Sure, they can leave tons of MOOP – but this will be noted by the Placement team when next year comes around.

Were people buying blocks of tickets through the Burning Man Project donation ticket program in the days before the event? If so, why?

Yes – technically, not in the last 3 weeks before the event. To raise money for BMP.

Are turnkey camps undermining the practice of Decommodification and Self-Reliance?

Yes. No big deal, the Principles aren’t rules.

What is going to happen to the turnkey camps going forward? Is there accountability for poor behavior?

Nothing. Poor behavior by a camp in the previous year and a bad MOOP score will be considered by the volunteer placement team in the future.

 

These answers are far from satisfactory. And the questions themselves left a lot to be desired, as they did not really address the community’s concerns.

The Community’s Questions

Earlier in the year, Halcyon chimed in on the Burning Blog. He got slammed for defending Plug-n-Plays, and to his credit took time to understand the issues, then posted again. He listened to all of us, and his swift response showed that he listened. In the comments during the controversy, he made a good attempt at summarizing the community’s questions:

...a clear break down of the issues at hand would be really helpful if anyone has it. (Not every argument – just the issues.)

Here is my first attempt. Please correct me. Are these the issues fueling Burner frustration?

***

1) Isolation / exclusivity of safari-style camps (wristband areas)

2) Use of paid labor of ticket holders during the event. (Some people working as gifts to community while others are working to make money)

3) Camp organizers running turnkey camps for profit. (Commodification of the Burning Man experience)

4) Unfair attainment of tickets by wealthy donors. (blocks of $650 tickets offered “discreetly” – while others use STEP)

5) Unfair placement of turnkey camps (Inadequate interactivity while others do not get placed)

6) Board member connections to above practices

I think that’s not a bad summary. You could add:

7) Silence from BMOrg on all of the above

8) Lack of transparency (promised since March).

I think this is a better description of the community’s actual concerns, rather than just the ones BMOrg cherry-picked to address. So how did they do with these questions?

1) Isolation / exclusivity of safari-style camps (wristband areas)

ACKNOWLEDGED, BUT NOT ADDRESSED. Commodification Camps can continue to be exclusive, even though it is “frowned upon” by BMOrg.

2) Use of paid labor of ticket holders during the event. (Some people working as gifts to community while others are working to make money)

NOT ACKNOWLEDGED OR ADDRESSED

3) Camp organizers running turnkey camps for profit. (Commodification of the Burning Man experience)

DENIED. They acknowledged (a) that there were Commodifcation Camps – 12 of them – but none of them made a profit. Therefore (b) no-one created a camp to make money. This is a logical fallacy known as a non-sequitur – (b) does not follow (a). “Attempted murder” is a crime, even though no actual murder occurred.

4) Unfair attainment of tickets by wealthy donors. (blocks of $650 tickets offered “discreetly” – while others use STEP)

ACKNOWLEDGED. They sold 1200 invitation-only Donation Tickets for above face value.

Invitations were sent to participants who had previously contributed to Burning Man Project, or who had expressed interest in doing so, including some in plug and play and concierge camps

They’ve cancelled this program for next year, though they still haven’t announced how the ticketing will be handled in 2015, or if there will be any price increases.

The door remains open for this type of thing to re-emerge under a different name. Will Chase, commenting on this blog a couple of weeks ago, said “Actually, charitable donation tickets are tickets that Burning Man donates to charities for their fundraising raffles, etc.” So it appears that VIP Donation tickets might be gone, but Charitable Donation tickets remain.

What remains unsaid, is blocks of tickets being sold by BMOrg insiders – possibly on the secondary market.

5) Unfair placement of turnkey camps (Inadequate interactivity while others do not get placed)

DENIED. They said there were 58 Burner camps who applied for placement and didn’t get it. This is supposedly fair. “Thousands” of Burners camp without getting placement – this used to be tens of thousands. BMOrg claim that all the Commodification Camps that got special placement were “committed to providing interactive experiences”, and they were placed deliberately around the 3, 6, and 9 o’clock plazas to create community.

6) Board member connections to above practices.

DENIED. The Board of Directors of the Burning Man Project have nothing to do with Burning Man. Involvement of any BoD in any Commodification Camps was not acknowledged. It appears that directors can break the rules at Burning Man, and act outside the Principles, without consequence.

Being a member of the Burning Man Project Board does not grant any authority to make decisions about, or influence the operations of, the Burning Man event. This also applies to resources at the event.

7) Silence from BMOrg on all of the above

Despite their posts, most of the concerns remain unacknowledged and unaddressed. They have spoken, but mostly to deny all of the above.

8) Lack of transparency (promised since March).

IGNORED. The promised transparency is still “coming soon”. It is now 9 months since Larry Harvey promised us a “clean, well lighted suite of rooms” for both Black Rock City, LLC and BMP. Which we took to mean Profit and Loss statements and Balance Sheets – regular accounts, not the Afterburn reports which omit revenues and profits. The final deadline for filing IRS Form 990 for corporations that requested two time extensions was November 15, so this is overdue for the Burning Man Project 2013. It may be 2016 before we see anything for 2014.

 

Burners.Me Concerns

Here are some of the issues that still concern me.

Scalping

They denied that any tickets were taken out of the STEP queue. However, they stopped short of telling us exactly how many tickets were sold via STEP. We just have to take their word for this, since there is no audit, no transparency.

What they did acknowledge was that they added another 2500 tickets to be sold via STEP. They also added 2000 tickets to the last-minute OMG sale, and they sold 1200 Donation tickets. So this is 5,700 tickets that they sold IN ADDITION to the 61,000 tickets they “officially” had.

Why keep nearly 10% of the tickets in reserve until about a month before the event? It seems a little shady to me: artificially creating scarcity. The main effect of this was to keep ticket prices high on the secondary market all through the year, which was no doubt useful to justify the above face value asking price of the Donation tickets. Their permit specified their population for 5 years, so it’s not like they didn’t know they had these tickets to sell. $780,000 for 1200 Donation Tickets, plus $1,710,000 for 4500 tickets at $380 – this is an extra $2.5 million that they kept “up their sleeves”. If the event could break even with 61,000 tickets, then this is pure profit.

I know that certain BMOrg insiders get access to blocks of tickets they can sell. Do any of these get sold above face value? Other than illegally recording someone in a “sting”, this is impossible to prove. We’ll probably never know. Even BMOrg may not know. Their creation of extra scarcity sure helps this hypothetical scenario, which would be a way to award bonuses without actually paying out any extra cash.

 

Sherpas

2014 caravancicle adMany Burners were dismayed to hear about the acceptance of paid employees in camps, which was highlighted by the New York Times before the event, and by whistle-blowers afterwards. The sherpas take tickets away from participating Burners. Other big concerns for many Burners were the slave-like working conditions imposed on these employees – including “if you quit, we’ll dump you in the desert” – and Commodification Camps putting up “help wanted” ads at the event hiring people for cash.

The impression you would get from BMOrg’s post is sherpas don’t exist. Perhaps it creates a sticky situation for BMOrg, who rely heavily on free volunteer labor to produce the event. If they acknowledge that there are many people out there getting paid, they bring to the attention of thousands of volunteers that they’re not. There was no mention of worker’s rights, which were demanded by some DPW volunteers, or a more fair treatment of artists.

 

Special Access to Tickets

They have finally admitted that they sold tickets to VIPs above face value – 1200 of them. They insist that none of these tickets were sold after August 1, which conflicts with reports from our sources. How did they work out who got a VIP invitation? That has still not been adequately explained.

Invitations were sent to participants who had previously contributed to Burning Man Project, or who had expressed interest in doing so, including some in plug and play and concierge camps. Other well-established theme camps also purchased Donation Tickets to cover a shortfall in tickets for their build crews and campmates.

What was the breakdown between existing donors, Commodification Camps, and Guest List theme camps?

 

Board Involvement

Their argument is that the Board of Directors of the Burning Man Project have nothing to do with the Burning Man event. This seems absurd, and is possibly necessary due to the self-dealing laws which prevent non-profit directors making profits off the tax-exempt organizations they volunteer for. Following this logic, the directors of Decommodification, LLC should also have nothing to do with the Burning Man event – even though, according to their lawsuit, they are DBA (doing business as) Burning Man.

Being a member of the Burning Man Project Board does not grant any authority to make decisions about, or influence the operations of, the Burning Man event.

If the Burning Man Project exists to promote the values of Burning Man around the world, shouldn’t it be important for its Directors to promote the values AT BURNING MAN?

Selective Rule Enforcement

2 of BMOrg’s Board of Directors are now working for AirBnB. AirBnB had listings at Burning Man this year. AirBnB’s “ironic” Burning Man advertisement is still up.

BoD Jim Tananbaum was behind Caravancicle. If such camps are completely against BM, how was he allowed to get away with it?

BoD Chip Conley made a video at Burning Man to promote his Fest300 business. DJ Sander van Doorn got shut down by BMOrg’s IP team for making a video of his trip this year. Meanwhile, Conley’s Fest300 commercial is still up. The video shows multiple violations of drone safety rules. Both videos are great, but that’s not the point. Why was Sander’s video bad, but Chip’s is fine? The same rules should apply to all Burners, whether they volunteer for the Board, Gate, DPW, or on the decks at a sound camp.

 

image: Sid Penance/Flickr (Creative Commons)

image: Sid Penance/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Disabled Vehicles

In 2014, we heard of the rumor, but can find no evidence internally that any camp received handicapped stickers for non-disabled golf carts or other conveyances

A very interesting choice of words. Could camps have non-decorated utility golf carts or “other conveyances”, that weren’t for handicapped people? This statement certainly allows for that – as long as they didn’t display a handicapped sticker, it seems like it was fine. If they had a handicapped person and received a sticker, it doesn’t seem like there was much enforcement about who was actually using the vehicle.

The information leaked to us by Burners is different. If you have any further knowledge or photos, please share.

 

Does the Board even care?

We gathered information internally and externally, and held a roundtable discussion with the Burning Man Project Board of Directors.

We then held a series of internal meetings with participation from three of Burning Man’s founders, event operations leadership, and the key teams poised to address this issue directly (Placement, Community Services, Ticketing and Communications).

What about the other 3 Founders? Is there some sort of internal politics going on behind the scenes? Or have they retired already, and just can’t be bothered with it all any more?

It took time to respond because we were determined not just to say “this is what happened” but also to say “this is what we plan to do about it.”

So what do they plan to do about it?

Cancel the Donation tickets. That’s about the extent of their policy changes. Although Commodification Camps will be required to have a strong interactive component, that was their policy already.

bringing a VIP lifestyle experience — with velvet ropes and wristbands — introduces an element of exclusivity into a culture that values inclusion, and those that opt in to these kinds of camps miss out on the transformative power of the event.

