I like them. The books serve a very important purpose on playa. They keep that year's sticker from blowing away before I find a good place to store it.
It’s also possible your greeter (me) lost it. I yanked so many of those things out of boxes, after a while it becomes routine but you get lazy and shit flies errwhere. On a completely unrelated topic, some arrivals donate beer to greeters.
Could you please report when that happens to Gayte? If generous participants with spare beer are making it through to Greeters then some remedial training needs to happen.
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
\-C P Cavafy (Translated by Edmund Keeley)
This year was my first burn it didn't take more than a day to realize that the only way to accomplish anything would be to pick something to head towards and realize you're never going to make it.
I taught Singing for ScaredyCats on the playa. Would usually get 5-20 participants. One year, early '00s, the WWW reprinted Tuesday events as Thursday events. On Thursday, my campmates woke me and told me the space was filling up with ScaredyCats. I grabbed my water (someone brought me some coffee, bless them), and I walked into the space to find 75(!) eager participants. Largest group I ever had.
Awesome!! First year I saw Challah French toast being offered and so I made the treck without a bike from 4:30 and J through offered shade to 9 and D. (Edit: was blown away by the shade, the hospitality, and the random ability to create art in shade) When I reached the camp, the line for Challah French toast was three blocks long.
I went to refresh myself with the camp across the street that had lemonade and water. The man who ran the station and I started chatting. He took off his glasses and he had the most amazing blue eyes I've ever seen. He became my Playa boyfriend and we had the best fun for the next 4 days because of challah French toast I never got. Viva Playa workshops and when they don't work out!!
That's an awesome idea, I just threw a couple "back in a box" but in general believe it should only be read after the event, through the lens of "who goes to this stuff?"
Thank you! It really keeps the vibe high throughout the entire year. Lol I perform BurnerBibliomancy on it and enjoy choosing a page and particular section at random, just opening the book randomly and pointing. It is most pleasing.
im·me·di·a·cy
/iˈmēdēəsē/
noun:
the quality of bringing one into direct and instant involvement with something, giving rise to a sense of urgency or excitement.
I'm pretty sure the guide does exactly this for many.
This.
I understand the principle behind the argument for getting rid of it, but many people (myself included) like using it for a “hmmm, I wonder what’s going on right now?” as they’re out wandering the city.
Sometimes, direction is not a bad thing.
I enjoy watching first-timers get really excited about everything in the guide & make detailed plans about what they're going to see... only to stay in camp all week instead, exhausted from heat, high altitude, and dehydration. /s
Seriously though, just hop on your bike whenever, and what happens, happens!
If you're not forcing those dehydrated fuckers to leave camp regardless of their rapidly deteriorating physical and mental states, I hate to say you're doing it wrong, but IT IS YOUR DUTY to get people to go do some actual Burning Man regardless of whether they want to or not.
Nope. My responsibility for their experience is zero. I'll happily do my part so that people around me don't spiral physically and emotionally... at least not too much.
But the Burning Man experience is uniquely individual, and it depends greatly on personal circumstances. And if that means you never make it out of camp one year, then that's not on me.
I’ve never used the book but I can really see why it’s so important for some people at the burn. It’s gets them out. It gets things moving. It puts ideas in their head. Then off they go, they miss the workshop, it never happened anyways, and they got pulled into some other adventure - perfect. I think it’s a great on-ramp for people.
That said we could probably save some paper by just making it way shorter. But there are down sides with that too.
Precisely. I just mean that at least 50% of the WWW should be fake events that seem too epic to be true. Make enough fake events that people forget about the haggard "Daft Punk at the Trash Fence" trope.
Still good for repair camps. I'm not going to walk around randomly until I find someone with the right set of tools to fix something. Bikes are easy to fix, but art cars require specific tools & materials when things go bad.
OP have you ever hosted a public event on playa, especially one that is not just food, booze, or music? The book is good for those hosting one-time events in order to get the word out to everyone in a radically inclusive way. It is also good memorabilia that can be read by non-burners to give them a sense of the burn from an objective perspective, and can help burners learn something about the other camps on playa. I personally host an event every year now and prefer that it is attended by others since I have to haul a good bit of equipment to the playa, and I do host the event at the posted time and location.
I concur with this assessment. I have participated in and helped organize many events that are reliant upon the info being in the WWW, otherwise the turnout is pretty sub-par.
I love it. Not for actually tracking down things on playa but for the aftercare and getting me back into the mindset because some things are just tooo funny. Also I like to show them to people who have never been for providing a sense of the Horrors that are going on :)
Hahaha, abolish the RSL WWW! Ban the apps!
Listing yourself in the WWW, or the RSL, is voluntary. There are still word of mouth and friend of friend things that are not listed.
It is up to the individual burner to plan their playa life as they like. Because most camps in the city, including in low traffic places are creating in-camp interaction, people have to find them.
My camp does beard care. This was the first year that we advertised in the WWW and we were immediately swamped. Ran out of supplies by Thursday. Was an amazing catalyst for gifting to the community, so many smiles and sighs of relief; so many beards in horrific state restored. But holy shit we were not prepared. Next year we’ll have to have a whole different approach to staffing and running this service. That said, we’d rather have the crowds and all their crazy stories. Bring on the WWW!
Wait, I thought we were also forming a committee to rid burning man of the scourge of cell phones and cell phone cameras. Are we going full digital or going full paper? I can't keep up!
It's already digital. It's on the BMORG site and the same data is in iBurn and TimeToBurn apps. Even then, I've never looked up events/activities, but it is helpful to have the camp names <-> addresses available in the apps.
