Episode 01: BoNZA (Justin & Leanna)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stevan (00:00):
Hello everyone, A big bonzaar welcome to everybody.
Uh, this episode wewill focus on the BoNZA.
What is Bonza Bonza Community?
It's background organizationand the Bonza Summit.
Uh, with me, I'm joinedby Justin and Leanna.
How you going guys?

Leanna (00:14):
Hi.
Hey guys.
Hey, how are you,

Justin (00:17):
Howie, folks?

Stevan (00:18):
So let's, let's start with, it's talking about bonza.
What is bonza?
So, I've actually did a bit of researchand the term bonza, like it's a
colloquial Australian word, term slangthat means excellent or first rate.
It also can be used as adjective noun.
Adverb or interjection to expressapproval, enthusiasm, and or pleasure.

(00:41):
So for example, Bonzamate, she's a ripper.
It usually means that it's uh, you know,it's everything's excellent, right?

Justin (00:48):
Yeah,

Leanna (00:48):
correct.
Exactly.

Stevan (00:49):
That's in, what does ZA actually mean?
It's an acronym.

Justin (00:51):
It is an acronym, and it was Phil Smart who came up
with that acronym in March 2015.
Phil Smart.
Regional contact, burningMan Regional Contact.
He is also was a director of theproduction entity that used to own

(01:14):
and run Burning Seed, and we owe alot to Phil Smart because he is the
reason that Burning Seed started.
So that's probably podcast all on its own.

Stevan (01:22):
His name is very familiar.
I haven't met Phil yet, butyeah, his name is very familiar.

Justin (01:26):
Absolute champion of it, man.
And I'll, I'll jump in if you don'tmind and little bit of history about
the name is that we, few of us have beenhaving conversations in 2014 around some
kind of entity that could encourage andsupport the new events coming online
and the, and the wider communities.
Not so much a summit.
Of the conversation, conversation.

(01:47):
And Phil, I'll never forget, itwas two days before I spent a
weekend at the Blazing Swan Nestin Fremantle helping them their
trucks or Blazing Swan that year.
And he said to me on the phone, oh, youknow, you could call this thing bonza.
I was like, huh.
And he said, you know, burnersof New Zealand, Australia.
And I, I just had this light bulb momentand um, so we can thank Phil, the name.

(02:11):
However, that was a bit early, that ideaof some kind of entity or association
early, there weren't as many regionalcontacts or events happening at the time.
So the idea for a summit, if I canjump to that second chapter, was
in 2016, there used to be a thingbetween 2007 and 2017 called the GLC,

(02:34):
the Global Leadership Conference.
And that brought burners, regionalcontacts, community leaders from
around the world to San Francisco,was produced by a Burning Man project,
four days of networking, listeningto inspiring stories, um, workshops.
And it was a smash hit.
It started out with about, Ithink, 80 people, 2007, 2017.

(02:59):
In its last year, therewere 700 people there.
However, it, my, uh, what I knowis that it became too expensive,
quite an expensive thing to run.
Tickets were quite expensive forthe participants, and, but it was
gonna cost more to keep running them.
So they put a hold on it.

Stevan (03:14):
And this is all in-person,

Justin (03:15):
this is all in person in San Francisco.
I think in 2017, chip Conley, who isan ex-director of Burning Man project,
he opened up one of his hotels tolet them use the conference area.
So it was a, a bit cheaper for them, butquite inspiring anyone who went to it.
Whether you are an artist, aregional contact, or you are an event
coordinator for a regional burn.

(03:37):
Came away with all of thesecontact, great networking
opportunity and came away inspired.
So after the 2016 conference, Iwas like, man, we, it'd be great
for us to do something down herebecause it was rare for Australians
to go there or Kiwis to go there.
So I reached out to all the regionalcontacts in Australia and New Zealand
said, Hey, do you wanna do this?
Why don't we have our own littleAustralia, New Zealand version

(03:59):
of it, A little summit and the,uh, Jared Taylor put his hand up.
He's the Sydney RC at the time.
And um, so we started working thephones and the emails and we got
our New Zealand brothers and sisterson board Blazing Swan modifyre.
And in 2017 we had our first summit.
There was 28 people here in Melbourne.

(04:21):
It was, yeah, humble beginnings.
But at the same time, I reachedout to the regional network team
at Burning Man and said, Hey, we'rethinking of doing a summit here.
Can I use your, you know, someBurning Man logos and stuff?
And they said, oh, did you knowthat there's another five of them
happening mainly in the state?
We'll put you in touch with them.
So that next year in 2017, they alsostarted a thing called the Local

(04:43):
Leadership Event Organizers Group,and that's about 12 or 15 people.
So.
If you can bear with me, I'll justtell you how many of these summits
there are around the world andthere are, I left my notes in my
car, so I'm jumping between things.
But there is European Leadership Summit,which, um, that has about 200 people at

(05:04):
it that is going to every two years now.
There is the Southeastern RoundtableCert, which is held down in
the Carolina part of the world.
So that's a few differentstates that get together.
There's the multi-regionalsummit that's normally held
around Tahoe, Sacramento, so.
Nevada burners and California burners.
There's the Mid-AtlanticLeadership Conference.

(05:26):
I'm not sure that's running anymore,and there's about three others that
have happened and aren't still happy.
There was an Asian burner summitthat happened once in 2014, I
believe, and that brought togetherburners and regional contacts.
They were in Taiwan that year.
So there's a few of these summitsthat happen every year just like ours.
It was, it was out.

(05:48):
We weren't alone in our thinking
statement and facilitate dialogue.
Skill sharing, knowledge exchangeand relationship building between
burners artists, regional contacttheme camp leaders, community
leaders, and burner event orgorganizers across the burnerverse.

(06:08):
So basically once a year, regionalcontacts from Australia and New Zealand,
um, Southeast Asian rcs are also invited.
All of the endorsed burns inAustralia and New Zealand are invited.
And also the ones that aren'tendorsed or or who don't have
official status, they're also invited.
And then community members.
So come together for two daysat the beginning of June and

(06:30):
listen to presentations fromfellow burners and network.
It's a great network in opportunity.
But if I can go back a little bit to20 16, 1 of the main drivers about it
was collaboration was the end goal.
And to get there, youneed to be networking.
Now, some of these people have knowneach other via social media or email
or phone, but they've never met.

(06:50):
So you, you know, we, peoplefrom Blazing Swan come over.
The crew from dragonburn Chinacome down, then they get in
a room with the kiwi burners.
That's you, you can't replacethat type of in-person networking.
And then out of that comes collaboration,comes knowledge exchange, comes sharing.
So it's um, it's beena smash hit, I think.

(07:11):
And I'll stop, I'll stoptalking for a minute.
Let Leanna say something?

Leanna (07:14):
No, I, I just have to piggyback off, um, what Justin said.
I.
I guess, was it 2017 and um,

Justin (07:25):
you came in 2017?
Yeah.
Yep, definitely.

Leanna (07:27):
And have been back ever since and now co-producing with Captain,
which has been a real pleasure.
It's one of the highlights of, I think,my regional contact responsibilities.
I've loved it.
I really loved it.

Justin (07:43):
Dito.

Stevan (07:43):
So it's been a success in person.
Um, what about the online side of things?
What are we looking to, to do with that?

Justin (07:49):
Well

Leanna (07:49):
be more specific.

Justin (07:51):
Yeah.

Stevan (07:51):
Well, as, as in getting more, getting more people to also,
uh, participate through the, uh,webcasting and, and, and so on.

Justin (07:59):
Yeah, well, I'll, I'll just jump in there, Leanna.
So we had a couple of years,or three years, once COVID hit,
we went online for summers.

Stevan (08:06):
Mm.

Justin (08:07):
And whilst it was nice to connect, I think everyone had Zoom fatigue, you
know, in those few years in the Dark Ages.
But the website that we've got,it's more of a holding space really.
So it's got.
Um, I'm gonna give, put it in thechat there so it can be shared.
It's got all the information, it'sgot all the program guides, so each

(08:27):
summit we hard copy or a PDF peoplehave and it's got the names and the
details of each person attending.
And then it's got a short blurb oneach presentation and of course a
timetable of the weekends goings on.
And that is a great networking tool.
I know that they used to do it theGLC in the early days, so you'd
go home with this little booklet.
It's got a photo, email address,contact of, you know, oh, there's

(08:50):
Leanna, she's a regional contact.
Newcastle, I'm gonna be in Australia.
I've gotta get in touch with her.
So it's a great little networkingtool and Memento we all love
our bit of swag, but the websitekind of piggybacks on that idea.
It's there if you wanna learn.
And at this stage we'll see where it goes.

(09:10):
Perhaps it would become a portalfor different events to lock into
and, and share their, you know,pro, um, their event operations
guides or, um, we do it this way.
Here's our volunteer procedure,here's our gate procedure.
That was, you know, a bit ofa dream in the background.
But we're waiting to see, youknow, let's get the networking

(09:31):
happening happening consistently.
Just, you know, the early daysof the summit people came and
went, yeah, really excited.
Oh, I'm gonna give you an email.
I need to, I'd love to learn about that.
They'd come back the next yearand go, Hey, no one replied to me.
Emails.
That's not happening so much now.
People, um, I.
Appoint a liaison person foreach event and each entity.

(09:53):
And that person deals with allthe other burns and entities and
they share knowledge exchangeand, and skill share and such.
But at this stage, thewebsite is like a library.
Leanna, what do you think?

Leanna (10:05):
I, I was gonna say the same thing.
So the website is and will becomea more sort of fortified sort
of library or database the.
The gold is in the annual meeting.
So everyone comes together, networkinghappens, connections are made, and
that's where the real, you know, thegood stuff is the, the sparkles, the, the

(10:29):
magic, all that, like burner awesomenesshappens in person because you're meeting
leaders, leaders from other regions.
You're learning how they do things.
You're talking about little curly things,snafus that happen in the background
that, you know, the, the participants,the community members that come to
these events aren't gonna know about.

(10:50):
And you're learning from eachother and you're adopting
new stuff to become better.
You're gonna continue, uh, connectingwith those people on your own sort of
personal threads throughout the year.
It's not gonna necessarily be through us.
We're just a, the bonza andwebsite is, is a repository.
The network is the live and dynamic thing.

Justin (11:13):
Yeah, I like to think of it as a, uh, a library.

Leanna (11:16):
I like that.

Stevan (11:17):
Yeah.
Can we talk a bit about thelandscape of BoNZA then?
So the burners of New Zealandand Australia, looking into
the regionals in Australia.
We have Western Australia, we haveQueensland, Melbourne and Sydney,
new South Wales and Victoria.
Um, we also have a, a, a new entity PACT.
The people of

Leanna (11:35):
Tasmania.
Yes,

Stevan (11:36):
yes.

Leanna (11:37):
Amazing.
So those legends, uh, they all joinedus this year at bonza and provided such
an amazing, I don't know, everything.
They gave us an overview of the event, uh,energy overview of the event from, they
also like from the beginning of their org.

(11:58):
And it was super fresh andreally, really inspiring.
So we can't wait to see what happens next.
In Tasmania, we've got a lotof really amazing humans who
are doing incredible things.

