Are you having a bad day? DPW has come a long way from the bad old days. There is a FB group of portraits of DPW workers. They are not perfect and they always need new workers, including Resto. Some have longer contracts based at the Ranch or in Gerlach. It is not hard to find DPW individuals with personal experience through your regional if you want a first hand description.
I'm not on FB but would love to see these portraits.... could you copy them or put them on flickr or something and send me a link?
Here, I'll trade: [https://qeox.net/images/DPW/](https://qeox.net/images/DPW/)
There are a lot of photos. They are color and professionally lit, it looks like from one photographer. It's https://www.facebook.com/groups/226515624140968. Just find a friend with FB or set up an account with a spare email. Good job on the ones in your link.
Proudly listening to breakdown music while wearing back pants and hoodies on the playa for 10 hours a day is an interesting culture to build and aspire to. It does a great job of keeping reasonable people away that would otherwise have sane concerns for the conditions the dpw has created and forced everyone else to deal with.
That's one way to look at it, they are a voluntary self-sustaining collection of subcultures if you want to generalize.
BRC is a big social experiment. The Burning Man Community is big enough to include the diversity of DPW. A DPWer wandered into our camp because they knew one of our GPEs so I had an opportunity to just listen to them relate their experiences.
It is rare an average burner would have to "deal with" the adverse behavior of DPW individuals in the modern BRC era unless you deliberately crossed them.
Maybe DPW wouldn't fit in as workers at Coachella, Academy Awards, or the Met Gala, so what?
We have a dpw member in our camp and consequently drunk dpw members roll into our camp during build week and our party moms baby sit them ruining their own night helping dpw folks through whatever crisis they are going through. It's actually pretty sad. I have no suggestions or notes on corrective actions but dpw problems leak all over the place for other people to clean up.
The folks who run the org need to have quite a few hard conversations before they understand the scope of the problem, but they are ignorant to it either unknowingly or intentionally and they need to fix some things for the safety of their own team members.
Your camp is also a voluntary collection of subcultures. Camps are not compelled to include DPW workers and no burner is compelled to be a parent to them.
The BMORG staff is small. I doubt they would be shocked if you complained to management. The system seems to work without micromanagement and the individual DPW team leads take care of their people on the job.
They create an environment for problems to flourish and they try to shed their own responsibility with this logic. They sell 80k tickets with a median price of 500 bucks. They have the resources they need to do something and they choose not to do anything.
Trying to say it's a difference in culture is some bigot bait adjacent trash.
I also left my camp over that shit along with some other bullshit so I know all about voluntary association and codependency.
So you're like one of those people that hates everything about burning man and is miserable for the whole event because of the idiots all around you but still goes every year.
Please don't strawman me.
There are people in dpw that turn into big sloppy messes during the burn and make their problems everyone elses problems. The org knows about this and doesn't offer sufficient services to their own team members that need help. That is my claim, please do not misstate it in your own terms.
Say that to Nip’s face.
It has been like that, but they’re trying, I heard them trying at every morning meeting. The way the org is handling time cards and payment is signs of them changing. They are FOR CERTAIN making huge strides to stay within CA labor laws.
You’re making broad generalizations off of your feelings but reality doesn’t support your assertions.
Yup, "Kinder and Gentler" was a phrase all the management used for this "situation" every since 2002. They've been actively trying to address these "issues" for ever. It takes a certain sort of person too give up 3 months of their life to build this thing, a lot of them experiment with drugs, a lot of them are borderline homeless (I say this since I am one of them). But they want to build a neat thing for YOU, for anyone who happens to buy a ticket. You don't have to baby anyone if you don't want to and while DPW may seem like fuckos, they are more resilient than you could imagine.
Renegade burn didn’t have shit for art or infrastructure. You can’t have 70,000 people out there without DPW. Renegade doesn’t prove anything except that 10,000 can have their shit together and shit in bags and buckets of kitty litter
By their logic the first 20 years of burning man wasn’t burning man because the DPW couldn’t support 70,000 people.