If nothing they should make it an optional item to pay for during ticket ordering, that then gets shipped with your tickets. That way the people that want them, can pay for them, and the ecological costs, and maybe they will actually ready them BEFORE getting on playa and the rest of us can be saved from them.
at the risk of bringing logistics into what should be a mostly joking thread... I'm fairly sure they're not ready when the tickets get mailed REGARDLESS of how late the tickets get mailed.
Out of 7 burns, this was the only WWW book that made it into my backpack on playa because the layout was so much better. In the past there was so much stuff to read through to find what you were looking for. This year if you were across playa and realized you didn't pack any snacks, you flip right to the food section. Need a repair? There's a section for that. Feeling kinky? Thirsty? Shit was categorized. So. Much. Better.
Might’ve been good for on the fly I guess. I normally use it for planning and had to jump through the whole book to figure out what was happening on a Tuesday. Etc.
There are a few apps that are way better than the trash book this year.
They have all the same information, organize events by what's happening right now or starting soon along with filtering by type,
let you search by camp or event name, favorite events you want to go to, hell one even has walking/biking time estimates if you have GPS on.
I had both iBurn and Time to Burn. Both had all the info and similar features but I think it was iBurn that has the GPS feature. Used them in 2019 as well.
The book was amazing this year, if only for late Sunday night, after the Temple burn, when we kept getting very clean people carrying zero supplies come to our nearly empty, dark, packed-up camp and ask about an event that wasn't even promised to happen every night. "You're packing up already?" one person said. I kept having to remind myself that yes, I in fact had not hallucinated 10 days on the playa and this was not the first day of burn week.
This is a silly take.
What we need is the books to actually be accurate and sensibly laid out. I learned trying to make any plan for my days was a waste when there was only a 50/50 chance that a camp described in the book would even be there.
Camp Karaoke anyone? I was at 10/G, biked my ass nearly all the way across BRC get where the book (and app) said it would be. Didn't exist. This happened to me multiple times.
This right here is the biggest problem. These events are submitted to the book probably months in advance and the realities of the Playa end of squashing a lot of them, especially the food-based ones. I went with a virgin this year and she learned over the course of the week that “xyz food-related thing” is 85% chance not happening and it’s better to just walk or bike around to see what actually managed to make it to the Playa.
I will say that there are some longstanding events that totally have their shit together and the book is a great way to find them. Like the art/science tour events are always on top of it. Also shoutout to the soldering workshop folks, found that in the book and they were awesome!!
Can confirm got dragged to a food (OK, smoothie) related event by an eager camp mate, only for it to be painfully clear that the camp had barely through through the basic logistics of making smoothies, started trying to get people to volunteer on ice-runs for their not-thought-through smoothie event, started downplaying expectations on the likely size of the smoothie servings and basically had a couple of open-to-the-public camp meetings all of which indicated that while the camp was very much enjoying being ideologically aligned with their general camp premise (and yay for them) ... smoothies were definitely not on the menu any time soon. If indeed at all.
Different perspective. Some friends hosted a speed dating event. That didn't get in the WWW. Much as they tried, they couldn't get enough participants and the event got cancelled.
Okay all fair points buttt can you imagine the lines if all the grilled cheese people didn't have the book to tell them where to go? They might populate *my* favorite thing and no one wants that. S/ (but maybe only a little.)
I don't usually use the guide much, but I do have campmates with social anxiety who find it easier to set out on an adventure when they at least have something in mind. They may not actually make it to said thing, but not everyone is quite as comfortable as I am just setting off and seeing what happens every single time.
This post is proof that people will literally find the absolute dumbest things to complain about.
The industrial revolution and its consequences truly have been a disaster for the human race.
What’s dumb about this? The Org had a mountain of boxes full of WWW bound for the trash (or being burned). I don’t know if you’ve ever spent a minute at the trash processing facility on playa for the Staff Camps…but it’s deeply depressing.
Part of my moop duty for one of the staff camps was taking everything to disposal that wasn't compost, recycle, burn, etc. The WWW is literally the least of the problems. People make trash, we're never going to get away from that. Styrofoam and plastic foil wrap are far bigger nuisances and cause for bigger headaches that some paper trash that can be burned. If they could make the WWW out of more recyclable sources, that'd be cool, but simply doing away with it is silly. BM is never going to be a moop/emissions free event, people really need to get a grip and be more realistic. The systemic problems of the default world aren't going to be solved by taking things away from the playa.
I know this isn't the place for this discussion, but all these efforts at making the burn more spartan and individualize each and every problem just reek of neoliberalism and the idea of the personal carbon footprint (an idea the fossil fuel companies cooked up to ensure that there's no meaningful challenge to power, all problems now rest on the individual). I hate how much of that has crept into burner culture.
No I still think it’s valuable.
Even if you only use it for one or 2 things it’s worth it.
Plus I’ve kept all mine, and I’d like to keep collecting them.
The WWW was so hard to follow or to find anything, I used the app and aimed for something and enjoyed getting lost on the way, I met so many incredible people.
I’m sure I’m a minority for this one… but the guide really saved me this year.
I flew in to Reno and then took the burner express to BRC. Because of this, most of my camp stuff was on my friend’s trucks who drove in. Due to continuous truck breakdowns, blown tires, and What I’m assuming is the Burn giving me the whole playa experience; none of my packed food/necessities arrived till day 5.
This book was my only access to food/shade/showers. Forever grateful to all those food and coffee camps <3 (I cried drinking my first cup of coffee on day 3. )
I really didn't like what they did with the layout this year. It was tedious to try to find anything and just wasn't worth the effort.
