The Future Turtles Camp

• Work Requirements to Camp With the Future Turtles
• How Building Camp Works
• Build 2025
• Build Plan 2025
• Early Build Team - Sequence - 2025
• Early Build Team Food
• Early Build Team Orientation
• Camp Design and Architecture
• 2026 Program
• The Future Turtles Charter Bus
• 2026 Future Turtles Bus FAQ
• 2025 Archive
• Burning Man 2025 Tickets
• 2025 Camp Plan
• 2025 Pavillion
• Strike Plan 2025
• 2025 FT Playa Calendar
• Camping with the Turtles - Orientation 2025
• Teams and Leadership - 2025
• Work Weekends
• 2026-04-18 Hamptons
• 2026-05-09 and 17 Reno (two weekends)
• In Camp Shifts

Work Requirements to Camp With the Future Turtles

Camping for a week in the harsh Black Rock Desert is tough. We try to make it easier by collaborating to build a beautiful camp, organizing delicious shared meals together, and providing communal gifts to the Burning Man community.

The magic of Burning Man is the collaboration. Not only will you be collaborating to build something really awesome that you can be proud of, but you will test your own limits, learn many new skills, and make incredible friends for life. Burning Man is a transformative experience and the people you go through it with make all the difference.

This all takes a ton of work, both in the months leading up to the event getting everything ready, and during the week of Burning Man itself. To camp with us, you can expect to put in several days of work before you even get to the event, and several hours of shifts every day once we’re there.

Off-Playa Contribution

Each turtle is required to contributed meaningfully to the preparation for Burning Man in one of the following ways:

1. Participate in a work weekend in Reno, NV in the spring to help prepare our gear
   
2. Join the early build team, arriving on playa a week before everyone else to build the camp
3. Join the post-strike team, staying behind on playa a day and helping put away gear in Reno after the event
4. As a part of the food and beverages team, prepare food and the food truck in Reno before the burn
5. Meaningfully contribute to a camp art project and/or bring your own form of art

On Playa Work Teams

Every turtle will also be a part of a work team on playa. The teams may change a bit from year to year, but in 2024 we had the following work teams:

1. Food (preparing two hot meals a day)
2. Dining Room (serving meals and cleaning the dining room afterwards; maintaining snack stations)
3. Drinks (including drinks served at parties, water and electrolyte drinks available to campers, and ice)
4. LNT (cleaning the public areas of the camp)
5. Gayflower (cleaning the private shower area)
6. Infrastructure (maintaining the generator and water infrastructure)

These teams organize their own shifts throughout the event week, with a goal that each turtle contribute approximately 12 hours of work during the week as a part of their particular team.

Other Teams

We have a variety of teams, large and small, that take care of some of the other things that keep our camp working. These teams often meet in advance of Burning Man to prepare and their work during the event may vary depending on the team. This work is all in addition to the work shifts mentioned above, and almost every turtle contributes to at least one of these teams. Your contribution may be to one of these existing projects, or you might have an idea to start your own project!

Team	Typical pre-playa work	Typical on-playa work	Typical post-playa work
Parties	Choose themes for parties, prepare decor and accessories, line up DJs and entertainment, produce publicity and submit events to Playa Events, coordinate with drinks team	Run the parties, make sure there are volunteers to staff parties as greeters, monitors, consent monitors, bike parking, lighting directors, DJs, and bartenders
Guardians	Plan for orientation activities, schedule training for new turtles and pre-playa meeting sessions	Deal with personal, emotional, health issues, and conflict that may come up; coach campers whose behavior puts them at risk of not getting invited back	Produce programming for re-integration and "decompression" from playa; make sure unresolved issues during the week are addressed
Bikes	Inventory bikes and order new parts	Check bikes out and in
Turtle Truck	Reserve a rental truck and pick it up; coordinate load-in and drive to playa		Coordinate load-in, drive from playa, take camp trash to the dump, wash truck and return it
Turtle Bus	Coordinate the charter bus and make sure the right people are on it and it goes to the right places; communicate with riders		Coordinate the charter bus and make sure the right people are on it and it goes to the right places; communicate with riders
Camp Decor and Design	Plan camp layout and decor	Set up decor and lights
Art Projects	Build art for the playa Work on an art car	Set up art, maintain art lighting, maintain art car, etc.	Take down art
Pillow Fort	Plan pillow fort layout and decor	Coordinate on-playa pillow fort activities
Workshops and Events	Prepare some kind of on-playa workshop or event	Example events: Tarot Reading, Turkish Coffee Fortunetelling, HIIT training, Yoga, workshops and small classes, etc.

How Building Camp Works

Build Week is one of the best parts of Burning Man. You arrive well before everyone else to a desert that is surprisingly empty and quiet. You are surrounded by builders and makers and dreamers and doers. You scramble to get your first night's shelter in place, then you work side by side with your friends building an amazing camp. The friendliest people you've ever met, who it turns out will be your future neighbors, stop by constantly to borrow tools, yap about shade structures, and bring you fresh fruit. In the evening, you sneak out of camp on your bike to explore the art under construction and visit your friends at neighboring camps. You dawdle over some of the best grilled food you've ever tasted (the dust, and the day's hard work, make it better). And come Saturday as your campers start to arrive they are amazed and thankful for what you have built!

Before we get into it, here's the build team movie!

