Category: Announcements

This year marked the 21st edition of Burning Flipside. Our theme this year, Sisyphean Celebration, challenged us to improve our spelling and our knowledge of Greek mythology, and symbolized our annual cycle of creation and destruction, in which we leave behind nothing of substance, but find fulfillment in the journey.

Every participant’s experience is different, and in any given year, some people will have wonderful experiences and some will have terrible ones. But the general impression is that this was an especially enjoyable, low-key event.

Tickets & Attendance

In 2019, 2750 tickets were sold and 2649 were used, for a no-show rate of about 4%. For comparison, in 2018, 2710 tickets were sold, and 2627 used, for a no-show rate of about 3%, and in 2017, 3017 tickets were sold and 2870 were used, for a no-show rate of about 5%.

As was the case last year, there was no public second-round ticket sale, apart from a small number of set-aside tickets for critical volunteers.

Incidents

Nature

The weather was relatively hot and humid (less so than last year), and dry apart from rain the Tuesday before the event started. Daytime highs were about 90°F with a heat index of about 105°F. Overnight lows were pleasant. About the best weather we could hope for. There were a couple of water-mocassin sightings and the usual assortment of scorpions and fire ants. A dead tree was felled on the property right before the event started. Laneport Dam upstream on the San Gabriel was releasing about 1850 cfm, resulting in a deep, fast flowing river. Although some participants waded in thigh-deep, everyone seemed to recognize that it was not safe for swimming.

Medical

There were three ambulance transports and one transport to hospital in a personally operated vehicle. Although some of the people presenting at the medical tent were suffering from the heat, in contrast to 2018, none of these transports were heat-related. There was no clear trend in medical problems serious enough to require transport this year.

Sound

There were no external sound complaints. The few internal sound complaints were handled quickly.

Interpersonal

There were no ejections this year. As always, if you experienced or witnessed a problematic interaction, check out the Interpersonal Incident FAQ to see how the organization can respond.

Fire

There were no unplanned fire incidents. There were three unattended fires that were resolved with warnings.

Perimeter

No gatecrashers were detected. Some drivers passing by did stop, but were kept moving by the off-duty deputies the event hires.

Art

In addition to this year’s effigy, there were three burnable-art pieces: “Big Top Mountain,” “Wee Burn,” and a memorial to a deceased ranger, Bobcat. There were 73 registered art pieces in total, making this a record year for art.

The effigy itself, “We’ll Meet Again,” represented a couple of firsts: it was the first time a Flipside effigy directly referenced the Man at Burning Man, and the first time it had an electromechanical kinetic feature–the Man’s legs. In keeping with this year’s theme, the effigy crew, known as the Design and Fabrication Team, toiled until the last minute to get the legs working. One must imagine DaFT as happy.

Ignition Philter

Although ticket money is not used to fund art projects at Burning Flipside, there have been a number of independent art-granting bodies associated with Flipside over the years, with the current one being Ignition Philter. Participants have the option of sending a contribution to Ignition Philter along with their ticket request. This year, Ignition Philter raised $3228 from these contributions.

Theme Camps & City Planning

There were 139 registered theme camps, plus an unknown number of informal camps in the Badlands. There were at least 200 RVs at this year’s event. Although the event population has been stable for some years, demand for space has been growing due to RVs.

Parking

In 2018, there was a problem with cars remaining inappropriately parked in camp. To discourage this, the organization was more aggressive about towing cars in 2019.

Safetyside

Safetyside, a weekend-long training workshop for Safety teams held about six weeks before the event, continues to play a key role in creating a cohesive safety organization, lowering walls between departments, teaching the principles of Incident Command System as well as department-specific training, and giving participants a chance to bond with each other. Attendance was roughly the same as for the past few years, and this year Safetyside welcomed a couple of representatives from the Burning Man organization. Blustery weather interfered with this year’s Safetyside to some extent, preventing a practice burn at which participants learn how to work a burn perimeter.

Work weekends & Site Prep

Work weekends faced weather challenges from the get-go. The February one was cold. The March one was cold AND wet. The April one was wet, cold, and windy (and coincided with Safetyside), and the May one was just wet–really wet.

That kept the turnout light, but thankfully, the land is in pretty good shape, and those who attended were dedicated. Work-weekend volunteers covered some low spots with roadbase, burned a lot of downed brush piles, and killed as many fire ants as possible.