OK. So what will they do about that? Nada. Those camps are “missing out” and showing “bad manners”, but otherwise, no problem to be addressed, no policies to be changed.

What is the Burning Man organization doing to stop this?
Each year, we encounter a handful of companies advertising luxury, all-expenses paid package tours of Burning Man. When they make use of the Burning Man name or logo, our intellectual property team works to curtail promotional efforts by forcing any reference to ‘Burning Man’ to be removed.

billionaires-row-250So as long as Caravancicle doesn’t advertise, no problem. If Billboard wants to write a story promoting VIP festival packages on “Billionaire’s Row”, well, nothing BMOrg can do about it.

Meanwhile, artists still cannot in any way use Burning Man to market their art or fund-raise.

If Burning Man stops businesses from selling things in BRC, how can it allow for-profit theme camps that package and sell experiences in our gift economy?
Burning Man does not condone this activity. Commodification camps are not only in direct conflict with our culture, they are also not allowed by the terms of our permit.

BMOrg were clearly aware of the 12 Commodification Camps that they placed. They even gave one of the organizers a seat on their Board. They also gave those camps access to the invite-only Donation ticket program, that regular Burners didn’t get the chance to participate in.

You can find a list of the 45 permitted vendors in 2014 here. It doesn’t seem like all 12 Commodification Camps were on the list. The idea that because they didn’t end up making profits, it doesn’t matter, is not what the BLM Permit says.

Will tickets still be “packaged up” for Commodification Camps, which are now disguised as “turnkey camps on a spectrum”, and sold directly (and discreetly) under a different name than “Donation Tickets”? Some say this is the 800-lb gorilla that is still in the room. If they are, it is unlikely to be easy for us to track, unless the promised transparency somehow manifests.

Larry Harvey said “This issue of equality almost amounts to a straw man”.

Yeah it does. Equality, or lack thereof, is not the issue for the majority of Burners. Commodification, exclusivity, and Selective Rule Enforcement are the issues people have been complaining about.

It is as if these camps have been allowed to parade past the Main Sale ticket queue and insert themselves at the head of the line.

Yes. Not only is that how it seems – BMOrg have now acknowledged, that’s exactly what happened.

What I think these camps are really guilty of is being gauche. This is not so much about morals, it is more about manners, and we’re convinced bad manners can be mended.

Actually, it’s about Principles. Those who espouse them, should also be seen to be living by them, not flouting them. Can this be mended? Only if the leaders feel it’s important. Larry says:

these principles are in no way commandments. They represent an ethos that arose from the lived experience of a community; this means these values need to be internalized, they should become a kind of second nature, not a set of literal and unyielding rules that are imposed upon us

The Tin Principles. They’re not rules. They’re an ethos. Burn on.

 

The Community’s Response

Lest you think that we are an isolated voice in the wilderness, “being mean” because we have a “grudge against BMOrg” – here are some of the Burner community’s responses to these posts, completely independent of this site. There’s starting to be a lot of messengers to shoot.

  • We listened, but we really didn’t. We refuse to take responsibility for any of it. What you all saw at the event didn’t happen. Move on please.

  • What about hiring employees (Sherpas) to set-up/take-down the Commodification Camps and service guests?

    Doesn’t look like y’all are addressing that at all here.

    FYI: For the _vast_ majority of objectors, this was never about rich people bringing their luxurious lifestyles to the playa.

  • I can believe some of this, but not all of it. The Board of Directors information presented is definitely incomplete and I think this is a large enough topic that it deserves its own post. How is it even remotely legal for someone on a non-profit board to be profiteering from that non-profit?

  • So the question of did the commodification camps that were so horrible on K street get early entry and tickets from the distributed group sale has been completely ignored. This was a question I really wanted answered and seems like since we will be pissed about the answer you are just going to pretend it wasn’t asked?

  • When will Jim Tananbaum and his direct involvement with Caravancicle be addressed by the Organization? Not just sidestepped and alluded to? His name needs to be addressed by the Org. Saying his actions don’t effect the BM Project? How can someone be responsible for “spreading burning man culture around the world” when they setup a camp at the actual Burning Man event that blatantly disregards the majority of the 10 principles?

  • Just (co)modify the theme to smoke and mirrors… Because that’s what this blog/event is all about!

  • Pay for experience camps are totally against our principles..but are not going to be excluded… Huh? This communication seems to be a lot of heat, but no light.

  • It’s nice to see this information, some of which is actually new and informative. But even with months to prepare, it’s not especially satisfying.

    I don’t see any policy changes that address exclusivity–apparently, as long as a camp acts “neighborly” by not actively annoying the neighbors, they can have all the security guards, velvet ropes, and wristbands they want. Such camps are hardly radically inclusive.

    I also find the board of directors response completely inadequate. Very specific allegations were made and simply ignored.

    There’s also no mention of penalties. If a camp lies about its intentions and violates policies (new and old), what happens? Does the camp and its attendees get ejected? Apparently not. Bad camps can re-form with new names each year, and even flagrant violators can return with none the wiser. At least if they and their guests got ejected, they’d suffer some, and the guests might not inclined to take that route again.

    When will Jim Tananbaum and his direct involvement with Caravancicle be addressed by the Organization? Not just sidestepped and alluded to? His name needs to be addressed by the Org. Saying his actions don’t effect the BM Project? How can someone be responsible for “spreading burning man culture around the world” when they setup a camp at the actual Burning Man event that blatantly disregards the majority of the 10 principles?

