Theme Camps vs. Villages

[uncle sticky]

We camped adjacent to several friends camps, and although we all offer different interactions, we share some infrastructure as well as labor. We started to consider applying for 2017 as a Village, which would roll three or four camps, probably 50 people, together. We were wondering several things:
Is the application more involved/less involved
What are the benefits of Village vs. Multiple camps? Disadvantages?
Directed sale tickets increase or decrease? We're already (like most) in a severe ticket deficit, and can't take a hit to our DST levels and still deliver. Anybody have experience as to whether there is a better way to go?
Early entry. Similar, but different. We actually needed to get in earlier, but with fewer people, than we were allowed. That need is the same. It's a schedule thing for many of our campers.
Thanks.

[burner von braun]

I don't have any answers for you uncle sticky, actually I'd be interested to learn more about the way this all works on a practical level as well.

[some seeing eye]

My experience with a village is that it is much larger than 50 people. You can look up villages on the final moop map and see how their area compares to yours as well.

[torrey.smith]

Sextant has done two years standalone and two years within DUSTFISH Village:
2013: 7:45 & C
2014: 3:15 & Esplanade
2015: 6:30 & Esplanade, within DUSTFISH Village
2016: 7:00 & Esplanade, within DUSTFISH Village

Sextant will be moving into 2017 as a standalone camp, as we have grown to the extent that we feel we are better off focusing entirely on our core gifts to the Playa. It has been an incredible experience co-creating DUSTFISH Village, and we hope we can be neighbors next year!

Your questions:

Is the application more involved/less involved
The Village application is more involved, as you are describing the entire village experience from an interactive and logistical perspective.
The Camp applications are greatly simplified. You don't even have to upload a camp layout. You better have a great village layout though!

What are the benefits of Village vs. Multiple camps? Disadvantages?
Advantages:
Multiple camps can share resources. We created a 135 KW Whisperquiet buried power grid for DUSTFISH Village, with multiple spider boxes all over. Reliable, silent, efficient.
Village wide greywater removal. Village showers.
Village portapotties.
Ability to plan access roads to benefit the whole village while minimizing wasted area.
Potential for a greater case for the Esplanade. You can pack a lot of high density interactive frontage:



Disadvantages
Other camp's problems are your problems. With ~320 people in 2016, DUSTFISH Village had all sorts of minor issues that each camp had to deal with.
Village wide power: it doesn't always work, and when it doesn't you might not have the direct contact to see what it will take to get it going.
Village showers: greywater stains on the Playa must be completely removed, and that many people using the facilities means they are not necessarily used as intended.
Village portapotties: 320 people is too many IMHO. The locks disappear, they get thrashed, people stuff garbage (WTAF) into them at the end of the burn. Grrrrrr. We had 6, serviced every day, and it just wasn't quite awesome. And if you try to have your own private camp-only portapotties, good luck with that.
MOOP: even with a Village-wide LNT plan, we still found ourselves on different pages between the 3 major camps. Ultimately Sextant must pay a penalty for the MOOP of other camps, even though we had an incredibly organised burn with comprehensive line sweeps during Strike supported by best practices during the Burn.
Theme Camp leads need to be comfortable giving up control of DGS and EA to Village leadership, and crossing that bridge when they come to it should they eventually leave the Village.

Directed sale tickets increase or decrease?
These basically stay the same based on headcount and the standing of the Village and Camps involved.

Early entry.
Nominally these are based on headcount and shouldn't change much. We noticed that the Village leadership used a lot more late week arrivals than we did, whereas we had a smaller crew that stayed longer. Overall everyone got what they needed to get the job done.

Other Thoughts:
A Village needs strong central leadership. DUSTFISH Village has been incredibly lucky to have Opal of DUSTFISH serve as the matriarch who we can all rally around in times of stress. When she has told me "No", I've always been able to see her wisdom and gain a higher perspective

I recommend that a Village have a strong central logistical structure. We paid camp dues to our individual camps, and village dues to the village, which then paid for power, water, portapotties, etc.

For Esplanade camps and villages, you may use about 150 ft of the Playa on the other side of Esplanade. We used this to good effect by placing a large art garden, including the Tesla Coil. This has the effect of "Doubling Up" your interactive frontage, which is awesome!

Disclaimer: DUSTFISH Village was created to bring major interactivity to the Esplanade. It is a mighty undertaking and is about the opposite of a bunch of small camps coming together. It was a bunch of Big camps coming together to go HUGE for BRC.

[trilobyte]

I'm giving this a nudge to Building Camps & Villages, since that's a better fit (the year-specific boards are more for announcing plans and projects specific to that year's event).

I think Sarge did an excellent job answering the question. For further information, I'd point you in the direction of the Theme Camps & Villages pages on the main site, which contains a lot of additional useful information for organizers and planners.

Adding in my own personal take on it...

I don't see that organizing a camp, or a small conglomeration of camps as a village provides any strategic advantages when it comes to early arrivals or directed group sale participation. Speaking personally, that strikes me as 'putting the horse before the cart' mentality. Things like DGS and early arrivals are there to support camps doing awesome things - so if you want those (or more of them), step things up and do more awesome things. I realize that ticket scarcity creates some difficult challenges when it comes to camps and project - every camp faces it.

