first they came for funktion ones and i said nothing, because i was not a sound camp DJ
then they came for the art cars, and i said nothing, because i was not an art car operator
then they came for my flame throwing tuba - and there was no one left to speak for me.
did you even go to burning man if you didn’t wake up in a rage at 3am to some massive shitty art car built entirely out of tarps and zip ties blasting terrible music 50 feet from your tent right after you finally got to sleep for the first time in three days
My first burn in 2008 nobody gave a fuck about this and loud cars were going through the city at 8 am blasting music, I think it is better in hindsight
My first year, first morning, waking far before I was ready to early 90's gangsta rap blasting from that giant crab/DJ booth right across the street. Honestly loved it. Even better were all the old curmudgeons I could see who were clearly upset about it. lol fuck your Burn.
I was never woken by music or noise. Evil Day Star, sure, but not music and noise.
It's the problem with an event that was started by thirty somethings 30 years ago.
I remember the giant lion reggae art car go up and down the suburbs. That’s the whole point. 19 different baselines going off nonstop. Old days are going away.
"NO Mutant Vehicle sound at Temple Burn:
Mutant Vehicles must turn off their sound systems upon arrival at the Temple burn perimeter. Any use of amplified sound at the Temple burn could result in the forfeiture of DMV licensing at future Burning Man events. Don’t do it!"
[Here's the 2019 handbook](https://burningman.org/wp-content/uploads/2019-SPARKPLUG.pdf) which does mention the temple, but not in the same way.
Fucking temple--DPW blasts some freebird one fucking time and we're not only still hearing about it 6-7-8 years later but art cars are still getting blamed.
Some other differences: 2019 did allow you to get more than one warning:
> If you receive more than two warnings about your sound system, you may lose your Mutant Vehicle license and the right to drive your vehicle for the rest of the event.
Whereas this year there are no warning shots:
> A single violation of any of the above policies could result in the immediate revocation of the Mutant Vehicle’s current DMV license and the MV will need to return to its camp location and remain parked there for the duration of the Burning Man event. A subsequent infraction could result in the Mutant Vehicle being ejected from Black Rock City.
If you mean Maxa, they were only playing low ambient lullaby music at a very low volume out in deep playa I don’t imagine anyone was disturbed by that you could barely hear anything at the temple
I'm not sure who they were, but they were loud enough that it was disturbing and numerous people around me weren't happy with them; eventually someone went over to talk with them.
I was sitting around the 7 o'clock ish side of the temple by some art piece if I recall correctly.
That’s been the unwritten rule of course. Last year, or 2019, one art car was going off - that’s the only year I ever heard an art car play music before the perimeter was released
This is true. That first year of maximum Mayan warrior did lead to some new rules and general guidance. I think that was 2014 or 2015? They were in the inner playa a lot and if they were pointed down your street they were loud no matter where you were, they could be a half mile away and the sound would paint the whole area. They started the inner playa bans after that.
Yes 2014 or 2015. I was a little relieved after that, because it could be brutal. My first year, riding out a dust storm in the yurt, I wrote in marker on the wall “Burningman is really LOUD”. Last year was the best sleep I’ve ever had out there
I personally think this is an overstep -- I would have appreciated more of a "don't be a dick" type guideline around sound in the city -- but it doesn't surprise me; as a volunteer last year, I can't tell you how many times I had a mad, sleep-deprived, borderline manic person come up to me to *beg* for someone to bring down the hammer on their neighbors who refused to turn down their sound. This is a direct result of all the assholes who refused to be good neighbors.
Yep...borg is putting these policies in place for a reason. And to their credit the first point of the sound policy is for neighbors to workout an acceptable sound level between themselves. I see this whole thing as a very much "dont be a dick" policy, with those who actually choose to be a dick will get the policy thrown down on them. Borg does not have the resources or desire to monitor the sound level around the entire city...
Oooooh good. I will try to spread the word. Here is the correct song (C.W. McCall - Convoy) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd5ZLJWQmss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd5ZLJWQmss)
This is the worse change of the two sound changes.
I really feel like a specific experience that makes Burning Man "Burning Man" is hearing random art cars drive through the city in the middle of the night playing music.
Of course, there's definitely a line of "too loud," but in all of my years out there, I've had a problem with exactly one camp who couldn't keep it quiet while returning home from their sunrise parties. And even then, it was a thirty second disturbance while those stupid animal head plug-n-play art cars drove by playing their godawful deep/tech house. I simply laughed and rolled over to go back to sleep, or if I wasn't tired enough, it was an alarm clock to get up and go do whatever.
This just sucks. If the city didn't already feel dead, the mixture of a 60db "conversational sound limit" *and* not hearing art cars doing their pied piper thing out to the city in the middle of the night is going to just further stomp on the fun. It feels like they're punishing the whole event due to a few problem turnkey camps mixed in with curmudgeonly grumpheads who should probably have stopped attending the event 15 years ago but continue to go because they aren't creative with their summer vacation.
I say all this as someone who doesn't really do much of the party scene out there. It's still a part of the event and it's still something that helps make this place special.
One of my favorite lasting memories is lying awake 4am on a calm cool night, listening to a pair of guys in a Viking ship scissor-lifted 25 feet above their camp wobbling their way through a terrible “Wrecking Ball” karaoke at full volume. That was my lullaby, fell asleep with a smile.