Stevan (12:11):
And what, what were the other organizations that, um, participated?

Justin (12:15):
I'm just trying to find my, in my notes list.

Leanna (12:18):
So not only go on, not only do we have the regional events participating
in the BoNZA event, we also invite all ofthe sort of regional or local entities,
so the not-for-profit orgs who are helpingto put on these events and also promote,
you know, awesome stuff throughout theyear when the events aren't happening.

(12:41):
So we had Boss, we had mod, uh, we hadthe Melbourne, Melburners and then I
guess PACT puts on the tassie burn.
So there was a little bit of separationbut not separation there as well.

Justin (12:55):
Yeah.
Look, we have a pretty, a reasonablystrict invitation policy, and that's
because we wanna capture, we wanna geta balance between the community leaders
and the event leaders, because otherwiseit, it could go very event focused.
And we want to hear, you know, fromthe theme camp people, we wanna

(13:15):
hear from people that are doing, youknow, burners without Borders type
stuff out there in the community.
So the events that are invited are pact.
People, arts Collective from Tasmania,uh, Melburners, who are the, um, entity
puts on the Melbourne Decompressionunder land through common arts Victoria.
So as I read these out, you'llnotice that some are endorsed events.

(13:43):
From, um, Marian in San Francisco.
So we've got Underland, we've gotKiwi burn, which is the longest
running burn outside of the usa.
Yep.
Ragland burners.
That's been around, wow.
I could say at least 10 years.
Very small, maybe 150 people inRagland, New Zealand, Northern
Burn, another burn that happens inNew Zealand on the North island.

(14:05):
They're getting official status this year.
Ignition another burn in NewZealand capital, uh, sorry.
Canberra Incendiary Authority,which is the Canberra burners.
They have a littlesolstice burn every year.
There's boss from Sydney, burners ofSydney and surrounds burning seed.
Uh, then you've got third degree NewSouth Wales, blazing Swan, Western

(14:27):
Australia, modifyre Queenslandand dragon burn from China.
So we, there's quite a few events there.
Some are official, some are not official.
And so they're the event invitationsand they get sent 70 invites each and
they get to invite whoever they want.
Could be board members, could be ateam lead crew member, and then each

(14:47):
regional contact from around new getsto, so get this, this balance between.
Event organizers and community leaders.
So that's who makes up the delegates.

Stevan (15:00):
Hmm.
Can we also talk about the collaborationwith Burners Without Borders?

Justin (15:05):
Yeah.
So for your, listen to the listenersout there in the Burner verse, burners
Without Borders, we're gonna put a linkinto, into the podcast about who they are.
'cause not everyone's heard of them.
They, they hand out small grants eachyear to community groups around the
world to encourage community activism.
Really, I don't think that's what they sayon their website, but it could be things,

(15:27):
anything from, um, you know, cleaningup your local creek in the, in the
suburbs day to our, the summit this year.
The Bernard Without Borders was.
Margi Pizza oven, and this is a groupthat could take a pizza oven out into
the community and feed people for free.
And I have to do also say here, Stevan,that as you know, you were pretty

(15:50):
much a recipient of the same grant.
What happened at the summit?
Everyone was, it was between two.
What we do is we meet over a few hours,we go through all the applications
from the BWB grant applicants.
It was 15, um, dollars, uh,usd Sorry, which was about,
I'm not sure what that is.
Probably a

Stevan (16:11):
2000.
Yeah.

Justin (16:12):
And we whittle it down.
There's a criteria which you won'tgo into, you go through the criteria.
Some people obviouslydon't fit the criteria.
And it came down to two people.
That was the room of delegates,decided it was two people.
One was for what became thebonzaar podcast, and the other was
for Mar Margie, the pizza oven.
And one of our delegates stood up andsaid, you know what, Margie is a very,

(16:35):
both of 'em are, um, worthy recipientsof this money, but what I think we
should do is I'll give my money tothe bonzaar podcast and the BW DB
grant can go to Margi, the pizza oven.
So it was, it was amazing.
It was quite, it was oneof those moments, you,

Leanna (16:49):
it was amazing.

Justin (16:50):
It was so good.

Stevan (16:51):
Well, that's, that's absolutely correct.
You don't have to fact check that, thatthat's, that's actually what hap happened.
So, uh, I was really inspired byeveryone's, uh, um, encouragement as well.

Justin (17:01):
Oh, it's, um, you gave a great, uh, great application.
Um, and just so everyone knows,you know, Stevan, when we were
doing the voting, he left the room.
So it was, you know, therewasn't any favoritism.
Favoritism or anything.
And we had someone from WesternAustralia stand up from Wiki Burn and
say, Hey, I'll, I'll throw the cash into, to support this great initiative.

(17:21):
And here we're,

Leanna (17:22):
which is awesome.
Yep.
Here we're, yeah.

Justin (17:24):
Um, I'm gonna put, uh, BWB link in there so people can
do a bit more research on that.

Leanna (17:30):
I've already, I've already done that cap.

Justin (17:32):
Oh, there you go.

Stevan (17:33):
Leanna, would you like to speak to, uh, your experience
with, uh, burners Without Borders?

Leanna (17:37):
So the grant without, yeah, absolutely.
So Burners Without Borders alsohelp facilitate our Newcastle
Burner Run Makerspace Spark House.
And I applied for this grant in 2018.
It might have actually been 2017.

Justin (17:56):
Yeah.

Leanna (17:56):
Yeah.
2017.

Justin (17:57):
17

Leanna (17:58):
20 17.
And so we got the BurnersWithout Borders, sort of.
It was an ignition grant, um, whichhelped jumpstart our organization.
So Spark House here in New Castle,new South Wales is a burner run,
but also community run Makerspace.
Was born from our garage.

(18:20):
Really,
uh, as you start, uh,getting more involved,

Stevan (18:25):
most startups do Yes.

Leanna (18:27):
In the, uh, in the burner communities.
You, you know, you're making stuffall the time and if you've got
a garage and space are coming toyour house to build these things.
And we got a little bit olderand having children and we.

(18:48):
We had one of those spaces like,you know, places we've visited in
America, uh, where people could go allthe time and you would've access to
materials, to tools, to a brains trust.
And we started looking at, uh, commercialvenues and we were really, really lucky.
There was sort of this experimentalarts and maker idea being

(19:13):
floated in Newcastle at the time.
And Newcastle, if you guysdunno, is home to the largest
cohort of artists in Australia.
So Newcastle home is home to the largestcohort of artists and makers in Australia.

Justin (19:29):
Wow.

Leanna (19:30):
Which I know.
I know.
So, uh, luckily this also sort of,uh, there was some grant, other grant
opportunities available, so we were ableto secure another council grant and.
That's applied us with theneeded funds to pay rent in a
somewhat uh, experimental space.

(19:51):
And that's where we landed.
And I think we opened our doorsin December, 2018 and we've
been going strong since then.

Stevan (20:01):
How many artists or how many creative people do you think
in Newcastle are also burners?

Leanna (20:05):
Oh my goodness.

Stevan (20:07):
I know there's a few, it's, it's quite a, quite a collective.
Hundreds, yeah,

Leanna (20:10):
hundred.
So Newcastle and I thinkAustralia, central Coast.
I can say this for Australia as well.
So there's a lot of people whoembody the burner ethos, who are also
deeply entrenched into doof culture.
So doof culture has like the scale ofDIY versus commercial festival sort

(20:31):
of ideals and where the DIY di cultureand burner sort of culture meets
is like, there's a big space there.
Like there's a lot of overlap.
So what we found is that probably halfof our membership are burner type people.

Justin (20:50):
Burner adjacent,

Leanna (20:51):
burner adjacent or burner type people.
Another aspect of the makerspacewas, um, making space available for
local theme camps in our region.
So as a theme camp, you needto store your camp stuff.
Somewhere.
And you also wanna place, ideallyin the perfect burner world with

(21:12):
tools, materials, and the spaceto build large burner projects.
And Spark haus fits that built.
So we've got a large warehouse,you can build anything there.
So yeah, it's kind of a, it's a dream.
Come for DIY burner DIY Heaven.

Justin (21:31):
Brilliant.

Stevan (21:35):
With the Central coast, uh, Newcastle area.
I've, I've, I've been there andthere's, there's a lot of, uh,
concentration with burners, uh,
uh, doing a lot of really spectacular things there.
And, uh, your, your venture is,uh, great for the community.
Can we talk, uh, also a little bit,you are also involved, Leanna, with
the restructuring of burning seed?

Leanna (21:54):
I have been, yes.

Stevan (21:55):
Yes.
What can you share with us?

Leanna (21:57):
Well, uh, after, I guess nine years now of the, what began as.
Um, and then sort of gained alot of traction into doings.
We completed the restructure last year,so we completed the restructure from Red

(22:18):
Earth City, which was a privately ownedcompany to a fully community owned or
membership based organization this year.
So the organization is now called SunburntArts, and it has a, well, there's another
organization called Sunburnt Events.
And so these two organizations workin tandem with each other to, um,

(22:43):
sunburnt Arts owns the IP and all thethings that we've, uh, collectively
gained as a community, the assets,so to speak, and sunburnt events.
Puts what we know as burningseed and we've got our, uh, first
community owned burning seed eventhappening in June 2025, which is

(23:06):
really, it's really, really exciting.

Stevan (23:08):
Great news.
And who were, who else were the,some of the people that, that
were involved in, in the process?

Leanna (23:13):
Um, so the, there were many, many people involved in the restructure over
the years, and I'm gonna not name all ofthem, but the people who I've finished
this process with, that were not membersof Red Earth City, were Madeline Fountain
and Sam Carman, both Sydney Siders.

(23:34):
But there were, like Isaid, many people mm-hmm.
Who helped facilitate thisprocess throughout the years.
Captain being one of those,it has been many years.

Justin (23:47):
I think some of it's just, you know, nudge it along and then some really
capable, knowledgeable, um, we have tomention Marty Bortz, who's got a doctorate
in, in, in all things to do with that.
Well, I dunno what the doctors for, butyou know, there's been some amazing,
really educated, experienced people.

Leanna (24:04):
a hundred, percent Marty.
Marty Bs led the restructurecharge for many years.
He was there, Alicia, Boyd, Jacqueline.
I mean, they were, they're snorky.
There were so, so many people.
Next time we have a podcast, I'llhave a list of them and we'll, we'll

(24:24):
publicly acknowledge all of them becausewithout them we wouldn't be here.

Justin (24:29):
And I have to, we, and that, that restructure happened to a large,
very large percentage because ofyou, Leanna, because for a long time
you were the go-between, between thedirectors and the restructure group.

(24:54):
Had to give up the ghost, they'drun out of energy and patience.
And you stuck it through all theway to the very not bitter end.
It's an exciting end.
But thank you for all your efforts.
Um, a lot of people have.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yes,
a lot.
Thank you for Thank you.
Well said.
Thank you so much.

Stevan (25:08):
Well said.
Yeah.
And, and the, I've, I've seen, I'veseen some of the, the fruits of it now.
There's, uh, we have a date for seed.
Uh, we also voting for, for, uh, atheme as well for the upcoming event.

