Bitcoin Forum

For those who don't know what Burning Man is, see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX0Wv5HfIXg&feature=related

Once a year, tens of thousands of participants gather in Nevada's Black Rock Desert to create Black Rock City, dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance. They depart one week later, having left no trace whatsoever. Burning Man is also an ever-expanding year-round culture based on the Ten Principles.

Essentially, its thousands of people camping in the dessert for a few days, drinking, doing drugs and listening to music. (clothing optional)

http://legacy-cdn.smosh.com/smosh-pit/082010/burningman-09.jpg http://legacy-cdn.smosh.com/smosh-pit/082010/burningman01.jpg

Most people fly to like Denver, Reno, or somewhere close to rent an RV and drive down.

Auguest 27th- Sep 3rd, tickets should be bought as soon as possible!

I'm thinking of putting a trip together, Erik Voorhees (evoorhees) who has been to BM before and I will handle all the arrangements (Yes Erik I just volunteered you without asking you  ;D)

We can even get a huge BITCOIN banner and educate people, sell t-shirts and what not!

EDIT: We can't sell stuff...but we can giveaway stuff!

So, my question is...Who's In?

The people who attend Burning Man are not the same people who would use bitcoin. Ever. Period.

I think you're looking for a rave.

In Burning Man, one of the core principles is to create a city-scale money-free gift economy for a week at a time.  Advertising money there, even alternative money, is not going to be taken well.   Selling T-shirts will make you look like fools.

Alternate currency that is not trackable by governments? Silk Road friendly? Wanna bet there aren't already users that bridge both communities?

Exactly my point.  Bitcoin will be far from a shoe-in amongst that crowd.  It will also be some time before bitcoin gains the usability the average Joe would want.

Won't work! It's a known fact that nothing is for sale at Burning Man. Everything is free. And no advertising. Period!

I hated to burst your bubble on this. I, too, love Burning Man, but...

~Bruno~

They have about as much in common as an industrial meth lab has with a bunch of hippie pot farmers.  There are probably some dealers who bridge both communities, but no, they are not like-minded individuals.

On second thought, there could be a way to make this work. (going to write the following via taxing my memory) What if all/most/some of the theme tents ...............fuck!!! just realized probably no internet connection out there.......had a great idea.

~Bruno~

Edit: Had to revisit their site.



The way I see it, the best one could do is give away bitcents, but without an apparent sponsor(s). One could relay info via a flyer to Google "Burning Man Bitcoin" without quotes, and the main entity that would make this possible would have done SEO to some site to thereby profit somewhat down the road.

The camp could be named "Free Bitcoins" and, of course, man the camp with Bitcoin Gone Wild girls. To make it more interesting, since most all the other women at Burning Man will be nude or partially nude, our girls will be donning furs and dancing onto coffee tables.

Sometimes I have to ask myself, "Bruno, where do you come up with this shit?"

Seriously, this idea is not outside the realm of possibility. It is doable. Its success would be based on how well it's executed.

~Bruno~

I honestly just wanted to get all the Bitcoiners in an RV and do a Bitcoin confrence-type on wheels, go to Burning Man, drink and smoke some weed

Everything else was secondary

That part I encourage you to do.  :)  But realize that if you're just looking for a wild party you're better off in Vegas.

If you go to Burning Man, don't be a tourist; participate in creating an alternative culture.

Been there, done that!


Yup! Thats exactly what I think going with people who share the same ideas as I do would be the perfect group

This is awesome... can Canadians come along to the parrrrr-tay?

drink and smoke weed niiiceee ha ....I've been to burning man once need to do it again!

You just might make it out of bat country in one piece.

Please send back pictures of some burning paper wallets for those of us who can't make it.  Don't forget to censor the keys.  :)

This http://www.boomfestival.org/ would be a better place to promote Bitcoin ;)

Oh, and to smoke weed, as long as you can get past the police at the gates with it :P

The prob with the boom fest is, we'll be surrounded with people who wanted to go back to the stone ages... the concept of encryption will go in ear and out the other.

At least with the Burning Man, we'll be in close proximity with the Silicon Valley, and there'll be lotsa techies around, and possibly a lot of tech entrepreneurs. 

I use bitcoin and went to burning man.  The whole thing about burning man is not carrying around or even caring about money though.  It is a gift economy.  If someone tried to sell me something out there, I wouldn't want it no matter how cool the currency was.

Last year some people did make some fake money that was pretty funny though.  It had infinity symbols and 0 and a few other strange numbers as the values.  I'll try and find some pics.

