Welcome to Wrongtown!

Hi everyone! While the Burning man site had an extremely comprehensive survival guide (Burning Man Survival Guide), this guide is meant to give you information specifically for Wrongtown – where radical self-reliance meets communal effort. 😀

Water

We’ve totally changed our water system this year! In the past we’ve asked people to bring 2.5 gallons. This year we added IBC totes to the mix and now have water for the kitchen and limited showers. This means that we’re rolling back the water requirements to the Burning Man standard of 1.5 Gallons per day per person.

Also once you arrive on playa please add your water to the water cache.  We store all the water together in order to be able to estimate water needs throughout the week.  In the past we’ve had people hoard water and it caused us to make a trip into town to purchase more water.  At the end of that burn we had to deal with over 200 gallons of water that we didn’t know was hoarded.  So please don’t hoard water … if we run out we’ll get more!!

Amenities

In order to ease the burden on international campers and campmates who carpool, we provide many amenities for camp use. We have a kitchen, showers, a communal lounge, and a tent camping area called “tent city.”

-Kitchen-
The kitchen is open for use by everyone at all times. Be aware that during meal times it can become congested. While cooking for the meal plan, the cooking staff has priority over most of the kitchen. There will still be a 2 burner stove for individual meal prep during these periods. Also, if you’re not on the meal plan, please do your part to keep the kitchen clean and tidy after you use it.

-Shower-
We have showers available for use in camp! Black Rock City is extremely dry, so this is a huge luxury for the burn. We do have a limited amount of water. Water consumption will be moderated via an electronic interface that dispenses a set amount of water per person (approximately 1 gallon). This should be used in a “military shower” way: rinse quickly, soap up, then rinse quickly. To make the most of your water, shower quickly or consider using a no rinse shampoo or dry shampoo. Or just rub some playa dust into your hair. Playafied hair is beautiful, dry, and full of luscious volume!

-Communal Lounge-
We have a 50′ diameter shade structure with benches, day beds, rocker beds, a massage table, and rugs. It’s a great place to hang out and nap during the day if it ever gets too hot in your tent.

-Tent City-
We have an area with several large canopy shade structures for tent campers to pitch their tents underneath. This provides an extra layer of protection from the sun. Please keep in mind that the space is limited in these areas and try and keep your footprint small by not getting a larger tent than you need.

Dues

Most years we find ourselves in a situation where we don’t have enough people to setup and tear down. It really is hell at the end of the event when we’re trying to wrap up.
This year we’re going to have multiple tiers for dues. Please see the brief description of the tiers below.

Campmate

• Dues $220
• 2 Tasks during the week.
• 1 Strike task on Sunday or before you leave.

Tourist Dues

• Dues $500
• We get it you have a tight schedule and you can’t stick around to help. You can atleast help with your pocketbook!
• 2 Tasks during the week.
• No build or strike tasks

Meal Plan

• Price $80
• Brunch and Dinner for 6 days.
• The meal plan is cooked by volunteers as a gift to the camp. If you’re interested in cooking a meal please visit the signup sheets to choose a slot.

Bike Rental

• Price $50
• We have quite a few bikes on playa and we usually gift a ticket to whoever signs up a the bike mechanic. This year we’re making 40 available first come first serve.

Signups

-Camp Duties-

Many hands make light work. Each camp member is required to sign up for 2 camp tasks or shifts to done at a scheduled time during the week. Tasks are mostly cleanup and maintenance duties that take an hour or less, such as going to get ice for camp, or cleaning up the kitchen. There are also some camp service or public interactivity shifts that last from two to four hours, depending on the shift. You are expected to keep an eye out in camp during the shift. The good tasks fill up early so be sure to sign up ASAP!!

• Sweet Memories Coffee Bar : Help Seiko offer her hand roasted coffee in the morning. Best coffee in the neighborhood.
• Camp Sweep : Pick up all the MOOPs and keep the living room space under the shade clean!
• Kitchen Cleanup : Clean up the kitchen tools used for cooking meal plan. Individual containers should be cleaned by the owners and they are not included.
• Trash/Recycling : Take care the sorted trash bins and bring bags of trash to the designated area in the camp. Also bring aluminum cans to Recycle camp, which is very cool how they smash tons of cans.
• Ice : Get Ice at the closest Ice station. Consult kitchen manager for how many and receive the budget.
• Brawndo Bar : Make gallons of Gatorade and offer it to passers by at the bar. It’s from the movie “Idiocracy”.
• Origami Class : Teach Origami lessons under the shade, as we like to have something related to our art car in shape of Origami crane.
• Origami Master Class : Teach how to make a three headed crane with origami. You must know how to pick this shift.

-Build and Strike-

Build takes place at the beginning of the week, and strike takes place at the end. Everyone is required to do one build or strike task. The signup list will include date ranges at both the beginning and end of the event to allow people to chip in, in a way that fits with their schedule. If, for any reason, you cannot do a build or strike task, you have the option to compensate by paying the non build/strike dues rate.

Meal Plan

-History-

Our camp meal plan developed out of necessity and over a few trials and errors. In 2011 so many people tried to cook camp meals, that there were conflicts about which night people would cook their camp meal. So in 2013, we put together a sign-up sheet, which gave everyone an opportunity to share their cooking with the camp. But this resulted in loads and loads of unused rotten food after the burn. So in 2014, we started the first official meal plan and collected money from people interested in receiving 2 meals a day, and shopped collectively, which collectively saved us thousands of dollars and dramatically reduced our food waste. It was a great success (Thank you Annabel, for managing our kitchen!!). Since then everyone interested in the meal plan has chipped in and gotten fed!!

-2019 Meal Plan-

This year the meal plan be $90 per person. You’ll get 2 meals a day – brunch and dinner. Signups are (Here). Each meal plan member will get a sealed bowl and a spot on a shelf. You’ll be responsible for keeping your bowl clean and on the shelf. If your bowl isn’t there at dinner time, it won’t get filled. Party too hard and miss dinner? No problem. It’s on the shelf, waiting for you! Miss too many meals? Mondays’s dinner might not taste very good on Friday. Eww! Got too high and now you can’t manage to clean your bowl? Sorry you couldn’t maintain but no bowl, no food. :p

Bicycles

Not everyone swears by them, but if in doubt, bring or rent a bike. There’s a limited number of camp bikes available for rental. BRC is huge! Bicycles are great!! Here are some guidelines on the type of bicycle to buy.

We have limited storage for bicycles, and each year we’ll be taking back the bikes in the worst shape to keep from storing trash. So the biggest piece of advice is to keep em simple. Beach cruisers work the best (playa=beach, right)? They have fat tires but aren’t overly heavy, and they have sealed bearings and coaster breaks so they hold up better and require minimal maintenance. Multi speed bikes have gears and derailleurs, which attract dust and have extra parts that tend to fail on the playa. You only need one speed on flat ground, so all of those extra parts are useless anyway. Annnd the new “Fat Bikes” typically have disk brakes with pistons and calipers and gears with derailleurs, so while they look cool and might last a year or two, they need to be taken home each year for maintenance. They also tend to get “accidentally borrowed.” So we highly recommend *not* bringing a fat bike.

RV’s and Trailers

In order to maximize theme camp space and aesthetics, the majority of Wrongtowners camp in tent city or in small structures. If you’re going to bring an RV or trailer, please get it approved by an organizer first. There are no hookups, but water and pumping services do exist in BRC. The main thing we ask in return for the extra space taken up by RV’s is help with waste water if necessary. We may need to empty our dish water into an RV tank if our waste water tank gets full. For that reason, some RV’s in camp are welcome and appreciated.