Leanna (25:19):
I know.

Stevan (25:20):
So that's very exciting.
Yeah,

Leanna (25:21):
I did find out too, I just wanna let everyone know who the Burna
verse, uh, locally in Australia,that there is room for burnable art.
So if you were thinking about some sortof cathartic art that needed to be burned,
do it.
Do it.

Justin (25:40):
And we're can we'll put the website or link up there, won't we?
To the art application.
I think it's $5,000 for largeart and 2000 for small art.
It's a good chunk of cash.

Leanna (25:50):
We pull it up right now.
Yeah.
It's, it's a good chunk ofcash and I mean, there's
just so much material for us.
Right?

Justin (25:58):
Yeah.

Leanna (25:59):
I, for I for one, have a lot of ideas.
She says for the, well, I mean,they're a surprise obviously.
Alright, here we go.
Re Grant

Justin (26:07):
and Leanna, how's their plan going for the June event?

Leanna (26:14):
Brilliant.
Um, I've been having a, I've been havinga lot of, um, chats locally here in
Newcastle and also extending into Sydney.
And there's a lot of larger theme campswho are very excited to come back, which
is really, really exciting for me andinspiring because I have enjoyed their
non seed events, uh, in the interim.

(26:36):
And I'm so excited to have both ofthem back on the paddock and just
bounce from camp to camp every night.
I'm really, really excited.

Stevan (26:44):
Did you go to the 2023, uh, burning seed event, Leanna?

Leanna (26:48):
I did not.
Um, I had taken extended leave fromwork, so I took, what's it called,
long service leave, and we a lotoverseas travel, so Burning Man.
In the mud and then, uh, tookanother eight weeks off after that.

Stevan (27:05):
Yeah, I heard great things about it.
It was a younger crowd that didn't have aburn, but it was more community focused,
I think, uh, with that crowd as well.
So yeah,

Leanna (27:15):
that's one of, one of the really lovely things I love about
our community that we're close toand not close to is the resilience.
Like, oh, you can't burn.
Okay, well let's do something else.
We're gonna do so, and we're gonnahave the best time ever doing it.
So that's certainly one of thethings I love most about burners.

Stevan (27:33):
Yeah.
That's when the, thecreativity, you know, comes out

Leanna (27:37):
when the weird, when the going gets.

Stevan (27:44):
Was there anything else you wanna promote with in terms of bonza we,
anything coming up that you wanna mention?
How does it look for the 2025 summit?

Justin (27:51):
Yeah, we'll be back in Melbourne.
So now we alternate betweenMelbourne and Sydney.
We'll be back in Melbourneplanning's well underway.
I think with burning seedhappening the following week.
We may be down on some of ourburning seed organizers, but you
know, whoever shows up, shows upwill, it'll be a great summit.
You know, it started in 2017.
In 2019 Leanna, um, that's theyear that Leanna came onto the

(28:15):
two of us producing it together.
And we had 98 people and that was, thatwas a real watershed year for bonza
because you know, we started with 27,then we went to 40 something and then
people just went, yeah, this is amazing.
You've gotta go, you know, inthat community leader world.
And so we had the COVID years, thisyear we had around 50, I believe.

(28:36):
I don't have the numberin front of me, 50 to 60.
So we're just coming back, you know,so this year, next year will be.
Boots, so to speak.
One of the things about, and everyonelistening to this will know when
you, when you get a group of burners,especially leadership burners,
community leaders together, they allpick up a, they all do something.

(28:57):
They can't sit still.
You know, they, they're notgonna fall asleep in their
camp chair next to the fire.
They're gonna be, you know, they'reall doing something or Can I help?
Can I do this for you?
Do you want me to cook you something?
And that's one of the differenceswith our summit, is that we ask you
to turn up, be present, listen orpresent, but you don't do anything.
Your role is to be inspiredby the presentations and to

(29:19):
network, network, network.
Go home, stay in touch with those peoplethat you've met, the other delegates.
So it's very differentto other burn events.
You know, you, you turn up.
It's very, you see people movingin their seat because they want,
they wanna get up and straightenthings or sweep the floor off help.
We do have one they wannahelp, which is amazing.

(29:39):
We do have one delegate who's been toalmost all of them, and I'm not gonna
put a link up to the photos, but, andit's a, he, he tends to fall asleep at
the, on a Sunday morning at the event.
So that, that's great.
We've got this collection of photosof his head on, on the table.

Stevan (29:55):
That person is a social butterfly.
I, I guess

Justin (29:57):
he's, yes.

Stevan (29:59):
Late nights.
Late nights.
And, you know,

Leanna (30:01):
I think we all have photos of this.

Justin (30:03):
Yeah.
You know, it's whispered in, inback alleyways and, um, toilet
cubicles that, uh, it's not a burnerevent unless this person is there.
So there's many names for this person.
Not all flattering.
But, um, yeah, there'sa lot of characters.
You know, you get any group of burnerstogether, there's a lot of characters.
Um, so, but it has a different feel to itbecause they're not all doing something.

(30:27):
They're not pulling a hammer out.
They're not, you know, carrying something.
Um, but they turn that energy intomeeting new leaders they haven't
met before, they may have heard of,and they network and they hopefully
go on to collaborate together.
You know, Australia and New Zealand also.
Sorry,

Leanna (30:42):
I was gonna say, and also like sparking really, um, intelligent dialogue.
So the conversations that are had that arehad after, um, presentations are awesome.
They're really, reallygood and insightful.

Justin (30:55):
I mean, some such inspiring stories.
I'm trying to think ofthe gentleman's name.
He went to Burning Man.
He went to the playa, then he wentback, took some art, and he came along
to the summit and gave this greatpresentation 2019 about how it inspired
him to go and study art in Paris.
Like, you also learn about howit's changing people's life.

(31:15):
Uh, a burn event or just meetingburners and, and realizing
that your people are out there.
It's, and like you said, you know,it's intelligent conversation.
There's a lot of thinking.
And when you're on, on thepaddock or on the playa, there's
a lot of twinkling lights.
There's a lot of distractions,a lot of late night partying.
Um, whereas here it's, you know, wedo enjoy ourselves after hours, but we

(31:37):
it sit down, have intelligent, soberconversations with fellow motivated burns.
It's great.

Stevan (31:44):
I also love hearing origin stories of how our journeys began
and how we discovered the community.
Do you guys have, haveone to share with us?

Leanna (31:52):
Captain, I'll let you go first.

Justin (31:54):
Yeah, I, I have friends.
We've always got, we've all gotthat gateway friend, haven't we?
And he'd been telling me aboutthis thing, oh, you've gotta go
to Burning Man, it's amazing.
Rah rah rah.
And he's, um, he's, he'spretty loopy my friend.
I love him to bits.
And so I thought, okay,I'll, I'll go with you.
And a small group of us went, 12 ofus, and, you know, that classic story I

(32:15):
got there and I was just, I was walkingaround mouth the gate the whole time.
I'm like, oh my God, this is,

Stevan (32:20):
and what year was this?

Justin (32:21):
2007.
And, and

Stevan (32:23):
so that's a different world back then.

Justin (32:24):
Yeah.
I, you know, I,

Stevan (32:25):
this is without, without, well, without iPhones

Justin (32:28):
and also, um, not as many twinkly lights, which isn't a
bad thing, but I, I still thinkthe essence, it's still the same.
It's that we change, you know,go back 20 years later, you.
It's a community bringing the energy,but then nothing can, you know, I've
been to regional burns, but nothingis like being on that flat playa.

(32:50):
You've got the black rock, black granite,mountain range, towering over the playa.
Um, there's no natural landscapelike that for an event.
It's amazing.
But straight away I got the communityin the Cal collaboration thing with
our, you know, camp next door goingon and it's like, oh yeah, I get it.
This is amazing.
So what about you Leanna?

Leanna (33:09):
Um, yes, I also had that, that one friend that I met in the
early two thousands and after alot of scheduling a life things, I
found myself on the playa in 2010.
And I also was intoxicated.
Uh, the, it wasn't only the lights andall the activities and the things, but

(33:33):
it was the people and the presence.
People, nobody was wearing a mask anymore.
They were real and interactingwith me with who they were.
And that was so intoxicating and I leftfeeling like, oh my God, this is how
I wanna be like the rest of my life.

(33:54):
Like this.
I wanna show up for me and for,you know, everyone I meet always.
Yeah, of course.
You just keep coming back.
Yeah.
And then I moved here, uh,because I met my now husband
there at Burning Man as well.
Aw.
And that was also a big thing, but I mean,it's just, I've reaped so many amazing

(34:20):
things by engaging with our communityand helping to nurture our community.
That that's why I keep showing up.

Justin (34:29):
Yeah.
Brilliant.

Stevan (34:29):
And you, so you both had a gateway friend.
Uh, was there any, anything particularthat they saw in you, like the
character or the kind of like thestyle that you had that, that actually
said that you actually perfect forthis community, this, this culture?

Justin (34:41):
I'll, I'll be honest, it was 'cause I could party as hard as he could
to, to be, truth be told.
But I, I think

Stevan (34:49):
that's a good answer.
The Aussie way,

Justin (34:51):
he did look at me and saw that twinkle in my eye after eight hours
and went, see you get it, don't you?
And I was like, yeah, I totally get it.
Um, some things.
Words can't, you know, thattransformative, it's already used
the T word, but that transformativeexperience that is your first burn,
whether it's a regional burn or the bigburn, it's um, it's just life changing

Stevan (35:11):
and finding the, the community in Australia.
How did you discover that?
The burner community?

Leanna (35:16):
I Google, I Googled.
Burning Man Australia.
And I found us and we showedup at Burning Seed in 2012.
Uh, my husband and I, we, I mean webrought breakfast burritos and that
began a real freaking like, history of

Stevan (35:37):
it's tradition.
Now

Leanna (35:39):
it was an institution and we camped right next to captain
here and at the end of the eventhe was like, so you guys are
coming back and you camped, right?

Justin (35:51):
Yeah.
I had a plan.

Leanna (35:52):
You did.
And it was, it was fantastic.
It was really fantastic.
Yeah.
It was really what the firstburning seed I came to was, you
know, there was only a few hundredpeople there, but it was phenomenal.

Justin (36:05):
I, I think it's incumbent on, um, and at the time I was how
I was on the crew of burning seed,but I think it's incumbent on us,
especially the regional burns that.
When you see those people, no matter,you know what the burner community's
like, young, old, um, whatever theirskillset, but when you see that
they've got that spark that twinklein their eye, I think it's important

(36:27):
to encourage it and, um, enable

Leanna (36:28):
hundred percent, hundred percent be the enabler, be the gateway driver.

Justin (36:32):
That's it.
Be the gateway person.
Yeah.