The main reason I see for camps to organize as a village is to better organize the sharing of resources. Power, water, shared showers or kitchens... or whatever it is that your group of camps is looking to do.

Before I was registering as a placed camp I was involved in organizing my camp as well as a sort of mini-village, and from that experience I can say that on one hand it's more work, but on the other hand it can be less. As an organizer, it's a lot more work. Not only are you managing your own small group's stuff, but you're coordinating and communicating with the leaders of all the other camps. How much space people need, who's wrangling what for the village (and making sure they follow through), and who goes where within the allocated space, that kind of detail.... more logistics. Where it's less is that groups within the village take the lead on different things - whether it's power or showers or organizing a truck or potties or whatever. When people step up on those projects, that's one less thing that all the other camps in the village don't need to worry about. That gives the camp more bandwidth to spend on whatever awesome stuff they have planned.

I think that when organizing a village, LNT requires more work as well. From posts on the board and anecdotal stories it seems like often times at least one member camp doesn't take LNT as seriously as they should, and if the village wants to stay in good graces and strive for solid green that means other people either have to work harder to get everyone on the same page, or somebody's got to pick up the slack. Your mileage may vary depending on the size of the village and the specific camps you're partnering with, of course.

I hope that info helps!

[maladroit]

Yup...work backwards from the cool experience you want to bring to the playa. Don't work backwards from those sweet, sweet DGS tickets and early entry passes.

Theme camps are gifted with placement and special ticket options because that's one less thing the camp has to worry about. Not only are they dragging their own sorry asses out to the playa, they're also building some amazing stuff. If someone is building a power grid, that means 50 individual workers don't have to piece together 50 separate power systems. If someone is building a big kitchen, then 50 cooks don't have to bring 50 kitchens. Then, those 50 people use the extra time to go build a massive zipline tower that flings people into a Tesla-coil-powered giant bug zapper, or whatever.

[burner von braun]

This all makes a lot of sense, and for me anyway, certainly provides a better understanding regarding the formation of villages. Thanks for the insight!

[AntiM]

Hushville is something of an anomaly when it comes to villages. I am a registered theme camp within a village, I get streetside placement for interactivity granted from the village Flounders. We have to make sure our smaller camps are all providing an interactive face, and the ones lining the interior roads as well if possible. But we have few to no shared resources such as power, showers, or kitchens. We do share as needed/desired, but we really are a conglomeration of tiny camps who have each other's backs, a gathering of about 300 kindred souls. And this year, as usual, we are solid green on the MOOP map.

We are not flashy, but we are one of the remaining old style small offerings neighborhood camps. Kidsville is much the same. Old school inner city burning, a fading art.

[uncle sticky]

First off, why you always gotta be nudging me, bro?
I hear what folks are saying about "bring the awesome, tickets will follow" but our awesome is very dependent on tickets. The infrastructure isn't all that big of a deal, just a few of us built mats and shade for Settle This, and the other camps we're cuddling with are the same. Our biggest challenge is that we offer mostly exercise/workout/beating each other up classes, and to do that well and safely, we need skilled and reliable people. I was on the mat every day, as were my stretching and fitness teachers, and we were over-flowing. We can barely offer what we do now with the people I have, but we want to do more! My big concern about the move from camp to village would be losing some of the tickets I have now, which would make it extra special super hard to offer the awesome we are now, let alone doubling the space and the classes as we want to.

[torrey.smith]

To do something great at Burning Man you need many things. One of those is Faith.

[BBadger]

Plus, if you've pulled it off in the past, you should have enough reputation to request an expansion of your current arrangement. It's not guaranteed, but nothing ever is.

[uncle sticky]

So the DGS is out, and it looks like we're going to be short invites, but in the normal way, rather than the crippling way we'd feared, so we're as good to go as one can be in the world of ticket scarcity. Thanks be to Placement! Question remains, though, as we're debating whether to put in as four separate camps, with a request to be next door, or to go the village route. It would be more efficient, space wise, to have the residential area and communal chill zones all together, as well as the trailer and generators from four camps all in one zone, away from neighbors. It would also be good to have all of the fun zones adjacent, since there's bleed over from one activity to another (boozy snow cones leads to fighting matches which may lead to sex swings leads to hungry hippos).
Last issue I can think of right now is the placement. We've been in 7:30, usually mid-block c or d, and really like it. If we go village, will we get bumped to busier areas, more traffic and noise?

[Eric]

If you go the village route you're guaranteed all your camps are together, if you go as camps that want to be placed next to each-other you lose that guarantee. Placement will try, but if they can't fit, say, 1 of your camps next to you in the Big Picture Placement Jigsaw Puzzle, it could with a camp (or three) between you. From your post I would recommend the village route as most suited to your needs.

As for the question of where you end up: good question. Let us know what happens.
I've seen villages moved all over the map, from 3 o'clock side to the butt-end of 9 o'clock, from the keyhole to k-street. It really depends on the big picture of what Placement is trying to achieve, and only Placement knows that until way later in the year.