A typical year for the Build Team, assuming all goes well and there is no weather emergency or space alien invasion or global pandemic or plague of locusts, looks like this:

We meet in Reno, NV on Monday the week before Burning Man. In Reno, we do some last minute preparations, and get the Build Team RV ready to go. In 2024 the biggest thing was just buying food for the build team itself.

On Tuesday morning as early as possible, we drive from Reno to Black Rock City.

Once we arrive in Black Rock City, we wait for Placement to show us where our camp will be located. Once we find it, we do the first MOOP sweep and start surveying and measuring and putting little flags in the ground where things will go.

As soon as we have established exactly where everything goes, we call the trucking services to bring us all our stuff, the generator rental company to bring the generator, the water company to bring their tanks, etc. Then we start preparing for the first night, putting down enough shade structures for our own team to sleep in.

If all has gone well, we have managed to build six shiftpods for the first night with protective tarps above and below by the time we go to sleep on Tuesday.

Over the course of the rest of the week, we get as much built as possible. That includes all of our public and private shade structures, tents, electrical grid, water system, and as much of the camp decor as we can get done. Hopefully around Thursday night or Friday the food team rolls in and starts feeding us and setting up the kitchen and dining room. A lot of campers arrive Saturday before the gates officially open and help finish anything we didn't get done. And that's about it!

Read the Early Build Team Orientation for a lot more details and advice

Build 2025

Build Plan 2025

Early Build Team

We have 12 tuesday SAPs:

	builder	arriving Reno	Transport Reno -> Playa
1	Joel	Mon Aug 18 1pm flight from NY	Turtle RV
2	Beam	Mon Aug 18 1pm flight from NY	Turtle RV
3	Basil	Mon Aug 18 1pm flight from NY	Turtle RV
4	Madame Vivien V	Mon Aug 18 1pm flight from NY	Turtle RV
5	Dat	Mon Aug 18 1pm flight from NY	Turtle RV
6	Gary	Mon Aug 18 1pm flight from NY	Turtle RV
7	Klajdi		Jeremy's car (from SF - there from July 24)
8	Jeremy		Jeremy's car (from SF )
9	Alex H		Jeremy's car (from SF - SFO flight Mon Aug 18 2:15pm)
10	Ed		Jeremy's car (from SF - SFO flight Mon Aug 18 2:15pm)
11	Neptune		own van
12	PB		own van

Here's the tentative calendar for 2025. See also the Early Build Team - Sequence - 2025 for details.

Date / Time	Early Build Team	Food Team
Mon Aug 18 1:00p	Meet in Reno   Pick up RV Shop for build team food Get RV ready Fill up diesel Buy DEF if needed for generator  Overnight at GSR Fill water Last minute shopping and prep Jeremy's car will arrive in Reno 9-10 pm Transfer excess luggage to RV
Tue Aug 19 6:00 am	Entry Drive from Reno Enter playa Call placement Get placed Measure positions for delivered vehicles Call: Peik Construction Empire Storage  Generator Water Prepare first night shiftpods
Wed Aug 20	General Build   Team A: Shade Structure Team B: Interactive Pavilion Team C: Utilities (petrol, music while working, water, power)
Thu Aug 21	General Build continues
Fri Aug 22	General Build continues	Enter playa
Sat Aug 22	Furnishings and decor Turtles arrive

Early Build Team - Sequence - 2025

We have a big build team this year so we're going to split into three groups!

	Leonardos	Donatellos	Michaelangelos
Arrival	Park RV temporarily where the food fort will eventually go MOOP Sweep	Make breakfast	MOOP Sweep
After Placement		Survey for Empire Deliveries   Measure and mark fire lane   Flag locations for Empire Fort, Moving Truck, Water, Shower, and Generator. Call Empire 828-406-5099 Sierra Site Svcs 888-458-8777  Generator World 916-668-0605	Survey for Peik Deliveries Measure and flag for Tool Fort, Bike Fort, Pillow Fort   Call Peik 775-674-9207
After Deliveries	First tarps   Lay down six tarps as numbered on schematic (enough for the initial outpost and Shiftpods for build team) Turtle event sign   Build and light the sign listing our events at the street corner	First EMT structure ("sticks")   Follow Leonardos building sticks for initial outpost: the Kink Fort, and, time permitting, enough to protect six shiftpods for the build team.	First Shade Follow Donatellos adding side and roof tarps to sticks. Kink fort first, then, time permitting, enough to protect six shiftpods.
	First Shiftpods Follow Michaelangelos to setup first six shiftpods	Make dinner	Set up two tables, some chairs, and air conditioners in the Kink Fort so it can be our home base   Set up big red floodlight
	Personal setup.	Personal setup.	Personal setup.
Wednesday	Remaining Tarps Continue laying down tarps	Get bluetooth + big speaker working for music   Remaining sticks   Follow Leonardos building sticks	Observation Decks Set up and anchor ladders for observation decks   Build pipe structure on observation decks Pavilion Measure and survey.   Assemble mast on ground. Include sails, guylines, Turtle sign and its power cord along guyline, and two paracord pulleys on each face (allowing things to be pulled up to the top later).   When mast is assembled, all hands gather to raise it and secure guylines.
	Remaining Shade   Follow Donatellos adding tarps to sticks	Remaining Shiftpods   Follow Leonardos setting up Shiftpods	Pavilion   Anchor all the sails and perfect
Thursday	Electrical grid   Generator, all banded cables, distribution boxes, and spider boxes   Initial power up and test	Amenities   Lounge furnishings and lights Kink Fort furnishings and lights	Observation Decks   Connect wire guardrails   Utility Lighting   String lights for dining area and camper shiftpod area
	DJ and Audio Gear   Setup and wire all speakers   Setup and test all DJ gear (booth may not have arrived)	Amenities   Bike parking signs   LED rope lights to separate between bike parking areas and street   Lotus Belle Tent and its Furnishings (including ACs)	Dining Room Setup   Tables, chairs, camper cubbies, signs and whiteboards, snack area
Friday	Water setup    SSS water connection for food fort SSS grey water connection for food fort Water filling station in dining room Set up backup pumping mechanisms (fresh / grey between Food and Gayflower)	DMX Lights   Connect and test everything on the ground Then mount it in final locations   Whips Light whips in bike parking area	Pillow Fort Setup   Empty remaining items from Pillow Fort to storage Set up the pillow fort