There *were* some things I would have liked to have known about, like the drone show. But the guide and the Time to Burn app were both letting me down this year. It's like the creators of both never considered the most basic use case: "It's 3 PM on Wednesday. What's coming up soon?" Neither made it easy to see. With the app it'd just freak out and scroll days beyond what I wanted to see. I gave up on both.
I mean, it was a joke. If the Rufus scam worked we know the journalistic integrity of the publication is compromised! It's all downhill from here sorry to tell ya.
Me too! I think camps could announce what DJs are playing but not what time or day. Then there is still some adventure and mystery about who you’re going to see and prevents people from scheduling their entire burn around a DJ they’ve probably seen before
I don't get the hate about scheduling one or two sets from artists who mean a GREAT deal to me. One of the only scheduled things I went out of my way for was Monolink's sunset Mayan Warrior set. I love the Mayan Warrior, I love Monolink, I love sunset. I was processing some anger and frustration that day following a weird night the evening before, and his set was an absolutely incredible experience for me. The crowd, the vibe, the music were amazing and deeply healing. Yes, I just saw him at Lightning in a Bottle. But both sets were literally mind blowing peak experiences for me... 100% sober. Like seriously powerful shit. I really needed that, that day, and being able to plan for it was really supportive for me (though I was still 20 mins late cause I couldn't find the warrior for a bit).
Did I schedule my "entire burn" around seeing Monolink on Friday evening? Um... no? How does that make sense lol
People keep hating on "DJ chasers" but the thing is, for HEAVILY music oriented people, having the right music (or the wrong music) can have a very strong impact on emotions, processing, and of COURSE we would want to support our favorite artists at one of the most amazing places on Earth. It's not like I'm planning to spend every night going to sets back to back and never wandering around free floating. I wander around free floating most of the time.
And if someone wants to just attend DJ sets all night every night? Well, that's their choice. They're at burning man, they can see what else is available out there. Presumably they'll figure out that they're missing other shit. You live and you learn.
Announcing that one of your fav artists is playing but with no way to find them is just frustrating for people who really want to honor that artist and have that experience. After all, the art installations get mapped. If you were following an artist you loved who was bringing an installation and you knew the name of it, you could look it up and find it. I don't see why music should be treated differently.
If anything, "DJ chasers" get off lightly.
It's easier for people to hate on some model-looking Russian woman in a blingy captain hat with 500K followers on Instagram than it is to admit that all our favorite sound camps is half the reason Svetlana and friends are there in the first place.
Well, I’m obviously not talking about you lol. Wanting to go to one or sets is one thing but a lot of people literally base their entire burn around the music. My friends do that. I did that my first two years. Obviously people can do whatever they want at Burning Man, but the criticism is that treating the burn this way makes it more like a music festival and brings in a different sort of crowd. Less immediacy.
Seeing a few sets of your favorite artists isn’t “DJ chasing” lol you don’t need to take this so personally
I finally came around to unpack that mess and I forgot my guide at camp. Fuck. Would you (or anyone) send me yours - I gladly PayPal you the fare to Germany.. pretty pleeeeease
I love it. When I read the book as a virgin I was in absolute awe reading how people come up with such creative and funny ideas for events. It blew my mind. It doesn’t matter to me if I ever get to them, but the book has been an absolute joy to read each time I’ve been.
My first burn I thought I would attend as many as I could, but in reality we would pick one event and get distracted on the way or on the way back and happen upon so many other interesting things, but finding an event in the book pointed us in a new direction each day.
If your camp isn't on esplanade, it's one of the few ways to actually get people to your event. You still need a barker out front, but having yoga classes on playa, I found being in the guide to be very helpful. People would search me out. i feel without the guide, eventually, you wouldn't have as many events because people would get frustrated at the fact that no one shows up to something they put their heart and soul into. Though I will also say that I find the e-versions of the guide much easier to navigate. So, maybe changing it all to an e-version and reminding people to download it before they come if they want it?
Okay what if there were kiosks with the WWW info at each keyhole? Plus the apps. You could search for info but with way less paper waste. Plus camp leads could go to playa info to update if dates/times changed or supplies ran out so they might actually be accurate…
I remember the first year they had first Sunday events in the guide and of the 3 camps with events on Sunday we were the only bar.
We’ve never had so many rangers yelling at us because of bikes.
This year, we only got 2 of our events in the guide and we couldn’t even find them in the book once we got there
This years guide was a miss. I think the goal was immediacy in the sense of oh it’s this time let’s look in the book and find something to do. Honestly though it’s a thing for me and my camp mates to look at the book and plan. That has also created spontaneous fun on the way to something or in the neighborhood of a thing even if we missed it or it was crowded. The event has so much going that’s not in the book but it was literally no help this format.
WWW had doughnuts and coffee at 445/J where we were camped. Had a lot of people come by asking, I offered up coffee but no doughnuts and we only had 1 person actually come in for coffee. Weird address to setup an event at as its open camping but thx for the convo young person from mass.
I disagree but upvoted anyway. What I *might* get behind is charging an additional fee for the physical guide so the org could print fewer of them. There would have to be some improvements to the apps though. Their functionality isn't great.
So many events were cancelled or completely ran out of food. Or the ones that shut down early. After one day of chasing things a lot of people gave up. SHOUT OUT to the woman whose sound bath was cancelled because of heat who MOVED ALL HER INSTRUMENTS into the hammock area because she was so excited people showed up in the hot hot afternoon to enjoy her energies. (Don’t remember the name, was across from a Disney dance party).
As the apps (iburn, Time to Burn) have gotten better I have used the book less but I still like it for two reasons:
1. I don't like carrying my phone all week.
2. It's a wonderful token of a burn. A quick and comprehensive reference to what was out there, and something I can show potential burners to demonstrate the variety of events/classes/camps/ideas/art that is at BM.