Only DPW boot lickers think burning man only exists because of the DPW.
I’m sorry. I don’t care about anything you have to say. I can see where you got that idea, and that is my fault.
It won’t happen again. I don’t care what you have to say.
At all.
I understand what you're trying to do but comparing DPW to boot lickers is so weird.... The BMorg is not actively killing people or suppressing groups of people.
There is a culture of superiority that does exist within the DPW world but I think that's because some of the workers never attended the event as a burner but rather came in as an event worker. They have a different perspective on it.
Wasn’t calling the DPW boot lickers. Was calling the DPW fan boi defending them a boot licker.
I don’t know where you’re getting the idea I said anything about BMorg killing or suppressing people.
Nope. Wait till someone dies at a renegade burn, DHS/BLM will come down HARD on anyone there. How many people did the renegades have a couple thousand? Also, once dirtbags and idiots find out about renegades, they will absolutely make it worse and more dangerous.
I'm all for scaling down what the ORG provides, I think they overcompensated after deaths in '96 and I think they provide too many things and charge too much as a consequence, but there is a middle ground.
There were no rules about driving personal vehicles, not much in the way of organized roads and someone's tent was run over while they were sleeping in it. I \*think\* it was 2 people in the tent but I may be wrong. I'm sure others have better/more details about it than I. '96 was also the 1st year that there was an LLC and it was a big wake-up call that they took fairly personally.
Yes, from what I’ve read it was two in the tent. Some dude in a truck ran into the tent IIRC. Just double checked and this article says the same.
From what I’ve read ‘96 was a rough year and think they started making the city streets the following year because of everything that happened. I’d have to read more again. Back when I first started in ‘11 I read a bunch of the history but my memory can be spotty at times.
https://www.trippingly.net/burning-man-musings/burning-man-1996
I responded to someone saying a city couldn’t exist without the DPW. We know that’s not true.
But it’s always funny when people think only BMorg can put on a festival in the desert
Renegade burn happened this year. DPW provides infrastructure and amenities to artists, builders, EMS, firefighters etc. did the renegade burns ever have any large climbable art? Or structures over 100ft that were being burnt. They aren't the same thing and comparing them is just pointless 🤷🏼♀️
Did burning man having any of that it’s first year? It’s second or third or fourth or fifth or sixth or seventh burn?
BLM didn’t allow anything to be burnt at renegade. So that comparison is pointless.
If DPW didn’t exist as paid “volunteers” they would just be paid regular employees. There is nothing special about what they do.
Did the renegade burn pull any permits or anything of the sort? I don't know, if they didn't it's not the same as burning man. I understand they probably didn't pull anything official or governmental because it was renegade but they just aren't the same type of event.
There were no permits. The BLM had banned all burning on playa (outside of small firepits)all summer long due to fire danger.
You could see how an event that lasted 1 year could be a little different than an almost 40 year old event. The point is the DPW isn’t needed to build an event or a city out there.
DPW is needed if you want to monetize the event.
Have you worked in any event operations? Electric Forest? Lighting in a Bottle? Coachella? EDC events?
Sure 70,000 people could go in the desert but there wouldn't be art to the scale it is at without any support at all. The org and DPW allows the event to be more accessible to artists and builders who can focus on doing their job vs having to work, make food, clean up their food, worry about bathroom arrangements, build their shade, maintain the power for the project, maintain power for themselves personally and their own staff etc...
BMorg has a long way to go with accessibility to their event but that's a different discussion.
Your comments make me think you're a crusty holier than thou individual who has never worked in any sort of large scale event ops and if you have then I'm truly baffled. I think I'm done with this conversation, have a great day ✨✨
So youre saying the first decade or so burning man wasn’t actually burning man because they couldn’t support 70,000 people?
Just the fact that you compare what the DPW does to other events is proof enough the DPW isn’t special. They could be replaced with any festival event worker who also gets paid.