Early Build Team Food

Team Size: 12 builders
Food restrictions: Jetpack (no pork or shellfish), Jeremy (Pescatarian), Scott (No Dairy, allergic to Macadamia Nuts)

Shopping list (spreadsheet)

Meals

	tuesday	wednesday	thursday	friday
continental breakfast	danish fresh fruit	muffins fresh fruit	cinnamon rolls fresh fruit	croissants yogurt instant oatmeal
lunch	full breakfast (eggs, hash browns, veg sausage, bacon, biscuits)	smash burgers (tuna burgers available), grilled veggies	pancake breakfast (eggs, veg sausage, bacon, berries, syrup)	make your own sandwich bar, brownies, apples
snack	pears, brie and crackers	guac and chips (make double, for dinner)	quesadillas (some with avocado instead of cheese)	hummus and pita chips dates and almonds
dinner	chicken thighs (salmon steak available), Greek salad, baguette & butter	crispy taco dinner (beans, ground beef, all the toppings) more guac & chips	chicken gyros (quorn option)	fajita dinner (chicken, halloumi, mushrooms avail) pie

In stock

Coffee
Tea
Milk
Oat Milk
Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Multi-grain Cheerios
Frozen Burritos (Bean and Cheese)
English Muffins
Eggs
American Cheese
Non-dairy sliced cheese
Bagels
Cream Cheese
Salted Cashews
Salted Almonds
Dried Turkish Apricots
Kosher Dill Pickles
Pretzels
Individually-wrapped assorted chips
Cliff Bars
Peanut M&Ms

Early Build Team Orientation

Take care of yourself, first

• Don't work on build when you're not sorted out
  • food
  • bathroom
  • rest
  • shade
  • sunscreen
  • water
  • electrolytes
  • gloves
  • hat (wear hat at all times)
• Work at 75% speed; it's hotter and difficult than you're used to. That could mean 15 min break per hour or just work a little bit slower than you think
• Take a pickle / nap break at any time. No penalty. Don't be a hero
• Hopefully we have Gayflower or other water by Wednesday end-of-day for first shower
• Don't work on EMT without gloves (your hands will get chapped and not recover all week)
  • I actually like three layers: moisturizer, nitrile gloves, then work gloves

Work smart

• Set up tables and chairs in the shade for detailed work
  • don't "save time" by squatting in the dirt to do something
• Set up tool stations first so everything is at hand and you can always find things
• When setting up lights, DMX, DJ gear, etc, set up a bunch of tables and lay it all out first. Get it working on the tables before dragging it up and installing it
• One of our first priorities is to set up the kink fort - a shade structure that is well protected against wind and dust - and get some AC, lights, tables and chairs in there. This will serve as our hangout and refuge, where we take meals and cook, etc. until more infrastructure is assembled.

Work clean

• If something is out and not being used, put it away before doing anything else
• Assume wind storm at any minute. Nothing is ever lying around that won't survive a windstorm. 
  • The only things that survive a windstorm: milk crates of hardware and closed black & yellows
  • Anything else should be out if and only if you can carry it inside by yourself in one trip
• Always keep all the tool battery packs charging up
• Carry a moop bag at all times
• Don't just have random milk crates of shade hardware lying randomly around the camp
  • This results in people walking around for hours looking for, say, a lag screw
  • Just keep a single, neat row of milk crates with the hardware you need next to where we are building shade right now.
  • Take the time to get a new crate from the Empire Fort if you run out
  • Take the time to move the crates when the place where you are working changes
  • Take the time to move empty crates back to the Empire Fort

Save water

• Clean dishes using a paper towel first instead of rinsing them
• Use the RV dishwasher instead of running a lot of water to wash dishes

Work safe

• Never attach a tarp to anything other than a fully anchored & ratcheted EMT structure.
• Use two people on two ladders to bungee tarps, so they don't turn into sails
• Always bungee with gloves on or risk injury 👹

Team Vocab

• "Sticks" - EMT
• "Hangers" - EMT anchor things
• "Lag bolts" - Lag Screws
• "Black & Yellow" - one of those totes from home depot
• "Have a pickle and a nap" - you're cranky, take a break
• "The bus" - the RV

