how to build a theme camp

First rule to a successful theme camp: THERE ARE NO RULES. The success of your camp relies on creativity and sourcefulness. There is no one way. If there were, every camp would be the same. There is no end to creative ideas for themes, shade, showers, and anything else a camp wants to accomplish. The following suggestions are a result of years of experience, research, common sense, and mostly, RESOURCEFULNESS.

Its extremely important to have at least one individual in your camp who is reliable. You will, after all, be surviving for 10 days in the desert on what you bring. If you can't find anyone reliable in your camp, make sure, for your own survival, that person is YOU.

Create an email list to ensure everyone is informed of camp planning and needs. Don't be afraid to ask for help.

Do not be a dictator, but do be a leader. Inspire others and strongly encourage all campers to participate and take initiatives. Otherwise there is a tendency for people to sit around and wait for you to tell them what to do. Treat your camp as a GROUP project. Also, it's common practice to woo people like chefs, carpenters and engineers to join your camp to shamelessly use them for their skills. If you do this, please shower these people with love, gifts, oral sex and pork products.

Do your best to have duties and projects assigned well before the playa. 4 people on the shade, 2 on shower.. EVERYONE on setup and breakdown of these things. Do not put the burden of all these things on yourself. You have enough to do already.

This is where your imagination comes in. We all have one. Use it. Often the simple yet clever ideas are the most effective. Some of my favorites in this category are Action Figure Camp, Barbie Death Camp and Wine Bistro, Putting for Pabst, Mistress GlitterSpank and the Brokendown Palace, and Yes Camp. Some camps are art project oriented, like the huge Lite Brite and UberCarney. Some are event oriented like Miss BRC and New Day's Eve. Others are gift oriented like Kostume Kult and Tuna Camp. The fact of the matter is that its really an amazing feeling to have someone walk in to your camp and say they like what you've done or are doing. It's the whole reason for all of this, really. You will feel cool and it will get you laid.

There are several common types of shade structures used by theme camps and most of the supplies for these can be bought at home depot. A few are discussed here, but feel free to use your imagination. and most of all, if you need HELP with how it all works, don't be too shy to ask your friendly neighborhood theme camper. Use your resources.

Conduit is a basic metal tube often used to run electricity wires through in buildings. At least 1" diameter is recommended. It's best to find your tarp before you get your conduit. Tarp sizes vary, and it can often be difficult to find a specific tarp size after you've already had your conduit cut. After you get your tarp, its up to you to decide the height of your structure and order your connectors to keep your conduit all hooked together. These connectors are pipes in the shape of a "T" with loop screws going through to tighten it to the conduit (see picture A1). You can then use ball bungees to connect through your tarp eyelets to your conduit. These types of structures can also be bought as a unit. (See picture A2) This type of shade has been used by Transient Pleasure Lounge, Reverend Billy, New Day's Eve, and Whiskey and Whores Saloon.

This is a similar setup to conduit with the exception that a wood frame is used instead of metal conduit. The plus to this type of structure is that you can burn it afterwards, for those camps with no storage opportunities. DPW recommends using 4x4s at the base, but 2x4s can be used if the structure is properly reinforced. If you are using 2x4's, I recommend also connecting the frame at the ground as well.

This is the structure I used for my first theme camp in 2001, and it cost about $120, plus $50 for a parachute. You can buy used parachutes online from army navy supply stores. Be sure to cut holes in the parachute for airflow. Its very easy to assemble and will last year after year, but the downside to this structure is that you have to find a place to store 20' PVC. Mine resides is a friends garage in San Francisco (resourcing!).

This is also an extremely easy structure to build. Similar to the PVC dome but in the shape of an arc. This structure has been used by Bluedream and Beaucoup Bucks camp.

The almighty geodesic dome. There are two ways of making these domes that I know if, and that's a bought PVC version and a custom conduit metal version (see Smoochdome campers for more info on custom conduit geodesic domes). PVC domes can be bought at shelter-systems.com for varying prices ranging from $360-$1900. Contact Heather White or LadyMerv with questions.

Carports can be bought at Costco for approximately $160. They look good, do not require an excessive amount of storage, and come with removable sides and doors. I discovered these last year at Burning Man and they are great for community shade and for over your tents. I cannot live without these.

Note: The one thing these all have in common is REBAR and rope. Rebar and rope are necessary to secure every single structure in your camp. If you skimp on this aspect, not only will you be sorry, but your structure can break or injure someone in a dust storm if it blows away. Be sure to bring several pairs of work gloves and a mallet. Vice grips are also good to have on hand for rebar removal. Extra special note: bring tennis balls, doll heads, empty water bottles, etc to put over the tips of your rebar. Every year there are thousands of injuries from people gashing their legs open on the tips of these.

Obtainium: Craigslist, Tribe, Ebay, Thrift Stores, and Dumpsters are all prime areas for obtaining couches, carpets, and anything else you might want at your camp. Everyone in your camp should be on the lookout. Mayor Ratti found the bar for W and W at a thrift store in Reno (its actually the headboard for a waterbed). If you need something extremely specific, POST your needs on these websites, as well as the Eplaya and the various Burning Man email lists.

Resourcing is extremely important and will your best problem solving skill. This is where most of your excuses and reasoning for not "doing" get flushed down the toilet: I have found that the level of give and take in the Burning Man community never ceases to amaze me. For instance, Whiskey and Whores is using Reverend Billy's shade structure because they are not doing a theme camp anymore.. this is good because now Reverend Billy doesn't have to store it. WandW does. I borrowed DJ Nicks carport for Whiskey and Whores at PDF this year. New Days Eve donated the booze luge because it was just sitting in Andy's garage. Miss Black Rock City Camp used Disorient's stage for their pageant last year. I asked a friend to weblink the flyer for Swank because, while I can design, I'm a web idiot. In exchange for a lot of this I volunteer at all of these peoples events.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON TO NOT DO A PROJECT BECAUSE YOU "CAN'T". Often changing a few things around and using what you can get can have better results than you imagined in the first place.