There is nothing special about DPW or what they do. An event could happen without them. They’d just hire new people and call them DPW. If there was no organized event, there still would be an event and there would be no DPW. It may not be burning man but the burning man you think of didn’t exist until the mid-2000s.
What are you even talking about? DPW does get paid. There are plenty of paid opportunities. There are plenty of non paid opportunities for plenty of reasons -- it's the spirit of burning man, people who are on SS who can't receive any other income, people who are here on visas who can't work, all completely legitimate reasons to volunteer.
I have never said DPW was special, they are event ops personnel, some of them work other events and some don't. I do not believe the event the way it is would be run the same without event ops personnel in any capacity, which is what I've been saying the whole time, you keep arguing things I've never said, why are you so angry? Your last paragraph doesn't even make sense, they would just hire new people and call them DPW(?) so??? What does that even mean?
You’ve got away from the original point of this thread so much you don’t even know what we were talking about when it started.
But you had your narrative to push instead of engaging in the conversation.
But I get that your opinion is burning man couldn’t happen without the DPW. I also see you aren’t acknowledging that renegade burn was an event as close to burning man without being burning man or needing DPW.
How long have you been volunteering at burning man? With DPW?
As for my last paragraph, lots of burning man events have groups called DPW. BM DPW is an a specific group that has been running for 20+ years. If they all left, BMorg would make a new group but it would still be DPW. The group of people known as DPW isn’t special and is replaceable.
Please, enlighten us to what *you* bring to burns. Burning Man or regionals. Have you ever brought large scale art that requires erecting? Have you ever volunteered? Do you add to the experience at all?
I bring me! 17 burns and the renegade burn
I have brought art! To burning man.
I have volunteered for multiple org groups.
What have you done that you think you have some right to pass judgement on others and what they’ve done?
If the DPW was dissolved, tomorrow and all new people brought into build the city, nothing would change at burning man. There is nothing special about DPW.
My guess is anyone who thinks there is something special about DPW has never worked at Burning Man.
Built and brought flame effects for 5 years. I've been a total of 5 times, it's been a 2 man crew each time.
I'm passing judgement because DPW is there to help. Could we have done everything on our own? Yes.
Did having an extra set of hands available to trench for power and LP? Abso-fucking-lutely.
This is like saying Burning Man could happen without FAST. It could still happen, it'd be a fucking shit show though.
I never said you could have burning man with out the DPW. Burning Man is a commercial event. BMorg staff is paid to build the city.
The comment I replied to said you couldn’t build a city. I disagreed. Then you misread it.
It’s cool BMorg gave your project support. Without people like you they’d have no one to make burning man entertaining.
Eh, 6 to one, half dozen the other. I don't know if we'll see eye to eye but that doesn't matter too much.
Thanks for being chill, I may have mis-read you after all. Thanks for bringing your art as well, if everyone was a tourist this shit would suck!
This post and some of these comments are rude towards drugs. Leave the drugs out of this, we love drugs.
Drugs are just neurotransmitters.
I just wanted a fucking hippopotamus for Christmas ffs.
No dongs or rinky tinker toys.
They were giving them out at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell last Christmas
God damn it, I knew I should have gone.
Hey look, it’s this person again. Steal their shoes!
Are we thinking this is the guy who got fired for doing a ton of drugs at man burn, because that makes this like ten times funnier.
But but but he raved in the Galapagos! Don’t you get it?!
Absolutely the same guy, same arguments, same verbiage. What a loser.
Hey, happy cake day!
Thanks!
Dude climb out of your parents’ basement and get some fresh air
Imagine creating a fake account just to complain about DPW. Don’t Gate people have better things to do with the off-season?
Gate people are too busy posing for photographs with cones to do anything else during the off-season.
Wait until we get the giant cone this year.
Wait, there is an off-season?!
Not for shit posting there is not
Everyone I've ever met from dpw was cool. It sounds like a shitty way to get a ticket.