Hard EMT Lessons From Past Years

• Five-ways must all be oriented the same way: so that you can look at the man through the hollow pipe
  • otherwise they won't line up
• Take time to line up sticks by eyeballing them carefully with a friend moving them to align them, before you drill them into the ground
  • Errors will compound and eventually something won't work
• Measuring exact ground tarp overlaps shown in the plans is not optional
  • It is important that the sticks drill into the tarps to anchor them to the ground properly
• Don't even think of attaching a tarp until the EMT structure is complete
• Wrap each ratchet around its stick twice so it won't twang in the wind
  • but not so many times that it doesn't provide tension
• Wrap up excess ratchet slack and tuck away so it doesn't make a dune collector / tripping hazard
• Sloped tarps facing the wind must be fully tensioned, so they don't become sails
• Sloped tarps should be anchored to the ground via bungees, not just drilled directly
  • to prevent extreme noise in the wind
• Don't over tighten eye bolts. Fingers are enough.
  • they will snap off. Eye bolts are not for strength, just for keeping things in shape until the tarps go up.
    
• If we get sand dunes blown up on the tarps during build week, don't try to blow them off with a leaf blower.
  • this will take all week. Instead use a broom and brush bulk sand into pans and remove.
• Use the same size bungee cord along each edge of a tarp
  • otherwise the longer ones will just fall out
  • we have different size bungee cords and the color is not a code.
• Secure bungees on all four corners first (and nearby holes if possible) to balance tension and avoid tearing or overstretching bungees.
• Use red bungees in public areas. They're pretty.

Weather 

• We're likely to have heavy wind at some point during build week.
  • While it is possible to put down ground tarps and put up shade tarps in the wind, it's 10 times harder. Think about whether we can do something else instead.
• The afternoon is super hot.
  • Look for things you can do in the shade in the afternoon.
    
• Rain sucks
  • We'll have to stop everything and wait for it to dry
  • Walking in the mud is a disaster, resulting in churned up playa that is bumpy, collects moop, and becomes dust dunes. Don't walk in camp if the ground is wet.

Build Schedule and Cadence

• My dream schedule would be
  • waking up at 6 or 7 am,
  • having a light breakfast,
  • working a lot in the morning while it's still cool,
  • having a big lunch
  • having a little bit of a siesta in the shade during the hottest part of the day
  • quitting by 5pm or 6pm
  • enjoying a leisurely dinner
• If we are fully on track and have caught up with the day's plan by dinner time, you can use the evenings to meet neighbors, explore art projects, and just generally enjoy playa and recharge.
  • Celestial Bodies has "bartender training" Friday and Saturday night
  • It is fun to take a field trip to see DMV inspection (Saturday it opens at 1pm)
  • Art projects may be in the weeds and really appreciate volunteers
    
• We should only consider working after dinner:
  • on the first night if we don't have a place to sleep and eat set up in time, or,
  • if an external dependency requires it (e.g. a delivery arrives) - rare, or,
  • if we are more than a day behind
• We do want to finish the public pavilion, DJ gear, and lights by Saturday midnight for our first party
• That said, if we get behind on everything else, most turtles will arrive on Saturday and with all that manpower we can finish things quickly.
  • As things fall behind just say "leave it for the turtles." They need some experience building anyway.

Teams

• I've attempted to divide the schedule into roughly three teams and each team will have a leader for the day.
  • Leader may change
• You can switch what team you are working on, or go help another team, if that makes sense. 
  • Sometimes a team is blocking on another team and they should just help the team they are blocking on. Use yer brains
• Every night we'll go over the plan for the next day and assign teams.
• We'll also assign chefs for the meals. Most of our meals are pretty easy to prepare but some take a few hours so those chefs may leave work early.

Turtle Spirit

• If you see a turtle doing something, just help them
• At the end of every meal, everyone swarms to clean up and nobody stops cleaning up until the dining area and RV kitchen are restored to their original glory
• Nobody should come into our camp without being greeted
  
• Keep the music going!
• Let's line up and cheer the arrivals when the bus gets in on Saturday

Camp Design and Architecture

2026 Program

Redesigning the Future Turtles

At the end of 2025 a lot of the public areas of the camp had been destroyed, and the sentiment among the campers was that certain parts of our public offering were at best boring and at worst inconsistent with their own goals and ambitions for the camp. As such in fall 2025 we started working on a new interactive program for the camp. This document is intended as a draft of how the camp layout will change so that we can start building anew for 2026.

Public

The Café At Future Turtles 

We will have one, unified public space called the Café, featuring:

• • • counter/bar
      • offering an interesting beverage program day and night and possibly snacks like Quesadillas
      • bar stools and ten bistro tables in the shade
      • turtle theme behind bar
    • burn barrel at night
      • wicker chairs and sofas
        
    • bike parking with our trademark LED whip wall
• Cafe will be multipurpose, suitable for programs like:
  • • Saturday night welcome ceremony and party
    • Coffee bar
    • Cold drinks in the afternoons (mostly non-alcoholic, with themes)
    • Gaywatch sunscreen station
    • Quiet lounge music (conversation, not dancing)
    • A place for turtles to eat their meals

Private

Camper shade structure

• • • Stronger than 2025! (Diagonal ratchet straps, all new tarps, side mesh tarps)
    • No ground tarps (lesson of the rain)

Enclosed Tent

One large, 20'x30' enclosed tent (fully weatherproof) set up between the food fort and the pillow fort, featuring:

• • • Food serving area
    • Snack / kitchenette area
    • NO seating and tables (mostly campers will take their food out to the cafe)
    • Camper cubbies
    • Lost and found
    • Canteen filling station
    • Trash sorting
    • Cleaning supplies
    • Announcement whiteboard

A 20x30 tent is being ordered (as of April 17 2026) from Tentology for delivery to Reno. It has six ten foot wall modules each with a zipper door.

