Thank you for your participation in getting this year started. We have a little over 100 campers interested so far, and I expect our numbers to grow and grow over the next few months. This email is to inform everyone of a few updates, share some general information and timelines, and post positions we’re looking to fill. Buckle up, strap in (or on), and get ready because it’s going to be a long one!
Our fabulous Deke Young will be stepping up into an advisory role beginning this year. Deke has been co-leading this mess since the mid-20-teens, and has kicked ass with our mapping, finances, business to-do’s, and all the back of house tasks that we so desperately rely on. He is an incredible organizer, leader, communicator, and very dear friend that I have come to love in so many different ways over the past decade. He’s a humble one, but please do make a point to thank him for all his years of wrangling this big RED beast. Happy graduation, Deke, and welcome to the Red Nose Preservation Society (our advisory committee of past leaders, founders, and long time contributors that share their wisdom and keep us in line).
With Deke moving onwards and upwards, there are some organizing positions that will need tending too (we split his position into several different roles, since it was a BIG one). For the past couple of months, the fabulous (and badass) Nikki Dorough has been helping us get organized, better define roles and responsibilities, and build upon the succession planning Deke and I have been working on for the past 6 years. We have some changes coming down the line, like moving the Red Nose corporation from Nevada to Oregon (to save money each year), engaging in fundraising for infrastructure investments (thank you, Dropper!), and continuing to work to create an equitable and sustainable financial model for camp.
Like all this sexy back end talk? Let’s get you involved! See below for job descriptions. Find one you like? Respond to this email, let me know you’re interested, and we’ll set up a time to chat about the down and dirty deets! Have an idea, or want to get involved, but don’t quite see the right role for you? Hit me up and let’s chat about ways we can get you plugged in anyway!
RED NOSE 2023 JOB FAIR
Shared Costs Coordinator: Do you like counting money? Enjoy budgets? LOVE to interact with EVERY MEMBER OF CAMP? Then this role is for you! Collect (and return when necessary) shared costs, track in appropriate spreadsheet, coordinate on money items and budgets with leadership team, and communicate with all campers attending for 2023. This is a labor intensive position that requires a high degree of organizational skills, and accountability. Slow start, but work will ramp up as we get closer to the event, with the bulk of the labor occurring during the summer.
Fuel Boss: An on playa role! Coordinate with and educate campers around fuel safety and fuel storage (pre and on playa), make sure fuel tanks are in position to be refilled on playa daily during event week, manage fuel depot (on playa), complete camp safety checks (for fuel storage compliance and fire extinguishers), and manage camp fire safety for shows (designated spin off area, staffing campers to watch audience, coordinating fire safety items pre-show). Coordinate with Camp Lead, fire sculpture/safety team, Front of House Production Manager, show producers, and Back of House Project Manager.
Back of House Volunteer Coordinator: Do you like chores? Spreadsheets? Rallying campers for the great good? Then this one’s for you! Coordinate and organize our back of house chores to occur 1-2x per day on playa, and staff with volunteers.
Stilt Lessons Coordinator: Organize our Monday-Friday stilt lessons! Recruit volunteer teachers and daily leads, complete safety checks on stilts, assure stilt lesson area is set up and put away at the end of each day, and manage stilt check outs for Monday-Friday High Chair Stilt Bar happy hours.
Front of House Volunteer Coordinator: Coordinate with show producers for their pre-show needs, and organize campers to get the Big Top shined and spiffed in the morning and before nightly shows!
Leave No Trace: Educate and inform our campers about LNT practices and requirements pre-playa. Work with our Back of House and Front of House Volunteer Coordinators to assure that MOOP is kept in check. Work with our Tear Down Coordinator to assure that camp is free and clear of all MOOP before our last camper leaves the playa. Keep Camp Lead and organizing team up to speed on changes in requirements and practices coming from Burning Man Project.
Tear Down Coordinator: Do you like to play Tetris? Have a fabulous and upbeat attitude at the end of the burn? Love to rally and organize strung out, tired, and over-stimulated campmates to complete heroic feats of clean up? Then this one’s for you! Come coordinate our camp’s tear down! Develop tear down plan, staff tear down shifts, be the point person for tear down questions, manage container packing, help coordinate with bus/trucks to make sure everything is going to the correct place, and work with Leave No Trace coordinator to assure that our spot is MOOP free before we depart.