EDIT: Exchanghibition Bank (http://exchanghibitionbank.com/)

You'll be surrounded by who???  :o

You honestly don't know what you're talking about.
I've been involved with the psytrance scene for the last 15 years and I can assure you that they are some of the most technologicaly minded people around.

The only thing I'm sure they don't like in Bitcoin is the tremendous waste of energy spent on mining.

Don't mind the mayan and hindu stuff they use in their promo stuff. It's just marketing, plain and simple ;)

I might not been to the Boom Fest, but I've been meditating and practising yoga for the past 4 years.  I've been to yoga retreats in India, Thailand and here in Canada.

The issue of money is mostly shunned upon.

I might not know everything, but I do know something, that's from experience.

I was surprised how many tech geeks there were out there.  There were also lots of beautiful, half-naked, drug fueled women.

And what has Yoga to do with Psytrance? Do you really think you'll be able to meditate in the middle of Boom Festival?
Only if you take a dosage of LsD that'll put you into coma :D

Like I said, you are confusing marketing strategies with how technologicaly advanced people are.
Do as I say, don't do as I do, and all that stuff ;)

EDIT: BTW: Infected Mushroom, one of the biggest psytrance icons, are the official soundtrack of BackTrack Linux... How's that for people who don't even know what encryption is? Really... LOL Big LOL

Proof:
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/backtrack/backtrack-5-are-you-infected-yet/
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/backtrack-5-and-infected-mushroom/

I've been there.  Once.  By accident. :P
Yes, there is probably a reasonable percentage of the crowd that would be interested in Bitcoin.  Forget selling or advertising.  If you want to promote bitcoin, I think the best way would be to hand out something like bitcent-value business cards with printed privkeys (maybe QR codes) that they can redeem later.  As a side benefit-- after whatever they were taking wears off, they have a business card that will remind them to check out bitcoins. ;D

Unfortunately, that part is far from true.  I used to travel to the playa weeks after Burning Man.  There would still be loads of trash out there.

This is a good idea, maybe the guys at Bit-pay can make some cards with bitcents or on an address, or instawallet / blockchain.info branded cards.

Sponsoring something like this would pay for the coins on the card itself.

...Hold up a sign that says 'Free Money!' (Can we do that ?)


Thats a terrible thing, we will make sure to clean up all our stuff !

Ahh Burning Man! Thanks for volunteering me Charlie :)

Such a trip will be absolutely fantastic under the following conditions:

1) First and foremost, the purpose has to be to go with bitcoiners as a social and networking and ideating activity. We'll be able to talk bitcoin all day long among ourselves and I'm sure some great work would come out of it. BUT - we will not (and should not) be able to "sell" or promote bitcoin at Burning Man in any visible way. If it comes up in conversation with outsiders, that's great, but we can't be there to evangelize. So to the extent that it's partly a business trip, the business would be primarily limited to internally within our group, not externally toward other burners. The event is explicitly "money free" and "promotion free"... and if we're promoting money then we FAIL doubly :) With that said, many burners would be interested in a counter-culture monetary system - so hopefully lots of organic conversations could happen.

2) There's actually an issue of ticketing this year... basically the event has gotten so large that there are not enough tickets. Because the operators don't understand how price mechanisms work, they thought it'd be better to distribute tickets on a lottery system than by raising prices to curb demand. Any free-marketer would be able to predict the outcome - shortages! I have no idea how to get tickets this year, and it might be impossible to do in any coordinated way for a group of us. So, this might be a problem :/

3) Burning Man is absolutely wild and awesome and interesting (just like Bitcoin). I can think of no better way to spend a week with fellow bitcoiners. But, it's intense, and requires lots of planning. Cannot be done last-minute. Requires commitment and dedication.

4) A nice RV is mandatory... fuck tents in the hot sun. A/C, showers, and cold beer ;)

If you don't have tickets yet, you are too late.

StubHub price is ~$1250 per ticket + 10% stubhub fee. (I have a no-fee discount though)

If were buying multiple, I can scour craigslist to pay a little less.

So 4x or more what they cost the seller. Nice. Really the spirit of Burning Man...

The price mechanism doesn't care about spirit... when a good is scarce, the price will rise. To sell them for less would be to make the scarcity worse. If they were sold for less, you wouldn't see them on Craigslist at all, because they'd already be bought, and instead of having the option to buy at $1,250 you'd have no option at all :)

I've been there last year and I can tell you, there are lots of courses in tents about everything you can imagine: lucid dreams, girls only fun, yoga classes, reddit group (!!)... everything. It's totally feasible to set up a tent, have a quick talk on Bitcoin, and give away bitcents at the end. Pure win.

Would be nice if it was official, in the schedule survival guide.

