Firefly 2015 Art and Theme Camp Registration Begins! THE BASICS : In order to reserve a specific location in the woods and have a place on the official map, art projects and theme camps *must* go through the Placement process. If you are interested, please read the info below and then fill out the Placement application by June 2nd . After that, you can send a representative to the to second work weekend (June 13th / 14th) and mark off your spot for the event. For Firefly 2015, Placement is going to try some new approaches to help revitalize the center of the site, create community through neighborhoods and camp placement, and support some important needs of our growing event like sound management. None of the changes are too major, but we do encourage everyone to read through these new policies. You will also notice that the Placement application is about twice as long as last year's. We don’t intend to use this new information to deny people their preferred placement, but rather to identify good solutions for new projects and projects that want to move. Placement’s first priority is always to help camps and artists find the right space for their awesome projects! Here is what you need to know about this year's Placement process and policies: Returning Projects: In a departure from previous years Placement policies, returning camps are not necessarily entitled to the space they had in previous years. This is to help accommodate critical event infrastructure as well as make room for the event to grow and experiment new ways to use and organize the space. The vast majority of projects will be able to use the same site. Projects unable to return to their previous spaces will be notified as soon as possible and we will try to identify and reserve new spots with an equal amount of space, access and level terrain. Conflict Mediation: Placement is largely a participant-run process. It tends to be very friendly and non-adversarial and some really great solutions have arisen between neighbors by collaborating during Placement. If a conflict does arise, please try to resolve in a respectful way between yourselves, or even enlist a neighbor to help give some perspective. We are happy to help mediate if you come to us, but if a resolution cannot be reached, Placement will make a decision according to the best interests of Firefly -- or in absence of an apparent community interest, by using our best judgment or even on the flip of a coin. Placement Work Weekend: In order to be placed you must have a representative at the Placement Work Weekend (the second pre-Firefly work weekend - June 13th and 14th) Your rep will choose your spot in the forest and help us stake it out. If you don’t have a rep available for the work weekend, please ask a friend or fellow community member to go for you as a proxy. Upon request, we may be able to supply a list of willing proxies. Please be aware that it is your job to educate your proxy on your needs and desired location as they will be making the final decision for you. Due to space and parking constraints, we encourage you to consolidate related projects to use as few reps as possible. Those placing art are asked to also be a rep for their theme camp and theme camps should not send a separate rep for art hosted in their camps. Work Weekend Requirements: As in previous years, reps at the placement work weekend are required to work a 4-hour shift in order to participate in placement. Low exertion tasks are available for those who need it, so everyone can contribute. We will be keeping track so please remember to check in at the Work Weekend Kiosk. We also encourage everyone to carpool. The lot can only handle so many cars, so we may need to implement carpooling requirements if not enough people do it voluntarily, which would stink and may also cut a lot of people of the Placement process. Detailed info for the work weekend (including how to register) will be sent to the listed work weekend contact. New Questions on the Survey : For the first time, we are asking about sex and kink themed projects on the placement application. We are very supportive of all the awesome sexy and kinky events at Firefly! One issue is that the number of kids, especially older kids, at Firefly is growing. Some parents have preferences about the best way to expose their kids to the sex stuff in an age-appropriate way. So, we’d like to know a few things that will help us facilitate Placement in a way that helps out these parents. Just to be clear, we don’t expect this to mean any major changes to the way that projects are placed or the way that Firefly operates. This is just one variable that Placement is looking at. *** Please note that these questions apply ONLY to publicly visible and accessible projects. We’re not at all concerned about private art, events and projects with sexual content.*** Marking Tape: Please remove the Placement marking tape by the 2nd day of the event. We encourage projects to plan to reuse the neon, streamer-like tape as decoration or works of art. We know that it is MOOPy, but it is the best option we can think of. If you have suggestions for less MOOPy markers that would be safe to use at the site, please let us know! Contact Info : Placement works very closely with the Sound, Fire, LNT, Art and Work Weekend Cores, as well as other projects like Camp Leader Training. Contact information provided on these forms will be shared with these entities. Additionally, contact information may be shared with leads from other registered art and theme camps for purpose of facilitating placement activities (i.e., putting neighbors in touch with each other or helping to organize carpools to the work weekend.) And, while planning your project, you can reach out to these cores if you have any questions: * Fire Core Info: Note that any fiery objects, other than camp stoves, must be approved by the Fire Safety Core. The risk of forest fires is non-trivial in this area, please pursue fire and fuel related projects with caution. Digging new fire pits is not permitted. Remember that fuel is MOOP and take precautions against even small spills and splashes. * FAST Core deals with fire art safety, including open fires (pits and burn barrels) and flame effects: fast (@) fireflyartscollective (dot) org * Fire Core deals with most other fire issues - including fire spinning, fuel storage and generators: fire (@) fireflyartscollective (dot) org * Sound Core: soundcore (@) fireflyartscollective (dot) org * LNT: lnt (@) fireflyartscollective (dot) org * Work Weekend: workweekend (@) fireflyartscollective (dot) org Now that you have the read the policy, please apply to have your art or theme camp placed here: http://bit.ly/firefly2015placementapp Placement applications are due by June 2nd. Love, Danielle, Finn, Frank - Placement Core Still have questions? Email us at placement (@) firefly (dot) com.