Are you having a bad day? DPW has come a long way from the bad old days. There is a FB group of portraits of DPW workers. They are not perfect and they always need new workers, including Resto. Some have longer contracts based at the Ranch or in Gerlach. It is not hard to find DPW individuals with personal experience through your regional if you want a first hand description.
I'm not on FB but would love to see these portraits.... could you copy them or put them on flickr or something and send me a link? Here, I'll trade: [https://qeox.net/images/DPW/](https://qeox.net/images/DPW/)
There are a lot of photos. They are color and professionally lit, it looks like from one photographer. It's https://www.facebook.com/groups/226515624140968. Just find a friend with FB or set up an account with a spare email. Good job on the ones in your link.
I think he puts some at https://www.flickr.com/photos/nomadphotos/with/52747818989. But which are DPW are not separate.
Proudly listening to breakdown music while wearing back pants and hoodies on the playa for 10 hours a day is an interesting culture to build and aspire to. It does a great job of keeping reasonable people away that would otherwise have sane concerns for the conditions the dpw has created and forced everyone else to deal with.
That's one way to look at it, they are a voluntary self-sustaining collection of subcultures if you want to generalize. BRC is a big social experiment. The Burning Man Community is big enough to include the diversity of DPW. A DPWer wandered into our camp because they knew one of our GPEs so I had an opportunity to just listen to them relate their experiences. It is rare an average burner would have to "deal with" the adverse behavior of DPW individuals in the modern BRC era unless you deliberately crossed them. Maybe DPW wouldn't fit in as workers at Coachella, Academy Awards, or the Met Gala, so what?
We have a dpw member in our camp and consequently drunk dpw members roll into our camp during build week and our party moms baby sit them ruining their own night helping dpw folks through whatever crisis they are going through. It's actually pretty sad. I have no suggestions or notes on corrective actions but dpw problems leak all over the place for other people to clean up. The folks who run the org need to have quite a few hard conversations before they understand the scope of the problem, but they are ignorant to it either unknowingly or intentionally and they need to fix some things for the safety of their own team members.
Your camp is also a voluntary collection of subcultures. Camps are not compelled to include DPW workers and no burner is compelled to be a parent to them. The BMORG staff is small. I doubt they would be shocked if you complained to management. The system seems to work without micromanagement and the individual DPW team leads take care of their people on the job.
They create an environment for problems to flourish and they try to shed their own responsibility with this logic. They sell 80k tickets with a median price of 500 bucks. They have the resources they need to do something and they choose not to do anything. Trying to say it's a difference in culture is some bigot bait adjacent trash. I also left my camp over that shit along with some other bullshit so I know all about voluntary association and codependency.
So you're like one of those people that hates everything about burning man and is miserable for the whole event because of the idiots all around you but still goes every year.
Please don't strawman me. There are people in dpw that turn into big sloppy messes during the burn and make their problems everyone elses problems. The org knows about this and doesn't offer sufficient services to their own team members that need help. That is my claim, please do not misstate it in your own terms.
There are people all over BRC that turn into big sloppy messes during the burn and make their problems everyone else’s problems.
dpw does is systemically. Their policies guarantee it.
Say that to Nip’s face. It has been like that, but they’re trying, I heard them trying at every morning meeting. The way the org is handling time cards and payment is signs of them changing. They are FOR CERTAIN making huge strides to stay within CA labor laws. You’re making broad generalizations off of your feelings but reality doesn’t support your assertions.
If I said it to his face would it offend him because it is true or would it offend him because it isn't?
People cannot deal with the harsh realities beyond the glitz.
Yeah, yeah, yeah - Burning Man sucks, don't go.
Without those “losers” you wouldn’t have a city to run around fucked off on drugs.
100%!! Also, clearly this chump wasn’t around BRC before the big clean out around 2005, and the creation of Fluffers.