Stevan (36:37):
Yeah.
My, my connection wasthrough another community.
I'm pretty sure you'refamiliar with couch surfing.
Uh oh, yes, yes.
Yeah.
That was, that was my, my gateway.
Um, well, it was, it was more like across pollination, I think There was
a lot of burners that we are couchsurfers and, and, and a lot of couch
surfers who, who are now burners.
So my hundred percent first, uh,introduction into the burner community

(36:58):
was Blazing Swan back in 2014.
Yeah.
Amazing.
So we had, we, we were invited, uh,to set up a couch surfing theme camp.
So that's how we gotintroduced to Blazing Swan and.
The, the story goes with, with theGod said no, with the, with the
site, with the Blazing Swan site.
How, how it was, uh, I'm probablybutchering the story, but they,

(37:20):
they didn't get, they didn'tget permission, uh, at the first
uh, site that, that they saw.
So, because the, I think the reason was,um, it was a nun's covenant or something.
It was a property.
It was owned by a group of,uh, kind of religious people.
And they said that they talkedto God and God said, no, you
cannot have your event here.
So that was the, uh, introductionto God said, no for me.

(37:42):
Um,

Justin (37:43):
fair, fair enough.

Stevan (37:45):
The thing that I got out, it was, I mean, it wasn't known to me.
At that time was, uh,collective Ves e effervescence.
And that was, that was such anoverwhelming experience because what
happened at the first blazing Swanwas, um, there was a biblical flood
that tore the Kulin race course.
So it was about a hundred millimetersof rain with a couple of hours.
Um, but that was, that was quite intensekind of a camping experience for me.

(38:08):
'cause I've never been to a burn.
But, uh, I love the creativityof the, of the whole community.
And so through, um, throughtrauma, I guess, and through
adversity, you know, I've, uh,continuing going to these events.
So I should have in my head examined.
But that's, that's the love andthe passion you have when you

Leanna (38:27):
hopefully.

Stevan (38:31):
It's either adversity or something that's sort of like challenge
you in your life and in your perspectiveof things and that makes you think,

Leanna (38:37):
well, I think, I think that's kind of the cornerstone about burns, right?
Like there's a challenge aspect.

Stevan (38:43):
Yeah.
What do people get outta it?
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.

Leanna (38:45):
Correct you.
You don't just show up andthings are given to you.
There's no commerce there.
You've gotta rely on whatyou've brought to the table.
Hear those outlier stories of.
And it certainly doesn't comprise the99.9% of us who, you know, bring something

(39:08):
to share, bring something to give.
Like that's our, that's our kink givingand participating and engaging others.

Justin (39:17):
Yeah.
And I, that challenge, I thinkthat extends to, to interpersonal
relationships because you'renot with your tribe necessarily.
Your tribe might be there, but there'sall these other tribes and that's that
beauty of that, that collaborativespirit that we have in our community.
That you will get someone from thedoof camp or the, or the kink camp or
whatever, and you'll work together.
And that's, um, that can be challenging.

(39:39):
Inclusion can bechallenging, but it makes us.

Leanna (39:46):
My entry into our first burning seed.
So Ham and I are notoriouslylate for everything.
I have this really optimistic viewon time, but it's based on some sort
of like wormhole that doesn't exist.
And we got there at night andwe ended up in the spot that we

(40:07):
would forever call dirty birds andwould be there but Dane Murray.
And he was like, Hey, do youwant some help setting up your
tent in the middle of the night?
And we were like, yeah, we do.
And he just like gathered all thesehelpers who he also didn't know.
And all of a sudden we wereset up and like 10 minutes.

(40:29):
It was amazing.

Stevan (40:30):
What a legend.

Leanna (40:32):
And we're lifelong friends.
Hmm.

Justin (40:34):
Brilliant.
Is that how you met?

Leanna (40:36):
That's exactly how we met.

Justin (40:37):
Oh my gosh.
Crazy.
Crazy.

Stevan (40:40):
I love that story.
Little connections

Leanna (40:43):
just happened to be there when we rocked up and started unloading.

Stevan (40:46):
And then the next year you, you did, um.

Leanna (40:50):
Exactly right.
And he's just emailed me exactlywhat happens to me in the last week
and he's like, Hey, dirty birds ofparadise, what are your thoughts?
Should we do this?
I was like, oh, responsibility.
I'm gonna ignore that for a couple days.
Sorry, dane, I'm getting back to you soon.

Stevan (41:07):
Well, same, same but different for me.
I mean, the second year I so inspiredand, you know, so, um, had so many
ideas of, of what I wanted to do andso I came back the next year, the
second year of Blazing Swan, runningmy own theme camp, um, of Silent Disco.
That was my whole, my whole idea was, uh,was, I loved the interaction with music.
While you can't even hear it.

(41:28):
Yeah, it, it, it seems likea social experiment to me.
So that was a whole theme of gettingpeople together and seeing the, uh,
seeing people's movements in terms ofwhat music styles they love to listen to.
So yeah, I ran that for about two years.
Uh, and after five yearsof Blazing Swan, I thought.
There must be, you know, it's,it's like kind of graduating from

(41:48):
primary school to high school.
There must be, you know, theremust be more people out there.
There must be else,what else is out there?
So I ventured back to Sydney, back tothe east coast and, you know, experienced
burning seed, experienced, um, all theseother reach small regionals such as
modifyre and, and recently underland.
So now I'm addicted.
So that's my, that'smy story in a nutshell.

Justin (42:10):
And.
Swan and an East coast burn, whatdo, what do you see that's different?

Stevan (42:22):
Uh, there are nuances in terms of the music style and choices
that people, you know, prefer.
Yeah.
Um, there's also, the landscape isprobably the, of one of the most obvious
reason, uh, obvious comparisons, butreally the community is we all burners.
Yeah, I think we're all burners inside andit shows in terms of how we prepare and
how we, um, stage, you know, the event.

(42:44):
Yeah.
You guys been to Blazing Swan as well?
Uh, from what I've heard, I've, I've,I've done a bit of survey around asking
people what they think about BlazingSwan, and a lot of people say, well,
most people say they love it, and I'mjust, because I'm quite biased, so
I'm not sure what, what to, whetherpeople are genuine or being sarcastic.
I love places one yeah,people do actually love it.
So I would like to knowwhat are your reasons?

(43:05):
Like what,

Justin (43:06):
it's got more mad max feel to me,

Leanna (43:09):
but it's also on a salt flat, right?
Yeah.
So it's almost got that likeplaya feel that we're Yeah.
Used to.
There's not a lot of trees around.
It's, it's amazing

Stevan (43:20):
Captain.

Justin (43:20):
Oh, I was gonna say, and then, you know, you go to a paddock and I
just wanna pick up on what you said.
It, it, it doesn't matter if it's a dustyplaya or a salt lake in the wheat belt
of wa or a green paddock in ParadiseVictoria, which is a town in Victoria.
Listeners, it's not, you know, Victoriais paradise, but there is a town
in Victoria called Paradise whereUnderland is, it's when you get that

(43:43):
group of people together and, and somefire, and know a little bit of music.
Not too much me, but yeah, magic happens.
Do.

Stevan (43:53):
Now.
Um, during my research, I alsofound out that Bonza is also a
failed airline That happened, uh,

Justin (43:59):
that's correct.

Stevan (43:59):
Last year in Australia.
So I've got a little quiz.
Yes.
Yeah, I've got a little quiz if you wannadon't mind playing along with me now.
This is for it.
The Bonza Airlines Fair IncomeFacts is a true or false, right?

Leanna (44:10):
Fair.
I like alot

Stevan (44:12):
fact checking.
Yeah.
This is kind of topical.
So the reason why bonds are,because this is question one.
So the reason why Bonds Airlinesfailed was the fact that the company
adopted a radically app first approach.
Is it true or false?
So let me explain it a bit more.
So what they did was they usedfor bookings, they only used.
Mobile devices or apps.

(44:34):
So you couldn't really go to the website,bonza Airlines and book it through there.
Is that true or false?
What do you think?

Leanna (44:39):
Uh, no, you could, you could schedule through their website.
So they, bonza had a bonza website.
They only went to a fewselect destinations, but

Stevan (44:50):
That's right.

Leanna (44:51):
Yeah.
They had a website.

Stevan (44:52):
They had a website, but you couldn't book there.
Was it true or false?
Is why

Leanna (44:56):
could book tried through.
Bonza flew from Newcastle.
Oh, no.

Justin (45:02):
So bonza flew, bonza

Leanna (45:04):
bonza flew BoNZA.
So Bonsa I, as far as I knew, um,I thought they only had like a very
small fleet of like seven 40 sevens.
And their competition, well, they couldn'treally compete with everyone else.

Stevan (45:18):
Yeah,

Justin (45:19):
they did have small or something.
Yeah, they, they're what?
Cessna planes, you know, or therubber band one that wind up
dual.
Sorry, back to the quiz.

Stevan (45:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the, the, well, the, the actualfact was that they, their, their
strategy was you can only book throughthe app, but they did have a website
and the website which would showyou like the, the itineraries and
scheduling, but you couldn't reallybook through through the website.
I think that's where it failed.
So, yeah, it was true.
Then

Leanna (45:46):
I only used my phone for said bonza activities and that was probably
because I was at work listening to peoplewho were like, oh my God, fly bonza.
Don't, yeah.
So that's that approach work.
Don't tell my work people I phone.
I they're not, don't tell those people.
Well, I doubt they're listening.

Stevan (46:07):
I thought that, that they did have a good business model and,
and you know, they were servicing theright, you know, the right people in
terms of the regional communities.
But yeah, you're right.
It didn't work.
It didn't work.
They did had a small fleet as well.
Uh, question two, the Bonza Airlinesquickly became known as the Bogan
Air, and they played up the image withplanes bearing monikers like Bazza
and Shaza and Sheila and, and Bruce.

(46:28):

Leanna (46:29):
False.

Justin (46:29):
I don't, I dunno, but I'm gonna say true.

Stevan (46:32):
It's actually true.
They did have, they did have the fleets,

Leanna (46:35):
but I think it's false.

Stevan (46:36):
They had their small little, I think four fleets or
something, five fleets only, and.
The Shaza and Sheila and Bruce as well.
Where are,
so you could be flyingwith Bruce or Shaza.

Leanna (46:49):
Yeah, Bruce the shark.
Bruce.
Bruce.
That, that's my, one of my mostfavorite Australian male names is Bruce.

Justin (46:57):
Bruce,

Leanna (46:58):
maybe because it's so easy to like have an Australian
accent where you say Bruce.

Stevan (47:04):
Yeah.
Everything gets shortened, right?
Yeah.
Everything gets sort of like truncated.
So it's bazza.

Leanna (47:10):
Well I think I was first introduced to Bruce, uh, off Finding Nemo.
'cause there was Bruce the shark.

Justin (47:18):
Shark.
Bruce the shark?
Shark?
Big deep voice day.

Leanna (47:21):
Good day

Justin (47:27):
here.
Oh, I like it.

Stevan (47:32):
Okay.
Bonsa.
It's question three.
Bonza.
Airlines commenced operations on.
January 31st, 2023, and entered voluntaryadministration on 30th April, 2024.

Justin (47:44):
Wow.

Leanna (47:45):
I feel like that might be true.
Uh, I wanna, I wanna say theending was definitely last year,
but I felt like Bonza was morepart of our life during the, like,

Stevan (47:57):
COVID years

Leanna (47:57):
From COVID.
Yeah, exactly.
Like they, they offered us hope thiswas the Bogan Airlines, so to speak,

Justin (48:04):
Bazza and Shaz,

Leanna (48:05):
and shaz they were offering sparkles.