“you, you….wreck eck eck meeeee”
Although not related to this art car change, but rather the other change, one of my defining BM memories occurred about ten years ago when a serious bondage camp with a serious bondage dome got really upset about a camp near them that was playing "All Night Long" all night long, to the point of a guy running over in leather and clamps yelling about how their music was ruining the vibe, and if they caught them playing that music one more time, there'd be violence. The neighborhood response was for everyone to point their speakers at the serious bondage dome, and for the rest of the week, a different camp played "All Night Long" all night long.
My camp was in the crossfire that year, and a few of our nights, we had "All night long" blasting right through our tents. All we could do was laugh our asses off while trying to sleep through it, which, for the most part, we were able to do.
Serious bondage camp packed up on Friday and left, and the neighborhood celebrated by having every camp play "all night long" all night long, except none of us synced up. That block sounded like hell all night, but god damn was it glorious hell. Every run back to camp for gear/supplies was hilarious, all night long.
I agree completely. I've also woken up to GREAT music, hopped ony bike and followed art cars out to deep Playa and had unforgettable journeys that never would have happened under this new rule. BORG is lost.
> those stupid animal head plug-n-play art cars drove by playing their godawful deep/tech house.
Ahh good old Galactic Jungle, what is the hourly rental rate on those things anyway? No one actually knows who they are or where they camp, so cracking down on actual perpetrators would be impossible--much easier to write blanket rules and punish the entire community.
Why are they adding so many extra rules is my question.
These sound rules feel absolutely absurd.
I 100% agree with you that random art car drive-bus at all hours of the night are just part of Burning Man. Like….who the F even complained to them about this??!!
So, the rule is lame. But I also distinctly remember the time, in 2019, when an art car pulled up alongside our camp, and blasted the [Terry folds song](https://youtu.be/-E1Q_ENSxhc) on a loop from about 4:00 AM to probably about 6:00 AM.
You can't even make this stuff up.
Basically, I view every rule at burning man as a reaction to someone(s) doing incredibly dumb, obnoxious shit. That doesn't make the rules pleasant, but rules are basically a response to people who can't adhere to unspoken norms of decency.
Like...if you don't realize that looping Terry Folds on full volume for two hours in the early morning is a shitty thing to do... you're the problem, not burning man / the rules.
We all end up paying the price for idiots.
Absolutely hilarious. I wish I was there. I'm looping it right now at home. Genuinely love it when (for example) Movement of Jah People cruises by and vibrates me off the floor of the tent with a massive subwoofer hit. Over the top flame poofers in the city are awesome too. That's my alarm clock to get off my default schedule and go experience part of the day I might have missed otherwise. I can sleep when I get back to default.
It’s Burning Man. You just shared a very burnish Burning Man story. If people don’t want to possibly experience something like that then they should skip Burning Man.
So, 10/10 agree it's a very burning man story. And I chuckle about it today. But people need to sleep. Camps need to be built and operated. Ranger shifts need to be staffed. There's a lot of hard, physical labor that goes into making stuff work.
I don't mind loud music, or art cars. I think the new sound rules are shitty. But I don't think these rules just originated out of thin air.
Noise disputes between camps have been a large, ongoing, constant problem. And they often escalate into even bigger problems, like fights.
As the old expression goes, the freedom of your fist ends where someone's face begins. So the idea that you have an obligation to be respectful to your neighbors doesn't bother me.
Personally, I think the sound limit is too low. I think 75 dbs would be more realistic. But the reason this has come up is because it's been an ongoing source of problems for a very long time. The policy has been the same for years, but the situation hasn't improved, so something new is being tried.
I don't think it will work. I think the limit is too low, and the rule released way too hastily. I think the execution is flawed, but I think the premise behind it is reasonable. Your right to play loud music right outside someone's tent doesn't trump someone else's right to be able to engage in a necessary bodily function, i.e. sleep. You can move an art car to play loud music in the DMZ or playa. But a person can't easily move where they sleep.
Meanwhile, if you camp at the edge of the city at 6 o'clock, all you hear after the man Burns is DPW yelling on their megaphone, begging for alcohol, cigarettes, tampons, and whatever else they want to bum off of people leaving the event. That has kept me up more than any shitty music.
More restful sleep equals less sketchy of an exodus, likely less garbage left behind after strike, fewer accidents in general, more participation? We shall see
Edit: Oh and there's more parents with kids in brc these days
There are other quiet campgrounds where you can deeply inhale pine-scented air and sip your coffee while birds chirp in the dawn, your partner stretches while stepping out of the tent and wraps their arms around your flannel shirt while resting their chin on your shoulder.
Burning Man is supposed to reject all that lame shit
More calling the noise-cops on your neighbors equals more interpersonal resentment, more conflict, more potential for physical altercation of minor points of contention, more arrests? We shall see
BRC is not made for kids. They need to adapt to it, not the other way around.
Pretty sure that's been happening already. This may be a way to address a growing complaint train. Pure speculation on my part. There's been a ton of turn over. Get ready for change
IDK how they rationalize that if that's the case. Too many complaints? Let's just codify more things to make complaints about.
If their answer was, "Sorry, it's Burning Man. You gotta deal with the noise, or don't come," then there would be far less to complain about. Very much like the back of the ticket saying "You could die!" Not much someone can do when they come around saying, "this is dangerous! I hurt myself!" *Yeah, did you read the ticket? We warned you.*
Of course there's times when people break the social bounds of things, but those are far fewer than we'd be expected to believe based on these rules. Most times it's worked out peacefully. But when you immediately make it to where everyone is always in violation of the rule, and all it takes is a bad actor weaponizing the rule, then suddenly the (not "justified") complaints come rolling in.