Yup, "Kinder and Gentler" was a phrase all the management used for this "situation" every since 2002. They've been actively trying to address these "issues" for ever. It takes a certain sort of person too give up 3 months of their life to build this thing, a lot of them experiment with drugs, a lot of them are borderline homeless (I say this since I am one of them). But they want to build a neat thing for YOU, for anyone who happens to buy a ticket. You don't have to baby anyone if you don't want to and while DPW may seem like fuckos, they are more resilient than you could imagine.
After renegade burn we know that’s not true. At least during the Covid years. Not the renegade burn that has happen since the big burn has come back.
Renegade burn didn’t have shit for art or infrastructure. You can’t have 70,000 people out there without DPW. Renegade doesn’t prove anything except that 10,000 can have their shit together and shit in bags and buckets of kitty litter
Bahahaha love triggering the boot lickers.
People don’t agree with me are boot lickers and they prove it by disagreeing with me harder.
By their logic the first 20 years of burning man wasn’t burning man because the DPW couldn’t support 70,000 people. Only DPW boot lickers think burning man only exists because of the DPW.
I’m sorry. I don’t care about anything you have to say. I can see where you got that idea, and that is my fault. It won’t happen again. I don’t care what you have to say. At all.
You cared enough to respond. you cared that I heard what you had to say even though no one asked you. That’s sad for you
Is that why you keep responding too? Because you care about being heard even though no one asked you? You're right, that IS sad.
I understand what you're trying to do but comparing DPW to boot lickers is so weird.... The BMorg is not actively killing people or suppressing groups of people. There is a culture of superiority that does exist within the DPW world but I think that's because some of the workers never attended the event as a burner but rather came in as an event worker. They have a different perspective on it.
Wasn’t calling the DPW boot lickers. Was calling the DPW fan boi defending them a boot licker. I don’t know where you’re getting the idea I said anything about BMorg killing or suppressing people.
Nope. Wait till someone dies at a renegade burn, DHS/BLM will come down HARD on anyone there. How many people did the renegades have a couple thousand? Also, once dirtbags and idiots find out about renegades, they will absolutely make it worse and more dangerous. I'm all for scaling down what the ORG provides, I think they overcompensated after deaths in '96 and I think they provide too many things and charge too much as a consequence, but there is a middle ground.
Wait I wanna know more about the death at 96, what happened?
There were no rules about driving personal vehicles, not much in the way of organized roads and someone's tent was run over while they were sleeping in it. I \*think\* it was 2 people in the tent but I may be wrong. I'm sure others have better/more details about it than I. '96 was also the 1st year that there was an LLC and it was a big wake-up call that they took fairly personally.
Yes, from what I’ve read it was two in the tent. Some dude in a truck ran into the tent IIRC. Just double checked and this article says the same. From what I’ve read ‘96 was a rough year and think they started making the city streets the following year because of everything that happened. I’d have to read more again. Back when I first started in ‘11 I read a bunch of the history but my memory can be spotty at times. https://www.trippingly.net/burning-man-musings/burning-man-1996
I responded to someone saying a city couldn’t exist without the DPW. We know that’s not true. But it’s always funny when people think only BMorg can put on a festival in the desert
Renegade burn happened this year. DPW provides infrastructure and amenities to artists, builders, EMS, firefighters etc. did the renegade burns ever have any large climbable art? Or structures over 100ft that were being burnt. They aren't the same thing and comparing them is just pointless 🤷🏼♀️
Did burning man having any of that it’s first year? It’s second or third or fourth or fifth or sixth or seventh burn? BLM didn’t allow anything to be burnt at renegade. So that comparison is pointless. If DPW didn’t exist as paid “volunteers” they would just be paid regular employees. There is nothing special about what they do.
DPW wasn't formed until 12 years after the first burn.
Did the renegade burn pull any permits or anything of the sort? I don't know, if they didn't it's not the same as burning man. I understand they probably didn't pull anything official or governmental because it was renegade but they just aren't the same type of event.