Communications Coordinator: Manage and monitor our Slack communications and invitations. Coordinate and manage postings for our internal and public Facebook pages. Coordinate with Camp Lead, show producers, Stilt Lessons coordinator, Bar Manager, Aerial Harness coordinator, and more for our What Where When submissions. Submit information to What Where When, and manage any edits post publication (for website listings). Work with other organizing team around 2023 email communications and timelines pre and post playa.
YOUR 2023 RED NOSE DISTRICT ORGANIZING TEAM
Though incomplete until we fill the above roles, please high five the following folks for stepping up to lead this beast, and dedicating their time and energy into making Red Nose 2023 a fabulous place to be!
Red Nose Preservation Society: Our Founders, visionaries, and laurel-resters dedicated to the preservation and continuation of Red Nose District. Our counsel of elders and great minds, ready and willing to provide guidance, feedback, accountability, and spanks if leadership veers off course, from now until the end of time. Our gratitude is endless and knows no bounds.
Back of House Manager – Nikki Dorough
Front of House Production Manager – Will McKinney
Map – Erik Fong & Nisha Stewart
Rentals & Reimbursements – Melissa McIlraith
Rigging/Aerial Harness Lessons – Alicia Cutaia
Lighting – Will McKinney
Sound – Nara Reicher & Boenobo Klown
Bar Manager – Dropper
Fire – Kasia Bilhartz
Show Producers – Maya Lane (Mama Fou), Boenobo Klown, Bre Whiting & Nara Reicher, and Krystal Bell & Art Anatta
Acculturation – Dave Slodki
Communications Manager – Boenobo
2023 RED NOSE DISTRICT PROGRAMMING
As an Esplanade camp (hopefully this year – they can always move us and we should be prepared), our job is to provide 24/7 interactivity from when gates open through burn night. While some interactivity is allowed to be passive (like the Stoop being available for sitting all day and all night), we like to keep it interactive! If there is something that you would like to lead that you’re not seeing on the schedule (a workshop idea, tea party, group workout, collaboration with another group/camp, etc.), let me know and let’s get to scheming! We welcome your ideas and contributions!
Stilt Lessons: Monday-Friday from 1P-4P
Aerial Harness Lessons: Monday-Friday from 1P-4P
High Chair Stilt Bar: Monday-Friday from 5P-8P
Shows: Tuesday-Friday nights, times TBD
Fire Art: Nightly
Stoop: All day/all night
Big Top Bar: Open during shows and afternoon lessons
We are currently working on a collaboration with Playa Pops Orchestra for a pre happy hour performance (so might need to cut lessons a bit short that day), will be reaching out to Mobility Camp to see if they’d like to participate for an aerial harness lesson day, and there’s been some chatter in the DeathNose group about some bicycle-based acro-antics.
Anyone interested in an informal Monday night opening party? A little music, dancing, playing in the aerial harness or warm up acts on stage? Anyone interested in DJing during our afternoon lesson times? Want to learn to stilt or fly on Monday afternoon? Chatting about prioritizing camper lessons on that day! Other ideas? Bueller? Hit us up and let’s make it happen!
All schedules, show times, call times, chore charts, maps and more will be posted in a Google Drive folder for your viewing pleasure. Stay tuned for the link in future emails, so that you can keep yourself informed (because Radical Self Reliance).
CAMPER ACCOMMODATIONS
This year we will be a hard stop at 150 campers, including art crews. Gone are the days of cramming in additional guests to your existing footprint. It’s too much, too many, and not enough room in the shitters. This means that we will most likely NOT be able to accommodate all requests to bring a guest this year. Please begin emotionally preparing yourselves now for the word “NO.”
For 2023, we are working with United Site Services to reserve 3 porta potties for camp, as well as a grey water tank and grey water pumping. We were trying for those fancy, composting, non-smelly eco-potties, however the price was over double what we’d pay for our entire United order. As we’ve monitored grey water usage over the past several years, we’ve determined that we will be able to accommodate personal camper grey water, and not just our communal dirty shower water, so get excited about not having to haul your nasty jugs to the communal potties or all the way home. More information and guidelines on shitters and filth in the coming months.
Our mapping team had a productive meeting the other day, and determined that our main access/fire lane will run through the center of camp, making a left turn at the tent (if facing camp from A Street), and continuing up our camp border to the Esplanade. This will allow us better security in camp (because BRC citizens will not think our fire lanes are an access road from A to Esplanade), as well as additional space for campers while meeting Placement requirements. Layout will be posted in the Google Drive (coming soon) for those who prefer a visual.