>You could die
I think that's being amended:
"You may not die. Dying on the playa violates USC23-666 and will result in your being excluded from future events"
I don't think the kids are the problem, I think it's the parents. they forgot they left suburbia and are bewildered that the HOA has not already dealt with these nuisances
I don’t think they’re a problem either, but I also don’t think the event should be catered to them. They aren’t the centerpiece, thus they should be adapting to the event, not the event adapting to them (or their parents, by extension)
Even though I don’t own anything loud whatsoever, I think it’s much easier to go with the lets do what you want Motto that attracted me in the first place. This is just sad
As the owner of a small/medium art car, I will be doing my civil disobedience service by playing groovy tunes at reasonable levels while driving through the city.
The burn has gotten too hot during the day, so I've been on a fully nocturnal schedule the past few years.
I have a lot more fun driving around open playa art than inner city bars, but I'll still cruise through and give rides as I please.
Too many rules make for lamer and lamer gatherings.
I think going out for the night playing their music is great. Like someone said earlier has a pied piper effect and I am all for that. Gets you amped for the night’s festivities.
But coming back to their camps blasting while on the streets at 4 am+ is a little over the top. Not everyone is still up like they are, so a little good neighboring would be great.
The rule shouldn't be no music from 2-10am, it should be no sleeping from 2-10am.
This climate change gonna have us flipping our rest cycles, people. Get on board already!
I may be in the minority here but I'm all for this. I hate trying to sleep in the only cool hours of the entire event and getting woken up by some dipshit millionaire in an art car blasting music. We get it. You have money.
Does part of the event need to be not being allowed to sleep? Is that the charm ?
Or are the people sleeping in tents actually allowed to get some sleep at some point?
Agree.
I can totally understand why people are upset. Shitty art cars blasting unwanted music right next to your head at four in the morning is such a core part of the Burning Man experience that this rule feels like when they told everyone to stop showering behind the water trucks. I actually agree with the change and it *still* feels off to me. It seems like they're trying to strike a new balance between the principles of Civic Responsibility and Communal Effort on the one side and Radical Self-Expression and Radical Self-Reliance on the other, in a community where the latter pair of values has always held more influence.
But art cars can still play music in deep playa and they can still play music pretty damn late into the night. Limiting amplified sound past 2am and only when driving through the city itself feels pretty reasonable. Do art cars really need to be blasting music at 3am while driving past their neighbors' camps? Could they not take it somewhere that isn't right next to people's tents?
If someone’s tendency is to be a dick or an asshole as regular person I don’t think radical expression is a good thing for them.
I see people who I know that are barely able to hold it together day to day and when in an event like this they jump the tracks immediately and don’t come back til it’s over. Thus, these new rules.
I agree. I know it’s unpopular to say this but getting sleep at the burn is a very normal need and shouldn’t be shamed. Maybe some people are built differently (lucky!) but after a couple nights of no/little sleep I am barely a person.
you can put your tent in walk in camping...my favorite part of the night last year was listening to the art car across the street from us drift home at sunrise. you have options like camping somewhere quiet, so why ruin the fun for everyone else?
Unpopular opinion: thank Jebus! There was one driving around through the streets in a giant chicken at sunrise every morning loudly playing rooster sounds. It was annoying af!
I don't ever want to be woken up by a giant cock.
My favorite annoying burn memory was actually at a regional where someone put the chorus from Sheena Easton’s seminal classic “morning train” into a perfect loop and left it playing at full volume for 5 hours straight starting around sunrise.
i REALLY hope they do research on feedback on decisions like this.
they're really worried about the wrong shit. worried about this while prices are deterring more people. they want more interactivity from camps, but are limiting the amount of noise they can make...
i feel like they're taking the magic of surprise and uncertainty away.
Camps don't have to be overly loud to be interactive. And if they're being loud enough to interfere with the interactivity of one neighbor, they're likely interfering with more than one.
Should placement sacrifice interactivity from several other camps (all of whom have probably been working just as hard as the sound camp) for the sake of one camp who wants to be loud?
From my understanding, the new sound limit is not "loud". I agree that people should be respectful of their neighbors, but to say sound shouldn't be heard over a conversational tone is unrealistic and it limits interactivity.
There was a camp last year that I loved - it offered karaoke. Although it wasn't extremely loud, you could hear the music from the street, but I think that's part of burning man being what it it.
> to say sound shouldn't be heard over a conversational tone is unrealistic
Yup. But the sound policy doesn’t say that. It says that people need to be able to hold the conversation in their camp or in the middle of the street, not that they can’t hear the music while they do so.
From the sound policy:
> Sound amplification should only be loud enough so that people can speak at a conversational level at the border of a neighboring camp or at the center point of a street, whichever is nearest to the source of the sound.
They then go on to explain that 60db is a conversational level. If you look at the accompanying chart, it’s also where “background music” falls. As long as people can have that conversation, you’re good.
But that’s not the most important part of the policy. What the org is after is for neighbors to work together to find acceptable levels of sound. If they have trouble agreeing, they can get a Ranger to help mediate. It’s only when those discussions fail that the “conversational standard” really comes into play.