More about the tent, which is engineered for 80 mph winds:

Food Fort

Much the same as last year.

Pillow Fort

For camper use (and camper's friends), not a part of public events

Lotus Belle 20'

Tool Fort

Bike Fort

Retired

Some things are not coming back in 2026 to simplify the program and the camp, although they might be available in a reduced format if people are highly motivated to set them up:

• • Gayflower is kaput. Will be replaced by porto-potties and a new shower
  • Kink Fort was never popular
    
  • Private turtle dining room with tables

The Future Turtles Charter Bus

2026 Future Turtles Bus FAQ

Click to buy tickets

Just like the Burner Bus Express, the Future Turtles Bus skips the line to enter and exit playa -- which can save ten hours some years! It is operated by Burning Man, but it is chartered by the Future Turtles and goes directly to our camp (location - tbd), in the heart of the queerborhood.

WHY THE BUS IS AWESOME

ABOUT THE FUTURE TURTLES BUS

Our bus is similar to the Burner Bus Express, in fact, it is operated by Burning Man, but this one goes right to and from our camp on Playa, so you don't have to take the on-playa shuttle, or drag your gear for miles through the dirt!

• Departure Saturday, August 29, 9:00am
• at the Safeway 16th & Bryant, San Francisco
• Making one stop to pick up passengers at the Grand Sierra Resort, Reno, NV at approximately 1:00pm

NO SAP IS NEEDED to enter Black Rock City on Saturday with the bus!

• Return Monday, September 7, 3:00pm
• from the Future Turtles Theme Camp
• One stop at Grand Sierra Resort, Reno, NV
• Then continuing to 16th & Bryant, San Francisco

Due to the unpredictable nature of the road leading to Burning Man, the possibility of inclement weather or accidents causing that road to be closed, and other difficulties operating in a remote environment, it is impossible to predict when the bus might depart or arrive, so all times must be taken with a grain of salt.

RULES

LUGGAGE

Your share of the cost of operating the Future Turtles Bus is the same as the Burner Bus Express:

Click to buy tickets

2025 Archive

Burning Man 2025 Tickets

https://tickets.burningman.org/

Important dates:

Date	Thing	Details
Monday 2/3/2025 12:00 pm PST	Today Sale Registration Opens
Tuesday 2/11/2025 12:00 pm PST	Today Sale Registration Closes	You must register for today sale in order to participate in it (this registration is not linked to your burner profile)
Wednesday 2/12/2025 12:00 pm PST	Today Sale Commences	Requires prior registration (see above) Tickets in the ‘Today Sale’ will be $550, $650, $750, $950, $1,500, and $3,000. There will be very few $550 tickets available. There may be a fair number of $650 tickets, which will likely be what you'll pay if you'd pick them up in the Stewards sale. So, if you'd like to guarantee a ticket, and one is offered to you at $650, you may want to just purchase one here.
Wednesday 2/19/2025 12:00 pm PST	Ticket Aid Program Opens	For participants on a limited income, submit an application for $225 tickets. The earlier, the better! You cannot apply for or purchase any other ticket types with your account linked to the application
TBD	Future Turtles Ticket Survey	Respond to survey on your ticket needs If available and needed, Steward's sale codes will be shared with you (or another Turtle responsible for purchasing your ticket)
Wednesday 3/5/2025 12:00 pm PST	Stewards Sale Commences	You are guaranteed at least a $650 ticket any time in the 4-day ticket window. There may also be limited $550 tickets available, early in the sale
Saturday 3/8/2025 12:00 pm PST	Stewards Sale Closes	If assigned to, you must have purchased a pair of tickets by then!
Monday 4/21/2025 12:00 pm PDT	Tomorrow Sale Registration Opens
Tuesday  4/29/2025 12:00 pm PDT	Tomorrow Sale Registration Closes
Wednesday 4/30/2025 12:00 pm PDT	Tomorrow Sale Commences	Requires prior registration. (No need to create a Burner Profile.) There is a payment plan option that lets you pay for your ticket in three installments over three months, interest free. Ticket prices will include $550, $650, $750, $950, $1,500, and $3,000
Wednesday 4/30/2025 12:00 pm PST	STEP Sale Registration Opens	Face-value, verified ticket resale
Wednesday 7/30/2025 12:00 pm PST	OMG sale Commences	No registration needed (just burner profile) Based on availability following earlier sale(s), ticket prices may or may not include $550, $650, $750, $950, $1,500, and $3,000.

2025 Camp Plan

This PDF shows the camp plan for the Future Turtles 2025.

Future Turtles.pdf

2025 Pavillion

We are considering a major redesign of the main interactive area of the camp for 2025. The concept would be to have a single, strong central pole supporting multiple shade triangles.

Inspiration pictures

Schematic

Aesthetic (Tomorrow Today!)