Justin (48:08):
Yeah.

Leanna (48:09):
At the end of our sort of COVID isolation,

Stevan (48:13):
it became at a, at a point.
So they did have a goodmarketing strategy, but, uh,
it, it didn't Yeah, it is true.
They, they only lasted 15 months

Leanna (48:22):
a year?

Stevan (48:22):
Yeah.
15 months.
Yeah.

Leanna (48:24):
Wow.

Justin (48:25):
Yeah.
Bogans shouldn't fly planes.

Stevan (48:27):
A short but impactful stink, I think.

Justin (48:30):
Yeah.
Okay.

Leanna (48:30):
What should they do?

Stevan (48:31):
Sorry?

Leanna (48:32):
What should they do?

Justin (48:32):
Drive Commodore.

Leanna (48:33):
I was gonna say drive old Commodore, hire camels,

Justin (48:38):
do burnout.

Stevan (48:39):
Okay.
So bonza and strategy was focusingon underutilized and, and un uh,
serviced route between regionaland domestic cities in Australia.
They, they failed because there wasa lack of density within, uh, the
population within these regional routes.

Justin (48:55):
True.

Leanna (48:56):
Uh, I think it might be false.
Like, I thought the reason they failedwas because they couldn't scale to
the same extent as the other airlines.

Stevan (49:06):
Yeah.
That, well, they, it, it's truebecause we, as you can see, there's a.
You can see it like a, there's asense of how regional and Outback
Australia is, how vast and a hundredpercent and small it's as well.
So it's, it's a tough market.
It's very hard to service these, uh,regional centers where you only have
less than a hundred thousand people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And most cities in the US orEurope or Asia countries, they

(49:30):
can sort of like sustain that.
So yeah, it's unfortunate.

Leanna (49:33):
Well, they're also closer together, right?
Like cities in Australia, unless you'reon the coast, east or west, you're
gonna be very far from each other.

Stevan (49:42):
Yeah.
And usually, have you guys doneany surveys in terms of how far
we us burners in Australia have totravel for, to go to these events?
What's the average do you think?
Idea.

Justin (49:53):
That's a great question.
Idea.
I dunno.
Uh, burning seed used to run a surveyand they had some good figures on,

Leanna (50:00):
we had census data.
Yeah,

Justin (50:02):
yeah.
Kilometers driven, which also helps withmapping out a carbon footprint, you know.
Um, but I couldn't tell you no.

Stevan (50:09):
Yeah.
The closest burn.

Leanna (50:11):
Me Immortals.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Stevan (50:13):
The closest burn for us, Leanna would be, um, third
degree, which is an hour.
So

Leanna (50:17):
our closest burn would be third degree.
Hundred percent.

Stevan (50:19):
And that's pretty luxury I think, but for most of the people.
Uh,

Justin (50:23):
how many from Sydney is that driving?
Less than

Leanna (50:25):
an hour.
Two Central coast.
Oh, brilliant.
Yeah.
Or an hour.
Yeah.
If you're coming fromthe CBD, it'd be an hour.

Justin (50:32):
What about if you were on Bruce's bonza plane?

Leanna (50:35):
Oof.
Depends.

Stevan (50:37):
Have go through the app first, sort of mar somewhere.
You'd have to book it like an Uber, like

Leanna (50:42):
Frasier Island mate.

Justin (50:43):
Yeah.

Leanna (50:46):
Got stopped by the emus Yeah.
Come Amen.
Or
those other things.
What are the, the, the dangerousemus that might kill you?
They're not emus there

Justin (50:58):
Ostriches.
No,

Leanna (51:00):
no.
Uh, they're like dinosaurrelated with the big claws.
They like emus.
Do they?
They're on, they're on magnetic island.
Oh.
Oh, come on guys.
You're
Australian's.

Justin (51:15):
Wrong side of the country.
Are Oh, you mean goannas?

Leanna (51:20):
No, no, they're birds.

Stevan (51:23):
Flightless bird.
Like an emu

Justin (51:25):
cassowary.

Leanna (51:26):
Yes.
Yes.
cassowary

Justin (51:28):
I think you mean they're Papau New Guinea, aren't they cassowary?

Leanna (51:33):
No.
Oh my God.
They're in Australia as well.

Justin (51:35):
Come on, Bruce.

Leanna (51:43):
Bottleneck.
Dinosaur, they're, they'reactually related to dinosaurs.
They are.
And they got that mostly harmless.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Until they're hungry and chasingyou around for your Pluto pop.
Right.
This has happened, not in mylife, but I've heard stories.

Justin (52:05):
Right.

Stevan (52:05):
And where can you find I gonna magnetic?
Magnetic island.
Right?

Justin (52:09):
Magnetic island.
Really?
I'm gonna go.

Leanna (52:11):
Yes.
Well they're also in a lot ofthe Aussie sort of bush zoos.
Right.
And habitats.
We've got Newcastle, they're down.
We have them here.
Not Yeah,
but in the wild.

Justin (52:24):
Yeah.

Stevan (52:24):
You guys we have
with the bin chickens as well.

Leanna (52:28):
No, we have snakes and funnel webs here.
Oh yes.
We love a bin chicken.

Stevan (52:35):
Love it,

Leanna (52:36):
love

Stevan (52:37):
You got the bling is showing earrings.
You

Leanna (52:41):
Did you guys know that there are red ibis?

Stevan (52:44):
What?
Flamingos

Leanna (52:45):
Red Ibis.
No, no,
they're not Flamingo, which I love.
Yes.
Obviously I have real fondness forFlamingo, but they're Red ibis.
They're red ibis here.
Where do live?
Where

Justin (52:56):
do they live?
Magnetic Island, again, in

Leanna (52:57):
Australia,

Justin (53:00):
so we don't use, they're rare birds down south of the border.
We don't have that kind ofproblem with bin chickens.

Leanna (53:07):
What kind of, well, I don't even wanna know what kind
of weird things you have put.

Justin (53:12):
Yeah.
Humans.
Yeah.
Uh, okay.
Is there any more survey?
There must be

Stevan (53:19):
No, that that was, that was kind of like, that was it.
Because, uh, as you can see,the trend is the or true.
The, or how, how it happened.
Oh, how bonza are happened.

Justin (53:27):
I shoulda followed.

Leanna (53:28):
That was a good tr
That was a good trend.
I shoulda have picked up on that.
True, true and true.
Yeah.
I was just, I was, I had thishope for bonza that these bad
facts were not in fact facts.

Justin (53:40):
Well, who knows?
With it all changing with metaand facts are, you can put
whatever you want, don't you?

Leanna (53:49):
Really Interesting on social media mostly.
Facebook meta, the things thathave been happening to them.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
What?
I had no idea.
Lots of kinks.

Justin (54:04):
Yeah.
That fact checking changedovernight, didn't it?
It was just like, no, we're notdoing, don't worry about it.
Write whatever you want.
Including pictures ofme with other oligarch.

Leanna (54:12):
It's disconcerting.
Especially as the oligarchyseems to start forming in this
country that we know of anyway.

Justin (54:21):
Yeah.

Leanna (54:21):
We'll, we won't weigh ourself down with politics.
This podcast.

Stevan (54:26):
Let's take a little break.
We'll be right back after these messages.

David (54:29):
Hi, my name is David j Cryer, also known as DJ C. I've been part
of the Blaze community for 10 years.
First Blaze was in 2015.
I was part of the Papa zahns crew.
I did my own sort of personal arts,bought a cloning table and made a
game called the Blazing Swan Game.
The next year I made um, two mechanicalhorses and I called it the horsum chariot.
Full size mechanical horses at shatMars bars and did many other things.

(54:53):
And it was designed to pull a DJ around.
Um, the next year I was part ofAlliance where I actually, um,
made electric shoe bike, 28 shoes,rocket launching frame, many extras.
Um, then I ran my own camp in2000 19 called Frequency, where I
basically showcase cast all the artthat I've created over the years.
Um, last year I um, joined up withthe Hep Crew Human Excellence Project

(55:14):
and we did a major installation, um,the hearts, um, leading up to Temple
Burn, 14 hearts, all LED controlled.
And we also did another one calledthe, um, Hep Taurus, which is basically
sevens in a large Taurus shape.
And we also did the lighting.
So that was all controlled from a centralroom, 50,000 pixels, all synchronized.
So anyone I attended last year would'veknown what we're talking about.

(55:37):
We also did their two sphinx and Godsaid no and the center art piece.
So art's been my majorpart of blazing swan.
Um, so I can't speak highlyenough about this burn principles.
It's not just another festival.
It's got 10 principles.
People leave no trace or leave itcleaner than they, they started there.
So if you can never make it to ablazing swan, it can, everyone I've just

(55:58):
known that's been there says it's lifechanging and definitely changed my life.

Marty (56:03):
Good day everyone.
Marty Bortz here.
Been burning since 2014.
Big shout out to all the crewvolunteers, artists, theme camps
involved with Underland and Common Arts.
Victoria.
Can't wait to see you on the paddockthis year, next year, or wherever else.
Lots of love.
Till next time.

Stevan (56:23):
Let's, let's talk about more, let's talk about the,
um, regional, uh, contacts.
What is it and like, how did you becomeone and who are they and how do we,
what's the, the service for the community?

Justin (56:37):
Do you wanna answer this Leanna?

Leanna (56:39):
Um, well, you become one by having a need and a desire in your area.
So if you're in the midst of a bunchof dynamic and excited burners,
you should probably find someonewho has the bandwidth and the

(56:59):
energy to lead the call, right?
And so the basic requirementsfor Burning Man is that you have
Burning Man and you've got theenergy to do stuff in your region.
And.
I can say that it is a veryexciting opportunity to reach
out and cultivate community.

(57:21):
I personally, that is one of mymost favorite things is community
building, community gathering.
That's why I love the maker space.
That's why I love being regional contact.
I love to build community and make itmore resilient and just kind of strong.

(57:42):
Um, I think that it'sneeded just for each other.
Like I always dreamt, yeah, youread, you read of these like
village sort of scenarios, but theydon't exist unless you build them.
And so I'm really passionate aboutbuilding those things in so far
as getting a regional contact.

(58:02):
So you apply to Burning Man and youneed to be nominated by your peers.
A regional contact.
And then once that has happened, thenyou have interviews and Burning Man
sits in on those interviews and you're,if you have regional contacts sort of
outside your region, they'll also siton, sit in on the, those interviews.

(58:27):
And it's a democratic process.
It's not a, oh, you're cool,you're the regional contact.
Now in places where there's never beena regional contact, it might be you are
the person because no one has ever wantedto be a, you know, regional contact.
But in the context of Australia, there arelots of burners here and it's definitely

(58:52):
a open and transparent experience.

