AfterMelon 2019

Report for Placement 2019

Melon Rouge at 8:29 & F

The Melon Rouge Aerial rig and burn barrel against a perfect playa sunset.

Hello Placement and other curious participants! Use the table of contents at right to jump a specific section.

Click any photos to see larger versions!

SUMMARY

In 2019 the Melons:

• Engaged with 2,000+ participants via six listed events and a dozen unlisted events.

• Interacted with our neighbors through gifts ranging from watermelons to pranks to parties and more.

• Transported 10,300 lbs. of gear for 81 participants, fundraising $1,200 for regional non-profits, in our ChiCargo shipping program.

• Volunteered for more than 211 shift hours outside of camp across Arctica (Ice), BRCPO, Center Camp Cafe, Fire/Burn Perimeter, Gate, Perimeter, Exodus, Lamplighters, Placement’s Camp Survey Squad, Rangers, and Temple Guardians

• Greened Our Burn with 54% of us riding the Burner Express Bus (52/95 people), not to mention powering our camp with solar and wind!

• Submitted 6 original DEIS letters in support of Burning Man:

  • Letters 1798, 1913, 1975 and 3 more anonymous

  • Generated 8+ BLM responses

CAMP FRONTAGE, LAYOUT, AND INTERACTIVE ART

Melon Rouge from above.

In 2019 Melon Rouge was placed at 8:29 & F with 200' of frontage on F only. You can see us in the above aerial photo - we're all that highly organized aluminet and no RVs (ok, we had one RV in camp but it is just outside the photo). We split our frontage into two sections:

On the Man-side of our frontage featured our hand cut/painted/wired Melon Rouge sign, whose lights were visible all the way down F, and the entryway to our public Melon Lounge, made more visually appealing and inviting to passersby thanks to our two Moulin Rouge-inspired laser-cut heart portals. At night the sign was brightly lit with marquee-style light bulbs and the heart portals had blinking red lights. Like so:

Inside, the Melon Lounge had plenty of seating for guests on homemade furniture, including a melon-painted playatech living room set, below. Flowing hand-sewn curtain panels created a separation between the “public” lounge and more “private” camp space.

Meanwhile, the mountain-side of our frontage was left unshaded and included: an aerial rig with hoop, below, which attracted passersby day and night looking to take a spin on the hoop; our shaded “kelp forest” lounge space, right, where weary Burners could (and did!) rest their heads; an inviting melon-shaped dome for escaping the sun; our Daft Melon pyramid; our four-seat teeter-totter table for those looking for some balance; our public burn barrel featuring our Burning Melon design; a “jumbo booze pong” set; and lots of bike parking on melon-painted playatech racks. Check out a panorama of the area over here!

Separating our camp frontage from our sleeping area was our open-concept kitchen for camp meals, The Dusty Bucket, below; our smaller kitchen for individual campers, the Dusty Spoon; and the 48-foot trailer we use to transport our camp infrastructure from Chicago (not to mention support our highly successful ChiCargo shipping program), carefully decommodified with a hand-painted sign!

INTERACTIVE EVENTS!

Melon Rouge wasn't all beautiful infrastructure and art pieces though. Our patch of Melons also hosted and ran a number of events inside and outside of camp, listed and unlisted! Below are a sampling of our favorites.

It's Watermelon Time!

Our party planning campers went through a full cooler of ice-cold drinks on Tuesday afternoon serving Burners from all over at the Oasis Oasis - a spontaneous pop-up slice of something in the middle of the playa at about 8:25 - featuring a custom watermelon shade structure, swaying palm trees, a comfy inflatable watermelon lounger, an impromptu interactive bad erotica reading performance, and, of course, an Oasis-only soundtrack. It was Wonderwall!

Oasis Oasis Oasis

In an attempt to be inclusive - since not everyone loves the song stylings of the Gallagher brothers - we also offered up the Oasis Oasis Oasis, an itty-bitty pop-up party for those who needed a break from all the Oasis playing at the Oasis Oasis, featuring exclusively non-Oasis tunes from its tiny speaker.

Deep Playa Toilet Disco

In one of our absolute highlights of 2019 the Melons hosted a surprise late-night porto-party at the compost portos in deep playa. Decorating the portos with lights, mylar, and other shiny things we set up a bar and served up strong drinks to even stronger disco tunes (you can sort of make out the set up in the photo above - we were having too much fun to document!). Many a dancer from the nearby sound cars came to us to pee, but they stayed to party. By the time our speaker ran out we’d gone through all of our cocktails and served hundreds!

Intro to Aerial Hoop

Our camp aerial rig was in use from the moment we set it up during Early Man. Day in and day out, people would come in from off the street, or from across the street at Pink Mammoth, to show off their skills with a hoop. Still, to make sure our rig was inclusive even to those without training, our resident Melon Crusher, who teaches aerial skills in the Default World, hosted a two-hour introduction class for seven no-longer novices!

Adorn Your Melons! Pastie-Making Workshop

Sometimes you just want to cover your nipples with some thing special. And for those times, what better than a custom pastie? To that end, eight lucky burners came to our pasty making workshop!

Melon Lounge Events

HOW WE'D LIKE TO IMPROVE IN 2020

• 1. Better crowd management for our Melon Ball party - while our bike parking and layout worked well for our regular melon gifting and Melon Lounge events, the large crowd which gathered for our Melon Ball party on Friday was bigger and more unruly, and sometimes spilled into the street. For next year we would plan on more space for bikes and the line for the bar, so this doesn’t happen.

  2. The dream of every camp on playa: better distribution of our workload amongst campers. Every year we get a little better at this, but there is always room for improvement. Next year we hope to get more campers involved with more projects earlier!

  3. Creating a stronger sense of community, with more camp-collaborative art and new ways to integrate our Burn off-Playa, by hosting regional in-person Melon meet-ups and build days year-round.

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