The theme of our public areas, Tomorrow Today, pulls elements from:

• Atomic Art
• Jetsons Aesthetic
• Mid-century
• Googie Architecture

Reference images:

 

Strike Plan 2025

2025 FT Playa Calendar

Camping with the Turtles - Orientation 2025

Actual Orientation

• This year we are at 7:00 & Ellison, at the heart of the queerborhood. Nearest portos are between C & D
• We are in a hub called Rainbow Village. The other camps are:
  • Gender Blender
  • Camp Beaverton 
  • 8-bit bunny
  • Slightly Conscious
  • Queertirement

Queer Camps At Burning Man

Gayflower training film

Turtle Responsibilities

• Strike (starts noon Sunday, break for temple burn. Nobody leaves until camp is moop sweeped, expected 3pm Monday)
• Shifts (newbies who miss shifts: sponsor must fill in). Missing shifts is really the only reason turtles have been kicked out.
• Daily lunch-time meeting at noon in camp
• Carry a moop bag (bring one that clips to your belt or something)
• Use your cubby. Don't leave your shit lying around dining room.
• Don't let me find a table full of shit that people left out "in case anyone else wants it" like sunscreen and 240 volt adapters and half a can of green beans. It will be covered by dust in 30 minutes and then definitely nobody will want it. Put it the fuck away.

Turtle Spirit

• If you see a turtle doing something, just help them
  
• Nobody should come into our camp without being greeted
• Invite turtles on your adventures

Electrical

• If you want to plug something in in your tent bring an outdoor-rated 25' extension cord. No heaters, air conditioners, cooking, hair dryers.

Amenities you can find in the Empire Fort and borrow

• Electric fans
• Camp furnishings (folding chairs)
• Hammocks
• Welcome mats

Water

• In the kitchen, water costs $5 per gallon. FIVE DOLLARS. Be extremely stingy in how you use water to clean dishes. (This is why we burn our plates)
• Don't fill canteens with ice water - use the canteen filling station

Trash

• Kitchen, bar, and build team will generate some trash which can go in the truck and dropped off at the Reno dump on Tuesday.
• YOU and only YOU are responsible for:
  • your own trash
  • moop you found and picked up
  • wrappers for snacks someone gave you, even turtle snacks
  • cans for beers someone gave you, even at the turtle bar
  • the little plastic insert used to keep the battery fresh on a fairy light that you just pulled out, i saw you!
• This is going back home with you
  • Have a couple of trash bags for it. It won't be too much.
  • Bring it back to SF. Don't leave it in public trash cans in Reno. Reno people hate us enough as it is.
  • There are burning man trash cans at the airport in Reno if you're flying out of there.
  • There is no place for trash at Peik's lot where the food fort goes

Stuff that used to get ruined every year and cost us time and money to fix

• Gayflower and food fort MUST be winterized before leaving playa.
• There can be no food, shelf-stable or otherwise, or food trash, in any of the storage containers, or the food fort, or the empire fort, or the gayflower. This attracts mice which carry hantavirus and destroy our gear
  • There is a dropoff for shelf-stable food to donate in Nixon
  • Or, drop it off at Colexodus for restoration / dpw volunteers to eat
  • Otherwise it goes in the trash truck

Legal

• Smoking pot is illegal and easy for law enforcement to detect, especially at big art cars and sound camps
• ZIP UP YOUR GODDAMN TENT
• Don't give drugs to someone you met on playa - there are undercover narcs who look like real burners and going to jail in Lovelock sucks
• Sex & erections can't be visible from the street. Gently move those into the kink fort.

Jetpack's list of things I never see anyone do to make their burn more excellent

• Get light for your tent. USB battery pack + USB tent light near the entrance
• Have a go bag ready with everything you need to survive 24 hours outside of camp (hot, cold, snacks, water, goggles and dust mask)
• On arrival, expect to step off the bus into a whiteout. Have goggles and dust mask in easy reach. Bring a snack and lots of water for the bus as it can encounter severe delays.
• When working, wear gloves to avoid painful chapped hands all week

Teams and Leadership - 2025

Food

The food team is responsible for preparing healthy and delightful food for campers. We aim to provide two hot meals daily. Lunch is served at noon which is also the daily camp meeting and mandatory for everyone. Dinner is served at 6pm. This year we are going to put more emphasis on making it easy to find something healthy to heat up and eat at any hour.

Lead: Christophe

Subteam: Healthy Snacks

Mess Tent

This team serves the food, maintains the snack area, cleans up after meals in the dining room and keeps that area clean and tidy.

Lead: Scott 

Guardians

The guardians team is responsible for camper's emotional well being, camp cohesion, new camper acculturation, and other "soft skills." They are responsible for noticing campers in crisis and other difficult situations and either helping out or arranging professional help.

Lead: Jihoon

Finances

Keeps the books for the camp, collects camp dues, files camp tax returns (990s), and arranges reimbursement for campers who purchased things on behalf of the camp. Going forward, this team will also create a budget for each department.

Lead: Ben W
Team: Alejandro

Tools, Supplies, and Procurement

Camp storage, tools, equipment, and supplies. Maintains inventory spreadsheets, figures out what we need for camp and how to get it to playa. Leads the project during Reno Work Weekend to prepare the Tool Fort for playa making sure we arrive with everything we need. Publishes the "where is it" sheet so that campers, and especially the build team, can find things quickly and figure out where to put things away.