Justin (58:55):
Yeah, that's a great explanation.
So the regional contacts.
To be clear, burning Man.
Regional contacts, uh,appointed by Burning Man after.
Yep.
As Leanna said, community consultation.
There's around two 50 regionalcontacts around the world, um,
everywhere from South America,Africa, Indian, subcontinents,

(59:18):
Asia, Australia, New Zealand, allover in, I think, 34 countries.
And the regional network doesn'tjust comprise regional contacts
who are there to foster community.
Um, we, you know, there's a bit ofadmin that goes with the role as well,
so we do a bit of IP protection ifpeople using, uh, the not-for-profit

(59:40):
burning man's name inappropriately.
Um, sometimes there's a bit ofmediation between waring burners
and also endorsing events.
So what that means is an event,a burn, wants to say that they're
a Burning Man regional event.
There's.
Some very low hurdles to jump and the,and the local regional contact is kind of

(01:00:02):
burning man's eyes and ears on the ground.
And they go, yeah, they, they, theseguys are doing all the right things.
They've got all the right paperwork,you introduce them to Burning Man,
and then, uh, they sign a, um, anagreement, an MOU, between each other.
The regional network's been around forabout 25 years, a bit over 25 years.
There are three full-time staff andthere was three part-time staff,

(01:00:25):
but there's been some changes.
So there's three full-time staff in theBurning Man office, and the idea is to
spread, spread the gospel, if that'sappropriate, to say, spread the good word.
About what?
Burning, yeah, no, thatwasn't Leanna speaking then.
So it's, it's about networking, it'sabout connecting, it's about spreading our

(01:00:46):
community values and ideals and you know,some regional contacts here in Melbourne.
There's two of us, myself and JodyRivet, and it's the most active,
you know, the very energetic burnercommunity, but some regional contacts.
There's Neil Padger, who's in Singapore,and that's a very small burner community.
So.

(01:01:08):
Uh, you know, some areas there's notmuch action, but when they can, they
try to encourage and enable people inother areas, there's lots going on, so
they just have to adapt a little bit.
But doing the basic things like doingthe IP protection, endorsing event.
Just spreading the good word.
I think it's also, I think theaverage is about two hours a
week work across the board.

(01:01:30):
Some do a lot of hours, some do fiveminutes work a, uh, a week Leanna.

Leanna (01:01:35):
I think on top of that, you're also, um, you're sort of showing people if
you can, you know where to go insofar asevents that share those same burner ethos.
You're also holding meetups to, youknow, educate people how to get to
their local burn or to another burn.

(01:01:55):
You're not necessarily, you know, sayingthis is the burn that you need to go to,
but you're enabling them go to, or burningor, and you're just that conduit of, you
know, information flow that do thing.
We have all the information.

(01:02:16):
Yeah, and it's kind of our responsibilityas a regional contact to disseminate
that or at least be a point ofcontact to allow people to get
themselves to these awesome events.
Yeah, so that's, that's how I take it.
So in Newcastle, we've got anevent, whether it's a fun event
or just a burning pub every month.

(01:02:39):
So last month we had the burner beachball, which was a fun, frivolous event
where burners came together and just inball gowns and jumped into the ocean.
This month we took.
Because that event was the 30thof December, and then we've
burner Meetup on the third, secondor 3rd of February as a info.

(01:03:03):
Then we'll have the brides of March,which, which is another frivolous event,
and then we'll have another infosesh.
So it's just, it's just beingthat, that weirdo holding the flag.
Really.

Justin (01:03:15):
Yeah.
It's a, a good way, it's like aconduit of information, two-way
conduit between the org communityand community back to the org.
And, you know, some of these people,I'd be correct in saying the same
for your region, Liana, is that.
Some people just wanna know where to buya tent in, in Reno for gonna burning man

Leanna (01:03:35):
hundred percent, hundred.

Justin (01:03:36):
How do I get a, how do I get a ticket?
You know?
And then other people are like, oh,are there any burners, local burners?
How do I hook in with them?
You know?
So,

Leanna (01:03:44):
hundred percent.
Hundred percent.
Yeah.
Definitely.
There's so many more peoplewanting, needing information
as Burning Man looms large.
But then there's a massive amountof community who are drawn to
the smaller events locally.
Especially in the wake of, you know,how climate change is hitting us.

(01:04:06):
People are like, I would, Idon't wanna travel across the
world to meet like-minded people.
Let me find them here.
And we're those people that introduce.

Stevan (01:04:21):
So it's like a port of call.
This is the first person, you know,that you should look, look to for
information and, and guidance advice.

Leanna (01:04:28):
Percent.
Anyone in my region wants to blazing swan.
I'm gonna,

Stevan (01:04:34):
there's also letting

Leanna (01:04:35):
any other, any other burn,

Stevan (01:04:37):
yeah.
Letting people knowthat they're not alone.
They're not, you know, like they, theycould be, uh, heading to a small town
that you, you never know that there couldbe burners there or something to do.

Justin (01:04:47):
Absolutely.

Leanna (01:04:47):
Percent.

Justin (01:04:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're everywhere saying goes.
Yeah.

Leanna (01:04:51):
We're like the sticker says.

Justin (01:04:53):
Yeah.

Stevan (01:04:53):
And would you like, captain, would you like to illustrate a
bit about the Asia Pacific region?
Who are the contacts there and Yeah.
Where they're representing?

Justin (01:05:00):
So a couple of them, you, if you go on the website, I think we're
gonna put a link in with this cast.
There, there is a map of the worldof where regional contacts are.
It's not always up to date.
Um, so at the moment there isan RC in the Philippines who's
stepping away from the role.
There's one in, uh,Singapore as I mentioned.
There's, uh, used to be one inThailand, actually a burner here

(01:05:23):
in Melbourne is the ex Thailand rc.
There's not a current one there though.
There is, um, one in Japan.
I'm jumping all over the latitudes here.
One in Japan.
There's one in Taiwanand there's one in China.
So kind of good spread there.
But like Leanna said, you know, ifyou know you are in a community of
burners and you and someone, one ofyour contacts, Burnman says, Hey,

(01:05:46):
heard about this regional contact,it'd be great to have one here.
I think a lot of people, themore energetic community leaders
in our community are doing therole of a regional contact.
Already a lot of people alreadydoing it and continue to do it
even without the email address.
But the Asian community, we'vetried to, Leonna and I, every
year we invite them along to thesummit, and I'm really tough to say.

(01:06:07):
2018, the Dragon Burn Crew came down,three of them, and they've come back
every year and they're fully up for it.
It's amazing.
But we can, yeah, but you know,it's a long way from here to Japan.
It's a long flight.
So to come down for asummit is, um, is tricky.
And

Leanna (01:06:22):
Well, they're coming from China.
They're coming from China,

Justin (01:06:24):
yeah.
They're coming from China, from Shanghai.
So there's not a lot of, there'sdifferent laws about gatherings, like
burns in some of those countries.
So they're a little bit more restrictedon, on what they can and can't do,
including even burning pubs in, inSingapore, it's tricky to have a burning.
So, but if you use social media and youtype in Burning Man barley, for example.

(01:06:48):
That's a really active community there,and they have a little, um, tj who many
of you know, TJ, uh, used to have alittle burn on the beach over there.
So there's, there's burners everywhere andyou, social media, unfortunately, is the
easiest way to meet those people, whichties me into a little good little avenue
down into Aussies and Kiwis on the playa.

(01:07:11):
If you're on Facebook, there's agroup called Aussies and Kiwis on
the, it used to be called Aussies onthe, was started by that famous guy.
Chairman Lau Andrew Lau from Sydney.
That one guy, yes, that guy.
And, um, always my mayor.
Yeah.
He, yeah, he, uh, had started this groupand then he was taking some time off and

(01:07:34):
I said, do you mind if I run the group?
But I add Kiwis to it.
Um, because, you know, we, we prettymuch this bottom part of the world
we're, we're flying from the samedestination, almost 48 hour flight.
And that's proved to be
Yeah.
17 hours or whatever it is.
So, yeah.
So that's been really good.
It, it's, there's a lot of peoplein that group that, you know,
don't interact with it so much.

(01:07:54):
Might have gone to one burn or severalburns, but don't interact so much.
But it's kind of that knowledgecall that's sitting there.
Newbies come into the.
Where do I get a tent in Reno andthere'll always be someone to jump in,
but really good, which is something thatwas part of the, what I wanna do with
it is people are sharing equipment too.
So, um,

(01:08:15):
and this is all about going to the playa.
It's not about local regional burns,but a lot of people fly over there.
They go to Walmart, they start at oneend and they go through and they buy
all their food, then they buy all theircamping gear, and then they buy their
booze and then they buy their waterin the nursery section at the end and
they chug it out to their vehicle.
And quite often a lot of thatstuff ends up in a dumpster back

(01:08:36):
in Reno or Las Vegas afterwards.
And it's a terrible waste.
So.
What that group has done forsome people who people have put
their hand up and said, Hey, I'vegot gear in storage in, in Reno.
Here's the code.
Jump in there, grab whatever you need.
Um, so even just from that point ofview, it's been a success I think.
Um, so we can thank Andrew Lau for that.
But small things, you know, people, youcan read the survival guide a hundred

(01:08:58):
times, but you won't realize how longit takes to drive from San Francisco
to Reno 'cause of the Big Hill, nomatter what Google Map says, or you
know, look, I'm looking for a ride.
I'll put my name in the group.
Bingo, you've got a ride.
You know, meet me in the next to the, um,the Reno arch sign and I'll pick you up.
So it's been really helpful,especially for newbies, but also

(01:09:18):
for our more experienced burners

Stevan (01:09:21):
and it's a good way to, to connect and meet people before you
actually go there, which is probably evenmore difficult to find, you know, the
people that you wanna hang out with orthe people that you kind of vibe with.
Or even just Australians and Kiwi.

Justin (01:09:32):
Yeah, absolutely.
On the Friday night and Saturday night,a few years back, people were from the
group meeting up in, um, I forget thename of that big resort in, in Reno, but
they're all meeting up in a bar there and,

Leanna (01:09:46):
uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Justin (01:09:47):
20, 25 people all because of that page of that, that group.
So, you know, it's, and those peoplego on to have connections later
on in New Zealand and Australia.
So, um, and lifelong friends after that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Damn burners.
You can't get away from them.

Leanna (01:10:02):
I mean, this is what we're best at.

Justin (01:10:04):
Yeah.

Stevan (01:10:04):
It's that whole collective.

Leanna (01:10:05):
This is, I mean, this is
one of the best things about our cultureand community is being present, forging
those ties and becoming a village.
It's great.
Yeah, it's great.

Justin (01:10:18):
This global village.
Yeah.

Stevan (01:10:20):
Can you expand, Leanna, can you expand a bit more about
why do you actually come back?
What, what it that sort of bringsyou back that magic, that, that feel.
What else is it?

Leanna (01:10:28):
I think it.
A lot of it for me is I love thespark of imagination, the magic
the can do, we can do everything.
But behind that is a communitythat is allowing you to be you,

(01:10:49):
accepting you for what you can bringto the table and who you're Yeah.
And inspiring you to reach for the stars.
Like you may think you can do this,but I bet we can do this thing
together and believing in you.
There's a no limitation zone inthis community and I love that.