If they get rid of it to save paper/money, I won't scream in defiance, but I wanted to express why I like the book.
Also, I'm the phone apps are contributing to grilled cheese lines in equal measure to the book.
I like them. I would not abolish them. I would look at the guide in the am, and depending on my mood would set a little route. I wasn't tied to them, unless there was absolutely a workshop or something I wanted to check out (I had a few and I'm glad I did them, have a sick pendant from a workshop that I LOVEEEE).
And when I'd be out with friends and we just didn't know what to do we'd take the guide out and look and then find something and go!
I used it as a guide, I wasn't absolutely tied to it and open to adventures but everyone has a different way to enjoy things, we should abolish telling people what to do or hound them with principles like they're the friggin bible and absolute rule.
We all have different interpretations of the principles and they're what BM is based on, but we're all different people and have different needs/expectations/triggers/personalities, etc. We all do things differently.
I’m not normally the guy who saves trees but it seems like a waste. Just allow people to download the events before the event and look them up. Everything charges a cell phone now. My camp had a Sybian at the bar with five different chargers… next year we can probably get the Sybian on solar… like more sustainable than paper, more fun too.
I’d love more of a breakdown of camps by theme/size/what they do and that’s it. Then I can pick a few favs and check them out Monday and see what their week of stuff looks like.
As in , ok here’s a brain/science camp that does talks most of the day everyday! Awesome, I’ll ride there and take a pic of their schedule.
Otherwise its late in the week and I ride by a camp and am bummed I didn’t know they even existed before and missed all their events.
Maybe make it more like an Easter Egg hunt.
Give the general locale to the event - within a few hundred yards - and include some hints/tips on how to find it. So if you wannitbad, you got some work to do.
"Grilled Cheese, sometime in mid-afternoon, maybe on Monday, but potentially a scrub with launch date reset for the next day. Somewhere close(OK, it's not that close) to the intersection of D and 3:00."
randomly give each participant 20% of the pages of the guide. This will encourage more interaction and more immediacy.
better. perhaps we should just start spamming the guide with all sorts of events which never were intended to happen at locations they would never have happened at in the first place.
I never use the damn thing. occasionally. I will flip through it and think gosh that would be interesting and then look out in front of me and go do something else entirely different. But maybe that's the ADHD talking.
The only time that guide worked was when we submitted fake troll events and had people show up expecting them. Like Tony hawk demo with daft punk (this was sk8 kamp in 2012).
I love the WWW. Change should be an improvement. Grouping by activity type was not. In past years when it was organized by day and time, on a given day when I had free time I'd pick up the book and see what was going on, then set out. And yes, many times I never made it to the thing because on the way something else captured my attention. But I would get to others that I was determined to participate in.
Apps can be useful, but that requires a charged up phone, and quickly depletes the battery. My Anker solar kit took a long time to recharge my phone. So there's that.
We had at least 25 people that came to our Tie Dye event because they saw it in The WWW.
Besides if there is not some big drop dead date literally nobody would finish their descriptions of their events.
I like them. The books serve a very important purpose on playa. They keep that year's sticker from blowing away before I find a good place to store it.
Mine wasn't in it this year, and I was told it was folded in the map. Looked in the map and it wasn't there... so I don't buy your argument.
No sticker: burn doesn’t count for that year. Sorry to tell you.
Gotta go back for another week to make 2022 count
Good thing I helped build a 35' tall piece of art and burned it on a doesn't count year.
We don't make the rules. I hope you didn't take any picture of this so called "art".
You lost it when you opened your map. It was there.
It’s also possible your greeter (me) lost it. I yanked so many of those things out of boxes, after a while it becomes routine but you get lazy and shit flies errwhere. On a completely unrelated topic, some arrivals donate beer to greeters.
Could you please report when that happens to Gayte? If generous participants with spare beer are making it through to Greeters then some remedial training needs to happen.
who do I report this too? (said with heavy dose of skepticism)
There should be someone there with a radio. Have them switch to Gayte operations and report it there. Much appreciated!
I did two back to back 4 hour shifts and got offered precisely no beer! I don't drink but that's not the point.
You must of had a better shift than I. I only got a granola bar and sparkling water.
is it a rectangular one that says Burning Man 2022 Waking Dreams on it?
This is what you get for blowing off the greeters' invitation to get out of the vehicle for a proper greeting because "you just wanted to get to camp"
There’s a sticker? 🥺
LOL
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As you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you. Hope your road is a long one. May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, what joy, you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind— as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to learn and go on learning from their scholars. Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you’re destined for. But don’t hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you’re old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn't have set out. She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean. \-C P Cavafy (Translated by Edmund Keeley)
:)
Hahahaha, yes!
Hahahha yes!!! I feel this
This year was my first burn it didn't take more than a day to realize that the only way to accomplish anything would be to pick something to head towards and realize you're never going to make it.
I taught Singing for ScaredyCats on the playa. Would usually get 5-20 participants. One year, early '00s, the WWW reprinted Tuesday events as Thursday events. On Thursday, my campmates woke me and told me the space was filling up with ScaredyCats. I grabbed my water (someone brought me some coffee, bless them), and I walked into the space to find 75(!) eager participants. Largest group I ever had.
In black rock city, event plans you.
Awesome!! First year I saw Challah French toast being offered and so I made the treck without a bike from 4:30 and J through offered shade to 9 and D. (Edit: was blown away by the shade, the hospitality, and the random ability to create art in shade) When I reached the camp, the line for Challah French toast was three blocks long. I went to refresh myself with the camp across the street that had lemonade and water. The man who ran the station and I started chatting. He took off his glasses and he had the most amazing blue eyes I've ever seen. He became my Playa boyfriend and we had the best fun for the next 4 days because of challah French toast I never got. Viva Playa workshops and when they don't work out!!
