Kiwiburn 2007 Afterburn Report
June 15, 2007
1. Introduction by Regional Rep, Mark Stirling, aka Yonderman
This year's Kiwiburn was hugely successful. Though similar or even slightly less in numbers than the previous two Kiwiburns, I would say it was the best Kiwiburn yet. It was truly burning man and everyone was there because it was burning man. Burning Man in NZ has just taken a huge step forward. I felt similar euphoria at this event to what I felt at the very first Kiwiburn where I realised that NZ'ers would "get" burning man and could therefore start the building of a community. Now we have that and more, and it's only going to get better. It's also a very secure feeling to know that we don't have to go to the playa to find our community. It's here. While I wasn't able to attend the May 2007 Regionals Summit in San Francisco due to costs (financially I only manage to visit the office when I am on a worktrip) and conflicting demands on my time, I was able to provide the BMORG and regionals with enthusiastic emails and pics from this and earlier Kiwiburns (some were being aired on their slide show during the summit). Actiongrl and Maid Marian are pretty keen to come out to attend our event! They said they might have come this year if they hadn't been organising the Summit. Big wow!!
2. Organization by Kathy "KuriousKat" Guidi
Kiwiburn 2007 would not have happened without the dedication and vision of a small handful of Wellington and Auckland based folks. When the decision was made in June 2006 to move Kiwiburn to the north island (the hub of the burner community), several people stepped up to the plate to bring the vision to fruition.
These merry band of burners served on the 2006-07 Kiwiburn Executive Committee (excom). In addition to wearing their 'excom' hats and overseeing countless mundane administrative tasks, they served in many other capacities without which Kiwiburn would not have been possible. In brief, your excom consisted of:
Wendy "Dr. Windy" Allison: Wendy served in many capacities too numerous to mention. Her primary 'jobs' were as co-creator of the magnificent Temple, Health & Safety Officer (a thankless job), Environmental Safety and Farmer liaison, and bringer of shiny & glowy things to all.
Myles "Firebrat" White: Myles was the visionary and creator of The Man, a five meter tall movable installation that exceeded everyone's expectations. He also served as the Wellington theme camp regional contact and was part of the theme camp placement and site planning committee.
Mark "Yonderman" Stirling: A veteran Burning Man and Kiwiburn burner and the man who had the vision to bring Burning Man to New Zealand, Mark serves as the official regional representative and liaison to the Burning Man organization (BMORG) and also serves as our excom elder, bringing years of sage experience and advice to the group.
Jessica "Strawberry Cheesecake Rabbit" Lunsford: A long-time burner and visionary, Jess and her partner Alan designed and ran the greeter "Mutation Station" which was no small endeavor and brought us the Smokes-n-Jokes hookah tent. Jess also helped organize events at Center Camp.
Polly "Mistress Polly" Lind: Polly served as the ExCom Secretary/Committee Wrangler keeping everyone on track and on task throughout the year. She was also the other co-creator of the beautiful Temple and served as the First Aid Liaison to the Event Medics team. Polly's also known for 'putting that kettle on' and ran the relaxing afternoon tea party and social.
Allyn "Chewtoy" York: Allyn had the dubious task of serving as the ExCom accountant and financial guru and was often the 'voice of reason' when spending was due to get out of control. Always game for a boogie or a rodeo, you could find Allyn wandering Kiwiburn in any number of outlandish and fabulous outfits!
Chris "Kiwi" Hankins: Relatively new to Kiwiburn, but not to Burning Man, Kiwi joined the team only a few months before the event and immediately stepped in to fill many important roles. In addition to overseeing the Ministry of Public Works (MPW) team, Kiwi became our liaison to all things bureaucratic (Destination Taupo, Taupo District Council for permits, the Volunteer Fire Brigade, King Country Power Company, the portable toilet company and more) and was the festival on-site manager. You often found Kiwi near the shed, overseeing and providing the necessary tools and advice for many people's art project. Always keen, always smiling, and almost always with a glass of Chardonnay!
Cass Edwards: Hailing all the way from Oz, but a lover of New Zealand, Cass donated countless hours of her time to bring the Kiwiburn website to life. She was also one of the co-creators of The Green Fairy camp, designer of many of the 'kiwiburn man' flags, and will be forever remembered as The Gymkhana mistress, spearheading an afternoon of raucous laughter by allowing her pony Dobbin to be ridden by the masses.
Sam Hankins: Our youngest member of the team, Sam served as assistant website updater; the Auckland theme camp regional contact; and was part of the JAFAB camp bringing us the amazing Skytower art installation and The Thunderdome.