EDIT: There was a place called "Temple of Transition". By the next day the temple would be burned down and people were writing messages for the deceased ones at the walls.

I wrote: "Bye US dollars, Hello Bitcoin." No pics, so it didn't happen. In Burning Man, sometimes it's better this way.

I do remember seeing them last year on Craigslist and not at scalp pricing either. They were also legit.

BTW, where is this caravan starting from?

~Bruno~

I'm not sure yet, I know people start it from Reno, but I'd be down to start it from anywhere in California, maybe San Francisco or LA.

Any ideas?

I meant where were you planning on starting the trip from? State? Coast?

Also, what the hell is this? http://www.blackrockarts.org/participate/howtogive.html

~Bruno~

Yeh, my original answer applies. We can rent the RV somewhere in California or we can all fly to Reno and drive from there.

It depends who comes and their preference.

I'm not sure how well internet would work at such an event. It would not be impressive to try to get to mtgox if you are all using a single IP. If someone were to print Burning Man bitbills that could be given away with small amounts of bitcoin, it might impress even the most Bohemian hipster.

I'd say it depends where you can find someone willing to rent you an RV for BTC.  :)  There are lots of private owners who rent out so it's a possibility.

http://privatemotorhomerental.com/
http://www.1rvrentals.com/

Stupid me, I missed that, Yankee. I see it now--California.


Great idea--BurningBits. On second though, isn't there suppose to be a fire at some time during this festival?

Seriously, Burning Man themed bitbills with bitcents could be the ticket.

~Bruno~

Thats a great idea, I think we can do that. Bruno, you coming?  ;D

I knew that Burning Man is huge and that there are a lot of people that go, but i had no idea that Burning Man WAS ABSOLUTELY HUGE and that THERE WERE A LOT OF PEOPLE that went.

https://i.imgur.com/fYv5n.jpg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftsNhUKAJ-s)

I didn't go but just saw a link to a video.

This video was captured by private drone (ya, ... private drones, .. welcome to 2012!):  

 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftsNhUKAJ-s

An aerial video shows the enormity of the event unlike what any photo slideshow even begins to hint at.



Here's satellite photo:

https://i.imgur.com/A6qkV.jpg
 
 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/thejaymo/7986877363/


Here's a video of their Burn Wall Street, in which burned in effigy were bank buildings with the names "Bank of Un-America", "Merrill Lynched", "Goldman Sucks" and "Chaos Manhattan". 


https://i.imgur.com/ILE4u.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KPrLgWHMF0)

  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KPrLgWHMF0



I got the link for the drone video from the Burn census that counted 744 hexayurts.  If there ever are significant dislocations of people, I suspect Bitcoin, Hexayurt, and mesh networking (Free Network Foundation) can help in the resettlement and provide structure going forward more than any other plans that exist would do in an environment of austerity.


https://i.imgur.com/bhQpW.jpg

 - http://www.Hexayurt.com


The drone is flown using UHF RC:

 - http://www.dragonlinkstore.com/v2/


Incidentally, there's a bet related to this:

Human Injury Due To Drone Within The U.S. In 2012

 - http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=631

[Edited: added links, burn wall street and hexayurt.]

Burning Man is closer to occupy than anything else.

Someone really should chat to Silk Road about sponsorship  :)

Click the image to view the video.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8435/7999765884_61450452ff_z.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr-gLMje1pA)

Hi folks, we're doing this.

https://i.imgur.com/6lSBYSm.png (http://campbitcoin.hivewallet.com/)

Here's the discussion link:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=424777 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=424777)

There are (https://www.google.com/search?q=burning+man+floats&client=firefox-a&hs=N7h&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=SYzdUsLlEM2FogSsuoLQBw&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1360&bih=893) some crazy floats at Burning Man.

Bitcoin Miner Float (something like a giant open air computer + many led lights) would draw some attention  :D

Bullshit. I've attended burning man twice and use bitcoin.

Well stated. This sort of idea should be put into the glam campbitcoin website somewhere.

I've always been mildly interested in going to Burning Man, but not enough to even come close to doing it.  Got various experiences with the hippie Renascence Fairs as a kid, and my substance experiments out of the way in my late teens, so my life will be complete enough if I miss out on Burning Man completely.

I actually ended up on that lake-bed driving around one time about 15 years ago only later realizing what it was.  Nobody was there at the time.  It was the coolest place!  I tried to write my name in half-mile tall letters.  It's damn difficult.

If I did go to Burning Man I would certainly avoid any contact with the Bitcoin crew (while at that venue.)  Especially after the SJ 2013 conference and reading down through the posts on this thread.

Indeed, it will be done. Some updates will be made in the coming week.