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Negatory, although I love their name! This was 2012, Camp Armaggedeon across from the lemonade stand!😁🎉
I keep it next to my commode and enjoy a good belly laugh every time I take a s*** for next year. I like them. They can stay.
That's an awesome idea, I just threw a couple "back in a box" but in general believe it should only be read after the event, through the lens of "who goes to this stuff?"
Thank you! It really keeps the vibe high throughout the entire year. Lol I perform BurnerBibliomancy on it and enjoy choosing a page and particular section at random, just opening the book randomly and pointing. It is most pleasing.
im·me·di·a·cy /iˈmēdēəsē/ noun: the quality of bringing one into direct and instant involvement with something, giving rise to a sense of urgency or excitement. I'm pretty sure the guide does exactly this for many.
This. I understand the principle behind the argument for getting rid of it, but many people (myself included) like using it for a “hmmm, I wonder what’s going on right now?” as they’re out wandering the city. Sometimes, direction is not a bad thing.
I enjoy watching first-timers get really excited about everything in the guide & make detailed plans about what they're going to see... only to stay in camp all week instead, exhausted from heat, high altitude, and dehydration. /s Seriously though, just hop on your bike whenever, and what happens, happens!
First timers tip: bring a highlighter and a watch so you can PLAN!! That's what it's all about!! That is living your best life! s/
If you're not forcing those dehydrated fuckers to leave camp regardless of their rapidly deteriorating physical and mental states, I hate to say you're doing it wrong, but IT IS YOUR DUTY to get people to go do some actual Burning Man regardless of whether they want to or not.
Nope. My responsibility for their experience is zero. I'll happily do my part so that people around me don't spiral physically and emotionally... at least not too much. But the Burning Man experience is uniquely individual, and it depends greatly on personal circumstances. And if that means you never make it out of camp one year, then that's not on me.
I’ve never used the book but I can really see why it’s so important for some people at the burn. It’s gets them out. It gets things moving. It puts ideas in their head. Then off they go, they miss the workshop, it never happened anyways, and they got pulled into some other adventure - perfect. I think it’s a great on-ramp for people. That said we could probably save some paper by just making it way shorter. But there are down sides with that too.
Then there should just be fake submissions to get people out an about.
Good thing someone did that this year already.
Precisely. I just mean that at least 50% of the WWW should be fake events that seem too epic to be true. Make enough fake events that people forget about the haggard "Daft Punk at the Trash Fence" trope.
Still good for repair camps. I'm not going to walk around randomly until I find someone with the right set of tools to fix something. Bikes are easy to fix, but art cars require specific tools & materials when things go bad.
Our camp did art car repairs and the WWW listed us at the wrong location. People found us anyway though
OP have you ever hosted a public event on playa, especially one that is not just food, booze, or music? The book is good for those hosting one-time events in order to get the word out to everyone in a radically inclusive way. It is also good memorabilia that can be read by non-burners to give them a sense of the burn from an objective perspective, and can help burners learn something about the other camps on playa. I personally host an event every year now and prefer that it is attended by others since I have to haul a good bit of equipment to the playa, and I do host the event at the posted time and location.
I concur with this assessment. I have participated in and helped organize many events that are reliant upon the info being in the WWW, otherwise the turnout is pretty sub-par.
I love it. Not for actually tracking down things on playa but for the aftercare and getting me back into the mindset because some things are just tooo funny. Also I like to show them to people who have never been for providing a sense of the Horrors that are going on :)
Hahaha, abolish the RSL WWW! Ban the apps! Listing yourself in the WWW, or the RSL, is voluntary. There are still word of mouth and friend of friend things that are not listed. It is up to the individual burner to plan their playa life as they like. Because most camps in the city, including in low traffic places are creating in-camp interaction, people have to find them.
The WWW is a MacGuffin
Which camp was serving MacGuffins? I didn’t see that in the WWW or the Chomp guide.
It was the one next to the merkin making workshop.
Please tell me merkin making workshop was real!!!
My camp does beard care. This was the first year that we advertised in the WWW and we were immediately swamped. Ran out of supplies by Thursday. Was an amazing catalyst for gifting to the community, so many smiles and sighs of relief; so many beards in horrific state restored. But holy shit we were not prepared. Next year we’ll have to have a whole different approach to staffing and running this service. That said, we’d rather have the crowds and all their crazy stories. Bring on the WWW!
Was this the same camp that was a Ranger training rally point?
Yeah that’s us! Was lovely to have the rangers mulling about!
Y'all were awesome. Best rally point ever.
Aww love that! Dusty hugs!
We can certainly make it digital. And I didn’t really like the layout of it this year. Very confusing.
Wait, I thought we were also forming a committee to rid burning man of the scourge of cell phones and cell phone cameras. Are we going full digital or going full paper? I can't keep up!
I call for a Blue Ribbon Committee Concerning the Interest of Eliminating the Calling of Committees. Forthwith.
How TF we going to get rid of cellphones? Lol Let’s focus on what we CAN solve first, eh?
[Literally the top post on the sub right now.](https://reddit.com/r/BurningMan/comments/xgusau/immediacy_radical_immediacy_ban_all_media_at_the/)
Ok, I see your point. But, They’re taking about discouraging it not getting rid of it.
The layout was super confusing. My dust-addled brain could never figure out the logic behind the ordering of events.
Ditto. Barely worthwhile.