(01:11:11):
I, I just love it and I lovethat people, they operate that
like people are really true.
They're open and they're present.
I said that earlier and I don'tfind that in, you know, just kind
of the regular default world.
And when I do, I'm like, Hey, maybeyou'd like to come with me to an event.

(01:11:34):
And another times I do.
I lot times I do.
So yeah, I, I just love that.
I love, I love people who areradically welcoming and accepting
and allow people to, to experiment.
We don't have it, right.

(01:11:54):
We're all in this together.

Justin (01:11:55):
Hallelujah.

Stevan (01:11:56):
And for you, Justin is burning man.
Change yourself.
Change your life.

Justin (01:12:02):
So much changed me, but it reminded me on the playground, little
kids, you look at them, they help eachother, they, Hey, come here, gives a hug.
Doesn't matter how they look, whatgender, whatever they're, yes.
Just like, Hey, come here.
Hey come.
I'm making a sandcastle.
And sometimes they might do that.
What do you call that?
Parallel play.

(01:12:23):
But they're there together.
You know, nationality,race, it doesn't matter.
We're all humans.
That's what, just a reminder, I.
That younger self whereyou can be that free.
Everything Leanna said, and, andalso the encouragement, like you
were saying, Leanna like, Hey, youcan, don't just reach that star.
You've got to get further out there.

(01:12:43):
You can do it.
We've got this, we can do it together.
Yeah, we've got this.
And, and you know, also, you know, talkingabout collaborative, but there's not
many events you can go to, whether it'sa burning car or a burn where, you know,
your friend Brucey, who's a mechanicwho's turned, rocked up in his Commodore,
is gonna be having a conversation witha doofer about a light project that the

(01:13:07):
local scientist has turned up who mightbe a bit bit geeky and they're working on
this thing together, but go back home andthey, they, their path would never cross.

Leanna (01:13:19):
A hundred, a million percent.
Yes.
I love

Justin (01:13:22):
that.
Yes.
I try not to use the word default,but I, I love when, you know, people
bring some of that world that weall love and know and spread it in,
you know, the local sporting clubor, or school or their workplace.
I mean, you can't have, you know,no pants Tuesdays at work, unless
you're a lifeguard or something.
But, you know, if we bring more ofthat pad into the rest of our lives,

(01:13:48):
we're gonna make a better world.
I know that's a big call, but theworld can be a, a scary place.
So, but it doesn't have to be, ifwe all pull together and recognize
and appreciate each other's
differences,

Stevan (01:14:00):
I think it's more colorful and more vibrant, you know,
with, with this in burner world,more inspiring, more innovation.
So.
I love it as well.

Justin (01:14:12):
Yeah.
And, and Stevan, what do you, is thatwhat you, you see and you get outta it?

Stevan (01:14:17):
Um, there's different aspects.
Actually.
I'm, I'm endlessly intrigued by theculture, uh, o obviously the community
has also fascinated me, uh, like yousaid, with the diverse background
of people and their, you, theirexperience, uh, where they come from,
what the knowledge set and skill sets.
Um, there's also that, thattribal aspect that, you know,
it's, it's been with us humans.

(01:14:38):
So it is a human experience.
You have to actually go out there andsort of like, you know, take part of it,
take, you know, you have to participate.

Leanna (01:14:46):
Yeah.

Justin (01:14:47):
And we all tend to, especially in our late in our teenage years, you know,
we, we, you might get a certain haircutor wear your clothes a certain way and you
tend to try to find a tribe, don't you?
You know?
And, uh, to fit in, you know,you feel like you have to fit in.
And then as you get older, um, some ofus at an age where we, I. Don't mind
if we don't fit in, but when you gointo a burner room or, or space with

(01:15:09):
burners, you, you fit in no matterwhat, what you wear, what you look like.
Yeah.
No pants, no problem.
You know, whatever.

Stevan (01:15:17):
Well there's, there's also this thing that I always ponder
about is the future generations.
How would they so look, adopt ourethos as well as what's their kind
of, um, outlook in terms of, you know,these, uh, this culture that, that,
that we have, that, that we've built.
So it's interesting to seetheir viewpoint as well.

Leanna (01:15:34):
I think that that's really important because at least speaking
from my generation, we were lesstechnology focused and, you know,
forged relationships in person.
And now with all the technology in.
A lot of us, us are forgingrelationships online like we're

(01:15:57):
doing now, which is amazing becauseyou can reach so many people.
But it also trickles into socialmedia and friends and how we
date and how we meet new people.
And it's changed that dynamic ofthese interpersonal relationships
and how we relate to each otherinto this digital relationship.

(01:16:19):
There's not, like, I was having aconversation with a friend earlier about
how when we were in high school and atuni, there were all these parties, but now
those kids are less interested in parties.
They just meet people

(01:16:39):
online.
Relating is different.

Justin (01:16:43):
Yeah.
Immediacy is so important.

Leanna (01:16:46):
Yeah.
Immediacy is, Immediacy
is removed.

Stevan (01:16:55):
Especially with the, yeah, with, with all these new technology.
I mean, there's also changing trends ofhow people also partying, people, you
know, indulging in, in, I guess alcoholas well as, uh, recreational drugs.
Yeah.

Justin (01:17:10):
Yeah.

Leanna (01:17:10):
Hundred percent.
I mean, I dunno, the incidents, youknow, like if it's higher, lower than
it was a decade ago, but it's still,

Stevan (01:17:18):
I, it's been a, a shift away from alcohol and more than mindfulness
of, of, of, uh, of having good time.

Leanna (01:17:24):
Oh, I agree.
Yeah.
I agree.
Yeah.
Presence.

Justin (01:17:27):
Yeah.
And to go back to your question, um,Stevan, about, you know, introducing
the younger generation, I've gota 21 year son and 16 year old son.
When he was eight and he, and he lovesit, but he, you know, now he's older,
he is not, he's not so much going to it.
But I, I kind of hope that someonelike that or our children turn back

(01:17:50):
to burning and then start bringingin their, their people their age
and go, oh yeah, this is amazing.
Oh, come along to this.
You know, because there is that timeperiod for a lot of people where you
just go off to the commercial eventsor go and get silly or get messy or
whatever, and not, I've gotta say fordepending on the local state laws, I
think burns in New Zealand, Australiaare really trying to lead the way in,

(01:18:14):
in, um, safe burns when it comes to thedifferent substances that people take to.
And it was, it was kinda shocking to me.

(01:18:34):
I saw people that had obviously takentoo much, whether it was alcohol or, or
um, some kind of substance, but theirfriends weren't really there for them.
That, you know, they were pointingand laughing, that kind of
attitude.
Whereas I've never seen that at a burn.
I've seen nothing but care or compassionfor some, someone's got messy, okay,
they've, they've done whatever, but eventhe stranger will say, Hey, you okay?

(01:18:57):
Should I, should I get a medic?
Should I get a ranger?
You know?
So there's that compassion you getat Burns, which hopefully spreads
across out to other events as well.

Stevan (01:19:06):
Yeah, I think that's, that's important.
If you have a community and a supportgroup within culture, it actually, you.
The, for the punters.

Justin (01:19:16):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Stevan (01:19:16):
But it could, it can also send a wrong message.
I can see how it can also send awrong message with the politicians
and the governing bodies, but,uh, it's, it's all about education
and providing a safe space.
The support.

Justin (01:19:28):
Yeah.
Look, I, I think if I could you, you know,if we're talking about substances, 2017
was the, for burning seed was the firstyear that was a heavy police presence.
And I, I won't go into why it wasn'tanything they'd done wrong, but gone
from the local policemen turning upone once a day, you know, doing a
drive around, came bring his familyalong to burn nights and have a blast

Leanna (01:19:49):
true

Justin (01:19:50):
to a van full of policemen driving around.
And they only came along to, I think,two or three events and said, Hey,
we're not coming back next year becausethere's no, there's never trouble here.

Leanna (01:20:02):
You guys are really boring.

Justin (01:20:08):
Yeah, exactly.
We're scared they joined.
Mm. So, yeah.

Leanna (01:20:13):
Not a bad thing.
Not a bad thing,

Stevan (01:20:14):
but I, but, but I do like your outfit though.

Justin (01:20:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
What,

Leanna (01:20:18):
can I borrow that?

Justin (01:20:20):
Yeah.
Is that a submarinethat just drove past me?
Yeah.

Stevan (01:20:24):
Well, the thing is, I mean, these, these law enforcers
enforcements, they're human as well.
And, and, and then, and they alsohave, uh, friends or or family that
actually probably go to these events.
And, uh, there is probably somecompassion there and understanding
Yeah.
That, that we, we we're not a,um, destructive kind of group.

Justin (01:20:42):
Yeah.
I, know on playa.
Whenever I saw someone.
See, see a law enforcement person, andthere's so many different groups there.
You know, you've got the BLM, you'vegot the sheriff, you've got the state
police, the local police, but alwayswould ride up and go, Hey, thanks for,
thanks for doing what you're doing.
And there was never a, youknow, a snarl or anything.

(01:21:02):
There was just a smile and wave back.
And I, I think it's important thatwe, that's not, you know, that's real.
That's just like, they're,they're doing a job, you know?
Thank you.

Leanna (01:21:12):
I've had same experience and, you know, acknowledging it
and saying the same thing back tothem like, Hey guys, thank you.
I think the people that come tothese events are like, have different
intentions 95% of the time, if not more,than people that go to other events.

(01:21:36):
It has been, I don't think I'veactually ever experienced a,
like a fight, like a dude, bro.
Fight at a burn.
I've seen some shit, but I've not seenlike a violent altercation happen,
you know, that you might see at a bar.
Yeah.
Or you know what have you.

Justin (01:21:55):
Yeah.

Leanna (01:21:55):
And it's because people's intentions are different.

Justin (01:21:59):
Yeah.
They,

Leanna (01:22:00):
they there for different reasons.

Justin (01:22:02):
Well, back day, you know, there are people there that are
inebriated or under the influence ofthings, like they're at a bar, but
they, like you said, their intentionis different than it would be if they
had a noisy pub somewhere, you know?
Yes.

Stevan (01:22:17):
Yeah.
Well, back in the, back, in theearly days of Burning Man, it was
known for, for gun enthusiast andit was, was also known for Santacons
and you know, pranksters and stuff.
So all sort of people

Leanna (01:22:27):
we still do santacons.

Stevan (01:22:29):
Yeah.

Justin (01:22:29):
Well, there's a. A little bit of history about burn.
I think it was 1997 and I'msure some burner nerd is gonna
write him say I was wrong.
But that was the year of the firsttheme camp, and it was a Santa camp, and
that was a group, a gentleman, his nameescapes me from the Cacophony Society.
He played Christmas jingles andChristmas music 24 hours a day.

(01:22:52):
Dressed in Santa claus, and thatwas the first kind of theme camp.
Um,

Leanna (01:22:57):
can I say that one of my most favorite experiences at Burning Man,
this was in 2010, was having a santArchy.
So we were all dressed up as Santasand we brought an ice machine and
had a snowball fight on the playa

Justin (01:23:13):
Brilliant.

