How to Host a Burning Man Fundraiser Party

Goals

It's great fun, connects your campmates, and earns money.
Plus you get to dress up, make friends, and dance.

It helps to ask people about the feeling you want to create for the party, the community that you want to reach, and how this relates to your Burning Man plans.

Location

Scout for potential places like local clubs and warehouse spaces.
Talk with the manager about the party. Some good questions:

- rental prices & deposits - available dates & hours - crowd capacity - age limits - square footage - parking - public transportation - handicapped access

- guest list - in & out policy - smoking areas - decorations - setup times - takedown times - sound systems - what DJs need

- will the club help promote? - is the general public allowed? - can you kick out undesirables? - are there bartenders & doormen? - are the doormen off-duty cops? - do the doormen search guests? - what's the searching policy? - is the manager burn-friendly?

Club owners seem to be more flexible with money deals on weekdays.

Possibilities

Club Bas - North Beach - three spaces, each a new vibe, each with bars
Above Paradise - SOMA - cozy couches & fireplace plus a DJ dancing room
Cloud 9 - Downtown - main level bar, upstairs lounge, downstairs for music
Sno-Drift - Far SOMA - dance room & lounge room connected by thin hall

Planning

Allow at least two months to plan a big party. Three months is better.

- Club owners may be slow to say yes
- The best DJs may book months in advance
- First announcements are best a month ahead
- Flyers and cards take time to print

An example timeline is below.

Music

When you look for DJs, make sure that your camp members get to hear them and approve them far in advance. You want the DJs that are good performers, flexible, reliable, and professional.

Share the ideas for the party with the DJ, so they understand the goals, what the crowd may be like, and your intentions for the big night.

If you have more than one DJ, tell them about each other so they can it well together, and arrange the lineup of when they are playing.

Questions for a DJ:

- How much do you cost? - Can you give a discount? - How can you help promote us? - What other DJs do you like? - When do you play in the lineup?

- Will you want comp tickets? - Will you want/need to bring anything? - Do you understand the club sound system? - How do you want to be described? - Can we link to your website?

Earnings

It depends on your party, and your arrangements with the club and DJs.

- ticket prices - bar earnings - insurance costs?

- deducting promotion costs - deducting comp tickets - do camp members pay?

Example 1: our fundraiser at the Werepad in August. We set up extensive decorations, had six DJs including Drag'nFly headlining, and had the entire club for the night. We sold all 100 tickets to Burning Man friends, so the club was packed with playa people. For advance purchase we chose Acteva for credit cards, plus PayPal for direct payments. We split ticket profits 50/50 with the club, and the club got all the bar profits. We netted about $900.

Example 2: Our parties at Sacrelicious in The Cellar last year. We mixed our people with the club's normal traffic on Thursday nights, which made it easy and quick for us to have a full party. We arranged with the club owners to earn the ticket profits from guests who said they came for us, and we earned half the bar profits. We netted about $700.

Ticket price ideas are discussed below.

Announcements

Email announcements e.g. to Craigslist, Squidlist, Jack Rabbit Speaks, Dioxene, other theme camp leaders, friends of all your camp members. The promotion leader should follow-up with all the members to make sure that the announcements actually go out correctly.

Set a goal for each member, e.g. each member is responsible for 5 people buying tickets.

Invitations

Creating a mailing list so you can add your friends. You may want to add emails of other Burning Man camps. Ensure that each person only gets one invitation, even if they are added by lots of friends. Be considerate about using email addresses-- no one likes email spam.

Flyers

We're printing business cards and/or 4x6 flyers for handouts. This typically costs about $150 and takes a week turnaround. We can use art like our tattoo, or pictures we've taken.

For easy fast cheap runs, like our new business cards, we use Kinkos. The staffer can help you print your color artwork to the Fiery using glossy cardstock, optionally printing the backside with black-and-white art.

Posters

A good cheap way to photocopy big black-and-white posters and signs is at Kinko's, using their enlarger photocopier. It can do four feet wide, any length, and it's about $1 per square foot. After you print, you can add color with your own pens, highlighters, tempra paint, etc. You can also use special large papers from Flax. Ask at Kinko's for details.

Posters tend to be expensive. Prices depend lots of variable like material (paper cardstock vinyl etc) and ink (black, color, foil) and size (bigger gets expensive) and run (many makes it cheaper) etc.

Ticket Pricing

To set your ticket price, consider these:

- Presale discount? - Costume discount? - Sliding scale? - Group rates?

- Can the doorman handle complex ticket prices? - Do you include drink coupons, giveaways, etc.? - Do your camp members pay? Do their significant others? - Do you have complimentary tickets? (see below for ideas)

Our experience:

- Presale discounts help because they get people to commit early
- Costume discounts work best big e.g. "$10 in costume, $20 in street clothes"
- Sliding scale can be informal e.g. "ask us by July 10 if you need a low-income ticket"
- Group rates are complex to manage; couples rates are not worth adding hassle.