There was some extra work during load-in due to late storms.

Load-in

Load-in, the Saturday before Flipside when we ship all the event’s infrastructure out to the event site, was well-supported this year. We experimented with renting two trucks the night before to get the bulk of the Effigy loaded beforehand, and this was found to work well.

Exodus

Exodus went extremely well this year with almost all participants off land by the 5pm deadline. There were two mechanical issues that required vehicles remain behind Monday night but were removed on Tuesday by participants who found other manners of transportation off property on Monday.

Restoration

Clean up efforts were primarily accomplished Saturday post event. Overall most camps took LNT seriously and removed their MOOP. A few line volunteers did line sweeps and what little MOOP was left was removed. A detailed report on the few infractions noted is still being drawn up. With DaFT and other volunteers braving the hot sun the burn scar was cleaned and all ash and metal was handled. One item of note is that the Pyro lead noted on Tuesday that the upper effigy field was cleaned sometime Monday to his great surprise and delight.

Post Operations

Saturday post event, approximately 40 hard-charging volunteers participated in loading four trucks with infrastructure to be returned to the warehouse where other volunteers helped unload. This was not a sufficient number of volunteers and seems to continue a downward trend in post event volunteerism that occurred since Floodside. None-the-less, while hot and tired, it did seem the volunteers were in good spirits and helped out excellently.

Looking for the go to list of activities for your time out on the pecan playa? You’ve come to the right place! From crafting time to consent workshops, this comprehensive curation of enticing enterprises can be found below.

Download the PDF below for all of the happenings at Flipside 2019: Sisyphean Celebration!

From the desk of Lead Ape, Jamie Jack:

Aloha lovely Flipizens, Shaven Apes could use a few more helping hands and yours are the hands we want!

Shaven Apes’ job is to help artists/camps/individuals set up their art/shade structures/pirate ships/WHATEVER so that they can get to the party and the party can get to them and we can all get the most out of our time and community.

Fun? Yes!
Worthy allocation of time? Certainly!
Feelings of usefulness, inclusion, and participation? So Many!

So please, sign up, get a shirt, and let’s get this party started.

https://wiki.burningflipside.com/wiki/Shaven_Apes/Schedule

bestest regards from your friend in yellow, Jamie Jack

Once again well over 100 RVs/Box Tucks/Trailers/Campers/Car-Camping have been registered to be placed in theme camps at Flipside 2019. Your City Planning team tries to accommodate as many placement requests as possible; however, please consider this general/gentle advisory on vehicles (large and small) inside theme camps:

Flipside’s Pecan Playa is not designed to accommodate RVs/Campers/etc in all places, nor in all weather. Some parts of the property are expressly prohibited for RVs/Campers/BoxTrucks/etc. While City Planning will incorporate your RVs, campers and car camping requests into your allotted square footage for your camp, many factors – including weather, mud, flood, bugs, hay, acts of biblical retribution and on-the-ground decisions – will affect whether an RV, camper, box truck or car can be parked within a theme camp boundaries or not.

All RV, camper and car-camping owners need to be prepared to camp in the designated RVs camping grounds in/near the Badlands, which is located on high ground near the gate. I highly recommend designing a back-up plan for yourself and your camp mates – and your theme camp if your infrastructure depends on an RV, camper or car – if your RV is unable to be parked within your camp placement. Granted, last year, we enjoyed hot, dry weather that allowed large vehicles to be placed in most camping areas, but Texas weather is notoriously fickle and May is a rainy month.

Previous years’ weather has been very wet and muddy, and volunteers on-site will have FINAL say on where an RV can be safely parked and not pose too much strain on our limited towing/roads/site ops resources. Back-up plans are highly recommended.

Citizens of Pyropolis – Ranger Blue Bonnet

Flipside is comprised of almost 3,000 participants over Memorial Day weekend not too far from Austin. We come together to share our gifts to the community- food and drink, art, performances, classes, and hugs and friendship to name a few. Some participants, like myself, gift their time to the community. On-site alone, over 6,000 hours are gifted to the community by volunteers to help our city be what it is. I volunteer with Rangers which is one of eight safety departments we have. Please find some information about this department below!