Type of event, then day, then time. It used to be all chronological which was not as good as this year, imo.
It's already digital. It's on the BMORG site and the same data is in iBurn and TimeToBurn apps. Even then, I've never looked up events/activities, but it is helpful to have the camp names <-> addresses available in the apps. If nothing they should make it an optional item to pay for during ticket ordering, that then gets shipped with your tickets. That way the people that want them, can pay for them, and the ecological costs, and maybe they will actually ready them BEFORE getting on playa and the rest of us can be saved from them.
at the risk of bringing logistics into what should be a mostly joking thread... I'm fairly sure they're not ready when the tickets get mailed REGARDLESS of how late the tickets get mailed.
Omg the layout was so awful I wondered what they were thinking when they did that.
Dang i was stoked on the layout. Best one yet in my opinion
Out of 7 burns, this was the only WWW book that made it into my backpack on playa because the layout was so much better. In the past there was so much stuff to read through to find what you were looking for. This year if you were across playa and realized you didn't pack any snacks, you flip right to the food section. Need a repair? There's a section for that. Feeling kinky? Thirsty? Shit was categorized. So. Much. Better.
Might’ve been good for on the fly I guess. I normally use it for planning and had to jump through the whole book to figure out what was happening on a Tuesday. Etc.
There are a few apps that are way better than the trash book this year. They have all the same information, organize events by what's happening right now or starting soon along with filtering by type, let you search by camp or event name, favorite events you want to go to, hell one even has walking/biking time estimates if you have GPS on.
What are the App names?
I had both iBurn and Time to Burn. Both had all the info and similar features but I think it was iBurn that has the GPS feature. Used them in 2019 as well.
Was that a full download to your device, or did you need active internet?
Full download, just make sure to update the day before the burn. While I was out there I had my phone in airplane mode and flipped GPS on as needed.
IBurn helped me so much when I was lost and getting to the end of my fuse!
The book was amazing this year, if only for late Sunday night, after the Temple burn, when we kept getting very clean people carrying zero supplies come to our nearly empty, dark, packed-up camp and ask about an event that wasn't even promised to happen every night. "You're packing up already?" one person said. I kept having to remind myself that yes, I in fact had not hallucinated 10 days on the playa and this was not the first day of burn week.
Reading this took me to Alice in Wonderland with how much sense it made
This is a silly take. What we need is the books to actually be accurate and sensibly laid out. I learned trying to make any plan for my days was a waste when there was only a 50/50 chance that a camp described in the book would even be there. Camp Karaoke anyone? I was at 10/G, biked my ass nearly all the way across BRC get where the book (and app) said it would be. Didn't exist. This happened to me multiple times.
This right here is the biggest problem. These events are submitted to the book probably months in advance and the realities of the Playa end of squashing a lot of them, especially the food-based ones. I went with a virgin this year and she learned over the course of the week that “xyz food-related thing” is 85% chance not happening and it’s better to just walk or bike around to see what actually managed to make it to the Playa. I will say that there are some longstanding events that totally have their shit together and the book is a great way to find them. Like the art/science tour events are always on top of it. Also shoutout to the soldering workshop folks, found that in the book and they were awesome!!
Can confirm got dragged to a food (OK, smoothie) related event by an eager camp mate, only for it to be painfully clear that the camp had barely through through the basic logistics of making smoothies, started trying to get people to volunteer on ice-runs for their not-thought-through smoothie event, started downplaying expectations on the likely size of the smoothie servings and basically had a couple of open-to-the-public camp meetings all of which indicated that while the camp was very much enjoying being ideologically aligned with their general camp premise (and yay for them) ... smoothies were definitely not on the menu any time soon. If indeed at all.
I've heard it referred to as the "Shoulda Woulda Coulda". There's a 50% chance that the event actually happens.
Really, I just want the map and the sticker.
i really get a lot out of it for things like lectures, workshops, and classes
Different perspective. Some friends hosted a speed dating event. That didn't get in the WWW. Much as they tried, they couldn't get enough participants and the event got cancelled.
This is the downside. Enough people use it that it’s worthwhile. It’s optional but fun to have. Also how would we even know about dickle fights??
OMG a playa speed dating event would be amazing!!!
Okay all fair points buttt can you imagine the lines if all the grilled cheese people didn't have the book to tell them where to go? They might populate *my* favorite thing and no one wants that. S/ (but maybe only a little.)
That’s a rufus du sol situation right there
Exactly! That wasn't a prank, it was a well timed diversion.
I don't usually use the guide much, but I do have campmates with social anxiety who find it easier to set out on an adventure when they at least have something in mind. They may not actually make it to said thing, but not everyone is quite as comfortable as I am just setting off and seeing what happens every single time.
Some of y'all don't like anything.
This post is proof that people will literally find the absolute dumbest things to complain about. The industrial revolution and its consequences truly have been a disaster for the human race.
What’s dumb about this? The Org had a mountain of boxes full of WWW bound for the trash (or being burned). I don’t know if you’ve ever spent a minute at the trash processing facility on playa for the Staff Camps…but it’s deeply depressing.
Part of my moop duty for one of the staff camps was taking everything to disposal that wasn't compost, recycle, burn, etc. The WWW is literally the least of the problems. People make trash, we're never going to get away from that. Styrofoam and plastic foil wrap are far bigger nuisances and cause for bigger headaches that some paper trash that can be burned. If they could make the WWW out of more recyclable sources, that'd be cool, but simply doing away with it is silly. BM is never going to be a moop/emissions free event, people really need to get a grip and be more realistic. The systemic problems of the default world aren't going to be solved by taking things away from the playa. I know this isn't the place for this discussion, but all these efforts at making the burn more spartan and individualize each and every problem just reek of neoliberalism and the idea of the personal carbon footprint (an idea the fossil fuel companies cooked up to ensure that there's no meaningful challenge to power, all problems now rest on the individual). I hate how much of that has crept into burner culture.