Ticket Changes

You may have the urge to change your prices midway, for example if people aren't buying enough tickets. Resist this urge.

Be consistent and stick to your original plan. Any last-minute changes tend to confuse your campmates, your partiers, and your club owners.

If you still have the urge to change your prices midway, consider complimentary tickets and half-price tickets for inviting special guests-- see below for ideas.

Ticket Freebies

We can give complimentary (free) tickets to key people. For example, the leaders of other theme camps, Burning Man employees, dancers, poi spinners, face painters, photographers, and to the DJs.

Tell them ahead of time how many tickets they get, and make certain that they're are on the guestlist.

Ask them for help promoting the party, for example emailing their friends.

If your camp is recruiting members, you may want to comp them.

We consider half-price tickets for some groups, like fire dancers. They are great for the party vibe, and we want to support them joining us.

Ticket Sales

One person should lead sales & marketing because this ensures consistent current information. This is called the standard channel.

Camp members should be enrolled to sell and promote because this encourages participation. Important: the selling and promoting should direct customers to the standard channel.

Keep an up-to-date list of sales and post it on the members website because this keeps members on-track, excited, motivated, and better able to focus on their own projects.

Our experience: a good approach is for members to provide their email lists to the marketing leader, then the members follow up with personal phone calls.

Warning: a bad approach is for each member to sell x tickets to friends because it causes delays, inconsistencies, poor tracking, sub-par results and fear of failure. Instead, use a leader and standard channel.

Ticket Gotchas

If you sell tickets online, be sure to state a cutoff time. For example, say "online tickets are available until Friday at 6 p.m."

If you sell advance tickets, be sure to state that tickets will (or will not) be available at the door.

If you have a limited number of discount tickets (like Burning Man) be sure to track how many you sell and let people know when the discount tickets are sold out.

Important: if you sell all your tickets, be sure to update your website saying that your party is sold out. Also consider sending a courtesy email announcement.

Guestlist

We use PayPal to keep track of who's paid, to provide the doorman with a guest list.

The guestlist is the people who pay us and the people we comp. Try to avoid arrangements like "my friend says he wants us to reserve a ticket and he will pay us later" or "my friend bought four tickets and only needs three, can we give a refund?"

Decorations

It typically takes at least five people five hours for decorations like a centerpiece and a pod like the furry Lucinda Lounge. We can setup at the Werepad on Saturday afternoon or evening.

Useful decorating accessories:

- food - juice - music - camera - notepad - sharpies

- glow sticks - rope lights - christmas lights - colored light gels - disco ball spotlight - blinking toys

- twine - zip ties - safety pins - clothes pins - extension cords - power strips

- markers - scissors - duct tape - scotch tape - masking tape - electrical tape

Do you need a soundcheck? Ask your DJs and the club owner.

Greeting

When guests arrive, greet them.

It helps to have them write their email address, so we can send them party photos, lost-and-found questions, and future announcements.

We greet people by telling them a brief bit about our camp, about the club, about the party vibe. We also tattoo them.

We also like greeting ceremonies, which may be any combination of short speech, collective OM, holding hands, introducing camp members, or thanking the DJs and the club.

Cleanup

Like setup, breakdown also takes five people, and goes faster than setup.

It helps to bring food, juice, and music.

Timeline

PLANNING...
12 weeks to go	Propose general party idea to camp.
11 weeks to go	Get feedback on DJs, clubs, themes, etc.
10 weeks to go	Book club, DJs, photogs, dancers.
9 weeks to go	Create PR: web, flyers, tickets, etc.
8 weeks to go	Test PR; get commitments to promote.
7 weeks to go	Finalize PR; get commitments to decorate.
PROMOTING...
6 weeks to go	Announce everywhere email, flyer, etc.
5 weeks to go	Get each camper to sell at least one ticket.
4 weeks to go	Personally email other camp leaders to promo.
3 weeks to go	Email to touch base with all participants.
2 weeks to go	Fix anything that need fixing; more flyers.
1 week to go	Announce again; phone campers with reminders.
THE BIG DAY...
Noon-4 pm	Setup
4pm	Everyone goes home to eat, sleep, etc.
8:30 pm	Camp members arrive, final decorations
9 pm - 2 am	Party!
2 am	After-party
2 pm next day	Cleanup
AFTERGLOW...
Share photos with everyone Thank the club, DJs, dancers, etc. Ask for feedback from campers & partygoers Figure out earnings Update the website Add any new advice here

All images copyright to the respective photographers.