2014

2014 Burning Man City Map - Gay VersionFor countless centuries, travelers along the Silk Route crossed paths in caravansaries, a network of oases and sanctuaries that dotted the 4,000-mile road from Europe to East Asia. These bustling caravan stops offered more than just shelter from the desert wilderness; they were vital centers of cultural exchange, bringing together traders, pilgrims, monks, nomads, traveling entertainers, and wild-eyed adventurers from all points of the compass to share their stories around a common fire. Though fueled by mercantilism, their legacy to us is a grand commerce of ideas — a swirling exchange of languages, legends, technologies, philosophies and art that helped shape nearly every aspect of our modern world.

Caravansary: Theme for the 2014 Burning Man season

2014 Gayborhood Map

The Gayborhood has been a place of debate for people who were pro or against the existence of it. It is a island of amazing souls where people can find safety. It is where like souls can come for a long term or short term stay in their journey of Burning Man and Black Rock City.

THE QUEER CAMPS LISTS

NOTE: This list will grow between now and burn time. Any comments are made random and are intended to be helpful in your choice. All camps are radically inclusive, but some play to a more particular audience. Queer Burners [dot] Com encourages all camps to have diverse members. While not all camps are the right fit for everyone all campers have an obligation to the collective and the health and well-being of that collective, so membership is not obligatory; your request may be denied.

Gayborhood Camps (P = Placed / NP = Not Placed / U = Pending / V = Part of Village / * = Confirmed for 2014)
To apply to any of these camps or to explore who they are more please follow the links!

  • *Comfort & Joy : Large Camp : Web | Facebook : Queer Male : P
    Comments: Mostly Queer Male with a strong connection to the Radical Faery Community
    San Francisco | Approx 200 People
  • *Camp Beaverton: Large Camp : Web | Facebook : Queer Female Identified : P
    Comments: Mostly Queer Female Identified camp
    San Francisco & Boston | Approx 150 People
  • *Gender Blender: Large Camp : Web | Facebook : Mixed : P
    Comments: The name says it all. mixed group with various genders
    San Francisco | Approx 30 People
  • *Bloasis: Large Camp : Web | Facebook : Mixed : P (confirmed on Facebook)
    mostly Los Angeles | Approx 80 People
  • *Dickstracted Camp: Small Camp : Web | Facebook : Mixed : P
    mostly Los Angeles | Approx 20 People (*Esteban’s post on Facebook)
  • *GlamCocks: Large Camp : Web | Facebook : P
    Comments: Amazing infrastructure and cast with a strong twink male populace
    San Francisco & Los Angeles | Approx 125 People
  • *Paradise Motel : Large Camp : Web | Facebook : Mixed : P
    Comments: Amazing infrastructure mixed straight and gay participants. Serves snow cones as a community gift.
    San Francisco/L.A. | Approx 40 People (updated 24 Jan 2014 by Mark D.)
  • *AstroPups : Medium Camp : Web | Facebook : P
    Comments: Mostly a Bear type populace; shower parties
    San Francisco | Approx 50 People
  • *Down Low Club: Small Camp : Yahoo | Facebook : P
    Comments: Hosts the Official Meet & Greet; maintains a sex club, too
    Southern California | Approx 15 People
  • *Sun Guardians: Small Camp : Web | Facebook : P
    Comments: Spiritual camp with yoga and meditation
    San Francisco & Salt Lake City : Approx 25 People
  • *Mudskippers : Medium Camp : Web | Facebook : P
    Comments: Known for serving root-beer floats – yum!!!
    Los Angeles/North Caralona | Approx 50 People
  • *Crisco Disco: Small : Web | Facebook : V (C&J)
    Comments: Features and Art Car
    Los Angeles | Approx 5 People
  • Camp Montage: Small : Web | Facebook : V (C&J)
    Comments: Features a large art curation; can be reached through C&J
    San Francisco | Approx 5 People
  • Carrot Dome: Small : Web | Facebook : V (C&J)
    Las Vegas | Approx 10 People
  • *Camp Conception : Large Camp : Web | Facebook : P
    Seattle | Approx 150 People
  • *Celestial Bodies : Medium Camp : Web | Facebook : P
    Sacramento| Approx 50 People
  • *Yes Please : Medium Camp : Web | Facebook : P
    San Francisco | Approx 50 People (updated 23 Jan 14 by Matty)
  • *Camp Run Free : Medium Camp : Web | Facebook : P
    Comments: Sober camp, ideal for people who are looking for support.
    San Francisco | Approx 30 People
  • *Camp Stella : Small Camp : Web | Facebook : P
    Comments: Sober camp, ideal for people who are looking for support.
    (third party confirmation)
    San Francisco | Approx 20 People
  • Ulibaba & The Horny Thieves : Size Unknown : Web | Facebook : U
    Unknown Home Base