While we're speaking of updates, pour one out for our brother Charlie. :(

So, Yankee, who's the Burning Man now?  ;D

Sorry, couldn't resist... :P

Wow Psy, that's cold as ice. lol

I've been there once. Burning Man is just an excuse for a people to get high, get naked and fuck in public. You can experience the same thing during any number of festivals in San Francisco. The only difference is at Burning Man you go to sleep every night with sand in your eyes and between your teeth. Burning Man only lasted a week. It took me two weeks to wash the sand out of my hair and the crack of my ass when I got home. Never again!

I'm more into http://www.boomfestival.org . The US desert is a bit far away from me ;)

I hear you. With all the fine looking ass and killer weed near you why fly all the way to this fucked up country. Unless, of course, prison is another experience you want to try. I don't think most Americans realize we lead the world in the number of incarcerated citizens.

To say there is nobody at burning man who cares about bitcoins is just a stupid statement.
Burning Man has people from all walks of life, getting together to enjoy music, freedom and getting messed up.
The focus of the festival will not allow this idea, even if the participants would be interested.
It's like advertising life insurance at a christmas party, just too unrelated and awkward.
By all means, wear your own Bitcoin T-Shirt.

Another good idea is to make subtly cool bitcoin t-shirts.  Like a shirt with a crazy design made out of bitcoins that some half-naked chick will want to stare at for 20 minutes in the hot desert sun.

Print out a bunch of paper wallets load them with some Bitcoin and give them away to people.

Because that would be the cool thing to do.

I was under the impression that nothing was sold or purchased during Burning Man, but guess I'm mistaken.

Next, I see Yankee/Charlie logged in yesterday.

Finally, an image that may or may not be related: http://www.businessinsider.com/tyler-winklevoss-at-burning-man-2013-9

http://distilleryimage6.ak.instagram.com/874bd2fa15d311e3a3ec22000a9d0dfd_7.jpg

I'm here..lurkin...

Don't worry PSY, no offense taken  ;D

Hey Bruno! Miss you bro...

That's correct. Nothing can be sold or purchased there (except... ice, and not that kind of ice).


Yo man! Saw you online on Skype, thought maybe I was wigging out. Anyway, I'm sure it's the most trivial of your problems right now, but given the thread... Do we leave you on the CB website? Going to make it by hook or by crook?

Hit me up on skype, let's chat!

There is going to be a bitcoin camp at burning man this year.  Someone handed me a businesscard in Miami about it, I'll scan it/type in the website details when I get time later.

Hey, bud. Glad you're out. FWIW, I still do like you.

~TMIBTCITW

Will do man!

Yeah that was us. :-)

Good to see you around with your sense of humour intact, Charlie. :)

Charlie is a very likable guy!

I reached out to Charlie's lawyer, telling him that with my post history I could speak with the Judge and put in a good word, but the lawyer claimed that they wanted to win the case, not...

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRLMPdquMEHj0QebAYyfcaSg6ji76jsE1hIsvGCE19CbqCEFMpv

What happened at the 2013 SJ Conference?

Is that the one where a girl actually showed up there and things got awkward? :P

I saw several females, But I could not be very confident about whether they actually had two X chromosomes or not.  This being Bitcoin-land I would not want to make a bet on it.

The aB's question, the clientele struck me as:

 - VC types who were primarily interested in making bucks.

 - Techie-ish folks who took it as a given that taint was both the way to go and a good thing to eliminate 'crime'.

 - People showing of non-sense kludges and scams which one could tell would never go anywhere (primitive cobbled together ATM's with no solution the the big problem (licensing), sea-steading nonsense, hedge fund pools with no interest for any but the most tangential of risk considerations, etc.

 - Josh Zerlan

In fairness I saw some things which impressed me as well, but, just as the meetup I attended at my place of work, the event was largely underwhelming.  To me.  I'm sure a lot of others had a blast.  Actually the thing was not un-fun, but I did not really resonate with the crowd is all.

The event industry will definitely love bitcoin- low fees and no chargeback risk changes the game. No need for a merchant acquiring bank in order to sell tickets online!

(I will also be buying a few gift tickets this year if BMORG accepts bitcoin!)

Not to mention no ticketmaster.

Forgive me if I misread you, but I would think that Ticketmaster would hate bitcoin - an open financial transaction network. My take on Ticketmaster is that they unashamedly work to maintain a monopoly to charge highly profitable fees on every transaction.

I'll gladly be the world's first recipient of a burning man ticket purchased with BTC as long as you're the first gifter of a burning man ticket with BTC.

This might just be the deciding factor for me to attend this year.