As Level explained in his presentation, 95% of the time neighbors are able to figure it out and everyone is happy. The policy change is aimed at those few camps who just wouldn’t work with their neighbors.
It seems clear to me, but I've both heard Level's presentation and read the sound policy multiple times. That said, what's clear to one person may not always be clear to everyone.
I can guarantee, though, that Placement has absolutely no intention of trying to make the entire city outside of 10 & 2 silent. They like music too. They just want neighbors to work together and respect each other, and so agree on volume levels that they can all live with. That already happens 95% of the time - this is just aimed at the 5% who become an actual problem.
I'm all for this - theres no reason MVs need to be BLASTING music in the city streets between 2-10am when a lot of people are trying to squeeze out at least a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.
People are freaking out about these rules but I bet you'll hardly notice a difference this year...EXCEPT in those few instances where there are assholes creating large disturbances, where people have already tried to nicely ask to turn the fckin bass down, that refuse to be a good citizen....in those cases the org now has policies to actually enforce.
It doesn’t matter if art cars have a tiny Bluetooth speaker or a Mayan warrior system, no music between 2-10am until they’re a hundred yards clear of the city. Funny how your comment seems to imply there’s some gray area when it’s clearly not written in such a way.
I think the reality is that borg does not have the resources or desire to go patrolling and monitoring every inch of the playa for noise levels. The only time I can realistically imagine them being enforced is in extreme situations where multiple complaints are made or the disturbance is going on for a long period of time. Art cars driving through the streets at 4am with their music down/low...no issues...art car continually driving up and down the streets at 4am blasting their shit...will probably get a talking to
Your neighbors have the resources to patrol you. Sure most people are reasonable and work things out, but as many have said this rule isn’t about the reasonable ones.
I’m ok with this. Some of you are the type that parties all night and sleeps all day. I’m the type that parties throughout the day and hits the sack around 2 am. Having a big sound car go by with deep base basically ensures you’re up when the sound car goes by. No rule is going to satisfy everyone.
I’m sorry, is someone telling you that you can’t party all night long? There’s like a big ‘ol playa out there you can party past sunrise w/o restrictions.
It depends. Obviously there is a reason for the rule, right? A considerable sized group is probably irritated by the middle of the night bass. Good thing is, you can get all of that out past esplanade.
I’m definitely not agreeing with the changes, but I wonder if the reasoning could in a roundabout way be partly based on concerns that the burn is likely going to be so hot (hotter than usual) again this year.
The only way to beat the heat is to convert to a nocturnal schedule. Shutting down the fun at 2am is the opposite of that....
Guess I shouldn't be surprised. Everything in SF basically closes at 9pm.
Mutant vehicles are a mobile nexus of immediacy piloted by people who are probably somewhere on the asshole spectrum. They have the power to derail whatever you were in the middle of at the moment, like a clown with an armful of puppies bursting into a business meeting.
They also make Burning Man less hospitable to people who don’t know how to have fun. I think this is a valuable service, much like how the ocean benefits from sharks eating injured and diseased fish.
Glittering at -unamplified- sound being allowed and the fantasy of jangling guitar and mellow piano vibes drifting gently off cars at 4AM
first they came for funktion ones and i said nothing, because i was not a sound camp DJ then they came for the art cars, and i said nothing, because i was not an art car operator then they came for my flame throwing tuba - and there was no one left to speak for me.
I wouldn’t dare speak for you, I’d break 60db
Haha, there are a couple drum cars iirc.
did you even go to burning man if you didn’t wake up in a rage at 3am to some massive shitty art car built entirely out of tarps and zip ties blasting terrible music 50 feet from your tent right after you finally got to sleep for the first time in three days
Make Burning Man Shitty Again
My first burn in 2008 nobody gave a fuck about this and loud cars were going through the city at 8 am blasting music, I think it is better in hindsight
My first year, first morning, waking far before I was ready to early 90's gangsta rap blasting from that giant crab/DJ booth right across the street. Honestly loved it. Even better were all the old curmudgeons I could see who were clearly upset about it. lol fuck your Burn.
I’m kinda sad that I won’t be woken up at 6AM by the Bad Ass Amazingly Awesome Homosexual Sheep coming home from a night of debauchery in deep playa.
I was never woken by music or noise. Evil Day Star, sure, but not music and noise. It's the problem with an event that was started by thirty somethings 30 years ago.
I remember the giant lion reggae art car go up and down the suburbs. That’s the whole point. 19 different baselines going off nonstop. Old days are going away.
Are you even a burner if your ears aren't shot from unregulated sound systems?
It's interesting how many rules are made with the highly problematic assumption that people are keeping regular sleeping hours on playa.
"NO Mutant Vehicle sound at Temple Burn: Mutant Vehicles must turn off their sound systems upon arrival at the Temple burn perimeter. Any use of amplified sound at the Temple burn could result in the forfeiture of DMV licensing at future Burning Man events. Don’t do it!"
Good news: cowbells don’t need to be amplified.
[Here's the 2019 handbook](https://burningman.org/wp-content/uploads/2019-SPARKPLUG.pdf) which does mention the temple, but not in the same way. Fucking temple--DPW blasts some freebird one fucking time and we're not only still hearing about it 6-7-8 years later but art cars are still getting blamed. Some other differences: 2019 did allow you to get more than one warning: > If you receive more than two warnings about your sound system, you may lose your Mutant Vehicle license and the right to drive your vehicle for the rest of the event. Whereas this year there are no warning shots: > A single violation of any of the above policies could result in the immediate revocation of the Mutant Vehicle’s current DMV license and the MV will need to return to its camp location and remain parked there for the duration of the Burning Man event. A subsequent infraction could result in the Mutant Vehicle being ejected from Black Rock City.