    Burning Man Board Member Jim Tananbaum’s plug and play camp is a grievous violation of what the community stands for. The idea that you could be making money at burning man, while also on the board, is an inherent conflict of interest.

    There are no transparent records of how much the burning man organization makes, or what the board members make, just how much they spend – keeping the most important facts in the dark.

    Larry undoubtably loves this arrangement. Pretty understandable why you would make a long text post trying to lull the reader to sleep while you simultaneously try to justify the transgressions.

    LEMUR says:

    December 3, 2014 at 4:15 pm

    Too little, too late, too out of touch and not nearly mindful enough, Larry.

    This post of yours, while great that you finally spoke, doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the damage that has been done.

    Speak wild eyed about the great glorious Five Year plan… and miss the meat of the issue.

    Sad burner says:

    December 3, 2014 at 8:43 pm

    True the 10 Principles are not the 10 Commandments, however, We The People of BRC insist that the powers that be respect and honor our community ethos when they are chumming with the same people compromising/ruining/gentrifying our communities outside of BRC. We are fearful the same thing is happening on the playa and not only under watchful eye of the org but with the orgs assistance! Allowing a board member to sell VIP packaged experiences and saving tickets for the wealthy is shameful to this community.

    We are not asking the org to create and enforce more rules, we are asking you to honor the 10 Principles and this thing you created long ago. We’re asking you to respect the community that helped make BM what it is by not favoring the people who have more money. This will ruin BM and the people that actually care about it will stop going. Please don’t be a 10 Principle Flip Flopper because the cool rich kids are now buying into all this. Imagine the MOOP!!

    I don’t really care if someone wants to build an RV fort and guard the entrances. It makes them look really, really ridiculous…but hey, it’s a free playa.

    I care about ticket-holding individuals brought to Burning Man as employees who have to do whatever an on-playa boss commands, or else their lodging, pay, and survival supplies will be withheld. A lot of work happens at Burning Man, but it seems that few grasp the significance of totally commodifying a person out there. It’s not the same as splitting up camp duty shifts, and it’s bringing in the exact money/power dynamic that most of us are trying to escape for a week.

Nov 17 2014

BMOrg’s Next Response [Updates]

They’re listening. They’ve been listening for months. Their response? Continuing to send their volunteers out online to cop the heat from the Burner community.

Now it’s the turn of Caveat Magister.

 

reblogged from blog.burningman.com:

12 Shocking Revelations about ultra-rich Burning Man plug-and-play camps!

Dollar sign (reflective_metallic)I am as shocked as anyone that rich people came to Burning Man and behaved like rich people.

There’s only one explanation:  it’s a conspiracy, and it goes all the way to the top!  Yes!  The only way people with money could have possibly used that money to try and game the system is if Burning Man was directly involved!  In on it!  We all know it, but you don’t the half of it!

Here are the 5 biggest, most shocking, examples, of plug-and-play malfeasance – and the Burning Man organization’s complicity in it!

  • A group of prominent venture capitalists paid Larry Harvey $6 million to write them an extra-fun 11th principle that no-one else has.

What is it?  I don’t know!  You don’t know!  But it’s got to be amazing, and we’re not living by it!  Only they are!

  • The compound prepared for the Walton family, which owns Wall-Mart, actually paid its greeters

They brought out a bunch of senior citizens to tell everyone on the playa to have-a-nice-day!  They even hugged people!  And then were paid minimum wage!

  • Haliburton’s massive camp art project was really a derrick testing for oil under Black Rock City.

Sure it shot out flames, had a DJ, and Friday night’s Gushing Oil Party was awesome, but that’s not the point!

  • Billionaire Amazon.com owner Jeff Bezos’ theme camp never even came out in physical form, and instead was available only on Kindle.

Anyone who went is now under the terms and conditions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act!  On the plus side, there was no MOOP.

  • Warren Buffett slipped Burning Man CEO Marian Goodell $10 million to move Burning Man to Omaha, and fix it so nobody noticed.

That giant sculpture with the funky lights that everybody loved?  That was really the Nebraska statehouse.  We were so used!

And there’s MORE: […]

We can’t let them get away with this!  Obviously we need to fix global income equality!  Or bitch about how Burning Man’s run!  Whichever is easier for us to do on the internet!

 

Burners.Me:

That’s how seriously they take the community’s concerns, Burners. They’re laughing at us. It’s all A Big Farce. The Simpsons guarantees them a steady stream of new tourists, so why should they be bothered with what a few thousand disgruntled Burners think?

The issue isn’t rich people at Burning Man. Rich people have always been going, and most of them are happy to be Burners like everyone else. They gift sound stages, or rides on their art cars, or food for hundreds or thousands, or a free bar, or an interactive art piece. They pick up after themselves, and pick up the MOOP of others. They take their bikes and their trash out with them when they leave.

The issue the community is most concerned about is the rise of Burner bingo-playing Commodification Camps, how they got so many tickets, and how they blatantly disregard the Tin Principles. We’re concerned about lack of transparency in the dealings of the new “non-profit” that now owns the event. We’re concerned about the for-profit dealings of some members of BMOrg’s Board of Directors who are commercializing our culture, trying to make money for themselves off the volunteer labor and freely given gifts of tens of thousands of Burners.

If BMOrg really were listening to Burners, they’d know that. The comments on their blog are pretty frikking clear.