Stevan (01:23:14):
In the middle of summer,

Leanna (01:23:14):
and it was fantastic.
And we got raided by freaking animalcontrol at the same time, because
March
up in

Stevan (01:23:32):
as, can we explain to the list what the Cacophony
Society, society was or is?

Justin (01:23:38):
Yes.
Go for it.

Leanna (01:23:40):
Captain.
Captain will give us a historical,uh, synopsis of the Cacophony Society.
I will fill in the blanks.

Justin (01:23:50):
Someone else start.
Speaker's just gone.
Sorry.

Leanna (01:23:52):
Uh, alright.
So the society started mostly.
So it was a group of humans in California,I think specifically in San Francisco.
And they wanted to be, I think theirphrase was united in the pursuit
of experiences beyond the pale ofmainstream society, which I think we

(01:24:16):
can agree is what Burning Man is, right?
So they formed it sometime in the lateeighties, early nineties, and yeah, I
think that's where Burning Man began.
So they had their first event partyon Baker Beach in the late 80s.

Justin (01:24:39):
Yeah, they,

Leanna (01:24:40):
they, burning Man started from there.

Justin (01:24:42):
Yeah.
They kind of, they were doing theirthing from about 1986 onwards and Okay.
Late eighties.

Leanna (01:24:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was at least close.
I was at least close.

Justin (01:24:51):
And, you know, Larry Harvey took that, built that effigy and took it down
to Bakers Beach in 87 or 88, was it?
And, um, I should know that.
And then, um, they said to him coupleof years, three years later when
the police said, Hey, you can't,you can't burn this thing here.
It's too big.
There's too many people.

(01:25:11):
So a couple of the members, includingwho is now known as Danger Ranger, who
were from the Cacophony Society said,Hey, we do this thing on, um, labor
Day weekend out at BlackRock Desert.
Do you wanna bring thatthing out there and burn it?
And so there's a lot of, um, youknow, burning Man in the early
days, there was a lot of membersof Cacophony Society and those.

(01:25:35):
You mentioned before, Stevan, youknow, the drive by shooting gallery
and, um, all the other kind of antic.

Leanna (01:25:40):
Yeah.
That was intense.

Justin (01:25:41):
Yeah.
Antics that were going on outthere in the, in the desert.
So some of those people were alsomembers of, I think it's called
the Suicide Club of San Franciscoand Billboard those early.
Yeah.

Leanna (01:25:54):
Yes.
And but they also addties in London, uk Yeah.
All, I mean all over the world.
So we've been really lucky to campwith some of those early burners
who were there during that stage.
Who tell stories ofabsolute mayhem and wonder

Justin (01:26:13):
Yeah.

Leanna (01:26:15):
Unregulated just shit going down.
Yeah.

Justin (01:26:20):
And John Moore was a big name,

Leanna (01:26:23):
but not a lot of, not a lot of people getting hurt either.
So

Justin (01:26:27):
yeah.
That's that's a whole podcast.
I think I've, so I've got theright person for, I think it's,

Stevan (01:26:31):
yeah, that's, that's a great summary.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's,

Leanna (01:26:35):
I've, I've got a really good person for it as well.

Stevan (01:26:37):
Yeah.

Leanna (01:26:38):
She doesn't live, she lives in the UK though.
She's been there, done that.

Stevan (01:26:44):
Yeah.
So it's just a bunch of, uh,misfits and odd balls and, and
pranksters getting together, merrypeople just getting together.
Yes.
You know, happy, you know, fun loving, youknow, adventurous people getting together.

Justin (01:26:55):
Yeah.
Um, you know, that billboardliberation front, that's, um, that
ties in with one of the things thatI love about going to a burn is
that you're not being sold anything.
You know, when you drive down yourstreet in a country town or in the big
city and there's billboards everywhereand someone's trying to sell you an
overpriced hamburger, and that's anotherthing I love about a burn and that

(01:27:18):
kind of, the thing about the cacophonysociety, that absurdity, I love that
that's a part of the burner culture.
There should be more absurdity at burns.
I. Um, I do too.

Leanna (01:27:30):
More scavenger hunts.
Yeah,

Stevan (01:27:32):
more weirdness.
More randomness.
Yeah, just more randomness.
Yes.
More humor.
I mean,

Leanna (01:27:36):
silly.

Justin (01:27:37):
Our Kiwi cousins, you know, built that giant traffic
cone over on the ply last year andburned an enormous traffic cone.
That kind of absurdity.

Leanna (01:27:47):
Well, I have to say, um, one of the things I really liked about Blazing
Swan, so we went to Blazing Swan.
It was like 2015 and we rockedup and it was who's Ranger there?
The really infamous ranger.
Anyway, we got a playa mission and ourmission was to change Camp Unicorn.

(01:28:16):
To Camp Uniporn without them knowing.
And they had like, you know,like these big LED letters.
And that was, I think I've,I've got a sticker somewhere.
I should have pulled it out.
It was like intelligentdeviant that is, yes.

Stevan (01:28:38):
Right?
Yes.
The, the name,

Leanna (01:28:40):
yeah.
Of, of the, the mission.
Like you were an intelligent deviantif you completed the mission.
So we did under the cloak ofdarkness, but we needed like
drills and tools because, you know,everything is situated for a burn.

(01:29:00):
Like they've installed their pieceand we need to uninstall their piece.
It's not a matter of changinga freaking cardboard sign.
It was, we're gonna unbuilt whatyou've built and we're gonna
arrange it into a porn word.
And boy, were they pissed.
Boy was it funny.

(01:29:22):
And like I loved, I loved that.
I loved having a mission.
I loved being on a, you know,the hunt to do the thing.
And they were reportingback like, yeah, we did it.
Here's the photo to prove it.
We need more of that frivolity.
Yeah.
That it's not just about thesand, the sound camps and the DJ
that's playing and whatever else.

(01:29:42):
No, like it's the cacophonythat brought us here.

Justin (01:29:47):
More silliness.

Leanna (01:29:48):
Yeah, more silliness.
I say

Stevan (01:29:51):
more silliness.
More randomness.
Yeah.
I love all the weirdnessthat goes around as well.
It's unpredictable and unexpected.

Leanna (01:29:57):
Hundred percent.
I love that.

Stevan (01:29:58):
Okay, so can we, shall we end this by, uh, talking about 2025?
What are we looking forward to and whatare the plans that you guys have for

Leanna (01:30:06):
Yeah, let's do it.

Justin (01:30:07):
Yeah.

Stevan (01:30:08):
So for, for BoNZA, what are, what are some of the things
that we can look forward to?
Some of,

Justin (01:30:13):
uh, so we are back in Melbourne this year,

Stevan (01:30:16):
more networking.

Justin (01:30:17):
Back in melbourne and hopefully we're going, have a couple
of our friends from one friend fromthe regional network come over.
Um, one of the Burning Man staffmembers and also a friend of ours
Tire, or Kathleen who Leanna knowsthey're, um, one's RC in Las Vegas
and one is an RC in Sacramento.

(01:30:40):
And they work on a couple ofcommittees for Burning Man.
So they've indicated they'd comeacross and trying to get, well, sorry,

Leanna (01:30:49):
captain, we've got some pie in the sky sort of, um, captain and I have been
talking about, um, having some special,

Justin (01:30:57):
special

Leanna (01:30:57):
Yes.
Uh, speakers come out or, you know, cool.
Be involved whetherthey're in person or not.
And so those are more culturalanthropologists like, um, Graham
St. John or Francois Gote, uh,I was told Sandra Pike might be
someone else that we might hit up.
If you, if you'relistening out there, yes.

(01:31:18):
We want you.

Justin (01:31:19):
Well, Graham saint Johns, um, and so is checking his
diary and we'll get back to us.
He's definitely someone.
And
so who can talk at lengthabout the Cacophony Society?
Great person.

Leanna (01:31:31):
Well, and these are exactly historical people and ultra also
cultural anthropologists and.
Are the, the inspiring, touchyfeely sort of aspects that we wanna
touch, you know, touch on and bringpeople into that space so we're not
just focusing on the operational,like Justin was saying earlier.

Justin (01:31:52):
Yeah.
What, you know, with the, I mentionedbefore about the summit, how it's
a, you get all the doers in theroom, but they don't do anything.
So throughout the year we speakto different events and people and
pick up on, you know, what would
try weave.

(01:32:12):
So hopefully each year we get,maybe not bigger, but we definitely
get richer in the, in its content.

Leanna (01:32:19):
Well, and we also try to activate speakers who are gonna inspire.
Yeah.
You know, this next sort of cohortof people who come through, whether
they're new or they've come before, youknow, we, we wanna get all the ankles.
We don't wanna be sort ofblind to one or the other side.

(01:32:41):
We like, we wanna explore everything.
So,

Justin (01:32:44):
and one thing we are, that's what we do looking forward to.
Leanna and I are gonna give apresentation on anyone as a leader.
So the the Bonza Summit is calleda community leadership summit.
But that doesn't mean you are theleader at the event or you're the
leader of your theme camp becauseevery burner can be a leader.
So we're gonna give alittle workshop on that.

Leanna (01:33:07):
We're, yeah, I forgot about that.
So thanks for reminding me.

Justin (01:33:10):
We, we both believe, um, as we all know, you know, people say,
oh, you know, anyone can be an artist.
Well, we believe, and I'msure a lot of burners do that.
Any burner, anyone can be a leader.
So

Leanna (01:33:22):
anyone can be a leader.

Justin (01:33:23):
We're gonna have a powerful

Stevan (01:33:24):
Yeah.
We all have those qualities.

Justin (01:33:25):
Yeah, yeah,

Stevan (01:33:27):
yeah.
We all have those, those, thoseleadership qualities, so yeah.
It's good to a

Leanna (01:33:31):
hundred percent.
Yeah.

Stevan (01:33:32):
Well, thanks very much for, for coming together and talking about bonza
and, uh, uh, I, I appreciate and respectand love everything you guys do for
community, uh, Leanna with burning seedand, uh, and with bonza, and you too,
Justin, with building this community ofalso with the Underland and, and other
stuff that you've done as well, and beingambassadors and being just good humans.
Thanks very much for coming on the show.

(01:33:55):
We thank you both and I've got, uh,big plans for this podcast as well.
And, uh, with the help of, and supportyou guys, um, we wanna get some more
talking points, some more discussions,some more conversations and ideas,
sharing and knowledge, you know,sharing you, you, I think this is very
important for our community as well,

Justin (01:34:13):
Stevan.
We are so appreciative that you, um,had us on obviously, but also that
you're, you're embarking on this project.
It's, um, got a lot of legs soto speak and, uh, especially with
the Asia Cons, um, you know, partof it, it's, um, there's so many
stories out there from all burners.

(01:34:34):
So looking forward tomany years of tuning in.
Thank you.

Stevan (01:34:38):
And looking forward to seeing you guys on the paddock somewhere.

Justin (01:34:41):
Yes,

Leanna (01:34:41):
you'll thank you

Justin (01:34:43):
in your podcast booth.
Thank you, Stevan.
Thank you Leanna.

Leanna (01:34:46):
Thank you everyone.
Appreciate you guys.

Justin (01:34:49):
Bye.
Bye.

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