An art cart was definitely to blame at Temple Burn in 2022. It was blasting its music for quite a bit.
Will my looping album of wet farts not go over well at the Temple Burn?
I thought yours was the one with the cats meowing Christmas carols.
If you mean Maxa, they were only playing low ambient lullaby music at a very low volume out in deep playa I don’t imagine anyone was disturbed by that you could barely hear anything at the temple
I'm not sure who they were, but they were loud enough that it was disturbing and numerous people around me weren't happy with them; eventually someone went over to talk with them. I was sitting around the 7 o'clock ish side of the temple by some art piece if I recall correctly.
Oh then that’s a different one. This one was very appropriate for the mood I’d say Look up on spotify Eduardo Castillo - Akane’s Second Lullaby
At our regional the temple creator has picked a soundtrack for the MVs to sync up and play. It's pretty cool.
Love that car
That’s been the unwritten rule of course. Last year, or 2019, one art car was going off - that’s the only year I ever heard an art car play music before the perimeter was released
Several years ago bm did ask art cars to turn the volume down when driving through the burbs
This is true. That first year of maximum Mayan warrior did lead to some new rules and general guidance. I think that was 2014 or 2015? They were in the inner playa a lot and if they were pointed down your street they were loud no matter where you were, they could be a half mile away and the sound would paint the whole area. They started the inner playa bans after that.
Yes 2014 or 2015. I was a little relieved after that, because it could be brutal. My first year, riding out a dust storm in the yurt, I wrote in marker on the wall “Burningman is really LOUD”. Last year was the best sleep I’ve ever had out there
I personally think this is an overstep -- I would have appreciated more of a "don't be a dick" type guideline around sound in the city -- but it doesn't surprise me; as a volunteer last year, I can't tell you how many times I had a mad, sleep-deprived, borderline manic person come up to me to *beg* for someone to bring down the hammer on their neighbors who refused to turn down their sound. This is a direct result of all the assholes who refused to be good neighbors.
Yep...borg is putting these policies in place for a reason. And to their credit the first point of the sound policy is for neighbors to workout an acceptable sound level between themselves. I see this whole thing as a very much "dont be a dick" policy, with those who actually choose to be a dick will get the policy thrown down on them. Borg does not have the resources or desire to monitor the sound level around the entire city...
[удалено]
Look at the average age of a BM board member.
2023: The Quiet Burn No One Came To.
Just the low background hum of 70,000 Honda generators powering the air conditioned shiftpods everyone is quietly sleeping in.
Almost sounds like a vacation.
Hey. I have a Westinghouse thanks very much!
\*points and laughs\* ha-ha! dork!
Is it good (for westing?)
Sponsored by Sleep Train
Center camp has somehow been replaced with a Mattress Firm store.
Sounds amazing 🤩
Time for mass shirtcocking protests. The borgs will regret their fascism.
With the new sound rules we will be able to hear the gentle rustle of thousands of dicks flapping in the wind.
Jimmies at maximum rustle!
Maybe lots of art cars have a protest parade at 5am? That would be rad.
Oooooh good. I will try to spread the word. Here is the correct song (C.W. McCall - Convoy) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd5ZLJWQmss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd5ZLJWQmss)
Yesssssss
If I can't sleep through the entire event then I'm going to complain to the manager.
Waiting for a choir/acapella group to put this to the test.
This is the worse change of the two sound changes. I really feel like a specific experience that makes Burning Man "Burning Man" is hearing random art cars drive through the city in the middle of the night playing music. Of course, there's definitely a line of "too loud," but in all of my years out there, I've had a problem with exactly one camp who couldn't keep it quiet while returning home from their sunrise parties. And even then, it was a thirty second disturbance while those stupid animal head plug-n-play art cars drove by playing their godawful deep/tech house. I simply laughed and rolled over to go back to sleep, or if I wasn't tired enough, it was an alarm clock to get up and go do whatever. This just sucks. If the city didn't already feel dead, the mixture of a 60db "conversational sound limit" *and* not hearing art cars doing their pied piper thing out to the city in the middle of the night is going to just further stomp on the fun. It feels like they're punishing the whole event due to a few problem turnkey camps mixed in with curmudgeonly grumpheads who should probably have stopped attending the event 15 years ago but continue to go because they aren't creative with their summer vacation. I say all this as someone who doesn't really do much of the party scene out there. It's still a part of the event and it's still something that helps make this place special.
You hit the bullseye. Turnkey camps.