Except for a few nut cases trying to foment a revolution with Burning Man as the front lines of their “class war”, most Burners don’t care how much money the person next to them has. It’s about what you bring to the party. We’re all the same in a dust storm and in the porta-potties. Camping in an RV doesn’t stop the call of Nature happening when you’re far away from your camp; and having success in your career doesn’t somehow make you a “bad Burner”. Radical Inclusion never meant “poor hippies only”.

BMOrg would do well to respect the community’s concerns, instead of continuing with the party line of the last few months: misdirection, silence, and laughing it all off.

In 2011, 5000 bikes were left behind. image: WendeWho Thompson, flickr/Creative Commons

In 2011, 5000 bikes were left behind. image: WendeWho Thompson, flickr/Creative Commons

I bought my RV on eBay for $19,000. And we still take dumps in the portapotties.

I bought my RV on eBay for $19,000. It’s made it to the last 4 Burns. It didn’t magically make me never need to use a portapotty ever again. It’s nice to have a comfy bed, air conditioning, a fridge and an ice maker, and shelter from wind and dust storms. Plus the stereo CRANKS.

 

[Update 11/81/14 9:22am]

Caveat Magister has tried to explain himself with another post: Why Am I Making Fun of Burners. In it, he claims:

– he is speaking for himself, not the org

– he is against Commodification Camps

– the issue is gentrification, not Commodification Camps

Nice try, but it flies in the face of logic. BMOrg are the ones placing the Commodification Camps, giving them early access passes, scalping tickets to them all year while shutting STEP down early, and appointing people behind them to their Board of Directors.

The issue is Commodification Camps, not rich people or “the spectrum of turkeys”.

Perhaps soon, we will see a post at burningman.com “Why BMOrg Are Not Taking Burners Seriously”. Because, gentrification is too big of a problem for them to fix in their temporary city? I call bullshit.

In the comments to Caveat’s initial post, Burner Dani said:

Maybe the plan all along was to dynamite the burn. Let some board member fuck everyone over. Lose all the volunteers. Piss off artists and the people that let’s face it, MAKE THE EVENT. And then slink off with millions in cash and not have to do again.

The man this year burned a long time. Long enough to say forever?

They still haven’t updated their web site to add the dates for 2015…just sayin’…

[Update 11/19/14 00:07 am]

Like Halcyon before him, Caveat has experienced the shitstorm, and changed his position with a mea culpa.

I’ve stopped trying to respond to comments both because I can’t keep up and because I don’t really think there’s a demand for “more Caveat.”

But I want to address what you’ve just brought up and say: I can’t speak for Answergirl or Will, but this one is all on me. No one set me up to be a “sacrificial lamb.” I’m the guy who said to himself “Hey, how about I write a funny list?” and then by God went all the way with it. I am wholly, and solely, responsible for whatever jackassery I write.

And while it is damn uncomfortable to be in the middle of an internet shitstorm, I don’t think I have any room to ask people to make it less personal. Because I led with a joke. I made fun of something that a lot of people are truly passionate about, and the fact that I hoped it would go over better isn’t an excuse. I didn’t start with a well-reasoned, gentle, epistle: I opened with a joke, I laughed at a topic they take seriously, and of course that makes it personal. I don’t have to agree with a word of it (or think I “deserve” it) … but I believe firmly that if you’re going to prank, you have to take responsibility when the prank goes wrong. I fucked this up, so, okay: people get to tell me I’m a terrible human being in a variety of ways. It sucks, but they mean it to suck, and I started it.

I really appreciate your consideration, though. Thank you.

And for what it’s worth: many commenters here are right. I didn’t “get it.” I thought the issue was about gentrification – and actually I think it still is. But (it seems to me) what the people screaming at me are screaming at me about is *accountability.* I might be right that the underlying issue is one of gentrification – that’s my opinion, I mean it, and I’m entitled to it. But when they say “you’re not hearing our complaint, you’re not getting what we’re talking about,” they were right. I missed their point.

Still no official word from BMOrg since their “coming soon” post more than a week ago.

Burner Metapony brought up an interesting parallel with a past situation – why comment directly, when you have a volunteer army of disposable pranksters at your disposal?

Nov 12 2014

Words To Soothe The Savage Beast

Yesterday morning I got an email from BMOrg CEO Maid Marian. She asked:

Do you monitor our blog so that you see whatever is put up immediately as it is put up? Or would you like me to send you the link of the blog I’m about to post so you have it in hand?

I took this positively: Burners were finally going to get some answers to the questions they’ve been asking for the last 2+ months since the event ended. Sadly, work and travel commitments prevented Marian from publishing that post.

Instead we got a placeholder:

Turnkey Camps Moving Towards Effective Solutions

…These are some of the questions members of our community have raised:

Is the Burning Man organization profiting off turnkey camps?
How did turnkey camps get all their tickets?
Do turnkey camps get preferential treatment?
Were people buying blocks of tickets through the Burning Man Project donation ticket program in the days before the event? If so, why?
Are turnkey camps undermining the practice of Decommodification and Self-Reliance?
What is going to happen to the turnkey camps going forward? Is there accountability for poor behavior?

The importance of these questions requires collaboration and input from a wide variety of people including staff, theme camp leaders, artists, Regional Network leaders, turnkey camp producers, and participants. We are still gathering information and identifying the most effective solutions.

We assure you we are listening and discussing real reforms.

