ReD NoSeRs!
I hope this email finds all of you well, on this day of mass marketed day of love. While we may not have been slinging mass emails, there have been many things brewing, shifting, and going on behind the scenes. Are you ready to start thinking about Red Nose District 2023? I sure as shit hope so!
First things first, if you are on this email and no longer wish to receive communications from Red Nose District, please respond and ask to be removed. If you would like to stay in the know for 2023, we will be shifting to our 2023 organizing email list ASAP, so please respond and let me know your intentions.
A number of things to cover, and will try to keep this brief. In no particular order, important tidbits below for your reading pleasure.
StEwArDs SaLe:
Red Nose District has been awarded 31 sets of tickets (that’s 62 tickets and 31 vehicle passes total) from Placement for 2023! Gigantic THANK YOU to all those who camped with us in 2022 leaving us in good standing with Placement. In keeping with last year’s work (THANK YOU Dave Slodki and Melissa McIlraith!) around acculturation, we are taking a bit more of a nuanced approach to our Stewards Sale ticketing process for 2023. Before you panic and start pleading your case, here is a little information (that should look familiar from last year) about the process we will be using to make decisions about how tickets are allocated:
Priority I – Leads, Organizers, and Critical/Specialized roles: Kicking ass and taking names on and off playa to make sure that this thing is happening for all of us to enjoy.
Priority II – Build & Teardown Klowns: Just like the Stewards Sale tickets, we are allotted a finite amount of Worker Access Passes for build week, making it impossible to get everyone out there who has the urge to work long, hot, dusty hours to get this camp set up. However, EVERYONE has equal opportunity to rock teardown (the Monday-Tuesday following our MANDATORY PARTICIPATION, all-camp Sunday teardown extravaganza) and stay until the exhausted, dehydrated, MOOP-free end. There is a place in the survey (more about that below) to indicate that you are interested in build or teardown.
Priority III – Key Klown Contributors: You have camped here before and blown our socks off with your participation and contributions. You make our lives easier, you keep the vibe on point, and you engage the citizens of Black Rock City with your antics as a revered member of Red Nose District. We salute you and eagerly await your return.
Priority IV – Returning Red Noses: You’ve been here before, you’re getting your bearings, and you’re seeking to find your groove within the Red Nose ranks.
Priority V – Seeking Sponsorship: You have camped with us before as a guest of an established Red Nose member, and are looking to commit. More details about this arrangement coming further down in this email.
Priority VI – Guests: You’ve been invited to camp with Red Nose by an established member, and are checking things out in a no strings attached sort of way (and by “no strings” we mean you DON’T have to pledge your undying love and devotion, but you DO have to participate and contribute to camp). More on this arrangement below.
Low Priority – The “It’s Not You, It’s Me” Camper: You’ve camped with Red Nose, but it’s really for the real estate, or access to tickets. You skip out on teardown (NOT talking about campers who need to leave early, communicate this, and bust their booties to help out before they depart), because you can’t really be bothered. You don’t make a point to meet or connect with people in camp, or participate in camp activities. But I mean, hey, we can’t really blame you for trying because we know Red Nose is an awesome place to be. But, if you can’t be bothered, we don’t really want to be busting our booties for you. No hard feelings.
VoCaBuLaRy LeSsOn:
You may have noticed the use of the terms “Guest” and “Sponsee” in the Stewards Sale information above. Here are some definitions if you’re seeing these for the first time, or need a refresher from last year.
Guests: Have a friend, lover, colleague, soulmate that you’d like to have camped with you on playa? Welcome to the guest option. If we have room in camp, your guest is welcome to join us (and contribute their shared costs)! We like guests! Virgin guests, playa veteran guests, funny guests, and hopefully only a VERY limited number of trainwreck guests. The best part about the guest arrangement is that it’s not a permanent one. Breakup with that soulmate during Exodus? No worries about fighting over who gets to keep their camp, because the guest was just that…a guest. Once we’re off playa, you’ll have the option to have us remove your guest from further mailings, or you can choose to bring your guest back to sponsor to become a full camp member.
Sponsees: Did you bring a guest the year before and they slid seamlessly into that sweet RND mix without skipping a beat? Now they’re off post-playa getting geared up for next year, thinking of ways they can contribute to camp, and ready to step up their Red Nose game? Congratulations, new sponsor! You spawned your own Red Nose camper and are ready to add them to the lineage. Sponsees are campers that have come as a member’s guest, feel like it’s a good fit for them, and are ready to throw down on all the things that make Red Nose amazing. Sponsors, your job is to be the point person for your sponsee, acculturate them into Red Nose ethos, and make sure that they’re following our community guidelines around consent, not being an asshole, and camp participation. Once we’re off playa, we’ll get feedback from sponsors, and if it’s a good fit, will invite sponsees to be a Red Nose District member for the following year. As a member, campers are able to invite guests, sponsor sponsees, request tickets through the Stewards Sale, and agree to contribute on and off playa to keeping this legacy going.
StEwArDs SaLe NeXt StEpS:
If you recall from 2022 (and years prior), we approached the Stewards Sale by throwing out a spreadsheet or survey and asking who was interested. As every action results in positive, negative, or neutral consequences, the negatives of this approach have become unsustainable at a time where there are countless other tasks and forms and spreadsheets that need attention (think Placement Questionnaire). For 2023, we have begun doing some targeted outreach and follow up with heavy hitting key contributors, to both gain feedback from 2022, as well as engage in conversations about planning for Red Nose District 2023. Part of this process has included invitations into the Stewards Sale for this year. For those who have had conversations/checked in with me about the sale, please keep an eye out for a separate email that will ask for specific sale related information from you in order to register.
If we have not yet had a conversation, please know that this in no way implies that your contributions were not important. For Red Nose members interested in camping with Red Nose for 2023, please reply to this email expressing YOUR interest. Because it’s Valentine’s Day, and because boundaries are sexy, if you respond with requests for your friend, lover, partner, collaborator, roommate, coworker, or ANYONE but yourself (unless you’re handling communications for another Red Nose member) to access tickets in the Stewards Sale, I will place your name on the furthest of furthest down rows on the spreadsheet where you will be left to linger from now until eternity. There will be a time and place to have these conversations and share these names, but that time is not now, and that place is not here.
For our 2022 guests who are interested in continuing on with Red Nose, and wish to be sponsored for 2023, please check in with the Red Nose member who guested you last year. Members, if you decide to sponsor your guest, please email me and cc your guest so that we can get them plugged in. For 2022 sponsees, please follow the same process.
ReD NoSe DiStRiCt 2023 PlAnNiNg:
We are back in our groove after that pesky pandemic, and 2023 is shaping up to blow your socks off. With five nights of shows and parties, redesign of the tent space, increased interactivity during the daytime hours, the High Chair Stilt Bar, stilt lessons, opportunities to fly in the aerial harness, fire fabulousness, and some critical back of house infrastructure improvements and organizing, we are going for it this year! With increased programming comes increased opportunity to be involved, so please respond to this email if you’d like more information on available positions and roles.
ThE EnD:
As always, please let us know if you have questions, comments, concerns, complaints, or accolades to share. Sending you all the love today, and every day. (And please ignore my typos).