SaveBRC.org

[DaBomb]

During the Spring and Summer of 2005, in the days leading up to the Burning Man Festival, the Discovery Channel/New York Times struck a deal with BMorg to film a reality TV show during the event for an undisclosed fee. We find this fee and the resulting advertising revenue generated from this program to be the gross antithesis of the "10 Principles" as set by BMorg, particularly principle #3 "Decommodification" which states: "our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising."

To find out more about this issue and what you can do, visit: http://www.savebrc.org

"People carry on as if television sets were entities of evil or as if reporters and producers of programming were members of some sinister conspiracy, but why blame them? Our real problem is that these communication tools are used for certain economic purposes. TV is the worst offender. It isolates people and turns them into passive consumers...." -- Larry Harvey

[GrumpyOldBastard]

//snip// We find this fee and the resulting etc...//snip//

"we" who? you pregnant? heh.

i like the media presence at BM. i think there should be more of it! one day, the History Channel will be doing a piece on us....

[Chai Guy]

"We" would be Da Bomb, Lecter, myself, and the several hundred people that have expressed their discontent via the savebrc.org website.

I find it amusing that people will point to savebrc.org's use of "we" and "community" as pejorative, but no one seems to mind when the LLC does the same.

[Flamingo]

Seems this site is getting all the same rehashed topics that have been run into the ground at ePlaya and Tribe.

[Chai Guy]

Looks like it's time for you to bust out with the fresh material then!

[Flamingo]

How bout a really out there thread like how great BM is and how the org does an incredible job running an event that size?

[Chai Guy]

Sounds like a great thread for you to start. I wave my magic wand of the "Do-ocracy" and empower you to do so.


you do know that anybody can start a thread around here, right??

[Flamingo]

Yea but it's so much more fun to hi-jack one.

[Chai Guy]

Even more fun when you can actually begin to provide content.

[Flamingo]

Having spent over 20 years working as an event coordinater one of my biggest thrills when I decided to go to BM for the first time in 2003 was seeing how they pulled off an event this size and magnitude. I have done some fairly large events in my day but one this size.... just the thought amazed me and amazed I was.

To put together a city from nothing in the middle of the desert and then to leave it as it was afterwards is an amazing feat in and of itself but then to also make it run for the week as smoothly as it does, simply incredible.

My hats go off to you all at the .ORG and to all those who volunteer to make to make it run.

[DaBomb]

My hats go off to you all at the .ORG and to all those who volunteer to make to make it run.

As a volunteer for BM, I not only second your gratititude to the BMorg, I also cheerfully accept your thanks to volunteers. In the past my response to such thanks has always been "We do it all for you!" (By that I mean we do it for the community of BRC.)

According to the website: "Burning Man is a 100% participant sponsored, participant created event. We often like to say there are no spectators at Burning Man." It is indeed a concentrated, collaborative effort between BMorg and it's volunteers to raise the man and then burn him. According to Larry Harvey, the volunteerism rate for BRC is 40%.

That's pretty amazing. I myself have been a volunteer for BRC of many years. So I simply want to understand when, in the BM mission statement it says: participant support before sponsorship.

I'm having trouble coming to terms with the above referenced statement when undisclosed fees by major corporations are accepted for the privilege to film the event. When cruise lines are promoted over regional events in official BM announcements.

[Flamingo]

"participant support before sponsorship."

This doesn't exclude sponsorship.

[Chai Guy]

The way I'm reading that one Flamingo is

"We want you (meaning you the participant) to help by volunteering, more than we want your money."

Bmorg is pretty clear about CORPORATE sponsorship:

Decommodification
In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.

From Bmorg's "10 Principles"
http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/about_burningman/principles.html

[Artzilla]

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtin ….”:eek: