Episode 03: Kiwiburn (Andy & Julia)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stevan (00:00):
Hi, uh, Bonzaar.
Welcome Kiaora.
Everyone, which meanshave life or be healthy.
Hopefully I pronounced that right.
Uh, this episode we'll focuson Kiwi Burn Its background
organization and Kiwi Burn 2025.
With me, I have Andy andJulia who are actually on site
right now at Hunt Hunterville.
Welcome guys.
How we going?

Andy (00:19):
Thank you very.

Stevan (00:21):
Now Gates already opened and you guys are actually right
in the middle of Kiwi Burn.
How are things going?

Julia (00:26):
I

Andy (00:26):
spectacularly,

Julia (00:27):
yeah, it's really chill.
Really, really easyatmosphere this year so far.
Give us time,

Andy (00:34):
like under the water scales.
No one knows

Julia (00:38):
exactly.

Stevan (00:39):
Well, it's exciting.
You've got the effigyburn happening in one day.
Is that correct?

Andy (00:43):
That's correct.
Yeah, 24 hours

Stevan (00:45):
now.
Well, I wanna talk about the effigy andthe temple this year, but should we leave
that spoiler towards, like the end ofthe discussion, we can cycle back to it.
So this year we've got quite a fewAussie burns attending it also as well.
So I just wanna shout out and for thefirst time I think the, it's their
first Kiwi burns, so shout out toall the Aussie burners out there.
You see who's helping out, probablyblowing their minds right now.

(01:06):
Uh, how does it look onsite right now, guys?

Julia (01:08):
The weather's beautiful.
The sun's been shining.
It's been dry.
Uh, we're in a bit of a valley here,so the, the nights do get relatively
cool, but the weather's been amazing.
We are expecting rain in a coupleof days, but then New Zealand
weather forecast can be trusted,but look out the window basically.
So, yeah, so far it's going really well.
And one of our, um, uh, our site manager2IC is actually an Aussie burner, and

(01:31):
this is his first, first kiwi burn.

Andy (01:34):
And, uh, we had our first night last, our official night last night,
so everybody's, um, warmed up, dancingaway, music blaring, ramping up for,
um, tomorrow night for the effigy burn.

Stevan (01:43):
Well, for, for the listeners out there, what's the temperature like?
What's the average temperatureand um, how cold does it get?
Ooh,

Julia (01:50):
so average temperature during the day has been in the, in the twenties.
I can give you a hot, uh,so it's 22 at the moment.
High will be 25.
At the moment, it's a bit cloudy.
It's, it's just past midday for us.
And at night it gets down to, there wasa couple of nights ago, we were in the
single digits, about nine, nine degrees.
That gets a bit, a bit nippy, butsort of 12 to 14 degrees at night.

Stevan (02:12):
Yeah.
So how's the situationwith the burn permits?
Uh, you know, you guys are holding thisevent in summer and usually with, uh, with
our summers, it's, it's quite, you know,too hot to burn and it's quite dangerous.
And there's, uh, also, there's forestry,uh, you know, regulations as well.
What's the situation with theburn permits, uh, in New Zealand?

Andy (02:31):
So, the district we're in is one.
Farms and things like that.
So every year we are basicallyoperating on the shoulder of a
fire restriction or a total fireban and we came close this year.
Fortunately we got a couple ofweeks where we got in sufficient
rain for them to down rate it.
We've had an event about three yearsago where we managed to persuade them

(02:54):
to delay the fire, complete fire banfrom the Friday night to the Monday.
So we managed to squeeze our two burnand that was because we have a full
service site, so full a and full team.
So we managed to the new serviceto hold off for 48 hours.
Let

Julia (03:09):
they're also burners.
That helps.

Stevan (03:12):
Yeah.
And, and when did you, and whenwas it, when did the build start?
When did you guys startpreparing for this ever?

Andy (03:18):
Uh, each year we start around the fourth or 5th of January.
Um, so we have, people have theirNew Year's Eve celebration, then
they move on to site with us.
So there's, you know, nearly threeweeks build beforehand, and then there's
just on a week back down afterwards.

Stevan (03:31):
And what was, what was experience like this year compared to previous years?
You said it was a bit easierbuild, bit more relaxed.

Andy (03:36):
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a good team being built up andwho's our MPW lead is doing a tremendous
job building up a, you know, a verygood culture, a very good community.
Everybody's wanting to come backeach year and they're just all
working as one big happy family team.
Yeah.
And, and that means a lot.
They have a lot of fun.
It also helps.
They also have dobros that helps too.

Stevan (03:55):
What's that for?

Andy (03:56):
Those in those in Australia who dunno.
So do BROS is a double brown beer.
So the equivalent perhapsof your Triple X over there.
Um, so that's the mascotfor the MPW team is Dobros.

Julia (04:06):
Well, sun warmed do bros. It's terrible beer, but it's the,
it's the drink of of kiwiburn.

Stevan (04:12):
What does it actually taste like?
then?
if it's terrible.

Julia (04:15):
I don't drink that.

Stevan (04:16):
I'm fascinated

Julia (04:16):
don't, I don't touch it.
It does not, it does notpass my quality standards.

Andy (04:22):
Some say it tastes like shit.
Some say it tastes like piss.
Some say it taste like beer, but thenthat depends on your taste, buds.

Stevan (04:27):
It's probably all the above, but
so how, how was the, uh.
Were there any issues or any, anythingthat we can, that you guys, you
could learn from from this year?
Anything different?

Julia (04:40):
Always.
I think one of the thingsthat we're getting really good
at is having continuity fromyear on year with the people.
And that just helps makingthings a lot smoother.
Like Andy's mentioned, xanthi, this isher second year in charge of, of our
MPW Ministry of Public Works, uh, whoare our onsite infrastructure team.

(05:01):
And, but yeah, I mean there's,there's always learnings.

Andy (05:04):
Next year is always better.

Stevan (05:06):
That's right.

Andy (05:08):
So, and also each year we bring new blood into the teams.
Um, so they look at things withfresh eyes and have new ideas.
And we're also investing a lotin infrastructure and assets.
So as those get nailed down each year,then we move on to the next project.
So yeah, we're always improving.
So two events we go, we put water on site.
Um, so that took away a lot ofstress and, uh, for the participants

(05:29):
having to bring their own water onsite, it was no longer an issue.
Um, and we just tackle projectslike that one at a time.

Julia (05:35):
It should also be said that our site is somewhat unusual,
uh, compared to many burns.
We are in a paddock, so when weare not here, there's literally
sheep and cows roaming the field.
So it is grass.
There are, there's a forest.
There's a river, a riverthat we can swim in.
So it's quite a lush environmentthat, that we are in.
So for us to have water on sitejust made sense and it's allowed

(05:58):
us to focus more on sustainabilityso people can carpool easier.
They can take public transport if theydon't have to log 20 liters of water each.
So we literally have water dispensersaround the corner that can people fill
up their camp showers and whatever waterthey need for their everyday needs.

Andy (06:17):
Yeah, that's a, so each, each, each year something will happen.
That becomes a learning exercise for us.
So two years ago we had, whatwe know we know is mud burn.
So when we had torrential rain and fromthat we learned a lot lessons about how
to handle things in terms of flooding andevacuation and getting vehicles off site.
Um, so we have all those plansset in place and tested and the

(06:38):
people involved are still with us.
So we've got theexperience on site as well.

Stevan (06:41):
Yeah.
With the initiative to.
Uh, with the water supply, uh,it actually alleviates a lot of,
uh, pressure on, on, on people.
Yeah.
Bringing, bringing board their own water.
Um, but it, it is, it is, uh, you'reself-reliant, so it should something
that we should do naturally anyway,but, uh, it's, it's a luxury to have it.

Julia (06:59):
It it is.
Yeah.

Andy (07:00):
So, so Kiwi Burn was involved with the green community,
um, in, and we most, so.
So you have self-reliance as anindividual if you're a member of a camp.
Then the self-reliance camp level,the self-reliance at an onsite
level and then the self-relianceis Kiwi Burn Incorporated.

(07:22):
And then self-reliance interms of Kiwi community.
So when we looked at it that way, havingindividuals being self-reliant from
water wasn't good for the environment.
Being self-reliant at a,

(07:47):
to looking at about self-reliancebeing purely by individual.

Julia (07:52):
Yeah.
We discussed this on the executivecommittee, which is our sort of
organizing structure that we havefor kiwi burn, and we discussed
this at length, like does this.
You know, uh, go againstthe self-reliance principle.
And exactly as Andy said, whenwe announced it to the community,
there was virtually no pushback.
Everybody's like, itabsolutely made sense.

(08:14):
You're in a paddock, there's heapsof rain about why wouldn't we harness
that and focus on sustainabilityand making things easier for people?
It's, it was a, a relatively easyexercise for us to put water on site.
All the reasons Andy just mentioned.
It just makes sense.

Stevan (08:31):
Yeah.
Well, there any otherinitiatives discussed?
This is interesting.
Yeah.
Um, it's, it's something that, um, I likeyou're saying as, as, as we progress in
into the future, uh, we must look at allthese issues in terms of how we're gonna
be more efficient and, you know, more,uh, you know, caring for the environment
as well as be, uh, adaptable to thechanging climates and environments.

(08:55):
I. Were there any more, other, otherconsiderations that you guys talked about?

Andy (08:59):
Yeah, I mean we've, we've done other things which are pretty
standard now for most, most burnsin terms of food composting.
We've also installed composting toiletsand we've got humanure composting on site.
So that's been trialed and testedand watched, covid woke us up
in terms of, um, portaloos.
So previously we had no troublesourcing ports for our event when

(09:20):
COVID came along and we restarted thewhole industry as far as construction
had changed, they no longer hadstoppages over Christmas New Year.
So the port pool that we used to tap intono longer existed and we had six weeks to
suddenly find a hundred odd port graduallyreplacing those composting toilets.
We also went out portaloosserviced rather than supplied and

(09:45):
the next project we've got, we.
Secondhand portaloointo composting toilets.
So that's the next thing on the agenda.
But ideally, we wanna become self-reliantas a site without needing to use portaloos
and having them serviced and dumpedand pumped and all the rest of it.
We've also looked at things liketransport of humans and goods to site.

(10:05):
So we tried to organize something withtheme camps if they wanted to organize
a container load and stuff coming frommain population centers like Auckland,
but we were adamant that it wasn't gonnabe the organizers who had to run it.
We have enough to do.
If the community wants to effectivelycarpool their equipment, then
we'll assist them, but they needto run it, and we haven't quite

(10:28):
got there
yet.

Julia (10:35):
Yeah, sorry,
go ahead.

Stevan (10:39):
Uh, a look, logistics is, is, is, is a big, big hurdle
and a big, uh, consideration.
Yeah.
So you were gonna say, Julia,

Julia (10:46):
uh, we're just, we're just taking a look at all the things that
are, that are, you know, pollutantand what we can do about it.
You know, I mean, generators for example,if we could do something about that.
And there's a number of conversationsin a number of different areas of
trying to focus on sustainability andwhere it makes sense and where we can,

Stevan (11:08):
are you using a lot of solar kind of.
Energy or solar kind of technology?

Andy (11:13):
A little, a little bit.
We're trying to improve that.
There's a lot of thingcamps that do use it.
And we also have you like, youknow, the village's concept.
It's a village of peoplewho are using solar.
I'm also part of the wrap group associatedwith, with where we're trying to get
rid of, generate fossil fuel generatorsand turn them over to solar power.
Um, so we've started a group inNew Zealand to do that as well.

(11:33):
And also our arts department isvery much in favor of getting
rid of fossil fuel generators forart pieces and converting solar.
Um, so it's, yeah, atthe start of that part,

Julia (11:43):
there's actually three theme camps this year up from two last year who are
entirely powered by electric vehicles.

Stevan (11:49):
Electric vehicles.
Wow, okay.
Yeah.
That's interesting.

Julia (11:52):
Yeah.

Stevan (11:53):
Yeah.
So how did they getthere in the first place?
They must have drained out all thebattery or they had spares, I guess

Julia (11:57):
they make it work.
Yeah.
So they, they drive down.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and, and charge batteries.
And then, um, with three, one camphas about, I think they've got about
12 members and they're very well litat night and they do their cooking
needs and everything else or whateverisn't, isn't gas powered basically.
And they source that all fromthe vehicles three in that case.

(12:20):
And apparently they're stillable to drive off site.
There is a, to be fair, there'sa vehicle charging station
about 20 minutes from here.

Stevan (12:29):
Yeah.
Right.
So this is, uh, the locationis Hunter Hunterville.
So what, what, what's the localtown or local community like there?

Andy (12:38):
They're wonderful.
Um, we've been here now for 11 years.
The first few years we werehere, kept a very low profile.
We just came along, hadour event went disturbance
and I became involved seven or eight yearsago when, when I came involved with that,
I started reaching out to the communitybecause they had lots of questions.