2015 sdp happens on the playa stays

Artist “Simon De La Playa” thinks a revolution against the rich is the answer

The backlash was immediate, almost 100 comments in the first 12 hours – no pot-stirring from Burners.Me was required, although it appears that all the comments came after we linked to BMOrg’s post from our Facebook page.

Some Burners threatened a bloody revolution: “it’s time to eat the rich”, as if Burning Man hasn’t always been full of rich people. Others went so far as to threaten attacks with Weapons of Mass Destruction: not something that should even be joked about in this day and age.

Turning into terrorists and anarchists over a party is a little extreme. Rather than creating a Marxist-inspired class war that sees the disenfranchised rent-controlled poor of San Francisco attacking their real estate-owning wealthy neighbors….Burners need to stick together.

It is BMOrg that are making the decisions that enable Commodification Camps with placement and tickets. Our protests should be directed towards them, not each other. And there is no need for violence, threats, tire-slashing, RV burning, or WMDs.

If they were listening, they’d call these camps what they are: Commodification Camps. Instead, they persist with trying to define a spectrum of turkey camps, where there are only a few bad examples at one end, and thousands of good ones at the other. It appears that Burners aren’t buying this BS.

While we wait for the next “coming soon” post, here are some comments from the Burner community:

Bear: It seems as if some of these questions could be answered easily if the answers didn’t require spin.

No It’s Not That Complicated: I’m just curious to know, if this blog post written with a straight face. It practically feels like a pot-stirring prank.

This Guy:

This isn’t a “complicated” issue. This shouldn’t even be an issue.

Preferential treatment for turnkey rich-kid camps should NOT exist. They should be on a totally even playing field. If Bob Richguy wants to organize 50 RVs for him and his closest friends with absolutely no interactive elements in his camp, he should not be let in early to claim space, or have reserved space anywhere, or have preferential ticket treatment, or access to handicapped golf carts, or anything like that. I honestly don’t give a damn if Bob Richguy brings himself and 100 awful people who are just there to get high and ride segways to and from Robot Heart. I give a damn that you guys have been caught giving preferential special treatment to these camps. I give a damn that JT was obviously guilty and he should have known better. I give a damn that I go out there and bust my ass for weeks to build a city, for free (for the most part, other than a comped ticket because I give up my entire burn to build), and you are commodifying my work and selling it for a high price. I give a huge damn that the people who SHOULD know better at the ones perpetuating this.

This is disgusting obfuscation, and you’re going to sweep it under the rug like you did in 2012 with that horrible ten minute video where the PlayaSkool guy was like “Yeah, well, we want people to be able to come to burning man, do no work, pay me huge amounts of money, and then let me write it all off on my taxes,” in a nutshell. It shouldn’t take months to write out an answer or even start a discussion.

Shame on you. Shame on every single one of you…

I’ll answer your questions for you, even, using the latest available information! Here we go! It’s 6:54pm right now…

Is the Burning Man organization profiting off turnkey camps?
– Not necessarily, there are indications the camp(s) didn’t even break even, but the attempt was there to make money. 17,000 for a spot. Someone made money. Probably JT, all things considered.

How did turnkey camps get all their tickets?
– Maid Marion at the SoHo house, BMORG members at special rich-kid presentations where they were sold for $650 or more, and that special link via Steve Young that allowed “benefactors” to purchase tickets at scalper inflated prices.

Do turnkey camps get preferential treatment?
– Yes, they get EA, a special place to stage their RVs prior to opening (This was very obviously apparent if you were in early or looked at the google map images of early build), the individuals within camps got plenty of handicap placards for whatever they wanted to drive, they got access to as many tickets as they wanted through Steve Yougn, and they even usurped a huge friendly neighborhood at 9:00 and K with placement, and a disgusting mark left on the MOOP map.

Were people buying blocks of tickets through the Burning Man Project donation ticket program in the days before the event? If so, why?
– Yes, and because… because BMORG is a sack of hypocritical cash-out money-grubbing folks. At least, that’s the only reason I can see.

Are turnkey camps undermining the practice of Decommodification and Self-Reliance?
– Absolutely, and any attempt to spin this any other way is plain and simple BS.

What is going to happen to the turnkey camps going forward? Is there accountability for poor behavior?

– Nothing. You’re going to sweep this under the rug. Also, there is no accountability as of right now, seeing as NOTHING HAS HAPPENED.

6:58pm. Wow, it took four minutes. Hot damn! Not that hard, guys.

 

The Bottom Line:

The Bottom Line is-
Of course the BM org knows about the questions, this is their blog.

The Bottom Line is-
if this was a mistake and the BMorg felt bad about things they would be gushing, they are not.

The Bottom Line is-
by NOT ANSWERING months of questions indicates
YES burning man has changed and will now a a big time profit event.

The Bottom Line is-
If you are not smart enough to see the hand writing on the walls then you are not paying attention. The BMorg is giving the OK to make money on burning man.

The Bottom Line is-
It is time to rake in the money on BM,
the BMorg is raking in piles of money and so should you.

If you operate the right way there is nothing wrong with
making $100,000 at burning man in 2015 and $500,000 in 2016.

Having fun and making money, the BMorg is doing it and so should you.

