Tourism at Burningman?

[Interested bystander]

This is my second question for discussion. It's actually a two parter. Is tourism getting worse at BM? If so, what can be done about it?

Two things prompted my questions. We camped on the outer ring this year, loved it by the way and will be there again next year. We woke up Saturday morning to find an RV parked slightly behind our tent on 5:30 with about a quarter of it in the road. I say we woke up but actually we were woken up at 6AM by their generator. We went about our business, listening to their generator and breathing their exhaust, 'til about noon. Finally my wife went over and asked them if they could turn it off for a bit as it was loud and the fumes were getting to us. Their reply was that they needed it on to run their air conditioner. As anyone who attended this year knows the weather was great and I wouldn't have dreamed of sitting inside under AC. They finally turned it off later that afternoon while we were out on the playa.

The second thing also happened Saturday morning. In addition to the RV there was an SUV parked on the road right by our tent. There was no one in it and it didn't appear to belong to any camp. About 9:00 a woman rode up on a bicycle in a complete safari outfit including khaki pants, boots, long sleeved khaki shirt and a big safari hat. She got off her bike, loaded it up and started packing stuff away. We said hi and asked how she was doing and it turned out she was just out there for a morning bike ride. She bought her ticket but didn't camp, she just came out each morning, paid the $20 reentry fee and rode around for about three hours looking at things. She then packed her bike up and drove back to Reno. She said it was just too hot and dirty to stay out there longer than 3 hours.

Thoughts?

[Eric]

they paid their money, why shouldn't they enjoy the way they feel most comfortable?

That said, I'll grant you that the RV was incredibly rude to park so that their exhaust blew into your tent. Did you ask if they could maybe shift it some so it was a little more.... "politely placed"? A "welcome to Burning Man, lets work together" approach might do the trick. Then again, it might not.....

We noticed a lot of virgins this year who didn't seem to "get" some of the basic get-along rules we seem to take for granted. We had a fairly big area open in front of our camp (on Wheel of Fortune/ the outer ring of Center Camp) so that paper boys & girls and vistors could park their bikes, and multiple times we had people pull into it like it was city parking, not even say hi, and start to walk away. We would just shout out that they should ask if they would like to park in our camp, but we did it nicely (most of the time....) All except for once they were very nice and apologetic, explaining that they were new & didn't know the rules.

[FungusAmongus]

we had a similar experience. We were a small registered theme camp and we got placed when we got there. we parked our bus abour 20 ft away from C street and 10 ft from 9:30. we were using the space there to allow people to come and park there bikes and dance to the music we were playing at night. So about thursday i come back to camp at night to find a 20ft RV parked in that very spot (we hadnt been partying at camp that night so the space must have been empty when they came). There was nobody to be found. They were there the next morning as well but then they took off. i never actually saw anyone though. Not sure if the were yahoo/tourists or someone just parkin there big vehicle in a spot they thought was empty while comin in at night, who knows. But then the next day a van(one of the ones with the raised roofs) came and parked in the spot. Now again i really didnt see anybody that was the owner. These guys camped on our spot until right after the burn. Fortunately for them we were too in the burning man mood to put our speakers all around the van and blast them out at 4am. They also left quite a big water spot on our dance floor from draining their coolers. It's just kind of aggrivating simply because we were a theme camp and we were placed there and these guys never came over to say hello or what they were doing or anything. Nor did they contribute any time towards cleanup. And they were parked on our dance floor lol. Anyways i'm not really sure if they were tourists or burners because i didnt meet anyone and neither did anyone else in my camp.

[Lorgasm]

Reading these posts reminds me of this 2 chicks that entered late into the burn. I'm guessin Fri...dunno. Anyways, never got a chance to really connect with them. All I know was that they were cool. Early Sunday I noticed they were packin up and leaving. My heart melted. My goodness I thought. They were not here but just a couple of days. I stopped them and gave them necklaces. One of the girls returned to me and gave me a couple of dried roses. I still have them in my sketch book. (How did you know Sterling Silver was my favorite rose color). They left without a trace. I noticed that prior to their departure, they looked for moop and cleaned. I wish they could've stayed longer but they said work was to blame. I understood. Girls, if you are reading this you know who you are (2:30 and hope). I hope your journey back to the default world was safe and kind to you and that you will try to stay longer next year. Thinkin of ya. (((HUGS)))