In 2018, to assist with the transition from the Nome and the removal of a camp meal plan, we encouraged campers to team up and self organize to meet their own needs. This led to the establishment of today’s mini camps, which have grown increasingly in size since that time. Last year we reached the peak of the helpfulness and pain-in-my-ass-ed-ness of this organizing decision while attempting to adapt our planned for map on playa. After the great layout debacle of 2022 (due to containers being placed incorrectly AND not enough no’s being distributed in regards to additional campers leading up to the event), we put our heads together and divined that the magic number for mini camps shall be 8 for the year of 2023. What does that mean for you? You can camp with up to 7 of your people (8 people total, no exceptions) in close proximity, and we’re happy to accommodate this! Don’t want to camp with anyone? No problem! We welcome solo campers, smaller groups, duos, trios, or whatever configuration (as long as it’s 8 people or under) makes you happy. While camper space allotments were equal in 2022, they were not particularly equitable, with smaller groups and independent campers taking the brunt of changes and accommodating overall camp needs on playa. We strive this year to implement changes that allow for the betterment of the greater camp good.
COMMUNICATIONS
Tasks, information, important links, schedules, and more will be coming at you via email from now through the event. Our internal Facebook group and the Red Nose Slack channel are for the purposes of campers connecting with and sharing tips, tricks, and resources with each other. If you have questions, comments, feedback, concerns, and more, please feel free to email us at rednosedistrictinc@gmail.com, and I will respond to you as promptly as I’m able. Stay tuned for specific email addresses for our organizers, if you have specific questions or information you are needing from them.
BUILD WEEK
Are you interested in building camp in 2023? Let me know, and I will add you to the interested worker list. While we have specific positions for some of our more technical jobs (Big Top stake line, map/layout, rigging, sound, lighting, etc.), we also have positions for helpers that do not have a particular or specialized skill set (it is helpful if you know how to use a power drill, but we can teach you on playa). This year, we will be placing all names of interested helpers into a hat and drawing names, for an equal and randomized opportunity to participate early on playa.
ON-BOARDING NEW CAMPERS
Have someone you want to bring? Does your guest from last year wish to become a sponsee? Email me and let’s get you set up with next steps. Again, we will most likely not be able to accommodate all guests for this year, but while we wait for information on placement, size, and more, let’s make sure to keep everyone in the loop.
TIMELINES
We have had some recent interest in and questions related to our yearly organizing timeline. Below you will find a list of general tasks, Placement deadlines, and sale information in the months they occur.
January: Statement of Intent due to Placement; receive camp standing information from Placement
January – March: Opening months of organizing season – touching base with organizers and coordinators, developing the year’s program, making Stewards Sale selections
March: Stewards Sale: Placed Camp Questionnaire Due; find out Red Nose results from MOOP map
Ticket Aid Program: Open now through May 24th at 12P
Main Sale: April 12th at 12P
April: Begin ramping up camp communications & emails, making infrastructure reservations, on-boarding organizers & coordinators, develop budget, set shared cost contribution tiers, and open ticketing swap spreadsheet
May: Begin collecting shared costs and map information from campers
June: Find out camp location from Placement
July: Organize, organize, organize; OMG Sale Registration open July 26th at noon through July 28th at noon
August: OMG Sale August 2nd at 12P; Find out number of Worker Access Passes we’ve been awarded from Placement; Truck loads in Oregon and LA; Build week begins August 21st; Burning Man event opens August 27th
September: Burning Man event ends September 4th; Final RND MOOP team off playa on September 5th; reconcile budget, complete reimbursements, and unpacking; Begin post-event follow up conversations
October: Post event follow up conversations, and begin preparations for 2024
November – December: Break
THE END
Thank you for sticking with this email, as I know it was a long one. It was so long that I didn’t feel like proofreading it, so please kindly ignore the inevitable typos contained within. I have a good feeling about 2023, campers, and I cannot wait to share this experience with all of you. Thank you for being here, thank you for your commitment to the great Red Nose ride of 2023, and I am beyond excited to see each of you in the dust in a few short months.
Feedback, comments, concerns, accolades, well wishes, or thoughts and prayers? Send’m along!
xo,
heather laurie