Camping area size?

[aaronsewell]

Hi,
I'm a burner virgin you could say. I was wondering how much room are you allotted to set up your camp? I want to start building a dome for me and my group, but don't want to make it too big and take up more space them I'm allowed or I don't want to take up more space then morally allowed. How is the camping set up? Thats the thing i'm most confused about. I've been told you just drive out into the desert and set up your camp, but I can't see that's entirely true.

[666isMONEY]

it's entirely true!

[Bless]

You're gonna love it, Aaron.

[aaronsewell]

so you enter with your stuff, drive in a random direction and set up camp? You can make it as big and ridiculous as you want? So there is roads or areas you cant?

[trilobyte]

Yes you can, though if you're excessively greedy expect neighbors to give you grief. If you're cordoning off a big chunk of land, you may find yourself in a land dispute with someone, or they'll call in a ranger or placer to help settle things. There are roads (you can't build on 'em) and there are placed camps that are allotted a fixed amount of space (they're usually arriving to start setup before the gates open).

[maladroit]

When the placement map for the city is announced in 2015, look at the shaded purple areas. It's best to plan to set up your camp away from them, otherwise you will probably have to move. Pick an intersection and hopefully you will find an open spot (depending on how early you arrive) reasonably close.

If you have several different groups of people coming in, make sure everyone knows the target intersection and that you have something recognizable to put out by the street.

And if you plan to take up a lot of space, the first vehicle in should be the one containing as much of the camp infrastructure as possible, and enough people to set it up quickly. You want to get boots on the ground and your main structures up to "stake your claim" around the space you need for your group to camp.

Take the space that you need, but not much more than you need. If you're waiting for more people to come in on Monday, it's probably OK to keep someone in camp to chase off anyone who wants to make a land grab. However, it's not worth guarding your claim on Tuesday or beyond, too much other good stuff to do. Either accept that you'll come back to new neighbors, or make sure to stake your claim up front by bringing all your camp's tents in the lead vehicle and plopping them down first thing.

You cannot just drive out in the desert and make camp, you do have to camp within the borders and streets of the city itself.

[spacetime]

There are roads (you can't build on 'em) and there are placed camps that are allotted a fixed amount of space (they're usually arriving to start setup before the gates open).

One of my neighbors this year told me he woke up in the middle of the night to take a leak, must have been Tuesday, to find a tent fully set up in the absolute middle of 6:15 and i. Inside was a woman getting ready to call it a night. Outside was her pal saying "I don't think we can camp here." She responded, "This is fine, we're fine." and the guy was like, "I really don't think we can camp here. I think this might be a road."

This went on for a while and my neighbor went back to sleep. Regardless, the tent was gone come morning.

[rmc50]

There are places where you could take as much room as you wanted, and places where you would not be able to do that. It is NOT true that you just drive out and camp anywhere: there is a specific area where camping is allowed. Fortunately, this area is quite large.

The number streets (denoted as "time", such as 4:30 ) go radially out from the center, where the man is. There is NO camping at all on the open playa. Look at any aerial view of Burning Man and you will clearly see the camping area, which runs from 2:00 to 10:00.

The circular streets are lettered: A to L. The closer you are to the center, the more valued the land. The "placed" camps will occupy most (if not all) of the space in the first few letter roads. Theme camps continue to be placed all the way out to "J" but not all of the real-estate is claimed ahead of time.

If you had a valid need for space and arrived early you could probably find a spot in the D up range. However, if you were in the D through F range and took more space than was justified you might have a hard time defending it. If you had a structure, such as a dome set up to occupy the space then I doubt that anyone would object.

If you were out on "L" on the other hand and just wanted to have open space around you then you could probably get away with it.

"Theme Camps" must submit a request months ahead of time to get placed. The request has to include a description of the camp, how you intend to interact with the public and how much space you need. Some theme camps are quite large and they request the prime locations up front. The theme camp I was part of this year was small and we requested a spot way back at 4:30 and J. The people responsible for placing did come by to see how we used our space and presumably this will impact if we are granted placement next year. The message being that if you don't use the space well they won't give it to you next year.

Where you set up your camp should also be based on what your tolerance to loud music is. Anywhere on roads A, B or C and radial roads 2:00 and 10:00 will be loud and noisy, playing music all night long. If you have intentions of sleeping at night you might want to avoid these areas.

If you are tent camping you might want to be located closer to the porta-potties. These are located in clusters. For example, there was a number of porta-potties located on 4:30 between H & I

Rod

[Savannah]

Where do I camp?
viewtopic.php?t=29356

Here's a link to this year's map. Note the purple areas. Those are theme camp areas.
http://www.burningman.com/preparation/m ... index.html

Note the "empty" space in the middle (the Esplanade). This is also off-limits for camping and meant for foot travel/bike travel/art car travel and a ton of art for display.

Note also the area on the outside East side called "Walk-in Camping". This is not usually recommended for novices, but is an option for highly capable people who have attended before and don't mind parking their vehicle and hauling their gear into one of the quieter and more remote areas of the city.

There will be room for you--don't worry.

[aaronsewell]

Thank you all for the info it has been very helpful and eased some of my anxiety about finding room.

[skippy3k]

Not sure if this helps at all, but earlier this year I decided to increase the footprint of our camp by making a larger shade structure. (Not a theme camp, just a bunch of people camping together.) Went from maybe 20'x20' to a whole 30'x30'. I know, crazy, huh? Then I got cold feet, thinking I was taking too much space, people were going to riot and chase me down with flaming torches and pitchforks, accusing me of hogging up the whole street. So I knocked off a whole 4'.

Once I got out there I realized I'm an idiot. 4' either way makes no difference and no one cares, as long as you are using the space effectively.

[FossaFerox]

If it helps, the footprint on my shade structure is now 50'x60' with vehicle parking taking up another 50x10 in the back and our interactive stuff taking up 50x30 in the front.

[AntiM]

We easily run 50x75, and Hushville has always been good about giving us that much.

[Joeln]

If it helps, the footprint on my shade structure is now 50'x60' with vehicle parking taking up another 50x10 in the back and our interactive stuff taking up 50x30 in the front.

Do you have any pics of your setup?
I'm thinking about the possibilities for bringing a shade structure next year.