My Virgin year 2012 - from Edmonton Alberta

[coldday]

This is it my virgin year. . . yippee and I have a ticket, even bigger grin.
I have been hanging on the edges and wanting to make the pilgrimage for a number of years and never been in the position to leave my seasonal employment for bm. This year however my life is together enough to plan far enough ahead and make a plan to get to bm and my employment situation is better. I have also decide to share this experience with my brother, fellow artist himself, joining me from his home in Texas,he has desert skills. Both of us are totally pumped up and have had difficulty concentrating this week since learning we have tickets to go. So much planning and preparing I am doing the research on this end and am I looking forward to getting my way to some of the regional events before so as to met my regional crowd some of whom I met at Spin Out last June.
I do have a few questions to put out there?
As a virgin when is the best time to arrive?
How easy is it to rideshare in and out of BM from the Reno airport?
Are there any Albertan Burners out here in the boards?

damn I am excited
coldday
in edmonton

[tamarakay]

WooHoo! We are excited for you too! From what I understand the Reno rideshare thing works very well. Eventually there will be an official rideshare thread and rideshare info posted so that you can maybe find and preplan with someone.

I will leave your other questions for someone more experienced with when to come in. We were fortunate and earned a couple of early in tickets to help set up our Village. Officially gates open at 6:00 Sunday I believe. The last couple of years they've opened a bit early as traffic backed up down the highway. HOWEVER, from what I've been told the lines getting in can be a hoot and a holler themselves.

There are lots of canadians around these parts, i'm sure some will eventually jump in and introduce themselves. My husband and I live in Central Texas. Whereabouts is your brother?

[FIGJAM]

The gate opens at 12:01 am monday and they get soooooo mad if you show up early that they send you back to canada even if your not from there!

And Welcome!!!

[tamarakay]

I knew I'd mess that up. 6:00 is when it's opened early <slapping forehead>, see, I knew I should have left that to someone else lol

[Savannah]

Hi Coldday! Welcome.

As a virgin when is the best time to arrive?

No earlier than 12:01am on Monday, August 27th. There have been years where this wavered, but--at the moment--there are no guarantees it will happen again. Earlier than 12:01am and you'll probably have to wait in "D Lot", a detention spot for early birds, and you won't be allowed out for a few hours. (The nearest town, Gerlach, is tiny and the highway is only two lanes, so people showing up early puts a burden on the town, clogging it up.) Any time you arrive on that Monday is probably going to be pretty slow and crowded, and taking 3-4 hours to get into the event is average. Whenever you decide to arrive . . . bring a pee bottle per person, a pee funnel per lady, some snacks and beverages, and pack the sunscreen where you can reach it.

Some people aim for 12:01am and enjoy the mega traffic jam (it's what I've done 5 times out of 7); others try for a more "reasonable" hour. It can hard to predict when will be "reasonable". Almost anything would be faster than the midnight rush . . . maybe. Here is a thread about last year:

2011 Entrance - how can we reduce the wait to < 4 hrs???
http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... 87&t=50331

How easy is it to rideshare in and out of BM from the Reno airport?

By most accounts, it's pretty easy. There will be an online rideshare board in June or July (best to schedule ahead of time), and there is usually one in the Airport (if stuff falls through):

http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic.php?t=43035&f=3

Are there any Albertan Burners out here in the boards?

Probably! I'm bad at remembering where most of us are from, but here's a link to the Alberta Regional page:
http://regionals.burningman.com/ca_alb_cal.html

[Elderberry]

Hey there, welcome to eplaya!

[coldday]

Thanks for the advice and the welcome,

@ tamarakay my brother is out in Tyler Tx, not so much a burner, but a creative soul none the less and looking for a kinda bonding experience like the the farm parties of our youth.
As for arriving,
My experiences with the lines ups at Shambhala in Salmo BC is the line up is a fun gathering with swelling anticipation, though through my years I have found that arriving about 12- 18 hours after the initial gate opening greatly reduced the amount of time it takes to be processed through ticketing and security. This the line up set up at Shambhala was the most organized it has ever been and it was only 2.5 hours from the road to Sunshine Camp.

Thanks again everyone for the warm welcome
coldday
in edmonton