Storage: Many people say they cant make a camp because they have nowhere to store everything. Storage units work well for storage. Camp dues can cover this. Fundraisers can cover this. Share storage with another camp. Pay someone 100 bucks to keep it in their garage. BE RESOURCEFUL.

A pallet or milk crate to stand on and let the water run through.
Some sort of evaporation setup to catch the greywater, this can be a black lined kiddie pool (for small camps) or 4 2x4s built in a square and lined with black vinyl sheeting and attached with a staple gun. The more people you have showering the larger this evaporation area will need to be. If the water is more than an inch, its too deep.

-Blue office water FIVE gallon containers sprayed with black spray paint. They can get as hot as 110 degrees farhenheit. That takes about 3 hours on a sunny day.

-A camping style shower bag or Coleman electric shower sprayer http://www.globalmart.com/page/8/827a705t.htm, batteries "d" size, Plastic bucket, its best to pour water in a plastic bucket once it warmed by the 5gallon water container..

-Meshy white shower curtains and clips, zipties or nails to hold down the shower curtains

-Reno gas stations can obtain water, and the first gas station off of route 80 coming west offers free water.

Most people use between 1 gallon of water to 2 gallons for luxurious cleaning depending on surface areas and hair length. [Jamie: I recommend limiting shower water as much as possible (ie, LESS than a gallon per person per shower) and cutting off showers at Saturday afternoon. Remember that ALL the water has to be evaporated by the time you pack up to leave. You are not building a pond in someone's backyard!]

Make a wood frame for your shower for curtains and the shower bag over your head. This can be done with two pallets and 2x4 "columns" on each corner. Should your camp feel like nudists then a shower curtain is not necessary.

I personally do not encourage communal kitchens for camps over 5 people, but this is not to say that a communal kitchen cannot be successful.

The pros of communal food is that you don't have to cook for yourself every day and can usually enjoy a fully prepared meal every day. In addition to this, food costs can be considerably cheaper. If your camp has people with a passion for food (ie, chefs) and someone willing to strictly oversee stoves, propane, meals, maintaining coolers and kitchen cleanup, these kitchens can be a good thing. However, maintainer of the kitchen is not a good position for non-experienced campers.

The cons of communal kitchens is that once on the playa people are not always hungry on the same schedule. People will tend to get distracted and miss their time slot to cook for the whole camp, and people go hungry and get angry. There can be issues with vegans vs vegetarians vs meat eaters. Cleanup is a MAJOR problem. There is nothing worse than going to try to cook and all the pots and knives have gunk that's been drying out to the side of the pan for a day..or people who have put stuff back into the cooler not fully sealed and you have wet muck floating in your cooler water, not to mention the food is ruined. This problem is especially bad on the playa because there is no hot or running water with which to clean anything.

I DO recommend having a communal cooking area, sharing stoves, etc. I also encourage people to team up in twos or threes to buy food together. These people can decide for themselves to share pots and pans, etc. This takes the burden off the camp leader but still keeps food costs low for campers.

Fact facts: camps make a lot of trash. People will pour half full bloody marys in to the trash bag. Very few people take the time to crush their cans to keep the mere SIZE of your trash to a minimum. These are the same people who suddenly won't have room to take trash out. If you have a Uhaul this problem is usually easy to deal with and you can take the trash directly into the Reno Transfer Station (ie, the dump). If you don't, be sure every camp member knows they will sharing this responsibility and REMIND them halfway through the week. You will be amazed at how well the expression "make it fit or find a way to make it go away" works. (Extra special thanks to the campers who appeared in a 25 foot truck like magic angels and took away what seemed like half of Asylums trash last year). Moop your camp every morning. Do it.

THEME CAMP REGISTRATION DEADLINE is June 30^th. Please read all of the provided materials on theme camp registration. The Borg covers it pretty well and there is no need to put in in here all over again. http://www.burningman.com/themecamps/

*One note is I do not recommend faxing your camp layout. Ask a friend to scan it and weblink it for you or draw it on a program like Photoshop, Illustrator, Paintshop or PowerPoint. Faxes can get lost in the shuffle during the preplaya madness at the Borg office and gives them more paper to track down.

Feel free to contact your theme camp people with valid questions but do not hassle them with naggy emails. They are busy and underpaid and working their butts off.

First and foremost: Try to get some sort of concept of who will be arriving when with what. Allow space for cars to enter and leave, at least for the first day or two. Note entrance areas for RVs or where you need to allot space for shade and showers. If you have trouble visualizing these sorts of things, someone in your camp will be more than happy to put a method behind the madness. People who love to configure layout, LOVE to configure layout.

If at all possible, the people who arrive after camp setup should be the main people doing camp breakdown. The people doing neither should be cleaning the camp in the middle of the week.

You will, as a theme camp leader, probably lose your cool at some point. Do your best to hand the situation over to a well-respected mediator and walk away. In Asylum we usually have a designated "Camp Asshole". The Camp Asshole is person who has volunteered for the week to be the asshole and go tell someone they're out of line. It's sort of like a Ranger but they can do their job while intoxicated and they don't carry around little radios (funny hat optional). This works well because everyone already knows the Camp Asshole is just doing his job and it's not personal. Feel free to contact the Camp Asshole for anything from Moopers to Inappropriate Perverts to Mooches to Drug Issues to (my favorite) Lazy Fucks Who Need to Get Off Their Ass And Help.