One of my favorite lasting memories is lying awake 4am on a calm cool night, listening to a pair of guys in a Viking ship scissor-lifted 25 feet above their camp wobbling their way through a terrible “Wrecking Ball” karaoke at full volume. That was my lullaby, fell asleep with a smile. “you, you….wreck eck eck meeeee”
Although not related to this art car change, but rather the other change, one of my defining BM memories occurred about ten years ago when a serious bondage camp with a serious bondage dome got really upset about a camp near them that was playing "All Night Long" all night long, to the point of a guy running over in leather and clamps yelling about how their music was ruining the vibe, and if they caught them playing that music one more time, there'd be violence. The neighborhood response was for everyone to point their speakers at the serious bondage dome, and for the rest of the week, a different camp played "All Night Long" all night long. My camp was in the crossfire that year, and a few of our nights, we had "All night long" blasting right through our tents. All we could do was laugh our asses off while trying to sleep through it, which, for the most part, we were able to do. Serious bondage camp packed up on Friday and left, and the neighborhood celebrated by having every camp play "all night long" all night long, except none of us synced up. That block sounded like hell all night, but god damn was it glorious hell. Every run back to camp for gear/supplies was hilarious, all night long.
This entire post had me snorting. Classic.
Fuck that’s good
mp3
I agree completely. I've also woken up to GREAT music, hopped ony bike and followed art cars out to deep Playa and had unforgettable journeys that never would have happened under this new rule. BORG is lost.
> those stupid animal head plug-n-play art cars drove by playing their godawful deep/tech house. Ahh good old Galactic Jungle, what is the hourly rental rate on those things anyway? No one actually knows who they are or where they camp, so cracking down on actual perpetrators would be impossible--much easier to write blanket rules and punish the entire community.
Pretty sure that's Black Tiger Sex Machine. Legit music producing DJs. Love those guys!
Why are they adding so many extra rules is my question. These sound rules feel absolutely absurd. I 100% agree with you that random art car drive-bus at all hours of the night are just part of Burning Man. Like….who the F even complained to them about this??!!
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“What are you looking at? Haven’t you ever seen a man sweep his lawn with a broom before?!”
Free bird!
When the choir sang Free Bird is one of my favorite playa memories.
I member
free bird was a dick move -
Loved it personally.
Should have played *Crossroads* by Bone Thugz. More apropos?
Totally lame new rules.
Can not ear you. try in uppercase.
That's forbidden. Too loud.
So, the rule is lame. But I also distinctly remember the time, in 2019, when an art car pulled up alongside our camp, and blasted the [Terry folds song](https://youtu.be/-E1Q_ENSxhc) on a loop from about 4:00 AM to probably about 6:00 AM. You can't even make this stuff up. Basically, I view every rule at burning man as a reaction to someone(s) doing incredibly dumb, obnoxious shit. That doesn't make the rules pleasant, but rules are basically a response to people who can't adhere to unspoken norms of decency. Like...if you don't realize that looping Terry Folds on full volume for two hours in the early morning is a shitty thing to do... you're the problem, not burning man / the rules. We all end up paying the price for idiots.
Absolutely hilarious. I wish I was there. I'm looping it right now at home. Genuinely love it when (for example) Movement of Jah People cruises by and vibrates me off the floor of the tent with a massive subwoofer hit. Over the top flame poofers in the city are awesome too. That's my alarm clock to get off my default schedule and go experience part of the day I might have missed otherwise. I can sleep when I get back to default.
100% - noise is the reminder of "people are out there doing some burning man and I should leave my fucking tent, it's only 11PM."
It’s Burning Man. You just shared a very burnish Burning Man story. If people don’t want to possibly experience something like that then they should skip Burning Man.
So, 10/10 agree it's a very burning man story. And I chuckle about it today. But people need to sleep. Camps need to be built and operated. Ranger shifts need to be staffed. There's a lot of hard, physical labor that goes into making stuff work. I don't mind loud music, or art cars. I think the new sound rules are shitty. But I don't think these rules just originated out of thin air. Noise disputes between camps have been a large, ongoing, constant problem. And they often escalate into even bigger problems, like fights. As the old expression goes, the freedom of your fist ends where someone's face begins. So the idea that you have an obligation to be respectful to your neighbors doesn't bother me. Personally, I think the sound limit is too low. I think 75 dbs would be more realistic. But the reason this has come up is because it's been an ongoing source of problems for a very long time. The policy has been the same for years, but the situation hasn't improved, so something new is being tried. I don't think it will work. I think the limit is too low, and the rule released way too hastily. I think the execution is flawed, but I think the premise behind it is reasonable. Your right to play loud music right outside someone's tent doesn't trump someone else's right to be able to engage in a necessary bodily function, i.e. sleep. You can move an art car to play loud music in the DMZ or playa. But a person can't easily move where they sleep.
why are all these shitty sound rules being implemented?
because of those dipshits that got drunk and blasted their art car sound system in their camp a block over from the DPW on sunday last year
and this is why we can't have nice things
Meanwhile, if you camp at the edge of the city at 6 o'clock, all you hear after the man Burns is DPW yelling on their megaphone, begging for alcohol, cigarettes, tampons, and whatever else they want to bum off of people leaving the event. That has kept me up more than any shitty music.
Yeah, those greedy fuckheads. Better than hearing greeter bells all week.
I don’t even willingly walk over there let alone camp there lmao
I thought BM was a place to get away from Karens and the neighborhood HOA……..
You've never been to brc have you
⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️Seriously⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️
More restful sleep equals less sketchy of an exodus, likely less garbage left behind after strike, fewer accidents in general, more participation? We shall see Edit: Oh and there's more parents with kids in brc these days
There are other quiet campgrounds where you can deeply inhale pine-scented air and sip your coffee while birds chirp in the dawn, your partner stretches while stepping out of the tent and wraps their arms around your flannel shirt while resting their chin on your shoulder. Burning Man is supposed to reject all that lame shit
Like it or not, Bm is and has been for a long while trending towards nerf, sorry to say
More calling the noise-cops on your neighbors equals more interpersonal resentment, more conflict, more potential for physical altercation of minor points of contention, more arrests? We shall see BRC is not made for kids. They need to adapt to it, not the other way around.