PS
But of course remember, just like taking pictures at BM and setting up off-Playa BM events, the BMorg owns your ass on their turf and they will expect a piece of of the profit from “your action” just like in the default world, just like mafia underlings kick money up to the big boss, just like drug dealers/whore house operators pay bribes to the Police to run their operations, just like Lobbyist pay bribes to politicians to “get things done”… you will have to pay off Larry and BMorg to operate on their turf.
Just like all deals with the devil, there is a price to pay.

fri-net-ik brings the WMD threat into the mix – ironically, of course (emphasis ours):

I’m another ’99er with 13 visits to BRC (that’s 4 months on the playa) and placed since 2008 in a very privileged place. Those are my credentials, and here’s my opinion.

I’m really hazy on exactly what defines a turnkey camp as opposed to what I’ve seen over the years. I hate RVs with a passion and think they’re antithetic to radical self-reliance. However, I know there are artists who have been on the playa for weeks before me building large scale art who just want to chill for the event week. So I accept that they should be allowed. You’re complaining about turnkey camps now? In 2004 we camped on A and ended up directly across from a block-long RV wall. And that was the first year shit service was offered so we got to smell their shit being sucked every other day. You want to talk about things ruining the event? Why was commercial RV service started? But that was 2004 and hey, guess what? I’ll bet the majority of people weren’t even around to notice, but BRC still rose and fell and different people kept coming and there were more and more RVs. So I don’t really care if a turnkey camp has a wall of RVs – there are plenty of regular assholes who use them that way.

Also – how many of you spent your first year building your camp from scratch and tearing it all down at the end? If you didn’t, then why weren’t you considered a turnkey resident and shunned out of hand? Did you pay camp dues to be part of a more experienced camp? Then how was what you did different from hiring a sherpa? How many of you who spent your first year like that and came back the next year fully prepared to participate and volunteer and build? How many of the well-off turnkey folks do you think caught the bug and are already working on sinking their resources into a phenomenal art structure?

I hear there was a camp that made an unholy mess. Why is Root Society still welcome after years of being in the red, then? As I understand it Disturbia was kicked out in 99 or 00 for repeated red-level MOOP map offenses after many years as a landmark village. Why was this year the greenest MOOP map ever if all these virgins and turnkeys aren’t respecting probably the most important principle of LNT? You can’t point at one and say they’re all like that, because they don’t know each other and didn’t make a plan together to do it. If these are placed camps and they do that, don’t welcome them back.

How exactly is commodification defined? How much did you spend at Wal-mart in Fernley or Reno? I know a lot of you are because it shows in the tax boost in these cities around the event. How much did you spend on your vehicle, your RV, your costumes, gas, plane tickets, etc.? How many of you stripped and/or covered the corporate logos on your clothes, your backpack, your rented RV, your moving van? Did you know that if you didn’t you were advertising for commodities? Burning Man’s principle of decommodification has always just been shifting the consumerism to pre-event. But hey, it’s just a principle, not a rule, right? And I challenge you to tell me a way this can possibly be avoided. That’s why I laugh at people who welcome me “home” – it’s one of the most important things in my life, but there aren’t the quantity or appropriate gifts to make it sustainable as a home.

And if Burning Man hasn’t always been populated through commodification, then why was the year with the most and best art I’ve seen on the esplanade in 2000, when dot-commers were driving Ferraris and all of Silicon Valley emptied out to the playa? And why was it so barren in 2003 when I finally made it back and nobody had any money any more? You can thank the BRAF and the Burning Man partial ticket sales price for leveling that out, and now you can also thank the early ticket buyers for donating so much to these institutions.

So there. I could say more, but this at least skims proving the fact that Burning Man has always had turnkey camps and commodification. And there goes Black Rock City but for the grace of us participants each year.

I’m also a little confused about how a non-profit can be greedily profit-based. I don’t know much about non-profits, but the name suggests that it isn’t going to try to make a profit off of you. Larry used to say that Burning Man wasn’t non-profit, it was no-profit. And then there got to be a profit for 10 years and he and the borg went non-profit. And the ticket prices are lower now than they were in the ’00s.

My only problem is the possible rigging of the ticket system. Except for my camp’s, because we put the planning and effort into being a theme camp. How are theme camp directed tickets all that different from turnkey directed tickets?

Anyway, my most important question:
Do you think an EMP would destroy a Segway’s balancing computers? Can you direct an EMP like you can explosives or a gun? How many watts would it take vs distance from the Segway? Because I’d hate to get caught slashing the tires of parked ones.

Kidding! I used to ride a chainsaw-engine scooter until I was shamed into turning it into something that looked more creative. Can we shame the able-bodied Segway riders into dressing things up a bit so they don’t look like such tools, er, spectators?

Marlin:

“BMORG is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: “I, the BMORG, am BRC.”

It is a lie! It was creators who created BRC, and hung a faith and a love over it: thus they served BRC.

The BMORG lies in all the tongues of good and evil; and whatever it says it lies; and whatever it has it has stolen.

Everything in the BMORG is false; it bites with stolen teeth, and bites often. It is false down to its bowels.

See how BMORG entices them to BRC, the all-too-many! How it swallows and chews and rechews them!

“In BRC there is nothing greater than I: I am the governing hand of God.”- thus roars the monster.

You became weary of conflict, and now your weariness serves the new idol!

It will give everything to you, if you worship it, the new idol: thus it buys the lustre of your virtue, and the glance of your proud eyes.

Through you it seeks to seduce the all-too-many!

Behold the BM PROJECT BOARD! They acquire wealth and become the poorer for it. They seek power, and the lever of power, much money- these impotent ones!