Shelley Watson: A Burning Man burner, Shelley was our marketing materials (business cards, posters, website graphics) designer extroadinnaire! She also co-created The Cookie Tree and edible art installation. Yum!
Kyla Dresden: A last minute emergency prevented Kyla from attending Kiwiburn this year, but Kyla was there in spirit. She served as the theme camp, art installation, and center camp liaison.
Bruce Scanlon: A long-standing Burning Man burner, Bruce was often a good sounding board and advice giver in many of the complex excom discussions. He served as the south island theme camp regional rep and was also co-creator of The Green Fairy camp and maker of the delicious green goodness.
3. Financials by Kathy "KuriousKat" Guidi and Allyn "Chewtoy" York
We did very well with our financials this year. Most of our income came from prepaid ticket sales purchased either via the Kiwiburn website or through the Real Groovey retail outlets in Auckland and Wellington. The majority of tickets were sold at the $40 level. Approximately 145 burners attended the event.
A significant sum came from Destination Taupo (DT). Kiwi connected with DT's Events Marketing Manager, Warwick Hall, several months before Kiwiburn and explained the Kiwiburn festival concept to him. Warwick really got behind us and showed his enthusiasm by committing $2000 to the event. This was great news as the team was a bit concerned about mounting expenses. Nearer to the event, as the KB team were juggling additional unexpected expenses, Warwick stepped in again and assisted us with additional funds to put towards various council rental fees, grass cutting, and sound equipment rentals. KB sends a big thank you out to Destination Taupo and to Warwick!
On the expense side of things, our largest expense was for the Event Medics, our first aid safety team who were on-site 24x7 for the event. Site fees (council rental and grass cutting of paddocks) cost us $1490. The renting of the main marquee and the sound equipment for center camp cost us a hefty $1975 - in hindsight, this proved to be an expensive commitment for center camp and we aim to reduce this cost significantly for 2008.
INCOME:
$ 3,910 Online ticket sales (after PayPal fees)
$ 1,350 Real Groovy (Auckland)
$ 200 Real Groovy (Wellington)
$ 627 Gate Sales
$ 4,340 Contribution from Destination Lake Taupo
----------
$10,427
EXPENSES:
$ 2,500 Event Medics
$ 900 Council Rental Fees
$ 590 Grass cutting
$ 1,175 Sound System Rental
$ 500 Marquee Rental
$ 300 Marquee Permit
$ 366 Insurance
$ 339 Printing (cards)
$ 253 Printing (tickets)
$ 100 Power
$ 544 Toilets (Port-a-loo Rentals)
$ 630 Art Installation Supplies (Lumber, spray paint, wire, crimper, etc)
$ 267 EcoCrop Mat (temple materials)
$ 172 Glow Sticks
$ 117 Walkie-Talkies
$ 37 Solar Lights
--------------
$ 8,790
After expenses, we netted a nifty sum of $1,638 which will be our seed money for Kiwiburn 2008!
4. Environment
Kiwiburn is a leave no trace (LNT) event. Everything that is brought in must be taken out. This is one of the guiding principles of our event. We had a general recycling area and collected glass, paper, and plastic recycling which we were able to bring to the Mangakino recycling center. Overall, participants did a great job of leaving the paddocks tidy which made the Ministry of Public Works (MPW) team job much easier!
5. Art & Theme Camps by Kathy "KuriousKat" Guidi
We had a lot of stellar art and theme camps this year. What made it especially meaningful were the connections made - with only 145 participants, one got to really know everyone over the course of the event.
We had a man, a temple, a labyrinth, a sky tower, a kiwi, a center camp with a huge sound system, a greeter station, a bar, a dance camp, a chill space, some fire spinners, body painters, a thunderdome teepee and some art. Random things by random people.
But these random people were not so random. We came together as strangers and formed a community with all our creative ideas and left as friends.