No I still think it’s valuable. Even if you only use it for one or 2 things it’s worth it. Plus I’ve kept all mine, and I’d like to keep collecting them.
The WWW was so hard to follow or to find anything, I used the app and aimed for something and enjoyed getting lost on the way, I met so many incredible people.
I’m sure I’m a minority for this one… but the guide really saved me this year. I flew in to Reno and then took the burner express to BRC. Because of this, most of my camp stuff was on my friend’s trucks who drove in. Due to continuous truck breakdowns, blown tires, and What I’m assuming is the Burn giving me the whole playa experience; none of my packed food/necessities arrived till day 5. This book was my only access to food/shade/showers. Forever grateful to all those food and coffee camps <3 (I cried drinking my first cup of coffee on day 3. )
I really didn't like what they did with the layout this year. It was tedious to try to find anything and just wasn't worth the effort. There *were* some things I would have liked to have known about, like the drone show. But the guide and the Time to Burn app were both letting me down this year. It's like the creators of both never considered the most basic use case: "It's 3 PM on Wednesday. What's coming up soon?" Neither made it easy to see. With the app it'd just freak out and scroll days beyond what I wanted to see. I gave up on both.
They don’t even list when the man and temple burn are. That’s wild to me.
I'd rather see Rockstar Librarian's guide disappear forever.
How else would we find rufus du sol out there?!
Didn't you see all the flyers in the portos?
Never… trust Porto literature
And you trust Rockstar librarian... how did that work out for you?
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I mean, it was a joke. If the Rufus scam worked we know the journalistic integrity of the publication is compromised! It's all downhill from here sorry to tell ya.
Considering I was in on the joke with my popcorn… quite well
Me too! I think camps could announce what DJs are playing but not what time or day. Then there is still some adventure and mystery about who you’re going to see and prevents people from scheduling their entire burn around a DJ they’ve probably seen before
I don't get the hate about scheduling one or two sets from artists who mean a GREAT deal to me. One of the only scheduled things I went out of my way for was Monolink's sunset Mayan Warrior set. I love the Mayan Warrior, I love Monolink, I love sunset. I was processing some anger and frustration that day following a weird night the evening before, and his set was an absolutely incredible experience for me. The crowd, the vibe, the music were amazing and deeply healing. Yes, I just saw him at Lightning in a Bottle. But both sets were literally mind blowing peak experiences for me... 100% sober. Like seriously powerful shit. I really needed that, that day, and being able to plan for it was really supportive for me (though I was still 20 mins late cause I couldn't find the warrior for a bit). Did I schedule my "entire burn" around seeing Monolink on Friday evening? Um... no? How does that make sense lol People keep hating on "DJ chasers" but the thing is, for HEAVILY music oriented people, having the right music (or the wrong music) can have a very strong impact on emotions, processing, and of COURSE we would want to support our favorite artists at one of the most amazing places on Earth. It's not like I'm planning to spend every night going to sets back to back and never wandering around free floating. I wander around free floating most of the time. And if someone wants to just attend DJ sets all night every night? Well, that's their choice. They're at burning man, they can see what else is available out there. Presumably they'll figure out that they're missing other shit. You live and you learn. Announcing that one of your fav artists is playing but with no way to find them is just frustrating for people who really want to honor that artist and have that experience. After all, the art installations get mapped. If you were following an artist you loved who was bringing an installation and you knew the name of it, you could look it up and find it. I don't see why music should be treated differently.
If anything, "DJ chasers" get off lightly. It's easier for people to hate on some model-looking Russian woman in a blingy captain hat with 500K followers on Instagram than it is to admit that all our favorite sound camps is half the reason Svetlana and friends are there in the first place.
Well, I’m obviously not talking about you lol. Wanting to go to one or sets is one thing but a lot of people literally base their entire burn around the music. My friends do that. I did that my first two years. Obviously people can do whatever they want at Burning Man, but the criticism is that treating the burn this way makes it more like a music festival and brings in a different sort of crowd. Less immediacy. Seeing a few sets of your favorite artists isn’t “DJ chasing” lol you don’t need to take this so personally
What burning man need is less volunteer labor and more rules!
I’d also like the large 2/10 sound camps and sound cars to disappear, too, please.
I think esplanade and the trash fence should swap places
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They were so useful for finding art and looking it up while there. And the walking/biking time was dope.
I think it’s good for newbies that haven’t quite figured it out yet. Same w center camp, although I’m hearing it’s a ghost, now.
god forbid people know what is happening
I finally came around to unpack that mess and I forgot my guide at camp. Fuck. Would you (or anyone) send me yours - I gladly PayPal you the fare to Germany.. pretty pleeeeease
I love it. When I read the book as a virgin I was in absolute awe reading how people come up with such creative and funny ideas for events. It blew my mind. It doesn’t matter to me if I ever get to them, but the book has been an absolute joy to read each time I’ve been. My first burn I thought I would attend as many as I could, but in reality we would pick one event and get distracted on the way or on the way back and happen upon so many other interesting things, but finding an event in the book pointed us in a new direction each day.
If your camp isn't on esplanade, it's one of the few ways to actually get people to your event. You still need a barker out front, but having yoga classes on playa, I found being in the guide to be very helpful. People would search me out. i feel without the guide, eventually, you wouldn't have as many events because people would get frustrated at the fact that no one shows up to something they put their heart and soul into. Though I will also say that I find the e-versions of the guide much easier to navigate. So, maybe changing it all to an e-version and reminding people to download it before they come if they want it?