See them clamber, these nimble apes! They clamber over one another, and thus pull each other into the mud and the abyss.”

Marlin again:

How much longer can you stretch this ‘COMING SOON’ “its complicated” “moving parts” bullshit ?

its been over a month.

it isnt that complicated… nothing is.

im just waiting for some response that says “MISTAKES WERE MADE”

..sheez.

are you taking your PR advice from BRIDGESTONE?

y’all are just looking incompetent.. looking like youve got something to hide.

oh, it takes a while to tell the entire infrastructure built up around these for-profit camps that none important of the customers fuckin want that shit? ….yea, i bet it does.

TMTATC:

Reading certain posts here, a vision popped into my head.
Law enforcement officers surrounding the lifeless monolithic RV walled for profit commodification camps, guarding them from pranksters and protesters. Ah yes, the police guarding the interests of the .1-.01% right there in BRC just like defaultia, how special.

Hey at least the the rest of us out there could relax a bit with a few less of those absolutist, intrusive, hyper letter of the law, police state LEOs snooping around.

BMORG, the only reason you are saying responding to this is issue is “complicated” is simply because you want to have your profit, er, cake and eat it too. Saying this is blatant obfuscation. Please open your minds and and reflect on what you truly want for this grand and largely successful over the years experiment to be, and where you want it to go in the future.
It is not virgins, it is not the exploitation/commodification camps that are ruining the event, it is you the BORG that is. Only you can ruin it, or nurture it. Just because demand has exceeded ticket supply should not be license to exploit the situation.
Do the right thing. Please.

Oh Burning Man, what have you become?

Mortician:

I hope whatever is put in place also addresses the increase in producers and Commodification Camp leaders claiming in the press that it’s ok for them to have all the bodyguards, wristbands, and private art cars they want because they donated to a art piece or soundcamp. It’s something we see these folks claim time and again when asked to answer on the controversy, and it comes across as though these folks don’t understand the point of gifting. It means you give something – like art, or a famous DJ playing a set- lovingly and thoughtfully to the community with pure intent with no strings attached, not that you throw some money at something big and shiny to placate the masses as a get out of jail free card to dismiss entitled and rude behavior. There is room for improvement in the orgs acculturation efforts with these people if they don’t get this. Gifting, and the point of it, should be explained a little more clearly…

Lemur:

LETS GO TO THE TAPE!!!

“the most important questions to consider are not those that are most frequently asked: will the Burning Man ethos be absorbed and commodified, exploited by the so-called mainstream; will the identity that we’ve achieved together be perverted into just another branding device? The answer to these questions is a simple and emphatic no! The Project and our regional contacts diligently work to prevent this.” -larry harvey

“Let community and commerce do their thing freely and naturally within their own contexts. When they exist in an organic rather than a corrupt or artificial relationship, they’ll naturally benefit each other.” -”Zay” (a regional contact)

“Using the tools of the world, using them, in fact, more efficiently and for a better purpose than the world does isn’t selling out.” -larry harvey

“it would be too much to expect that we said “you know, well, we’ll make it completely non commercial because that will be the really commercial move here.. we’re gonna bond people to our brand and that’s how we’re gonna….” ..not even rupert murdoch would come up with that idea..” -larry harvey

“Town & Country Magazine contacted us post-event for photo review and permission. By that time, we had found out that this was not a real Burning Man event, but a product placement story, and we refused permission for Town & Country to publish any photographs from the event. Sadly, they sent the story to press anyway, very much in violation of the photographer’s agreement with Burning Man which prohibited any such publication. Unfortunately, the timing was too short for us to file a lawsuit against them enjoining the publication. That’s what BMHQ does to prevent this type of commodification.” -this blog

….oh Larry.. ….oh regional contact person….. youre so out of touch..

….and remember when town and country did that thing, and you tried to appeal to us by saying “THATS WHAT THE HQ DOES TO PREVENT COMMODIFICATION!!!” …i.e. threaten lawsuits.

those times were so cute.

larry was more on the mark here…

“As I say, gift giving networks can produce massive amounts of social capital, and the rate of return on social capital is a lot better than the rate of return on normal capital investment in the market world.” -larry harvey 2002

..yep,… but what happens when ya lose that social capital?

Simon of the Playa threatens Revolution, using Burning Man as the Front Lines of the battlefield for his own hatred of anyone richer than him:

2014 sdp posters are you going

Fight each other: save Burning Man? Artist: Simon De La Playa

Burning Man has always been way ahead of the curve…

that “curve” time keeps getting shorter, and this is a direct result of social media and instantaneous worldwide communication.

Maybe what we are seeing is a pre-cursor, a foreshadowing of coming events.

art imitating life.

The Current state of Economic Disparity looms large upon the global psyche and it appears to be making an early appearence (notice how i refrained from using the word ‘manifesting’) in our community.

The Revolution is Coming…

we’ve had enough of this 1%er bull shit.

it’s no surprise that Burning Man is the Front Lines.

We’ll let BMOrg’s Minister of Propaganda Will Chase have the last word:

I totally understand your frustration, but it’s a very complicated issue. Any decisions we make will affect a whole host of established internal processes and the people who run them. These need to be carefully thought through and worked out with a number of different departments to ensure that what we do is actually workable and effective.

“Internal processes and the people who run them”…what, exactly, is their stake in ticket scalping to Commodification Camps? What are the complexities surrounding this issue?

Read the full selection of comments here – add your own to the mix, after all: they’re listening.