That was Myles' man, a giant flaming, dancing structure; Polly and Wendy's designed temple in which just about everyone at Kiwiburn helped to build, then repair when the winds took at it, then tear down and carried over to the man to burn; Pearl's labyrinth, which was lit on fire and everyone walked through in a state of happiness and joy; the JAFAB's sky tower, built over the course of many days and assisted by the paid medical staff who helped out whenever they could cuz they were digging our vibe; Sebastian's kiwi - Sebastian, who said 'hey Kiwiburn can't be Kiwiburn unless there's a kiwi to burn', and to which Bruce replied, 'so make one', and he did over the course of several days with the help of Cory and Jane and many others; everyone's center camp in which newly 'outed' dj's took to the stage and helped us get our dance groove on; Jess and Alan's greeter station, where every person arriving at the event was welcomed with a smile and shiny sparkles or a paddle or two; The Green Fairy bar run by me, Bruce, and Cass, which lit up every night and which brought green-goodness to all; Pink Moa dance camp run by gregarious Jonathan and sweet Sam and which almost got taken out by the downpour; Roy and Alfred's chill space where one could drop by and cozy up on the pillows and take in an artsy movie; the very groovy fire spinners, many of whom I met briefly but can't quite remember their names except for Fireman Sam - they busted out every night and dazzled us all; Evs and Richard who set up a body painting tent and created some beautiful temporary human art; Josie and Carl and Sam's bamboo Thunderdome complete with bright lights and heavy metal sounds backdropping to the cacophony of laughter as we watched friends battle it out with big duct-taped covered foam bats; Gadjit and Skat's Echo Chamber: simple but brilliantly synergistic with the great natural beauty on site; and Shelley and Abbie's cookie tree.
For more on the art and theme camps, see Kathy's Kiwiburn blogpost (http://www.kathysgetaways.com/212/kiwiburn07/) and Wendy's post about the Temple ( http://tatjna.livejournal.com/338217.html)
Next year is going to be better than ever, so get your creative juices flowing! Join the theme camp discussion forums (http://www.kiwiburn.com/forum/ ) and think about registering your camp (http://www.kiwiburn.com/themereg.html ) or art installation (http://www.kiwiburn.com/installreg.html ) now!
6. Communications & Technology
We worked hard this year to update our communications channels to the community. The website was born (http://www.kiwiburn.com/index.html ); and the forums created (http://www.kiwiburn.com/forum/). General discussion of Kiwiburn can still take place on Tribe ( http://kiwiburn.tribe.net/?_click_path=Application%5Btribe%5D.Tribe%5Be4...)
7. Health & Safety by Wendy "Dr. Windy" Allison
Safety plans. I would like to categorically state that as H&S officer, I was disappointed in the response to the request for H&S plans prior to the event. We need to have these on hand (our own one covers general event stuff but each camp should have one too). Quote here: "As the festival grows, safety will become a much bigger issue for us to deal with and it's important that participants acknowledge and address safety issues prior to the event or they may not be able to proceed with their theme camp."
Yeah, I mean it. I did some on-the-spot safety inspections, most people were good but the odd one needed things like fire extinguishers, which we provided. People were very cooperative and for the most part, well prepared. However, with numbers increasing and camps becoming more elaborate, the H&S officer can not be responsible for demonstrating safety to council officials through paperwork. Camps must be responsible for their own. This year, the Health and Safety officer will be contacting all registered theme camps personally to address this, as there was some confusion over what was required.
Our first aid service was provided by Event Medics (http://www.eventmedics.co.nz/). We had one dislocated shoulder and a few bumps and scrapes. Overall, there were no camp/art/activity related injuries, and this demonstrates that this year's burn was a success, safety wise.
We were impressed and pleased with the response from the Mangakino Volunteer Fire Service who turned out with their pumps and a friendly crew to attend the burns. They remained in the background, ready to assist if anything got out of hand, but did not interfere in our burns at all. In fact, getting into the spirit of things, they allowed us to cover them with glowsticks and many of them completed the walk of the fire labyrinth with us.
Some of them even stayed to party with us once the burn was considered safe to leave. We would like to thank these wonderful people for their help and support, and are looking forward to working with them again next year.
8. Future Vision by Bruce Scanlon
Kiwiburn 2007 showed us that we could recreate the Burning Man culture here in New Zealand. Our goal now is to spread the culture as far and as wide as possible without diluting it by trying to do it too fast.
We have big hopes for Kiwiburn 2008. We expect participant numbers to double or triple, and have put an absolute limit of 500 on 2008 attendance; long term we think the site could accommodate somewhere in the low thousands. For 2008 we opted again to keep the festival at three days, though there is a lot of support for extending it to five days in the future.
We are currently registering as an incorporated society in order to better manage our expanding festival and expand our ability to interface effectively with the "default reality."
With support from Destination Taupo and Taupo District Council we will be at the same site, Whakamaru Domain for the next three years.
We're investigating the possibility of doing water art projects. We hear talk of some art vehicles in the works and the forums show that there are lots of new theme camp projects in the works for next year.
Only 231 days till the event!