They need tickets to be back under $500.
I read somewhere that the Gov't (permits) makes it hard/impossible to increase the total amount of tickets sold...  ...such a shame.

I meant that Bitcoin would make ticketmaster not needed. Ticketmaster ia basically a monopoly when it comes to ticket sales. Bitcoin would let venues go around ticketmaster and cut out a very expensive middleman in the ticket buying process.

Just my opinion, obviously. But I can't explain why venues can't do without ticketmaster currently, so there is probably a big step I'm.missing.

They can already do this, by setting up their own ticket exchange and accepting paypal payments or just having a CC clearinghouse account.

I think that the venues actually make more money selling through ticketmaster, even though it costs their customers more. I recall reading about booking deals TM has with venues and labels, which work in everyone but the artist's and customer's favor. Of course, the only two people in the transaction that are there for anything other than profit are the watcher and the performer (most artists, imo)..
Fucking capitalism.

Maybe someone will build something that lets people fund event expenses via a kickstarter approach- minimum tickets sold = event funded and booked.

Burning Man is a big money making business controlled by Black Rock City LLC. Why don't you contact them and see of they would be interested in direct sales for Bitcoin. The way the Org covers up all the deaths, rapes and accidents at BM every year I'm sure they are all about profit. Just tell them a way they can increase their profit and it should be easy to sell them on it.

http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/people/project_bio.html

Please link to credible evidence that Black Rock City LLC is literally covering up "rapes and deaths" at Burning Man, or consider retracting your (potentially) reckless slander.

Do it, ive been going for three years and don't regret a single moment of it. Hell, I'd even be down to run some sort of btc event out there to spread the word if you want.

It fits in so well with BM culture, but lands in an awkward spot by being a money/value/commodity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Man#Decommodification)

It will play a bigger role out there this year, and I am sure there will be more discussions about it. PM me about your event, I would love to make something with you if I end up going.
It would be great if they accepted BTC at the Center Camp Café :)

Burning Man was started by one or more Libertarians (it is not a cult or religion), and I'm not aware of them working for Google. The first ones were extremely close to Silicon Valley, so I suppose it is possible.

Edit: I did a quick search and burning man was started by...
"Larry Harvey conceives first Burning Man. Larry and Jerry James construct improvised wooden figure and burn it" 
Saying "Google created the burning man" does not appear to be accurate at all.

If this isn't enough please let me know. There are plenty more. LOL

http://nationalreport.net/burning-man-2013-pedophiles-sex-offenders/
http://www.popularresistance.org/police-crack-down-on-burning-man-unprecedented-show-of-force/
http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/a-rape-in-black-rock-city/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vanessa-pinto/burning-man-rape_b_1897689.html
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist/2012/09/burning_man_rape_assault.php
http://burners.me/2012/09/19/the-dark-side-of-burning-man-rape-on-the-playa-sf-weekly/
http://www.consentculture.com/2013/10/08/radical-entitlement-rape-culture-at-burning-man/
http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/09/26/rape-culture-consent-and-grabbing-100-boobs-at-burning-man-2013/
http://sfburnergrrrl.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/date-raped-at-burning-man/
http://sfburnergrrrl.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/how-many-women-will-be-sexually-assaulted-at-burning-man-this-year/
http://boingboing.net/2013/04/26/howto-die-at-burning-man.html
https://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?t=61945
http://funologist.org/2012/02/17/the-dark-side-of-burning-man/
http://burners.me/2013/01/10/burning-man-sucks-10-reasons-to-stay-home/
http://thingsnotfoundonwikipedia.blogspot.com/2013/05/deaths-at-burning-man.html
https://www.facebook.com/BurningMan/posts/10150447451032168
http://burners.me/2013/04/25/9-ways-to-die-at-burning-man/

Thanks! This instills belief in the rest of us that bitcoin is, indeed, a very valuable currency

Just wanted to let everyone on this thread know, my burning man camp ("Sextant Camp") has been promoting the use of Bitcoin as a funding/donation platform for Burning Man art installations.  The idea is to demonstrate this in hopes that the burning man organization might consider switching to Bitcoin if they truly believe in an open non-profit system.

We are also building a 17,000 watt tesla coil, with a 350' zip-line terminating right under the coils.  And a skybar too! 

On June 14th, 2014, during the annual "Burning Man Pre-Compression" event we handed out cards educating people on Bitcoin software (while also asking for donations to fund our efforts).

Here is a picture of the cards we handed out:
http://www.sextantcamp.com/bitcoin_card.jpg

I invite anyone to stop by (located at 3:15 and Esplanade for the 2014 year)

http://www.sextantcamp.com