Hear's the latest from placement, but I didn't see any thing there. Hopefully in a week or so we'll know our Black Rock City street address.:
PLACEMENT: WHEN + REFLECTIONS ON A KERFUFFLE
As we wrote in newsletter #1, back on May 3rd, our target date to announce which camps will be placed, and where is: early July.
Our second full weekend of placement city-planning just concluded, with inspiration from the mutant vehicles (floats), music, and fabulous costumes parading outside our office windows in San Francisco's Pride celebration. They left a trace, and San Francisco's DPW spent the next several hours restoring Market Street.
As one Placer wrote:
"When we encountered the ticketing kerfuffle we were all very concerned that the theme camps might feel it would be too difficult to bring their interactivity this year and that our theme camp participation might be quite diminished. We cannot yet say whether the implementation of the TC interactivity will be scaled back but I was pleasantly surprised to find that we had a very good set of strong [Theme Camp Questionnaires/TCQs] come in . . . In fact, the TCQs were so good that the bar was raised for placement in prime locations, resulting in a lot of healthy change in the camps who are slated to be placed in these positions . . . so many new or younger camps (less tenure, not younger members) stepped up with really creative ideas about what to offer the community . . .
Why did the challenges of this year result in a strong set of TCQs? My guesses are:
1. The theme camps had to be better prepared at an earlier date than ever to respond to the ticket challenges . . .
2. The publicity around the ticket sell out focused the communities attention on the coming year much sooner and more frequently than many camps would otherwise have done, resulting in a longer and stronger planning period . . .
3. There was much more interaction between Placement and theme camp leads, as we all tried to figure out what the Hell was going on and how we were going to make BRC great this year despite the challenges. The theme camps deserve a lot of credit -- they really stepped up and worked cooperatively to try and resolve challenges and help us as a community figure out how we could preserve and even improve our event in the face of this new challenge. I feel like this process moved us a long way towards developing a closer relationship with theme camps, more to a trusting partnership than previously."
The only thing left to add to that is: thank you!
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GUIDING TURN-KEY CAMPING & DELIVERY ARRAIGNMENTS
A huge topic this year! Whether you call it 'Plug 'n' Play' or Turn-Key Camping, a group of people producing a camp in preparation of the arrival of others . . . really have their work cut out for them to do it right, respecting the ethos of our culture. In collaboration with the generous Theme Camps and Outside Service providers, who saw a communication gap, stepped up to honorably own their missteps, and then worked in concert with us to set proper limits and find solutions, we have created a guiding document.
Turnkey Camping Guidelines:
http://bit.ly/My3BQ6
Even if your style of production is more 'Pound 'n' Play', it's probably time to start arraigning to get your stuff delivered to Black Rock, eh?
see:
http://tinyurl.com/4yvuyw2
Fuel delivery, storage and safety guidelines for camps and Art Cars:
http://bit.ly/JWf8bp
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BOULEVARD G
Last year we made G street 40-feet wide, taking the first step in creating a mid-city boulevard. You'll soon know which camps the Placers have chosen to be the vanguard of this new inter-active zone, adjacent to double-deep blocks and art plazas at 4:30 and 7:30. As San Francisco has the bay-front Embarcadero, and a mid-city Market Street, will this become our "interior Esplanade" in the years to come? Well, we do not plan on changing the sound policy* within the city, or asking the DPW and Lamplighters to quadruple their spire-setting and lantern-hanging duties, so: yes, but no.
*
http://www.burningman.com/preparation/event_survival/sound.html
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EARLY ARRIVAL PASSES
Its too early to announce the fulfillment schedule for early arrival passes. We have collected your EA count requests from your questionnaires and noted your EA changes sent to
placement@burningman.com. Stay tuned. Distribution is via email, and therefore can be adjusted and reallocated on your end as needed.
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IN THE TRENCHES
As our city has grown to incorporate power and fuel distribution, trenching the delivery lines of these resources is common place. Great. Except when the trenching is made across roads. Our temporary roads never seem to recover very well during the event, when trenching across them is followed by a week's worth of foot, bicycle, and mutant vehicle traffic.
Trenching/Digging Conditions (instructions to outside service providers)
Provider shall strive to minimize its impact on the playa and shall restore the playa to its original condition at the conclusion of its operations. Provider shall use good judgment to minimize playa disturbance by limiting digging and trenching to main power distribution lines running from the power source to key power distribution points, and situations where a safety hazard will be created by leaving wires exposed.
• The primary intention for trenching is the burial of electrical cables. No trenching for other purposes may be completed without prior approval from the DPW Heavy Equipment Manager.
• Maximum depth for trenches is not to exceed six inches without prior approval from the DPW Heavy Equipment Manager.
• No trenching may be done across city streets without prior approval from the DPW Heavy Equipment Manager.
• Power lines must be placed immediately upon completion of trenching operations, and trenches must be appropriately backfilled and compacted. No trench may remain open overnight or for an extended duration regardless of circumstance.
• Special care should be taken to avoid the introduction of foreign matter into open trenches during both installation and removal of cables.
• Once cables have been removed, Provider shall follow all Leave No Trace practices which include the restoration of disturbed surfaces to their original state. Provider shall fill and compact all trenches to a surface level with the surrounding area.
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NEW [MONKEY!] SEARCH FEATURE
from the BM tech department:
We added a little theme camp search on the blog and the burningman.com page. So....
There is now a little local search to help you find camps at
http://www.burningman.com/themecamps/themecamps.html
e.g., there are seven camps if you search for 'monkey'
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- The 2012 Placement Team:
Abdullah, Big Cheese, BlackJack, Bravo, DayZee, HepKitten, The Machine, Pixel, Retro, Rev. Bloodshot, Scar, Sweetthang, Termeh, and WD
Linear Mode