Lead: Spacemaster

Parties and Events

Plans all the camp parties. Publishes events to PlayaEvents, including any smaller events put on by campers. Publicizes all the events on- and off-playa

Co-leads: Peter, Ben, Michael

DJs / Music / Audio

Manages all audio gear and also the DJ program for our events. 

Lead: Ben W
Team: Shuai

Architecture and Layout

Designs the camp frontage and major structures to be built by the build team. Produces schematic plans and drawings required by Placement, Build, Infrastructure, and other teams.

Lead: Gary

Transport

Organizes a truck from San Francisco to bring bulky items to and from playa. Drops off the camp MOOP at a dump. (No personal moop!)

Lead: Alex Sartel

Bikes

Manages and maintains our fleet of 50 bicycles.

Lead: Alex Sartel

Build

Arrives early on playa to build the camp.

• Lead: tbd
  Confirmed Builders: Beam*, Basil*, Joel*, Jeremy S, Mdm Viv*, Klajdi, Dat*, Alex H, Ed, Gary*
  Possible Builders (not 100% yet) Jon, Jorge

* = new york

Infrastructure

Manages the electrical grid and the water system, including fresh water, grey water, and black water and the Gayflower.

Jetpack, Ben Wild, Beam, Space Master, Kyle

Strike

Plans the strike of camp at the end of burn week. Coordinates all campers on playa to help take everything down easily and quickly and leave it in good condition for next year.

Lead: Efendi

Volunteer Coordinator

Insures that there are volunteers lined up for every shift on playa. Prepares those big charts telling everyone where to show up for their shifts.

Romain

Drinks

Plans and purchases any drinks that we gift at our bar, whether alcoholic or not. Organizes a steady supply of ice, ice water, and electrolyte drink for campers 24/7 and coffee for campers in the morning.

Alex Holman-Butt

Camp Tickets Coordinator

Helps campers secure tickets to Burning Man. Manages the Stewards Sale program that insures our camp can receive a certain number of tickets.

Lead: Jeremy

Pillow Fort

Designs and plans the pillow fort / cuddle fort areas of camp

Lead: Tristan

Recruiting & Acculturation

Finds great new Turtles and prepares them for Burning Man

Lead: Jorge 

Moop Squad

Organizes LNT efforts on playa. Keeps the camp clean throughout the week, especially public areas.

Lead: -

Work Weekends

2026-04-18 Hamptons

Projects:

• build cute tables for the Future Turtles Café
• build the new camp shower
• sew shade for the café

 

2026-05-09 and 17 Reno (two weekends)

Tasks:

• Build and organize new Habitat container
• Move gear from Empire Fort to new container
• Unpack and de-moop everything shipped to Reno
• Clean and re-organize everything in the tool fort
• Clean and re-organize everything in the pillow fort 
  • Move items not going to playa to new storage container
• Annual bike maintenance
• Annual shiftpod maintenance

 

In Camp Shifts

Running the camp takes a lot of work, which we estimate to be about 12 hours per person during the week. 

An Idea for Shifts in 2026

As a turtle in 2026, you will be in one of these categories:

How many?	What?	What you will do
32	Grunts	Two shifts during the week: one LNT+interactivity shift and one food shift.
4	Chefs	Two food shifts during the week.
4	Mayor of the Day	Two Mayor of the Day shifts during the week.

(If we have more than 40 turtles, extra turtles will be added in the "Grunts" category).

Grunts

As a Grunt you will be assigned to a Pod with a group of people that we hope will become your friends. There are 8 pods of 4 people. Your pod will work together once on a food shift, and once on an LNT+interactivity shift.

Chefs

Chefs are from the food team and have been working with that team in advance to figure out and plan meals on playa. As a Chef you will lead two of the food shifts during the week. When you get to your shift, you will be joined by a Pod of 4 grunts who will help you execute your meal plans.

Mayor of the Day

Mayors are from the build or infrastructure team.  As a mayor, you run the whole camp for a day, starting at 9am when you have to be up and on the job. After lunch, you will be joined by a Pod of 4 grunts who will do LNT and run the café.

What is a Food Shift?

Food shifts officially go from about 10am - 6pm, but they may take longer. They are led by a chef and include a pod of 4 grunts to help. The Mayor of the Day helps make sure that everyone in the pod shows up to the shift. Normal food shifts happen on 8 days (Sunday through Sunday). Here's a typical Food Shift plan:

• 10 am start!
• Prepare kitchen
• Make lunch
• Serve lunch (12pm)
• Lunch break
• Completely clean kitchen and serving area
• Prepare for dinner (pre-made meals) (probably 2pm - 4pm)
• Once dinner is in the fridge and all set up, rest time / nap
• If dinner involves any late set up like setting up a buffet, shifters may come back as required

What is an LNT+Interactivity Shift?

This shift combines cleaning up the camp, preparing the Café, and serving cold drinks all afternoon. It officially goes from 12:30pm to 6pm, but may take longer if there has been a disaster in camp. There are 7 LNT+interactivity shifts, Sunday through Saturday. Each is done with a pod of 4 grunts, with some supervision from the Mayor. Here is a typical LNT+interactivity shift:

• 12:30pm report to the Mayor of the Day
• Mayor gives you a list of things to clean / straighten / prepare / organize around the camp.
  • This always includes cleaning the portopotties, the shower, cleaning and straightening up the café and other public areas, checking the Pillow Fort, and a MOOP sweep, dealing with lost and found - whatever the Mayor tells you to do
  • Someone will also take the bike trailer and go get ice
  • Team will also get all the camp trash sorted and under control
• Once the camp is in tip-top shape you prepare drinks in the Café and open it to the public
• During the afternoon you serve drinks, interact with burners, and keep the cafe tidy.
  