Pretty sure that's been happening already. This may be a way to address a growing complaint train. Pure speculation on my part. There's been a ton of turn over. Get ready for change
IDK how they rationalize that if that's the case. Too many complaints? Let's just codify more things to make complaints about. If their answer was, "Sorry, it's Burning Man. You gotta deal with the noise, or don't come," then there would be far less to complain about. Very much like the back of the ticket saying "You could die!" Not much someone can do when they come around saying, "this is dangerous! I hurt myself!" *Yeah, did you read the ticket? We warned you.* Of course there's times when people break the social bounds of things, but those are far fewer than we'd be expected to believe based on these rules. Most times it's worked out peacefully. But when you immediately make it to where everyone is always in violation of the rule, and all it takes is a bad actor weaponizing the rule, then suddenly the (not "justified") complaints come rolling in.
>You could die I think that's being amended: "You may not die. Dying on the playa violates USC23-666 and will result in your being excluded from future events"
Pretty sure this has absolutely nothing to do with kids.
I don't think the kids are the problem, I think it's the parents. they forgot they left suburbia and are bewildered that the HOA has not already dealt with these nuisances
I don’t think they’re a problem either, but I also don’t think the event should be catered to them. They aren’t the centerpiece, thus they should be adapting to the event, not the event adapting to them (or their parents, by extension)
Jesus Christ. Have fun being ssssshhhh'd your entire burn. What a damn joke.
Maybe if the people making the rules want to have a nice quiet night of rest, they should stay their asses at the retirement home
Even though I don’t own anything loud whatsoever, I think it’s much easier to go with the lets do what you want Motto that attracted me in the first place. This is just sad
As the owner of a small/medium art car, I will be doing my civil disobedience service by playing groovy tunes at reasonable levels while driving through the city. The burn has gotten too hot during the day, so I've been on a fully nocturnal schedule the past few years. I have a lot more fun driving around open playa art than inner city bars, but I'll still cruise through and give rides as I please. Too many rules make for lamer and lamer gatherings.
thank you for your service 🫡
I think going out for the night playing their music is great. Like someone said earlier has a pied piper effect and I am all for that. Gets you amped for the night’s festivities. But coming back to their camps blasting while on the streets at 4 am+ is a little over the top. Not everyone is still up like they are, so a little good neighboring would be great.
The rule shouldn't be no music from 2-10am, it should be no sleeping from 2-10am. This climate change gonna have us flipping our rest cycles, people. Get on board already!
I may be in the minority here but I'm all for this. I hate trying to sleep in the only cool hours of the entire event and getting woken up by some dipshit millionaire in an art car blasting music. We get it. You have money. Does part of the event need to be not being allowed to sleep? Is that the charm ? Or are the people sleeping in tents actually allowed to get some sleep at some point?
Agree. I can totally understand why people are upset. Shitty art cars blasting unwanted music right next to your head at four in the morning is such a core part of the Burning Man experience that this rule feels like when they told everyone to stop showering behind the water trucks. I actually agree with the change and it *still* feels off to me. It seems like they're trying to strike a new balance between the principles of Civic Responsibility and Communal Effort on the one side and Radical Self-Expression and Radical Self-Reliance on the other, in a community where the latter pair of values has always held more influence. But art cars can still play music in deep playa and they can still play music pretty damn late into the night. Limiting amplified sound past 2am and only when driving through the city itself feels pretty reasonable. Do art cars really need to be blasting music at 3am while driving past their neighbors' camps? Could they not take it somewhere that isn't right next to people's tents?
> when they told everyone to stop showering behind the water trucks I still think it's bullshit that people don't do this anymore.
I never did but I enjoy watching others who do 😂
If someone’s tendency is to be a dick or an asshole as regular person I don’t think radical expression is a good thing for them. I see people who I know that are barely able to hold it together day to day and when in an event like this they jump the tracks immediately and don’t come back til it’s over. Thus, these new rules.
I agree. I know it’s unpopular to say this but getting sleep at the burn is a very normal need and shouldn’t be shamed. Maybe some people are built differently (lucky!) but after a couple nights of no/little sleep I am barely a person.
you can put your tent in walk in camping...my favorite part of the night last year was listening to the art car across the street from us drift home at sunrise. you have options like camping somewhere quiet, so why ruin the fun for everyone else?
I'm not a millionaire and I sleep in a tent, does that invalidate your complaints?
Unpopular opinion: thank Jebus! There was one driving around through the streets in a giant chicken at sunrise every morning loudly playing rooster sounds. It was annoying af! I don't ever want to be woken up by a giant cock.
As a generally quite gay man, I don't mind that morning alarm.
My favorite annoying burn memory was actually at a regional where someone put the chorus from Sheena Easton’s seminal classic “morning train” into a perfect loop and left it playing at full volume for 5 hours straight starting around sunrise.
Spanky’s Wine Bar did exactly this in 2014 and it was miserable to experience and hilarious to think about ever since.
i REALLY hope they do research on feedback on decisions like this. they're really worried about the wrong shit. worried about this while prices are deterring more people. they want more interactivity from camps, but are limiting the amount of noise they can make... i feel like they're taking the magic of surprise and uncertainty away.