Ranger FAQ

Who are Rangers?

Rangers are part of a volunteer safety team for Burning Flipside and are available 24/7 during Flipside. They walk in pairs around the city and interact with participants, camps and other volunteers.

How do I become a Ranger at Flipside?

Safetyside is the main training for all safety teams at Burning Flipside. It happens every April . At this event, you participate in different sessions to learn how safety teams work together, problems which might arise, and ways to handle those situations. First time Rangers are paired up with a mentor during their shifts. If you have done a training for UBS, Alma Burn, Myschievia, Freezer Burn, Oblivium, or Burning Man within the last year, you are eligible to ranger at Flipside. Please contact the Ranger lead to give him this information along with contact information of the lead. If you have not had a training within the last year but have rangered at least four shifts before and would like to ranger at Flipside, please contact the Ranger lead to let him know how many shifts you have done at which burns and the leads for those burns. There is a required on-site training on Friday. If you would like to Khaki/Ass-Khaki and you have done at least six dirt shifts (AK) or eight dirt shifts (Khaki) and have IS-100 training (https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-100.c), you can also do an on-site training on Friday. Email Rangerlead@burningflipside.com with your information or questions.

What do Rangers do?

Dirt Rangers walk around in pairs in the city and help everyone have a better burn. Each shift is six hours long and there are Rangers available 24/7 during the entire event. Pairs are assigned to different zones during their shifts.They remind folks to drink water, interact with camps, give out important information like weather reports and have a map to direct folks to where they want to go. Rangers also help mediate situations if needed. They are sober and always have a radio with them in case a participant needs other help. A Dirt Ranger might radio in for help if a branch falls in a camp; someone needs medical assistance; or a car needs to be towed out of the right-of-way and no one can find the owner. Dirt Rangers will help secure an area until someone else arrives to help. They might even ask you to help redirect folks to make sure they stay safe or don’t get in the way.

“Khaki” and “Assistant Khaki” (we call em Ass-Khaki) are Rangers who are at the Ranger HQ and they handle all the radio traffic from Dirt Rangers and help connect needed resources from other departments. For example, if a Dirt Ranger reports a downed branch which needs to be removed, Khaki will coordinate with site-ops who then has folks come out with the proper tools to remove the branch. It also works the other way. If a Flipizen goes to Ranger HQ to report something, Khaki will radio the nearest Rangers to have them check out the situation and help as needed. At the end of a shift, Khaki debriefs all the Rangers and helps transition from one shift to another. Khaki also keeps a log of all incidents which happen during a shift.

The Rangers may also at times interact with outside resources such as Medical, Fire, or Law Enforcement, should it be necessary.

There are some Rangers who have additional training from other departments. Green Dots can help with mental health issues; Blue Dots have basic first-aid; Red Dots have fire safety training and Silver Dots have training to help monitor sound levels.

Before the effigy burns, a couple dozen Rangers secure a burn perimeter. This ensures Flipizens are a safe distance away from the intense heat the effigy generates while burning and also from possible parts that fly off. There are also Dirt Rangers who wander through the city at this time too.

When should I contact a Ranger?

If you are concerned about your safety or the safety of another participant, find a Ranger. If you are unsure of the weather, ask a Ranger. Or, if you have excess food that needs consuming, we can radio for other volunteers to show up and help eat it. We are here to help connect you to resources you need!

How do I find a Ranger?

All on-shift Rangers wear a light-tan/khaki colored shirt which says, “Pyropolis Ranger” on it. Many also wear a khaki-colored Ranger hat with various burn patches on them. Some of them sport utilikilts or tutus. Others wear skirts or shorts and still other wear funky socks.They will be in pairs and have radios. Sometimes you can find them “Rangering the shade” which means they’re taking a break from walking, having something to eat and rehydrating while talking to Flipizens. You can always find Rangers at the Ranger HQ which is located next to PETs (medical tent) and Sanctuary (mental health tent) close to the effigy field. You can also stop anyone with a radio and ask them to radio for a Ranger and the closest pair will come over and provide needed assistance.

Remember, Rangers and all other volunteers are here to make Pyropolis better. Don’t hesitate to ask someone about their department if you’re curious. And never hesitate to ask a Ranger for help or just strike up a short conversation.

Blue Bonnet Clear.