• Around 6pm as the café closes, you clean up, wash any containers, etc.
  

There is also one special LNT+Interactivity Shift for the welcome party. One pod will be responsible for serving drinks at the party, directing bikes to keep them out of the street, and any decorations.

Mayor of the Day

This is a new thing in 2026. There are 4 people qualified to be Mayor of the Day and each will do two days. 

Qualifications: Generator, Water, OSS deliveries, and being fully briefed on everything about running the camp.

• Start at 9am. Bonus: make coffee for the camp
• Inspect the camp and make a list of things that need to be cleaned up or fixed up
• Be visibly available for OSS deliveries
• Do morning and afternoon generator maintenance (we will have some help for this from village camps)
• Track water usage, fill out water logs, change tanks as necessary, empty grey water from the food fort and shower
• At 10am, make sure the food team has all reported to work. If anyone is missing wake them up; if they are AWOL try to find a replacement.
• Lunch at 12
• After lunch, gather the day's LNT+Interactivity Pod. If anyone is missing wake them up; if they are AWOL try to find a replacement.
• Give the LNT+Interactivity Pod directions on camp cleanup and inspect it when it's done
• Make sure the LNT+Interactivity Pod has opened the café and everything is going well
• Once the last OSS delivery of the day has been done and all the infrastructure is nominal, you can take off. 

Some Rationale for this System

• Brings back Pods, which people liked as a way to make friends
• Fewer, longer shifts. That means the number of "shift enforcement moments" is minimized -- the Mayor of the Day can reasonably enforce people showing up for shifts in two batches at 10am and 12:30pm -- which hopefully means absenteeism is reduced, relative to a system with everybody having multiple shorter shifts throughout the week
• Smooth equitable system where almost everyone has exactly the same burden of work
• Mayor-of-the-Day so OSS deliveries go smoothly, people show up to their shifts, and things actually get done 

History of Shifts with the Turtles

The way shifts have been scheduled has been different from year to year. We're always trying to learn from experience.

2022 Pod Shifts

Camp was divided into pods of three campers and each pod was assigned four shifts to do during the week. Possible shifts were LNT, Lunch, Dinner, Desert HiiT, Party (first 3 hours), Party (second 3 hours), and Pillow Fort.

Food team (3 people) were not in pods.

Motivation: 

• Put people in a pod with people they didn't know before the burn so they could make new friends working alongside them throughout the week
• Create accountability so that each pod would have motivation to get their own members to show up for work

Pros:

• People liked the pod concept and making friends

Cons:

• Accountability did not actually happen -- no shows were just no shows
• BORG's Arctica meltdown meant ice shifts took hours and the work balance didn't feel fair

2022 Pod Shifts.pdf

2023 Signups

Huge change from 2022. There was a long list of potential work shifts that anyone could sign up for on a first-come, first-served basis.

Each shift got you a certain number of points based on how fun/hard they were: 3 points for food, 2 points for LNT, 2 points for Ice, 2 points for porto/shower cleanup, 2 points for keeping ice water and coffee and electrolytes stocked, 1 point for leading HIIT, 1 point for bartending or Ürkish Coffee, 2 points for camp infra, and 0 points for DJing.

You had to sign up for 11-12 points. Only returning campers had access to the sign up sheet; newbies had to work with a returning camper who helped them sign up and understand the commitment.

2023 Shift Signup

Pros:

• Point system felt super fair; we saw people sign up for shifts evenly instead of mobbing one category so there were no "good deals" or "bad deals"
• A sense of commitment since people signed themselves up
• Restricting sign up access to returning campers helped acculturation

Cons:

• No shows sometimes resulted in entire things not getting done
• Campers got to shifts and did not know what to do

2024 Work Teams

Huge change. Instead of signing up for shifts you joined a team that took responsibility for:

Food - 20 people
Dining Tent - 5 people
Drinks - 4 people
Gayflower - 4 people
LNT - 4 people
Infrastructure - 5 people

Each team then had it's own responsibility to just get everything in their area done. Each team had its own plan for who did what when. Staffing parties (DJing, bartending, etc) was thought to be "fun" and managed completely separately.

Pros:

• People identified with a team
• Team leaders had real ownership and always planned and brought cool things for their department in advance

Cons:

• Some chronic no-shows, so for example LNT was usually done by 1-2 people out of 4
• Some imbalance (food was felt to be too hard)

2024 Work Teams.html

2025 Volunteer Shifts

We repeated the 2024 system, but merged Dining Tent and Food. An attempt was made to reduce the amount of work at food shifts by splitting up meals into "before" and "after".

Food - 26 people
Drinks - 4 people
Gayflower - 4 people
LNT - 3 people
Infrastructure - 5 people

Pros:

• Still mostly worked

Cons:

• Lots of no-shows. Small food team shifts meant a no show was a big burden (If you had a shift of 2 and one person doesn't show up, it sucks)

2025 Shifts