City Camps

  • Poly Asylum : Large Camp : Web | Facebook : U
    Bay Area | Approx 90 People (not coming back 2014)
  • *Poly Paradise : Mega Camp : Web | Facebook : P
    Phoenix | Approx 250 People
  • Homojitoville : Size Unknown : Web | Facebook : U
    Comments: Pedal powered roaming bar
    Unknown Base
  • Sukkat Shalom : Large Camp : Web | Facebook : P
    Comments: Spiritual camp with a focus on Judism

GayBurbia

  • *Burner Buddies: Medium Camp : Web | Facebook : NP
    Comments: They like’em Hairy, Hung and Hot
    Southern California | Approx 50 People

About the graphic at the top of the page: this was assembled after the 2014 Placement Team made it’s announcements. It shows a lot ore camps than we knew about. It is so cool that there are more queer camps coming to Burning Man.

2014 Events

We are going to put a list of the 2014 Events: Caravansary here on this page. If your big gay thing is missing please let us know through the Facebook Page or Contact Form here. Be sure to use other resources at your disposal including:

All links will go back to the original source.

All Week

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Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

2014 Burning Man City Map - Gay Version

Queer Burner Leadership Summit

This was the third year for the QBLS and it was amazing. See details on previous years, including trip reports at the library of links below. Special thanks to all who came and those who traveled to be a part of it.

The event was held at The Box Factory in San Francisco; the Box Factory is run by Bernadette Bohan who is a great friend to the community and has been very generous about letting projects use her art/living space.

Who is Queer Burners?

2014 QBLSQueer Burners is a 5 year old project designed to provide a network for LGBTQ++ burners a means of communicating and is also dedicated to promoting the Gayborhood at Black Rock City, Nevada. We are not political and we are not a whipping post. This is a 10 principles based idea system who seeks to promote those idea on and off the playa.

Starting off…

There was a lot to be said and a lot of feeling expressed at this year’s event the spun off the agenda items and started right out of the gate when everyone introduced themselves and talks about their individual projects. A couple highlights included:

  • Terry Goodman’s Time To Burn App on Android and iPhone
  • Camp Beaverton & Gender Blender’s amicable separation
  • A new system to help the community at-large in personal safety

The Past

Toaster went over some of the key items from previous QBLS including a break down of ways of getting people motivated to be part of camp activities; see the who story from the 2012 QBLS and the amazing TED video posted there.

We also highlighted past discussions of the Gayborhood and why we feel it is a very important service to the community; safety, awareness, and it has become an attraction.

Social Networking / Fund Raising

Cam Brochu cam in from EBB asking about social networking while Glo from Beaverton was asking about fund raising. While we talked about a lot of things here were the quick highlights:

  • Social Networking: Facebook is the media of choice right now that can networking with twitter.com, pintertrest.com, tumblr.com and more. SnapChat is popular but not always ideal. Always embed, use #tags, call out partners using @name (name or twitter name). More
  • Fund Raising: Few people have the remarkable success of C&J. We all need to find the right niche for those goals. C&J has a captive audience; who is your audience? With that, is crowd fund the right channel for you: kickstarter.com, indiegogo.com and more. More

Intense Feelings

There were a lot of intense feelings over various issues including, but not limited to, what is perceived to be BMorg’s general view of the LGBTQ++ community; which very much seems to be a hands over the eyes approach. Keeping something very important in mind: BMorg ideology as best as we can interpret seems to be that we are all part on one melting pot.

LGBTQ Issues: Theoretically: So, women issues, racial issues, spiritual issues, sexual orientation issues don’t fall on their radar because those are personal and not community issues.

Personal Safety: while the Regional Team has emphasized personal responsibility (as stated on the back of the ticket as an agreement); sexual assault, homophobia and other issues like that still fall on community members for their individual choices.

  • Self Care: Someone asked why these were BMorg problems they had to deal with. What do we as a community do to combat it? A project was discussed called Secure Sanctuary that is in the first stages of development answering all the above.

Feelings were frequently intense as people share beliefs that came from deeply felt positions on the above mentioned items.

Tension Relief

Special thanks to some people who really shined:

  • Theo (aka Turtle) for coming and talking to us about the Cafe in Center Camp. Who also helped out with a lot of history information that will be seen on this site soon.
  • Jean-Jaques who was our chief volunteer and who helped everything around the summit work smoothly.
  • Bradley (aka Badger) for making an amazing lunch!

And on a special note! There was an energizing surprise set up for the late afternoon that would allow us to start shutting down for the day. SF CHEER camp to liven up the scene and wow, did they!

Final Session

After SF Cheer left the scene we were all blown away and excited! The video will tell all. But we managed to get back on track and jump back into the agenda where we hit on Queer Burner History. A page was on this site with a short chronology that was pulled down until a lot of information could be changed or updated.

What was different this year?

Not a whole lot, but it was also very different. We had a lot of new people who came out to play and be involved. We had some strong personalities but our focus was making what we do better and helping each other in the process.

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Te get the full story please look at the Trip Report here.

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