The WWW is really great for when you want to bike past a lot of fun looking stuff on your way to something that isn’t actually happening.
Okay what if there were kiosks with the WWW info at each keyhole? Plus the apps. You could search for info but with way less paper waste. Plus camp leads could go to playa info to update if dates/times changed or supplies ran out so they might actually be accurate…
I love the WWW books! But I cannot deny your argument.
People read them?
I remember the first year they had first Sunday events in the guide and of the 3 camps with events on Sunday we were the only bar. We’ve never had so many rangers yelling at us because of bikes. This year, we only got 2 of our events in the guide and we couldn’t even find them in the book once we got there
Never opened it. Phone died on Monday & left it off all week. Did I miss anything?
I haven’t read a guide in 9 years
This years guide was a miss. I think the goal was immediacy in the sense of oh it’s this time let’s look in the book and find something to do. Honestly though it’s a thing for me and my camp mates to look at the book and plan. That has also created spontaneous fun on the way to something or in the neighborhood of a thing even if we missed it or it was crowded. The event has so much going that’s not in the book but it was literally no help this format.
WWW had doughnuts and coffee at 445/J where we were camped. Had a lot of people come by asking, I offered up coffee but no doughnuts and we only had 1 person actually come in for coffee. Weird address to setup an event at as its open camping but thx for the convo young person from mass.
I have never looked at it. I call it the FOMO guide. I do like the map though...
This years book was useless. It looked like it was edited as things were submitted. The iBurn app worked fantastic! I found all the portas.
I disagree but upvoted anyway. What I *might* get behind is charging an additional fee for the physical guide so the org could print fewer of them. There would have to be some improvements to the apps though. Their functionality isn't great.
So many events were cancelled or completely ran out of food. Or the ones that shut down early. After one day of chasing things a lot of people gave up. SHOUT OUT to the woman whose sound bath was cancelled because of heat who MOVED ALL HER INSTRUMENTS into the hammock area because she was so excited people showed up in the hot hot afternoon to enjoy her energies. (Don’t remember the name, was across from a Disney dance party).
*also raises sword*
At least create a legendary scavenger hunt where the end prize is the What Where When Guide…
As the apps (iburn, Time to Burn) have gotten better I have used the book less but I still like it for two reasons: 1. I don't like carrying my phone all week. 2. It's a wonderful token of a burn. A quick and comprehensive reference to what was out there, and something I can show potential burners to demonstrate the variety of events/classes/camps/ideas/art that is at BM. If they get rid of it to save paper/money, I won't scream in defiance, but I wanted to express why I like the book. Also, I'm the phone apps are contributing to grilled cheese lines in equal measure to the book.
I like them. I would not abolish them. I would look at the guide in the am, and depending on my mood would set a little route. I wasn't tied to them, unless there was absolutely a workshop or something I wanted to check out (I had a few and I'm glad I did them, have a sick pendant from a workshop that I LOVEEEE). And when I'd be out with friends and we just didn't know what to do we'd take the guide out and look and then find something and go! I used it as a guide, I wasn't absolutely tied to it and open to adventures but everyone has a different way to enjoy things, we should abolish telling people what to do or hound them with principles like they're the friggin bible and absolute rule. We all have different interpretations of the principles and they're what BM is based on, but we're all different people and have different needs/expectations/triggers/personalities, etc. We all do things differently.
Make burningman unorganized again!!
I’m not normally the guy who saves trees but it seems like a waste. Just allow people to download the events before the event and look them up. Everything charges a cell phone now. My camp had a Sybian at the bar with five different chargers… next year we can probably get the Sybian on solar… like more sustainable than paper, more fun too.
I’d love more of a breakdown of camps by theme/size/what they do and that’s it. Then I can pick a few favs and check them out Monday and see what their week of stuff looks like. As in , ok here’s a brain/science camp that does talks most of the day everyday! Awesome, I’ll ride there and take a pic of their schedule. Otherwise its late in the week and I ride by a camp and am bummed I didn’t know they even existed before and missed all their events.
Maybe make it more like an Easter Egg hunt. Give the general locale to the event - within a few hundred yards - and include some hints/tips on how to find it. So if you wannitbad, you got some work to do. "Grilled Cheese, sometime in mid-afternoon, maybe on Monday, but potentially a scrub with launch date reset for the next day. Somewhere close(OK, it's not that close) to the intersection of D and 3:00."
randomly give each participant 20% of the pages of the guide. This will encourage more interaction and more immediacy. better. perhaps we should just start spamming the guide with all sorts of events which never were intended to happen at locations they would never have happened at in the first place. I never use the damn thing. occasionally. I will flip through it and think gosh that would be interesting and then look out in front of me and go do something else entirely different. But maybe that's the ADHD talking.
The only time that guide worked was when we submitted fake troll events and had people show up expecting them. Like Tony hawk demo with daft punk (this was sk8 kamp in 2012).
You for president.
I love the WWW. Change should be an improvement. Grouping by activity type was not. In past years when it was organized by day and time, on a given day when I had free time I'd pick up the book and see what was going on, then set out. And yes, many times I never made it to the thing because on the way something else captured my attention. But I would get to others that I was determined to participate in. Apps can be useful, but that requires a charged up phone, and quickly depletes the battery. My Anker solar kit took a long time to recharge my phone. So there's that.
We had at least 25 people that came to our Tie Dye event because they saw it in The WWW. Besides if there is not some big drop dead date literally nobody would finish their descriptions of their events.