The map that keeps Burning Man honest

During the rains we were one of the few places still open and where you could party, eat, and grab a solid drink. Being on Esplanade also meant we were a shelter for people to wait out the weather.

Loads of great moments by doing that.

Those principles tend to attract the kind of people associated with counterculture and anarchists, but it’s hardly representative, especially when you include the family zone and all the specialized camps.

[1] https://burningman.org/about-us/10-principles/

but the event isn’t possible to run without internet. DPW has wifi at every station. internet has become a core planning and organization tool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0_u1ZvHOu4

It's literally written to refute your point.

in a year where the world cup is taking place, counter-examples are readily available in numbers. I doubt FIFA will be releasing environmental impact datasets...

There are lots of people out there who would happily pay fines or not get deposits back if they didn't have to do the less glamorous parts of the event. You have to take something away that they actually care about.

If a camp does a really bad job at moop cleanup, Burning Man organization talks to leads to understand what happened. Frequently what they will take away is the camp's placement in the event, or sometimes even the ability to attend the event as that camp at all.

For reference: I am one of the leads for a fairly large and famous Burning Man camp. We camp on Esplanade most years. We do exactly what you proposed: We have deposits, and the more people put into the camp before, during, and after the event, determines if we offer them a refund and an invitation to camp with us next year. One of the factors is if you help us during setup and strike.

An invitation to camp with us guarantees them a ticket at one of the cheaper tiers. We have plenty of campers that come in, pay the dues, do nothing for the camp, are generally useless during the event, and bail out leaving a huge mess.

Conversely, we have a very small (10-20%) team of highly dedicated individuals who stay past the event and pick every piece of string, fuzz, fluff, lag bolt, rebar, and debris out of the dust and take it out. These people get nearly their entire camp dues back. If they attend next year, the social capital that they've built doing so compounds into them becoming increasingly popular and famous on Playa.

If there's one thing that Burning Man has taught me, it is that very few people are motivated by financial incentive. If you really want to motivate someone, figure out what they genuinely desire. It's rarely money.

Requiring a clean-up deposit up front will encourage people who were already inclined to clean up to do so, and encourage people disinclined to do so to leave trash behind.

The communal honor / shame culture that is in place is much more effective- people tend to care more about their reputation than they do money they've already spent.

The moop map, and community holding itself accountable, seems to be a decently functioning system.

Not to mention the administrative overhead, at the org level and at the camp level.

Frankly being a camp of 100+ people, not just taking dues but also handling this Deposit, and distributing the cost fairly?

Running a camp is enough of a pain in the ass without adding on this kind of thing.

Monetary incentive systems like what you're suggesting are just a way of enforcing culture. If culture spreads organically, why bother with the overhead of bringing money into the picture?

are there similar events in europe? you sound like an experienced oldhead :)

Biggest problem is it’s a pain in the ass to chop up all that chain, and nobody sells them in pre-cut lengths.

2023 was a weird one, because of the heavy rain and so many people not being used to it.

But it also seriously churned the Playa, revealing what was hidden for a whiiile