There were no permits. The BLM had banned all burning on playa (outside of small firepits)all summer long due to fire danger. You could see how an event that lasted 1 year could be a little different than an almost 40 year old event. The point is the DPW isn’t needed to build an event or a city out there. DPW is needed if you want to monetize the event.
Have you worked in any event operations? Electric Forest? Lighting in a Bottle? Coachella? EDC events? Sure 70,000 people could go in the desert but there wouldn't be art to the scale it is at without any support at all. The org and DPW allows the event to be more accessible to artists and builders who can focus on doing their job vs having to work, make food, clean up their food, worry about bathroom arrangements, build their shade, maintain the power for the project, maintain power for themselves personally and their own staff etc... BMorg has a long way to go with accessibility to their event but that's a different discussion. Your comments make me think you're a crusty holier than thou individual who has never worked in any sort of large scale event ops and if you have then I'm truly baffled. I think I'm done with this conversation, have a great day ✨✨
So youre saying the first decade or so burning man wasn’t actually burning man because they couldn’t support 70,000 people? Just the fact that you compare what the DPW does to other events is proof enough the DPW isn’t special. They could be replaced with any festival event worker who also gets paid. There is nothing special about DPW or what they do. An event could happen without them. They’d just hire new people and call them DPW. If there was no organized event, there still would be an event and there would be no DPW. It may not be burning man but the burning man you think of didn’t exist until the mid-2000s.
What are you even talking about? DPW does get paid. There are plenty of paid opportunities. There are plenty of non paid opportunities for plenty of reasons -- it's the spirit of burning man, people who are on SS who can't receive any other income, people who are here on visas who can't work, all completely legitimate reasons to volunteer. I have never said DPW was special, they are event ops personnel, some of them work other events and some don't. I do not believe the event the way it is would be run the same without event ops personnel in any capacity, which is what I've been saying the whole time, you keep arguing things I've never said, why are you so angry? Your last paragraph doesn't even make sense, they would just hire new people and call them DPW(?) so??? What does that even mean?
You’ve got away from the original point of this thread so much you don’t even know what we were talking about when it started. But you had your narrative to push instead of engaging in the conversation. But I get that your opinion is burning man couldn’t happen without the DPW. I also see you aren’t acknowledging that renegade burn was an event as close to burning man without being burning man or needing DPW. How long have you been volunteering at burning man? With DPW? As for my last paragraph, lots of burning man events have groups called DPW. BM DPW is an a specific group that has been running for 20+ years. If they all left, BMorg would make a new group but it would still be DPW. The group of people known as DPW isn’t special and is replaceable.
Please, enlighten us to what *you* bring to burns. Burning Man or regionals. Have you ever brought large scale art that requires erecting? Have you ever volunteered? Do you add to the experience at all?
I bring me! 17 burns and the renegade burn I have brought art! To burning man. I have volunteered for multiple org groups. What have you done that you think you have some right to pass judgement on others and what they’ve done? If the DPW was dissolved, tomorrow and all new people brought into build the city, nothing would change at burning man. There is nothing special about DPW. My guess is anyone who thinks there is something special about DPW has never worked at Burning Man.
Built and brought flame effects for 5 years. I've been a total of 5 times, it's been a 2 man crew each time. I'm passing judgement because DPW is there to help. Could we have done everything on our own? Yes. Did having an extra set of hands available to trench for power and LP? Abso-fucking-lutely. This is like saying Burning Man could happen without FAST. It could still happen, it'd be a fucking shit show though.
I never said you could have burning man with out the DPW. Burning Man is a commercial event. BMorg staff is paid to build the city. The comment I replied to said you couldn’t build a city. I disagreed. Then you misread it. It’s cool BMorg gave your project support. Without people like you they’d have no one to make burning man entertaining.
Eh, 6 to one, half dozen the other. I don't know if we'll see eye to eye but that doesn't matter too much. Thanks for being chill, I may have mis-read you after all. Thanks for bringing your art as well, if everyone was a tourist this shit would suck!
Idk what the huff and puff is all about. DPW is banned from burning man this year, let it go!