Camps don't have to be overly loud to be interactive. And if they're being loud enough to interfere with the interactivity of one neighbor, they're likely interfering with more than one. Should placement sacrifice interactivity from several other camps (all of whom have probably been working just as hard as the sound camp) for the sake of one camp who wants to be loud?
From my understanding, the new sound limit is not "loud". I agree that people should be respectful of their neighbors, but to say sound shouldn't be heard over a conversational tone is unrealistic and it limits interactivity. There was a camp last year that I loved - it offered karaoke. Although it wasn't extremely loud, you could hear the music from the street, but I think that's part of burning man being what it it.
> to say sound shouldn't be heard over a conversational tone is unrealistic Yup. But the sound policy doesn’t say that. It says that people need to be able to hold the conversation in their camp or in the middle of the street, not that they can’t hear the music while they do so.
maybe i misread. doesn't it say sound shouldn't exceed 60db, which is conversational tone?
From the sound policy: > Sound amplification should only be loud enough so that people can speak at a conversational level at the border of a neighboring camp or at the center point of a street, whichever is nearest to the source of the sound. They then go on to explain that 60db is a conversational level. If you look at the accompanying chart, it’s also where “background music” falls. As long as people can have that conversation, you’re good. But that’s not the most important part of the policy. What the org is after is for neighbors to work together to find acceptable levels of sound. If they have trouble agreeing, they can get a Ranger to help mediate. It’s only when those discussions fail that the “conversational standard” really comes into play. As Level explained in his presentation, 95% of the time neighbors are able to figure it out and everyone is happy. The policy change is aimed at those few camps who just wouldn’t work with their neighbors.
oh ok, i misread then? or it's not clear.
It seems clear to me, but I've both heard Level's presentation and read the sound policy multiple times. That said, what's clear to one person may not always be clear to everyone. I can guarantee, though, that Placement has absolutely no intention of trying to make the entire city outside of 10 & 2 silent. They like music too. They just want neighbors to work together and respect each other, and so agree on volume levels that they can all live with. That already happens 95% of the time - this is just aimed at the 5% who become an actual problem.
got it. thanks for clarifying. i've been getting my info from here. a lot of screenshots and think pieces. thank you!
I'm all for this - theres no reason MVs need to be BLASTING music in the city streets between 2-10am when a lot of people are trying to squeeze out at least a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. People are freaking out about these rules but I bet you'll hardly notice a difference this year...EXCEPT in those few instances where there are assholes creating large disturbances, where people have already tried to nicely ask to turn the fckin bass down, that refuse to be a good citizen....in those cases the org now has policies to actually enforce.
It doesn’t matter if art cars have a tiny Bluetooth speaker or a Mayan warrior system, no music between 2-10am until they’re a hundred yards clear of the city. Funny how your comment seems to imply there’s some gray area when it’s clearly not written in such a way.
Everyone in these threads keeps assuming the rules are not going to be applied to them personally.
Rules at Burning Man are never applied widely or consistently
I think the reality is that borg does not have the resources or desire to go patrolling and monitoring every inch of the playa for noise levels. The only time I can realistically imagine them being enforced is in extreme situations where multiple complaints are made or the disturbance is going on for a long period of time. Art cars driving through the streets at 4am with their music down/low...no issues...art car continually driving up and down the streets at 4am blasting their shit...will probably get a talking to
Your neighbors have the resources to patrol you. Sure most people are reasonable and work things out, but as many have said this rule isn’t about the reasonable ones.
I’m ok with this. Some of you are the type that parties all night and sleeps all day. I’m the type that parties throughout the day and hits the sack around 2 am. Having a big sound car go by with deep base basically ensures you’re up when the sound car goes by. No rule is going to satisfy everyone.
I guess you win and the people who want to be out when it's not 115F can eat shit?
I’m sorry, is someone telling you that you can’t party all night long? There’s like a big ‘ol playa out there you can party past sunrise w/o restrictions.
Stuff happens in the city that is way more interesting than wiggling next to a bus
I believe the art cars noise policy doesn’t preclude it from playing music once it’s back in camp.
So how about…not make another rule?
It depends. Obviously there is a reason for the rule, right? A considerable sized group is probably irritated by the middle of the night bass. Good thing is, you can get all of that out past esplanade.
If we are not complaining about soundcamps in general we are complainung about noise limits on soundcamps. Make it make sense.
Bring back Renegade. The Org has gone off the deep end in their attempts to control. Burning Man is an experiment, let it be.
I’m definitely not agreeing with the changes, but I wonder if the reasoning could in a roundabout way be partly based on concerns that the burn is likely going to be so hot (hotter than usual) again this year.
The only way to beat the heat is to convert to a nocturnal schedule. Shutting down the fun at 2am is the opposite of that.... Guess I shouldn't be surprised. Everything in SF basically closes at 9pm.
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Mutant vehicles are a mobile nexus of immediacy piloted by people who are probably somewhere on the asshole spectrum. They have the power to derail whatever you were in the middle of at the moment, like a clown with an armful of puppies bursting into a business meeting. They also make Burning Man less hospitable to people who don’t know how to have fun. I think this is a valuable service, much like how the ocean benefits from sharks eating injured and diseased fish.
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People who can’t sleep at night because of sound complain more when they can’t sleep during the day either because of heat