(13:00):
They thought it was all a bunchof drunken hippies, drugs sex
rock and roll, the usual story.
And we have managed to, um, get themknowing us much better than that.
So we hold a community barbecue,the events, we invite people who.

(13:25):
We feed them, we talk them, weentertain them, we show them our
art, and it's just changed thingsdramatically over the last few years.
They've always been supportive,but they just didn't know what
they were supporting before.
Now they do, they're even supportive.
Um, and a lot are joining in,so there's quite locals who are
coming as a burner to our events.
We're also getting involved witha community projects reach out.

(13:51):
Um, whether it's with setting upfor some of their events, um, we've
provided fire spinning demonstrations.
We did one in, did one in September.
We did one in December.
We've got another onein beginning of April.
And we're just also intending to helpwith, if you like, civic projects as well.
So whether it's the likes oftree planting, trying to build a
building or something like that.
And then in addition to that,the big one is public art.

(14:13):
So we're endeavoring to get kiwi burn artpermanently in place, whether that's for
three months, six months, two years, orwhatever, ranging from small art up to
some of our large art and that, that willjust need a change in approach by the
arts in terms of the materials they use.
Um, it's no longer to, couldlast three days or five days.
It's gotta last threemonths, six months or a year.

(14:34):
And, you know, sustaining the weatherconditions and people climbing on
it 365 days, not just seven days.
But that's, that's the reallybig project we're working on.

Julia (14:44):
And just a quick clarification.
Um, Andy used the word iwi.
So Iwi is a local, um, thelocal Maori tribe, basically.
Uh, as you can imagine, New Zealandis, has many tribes that govern
different areas, um, in the wrong ways.
Uh, and it's obviously very importantfor us to work closely with.
Uh, NA who happened to be thelocal iwi here, but just wanted

(15:07):
to explain that word quickly

Andy (15:10):
and, and, and they, they, again, are very supportive because the, um,
Maori culture is, is very much familybased and what they call MA based.
And they view us as having asimilar, um, structure to our,
our community and our culture.
And they know that we lookafter the environment.
They're happy for usto have the event here.
Um, they welcome us and the onlyreal involve, direct involvement they

(15:33):
ever, ever asked for is if we everdo anything that involves the river.
Um, we just run past them.
So there's any artwork or anything.
We just, just run that pastthem and get their approval.
Or they might have some suggestions ordirections as to how it could be improved.
Um, no.

Stevan (15:49):
Yeah.
Can we talk, uh, about the, the,the site, the actual site, um, the
layout and, and the land as well?
What can you tell us aboutin terms of, uh, do you guys
always changing it around or

Julia (16:04):
not so much anymore?
No.
We've got effectively three paddocks.
So we've got our top paddock,which is effigy paddock.
That's where the party is,that's where the sound camps are.
All the doof-doof.
Happens up there and it's genuine,like even elevation levels.
Um, then we've got the middlepaddock, which is where we are now.
So, um, not far out thedoor here is our temple.

(16:25):
This is more, you know, daytime sounds orthe, the, the theme camps that are here.
And then we have a lowerpaddock, again, down an.
Small embankment where there'sa lot of general camping.
And that's also where some kidscamps are, for example, you know, a
little bit further out of the way.

Stevan (16:45):
Yeah, a bit more quiet camping.

Julia (16:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Andy (16:47):
And then that lower paddock then backs onto a forest.
And once you walk through theforest, you're then into the
river flats and the river.
Um, so we don't allow any campingin the forest, um, due to the danger
of falling branches, but we usethat during the day and also at
night for people to walk through.
We have artworks in there, but we justdon't allow permanent camping in there.
And then we're basicallydown in a bit of a basin.

(17:09):
So the surrounding area has veryhigh cliffs, um, which works
generally, you know, most of far as
some.
Up to three or kilometers away,and we have to put in a noise

(17:31):
management plan and monitor thatduring the event report afterwards.
Um, we go door knocking with theneighbors before the event, during
the event when we put up the soundequipment, when we take it down and
we follow up with afterwards with athank you from Kiwiburn, whether that's
a bottle one or something like that.
Um, but yeah, and then asJulia said before, we're on a,

(17:52):
uh, beef and, um, sheep farm.
Um, so we work with the farm, thelandowner, um, to make sure that the
paddocks are available to us when they,when we arrive in the beginning of January
is on the tail end of their hay making.
So it's can be a bit, uh, a bitdicey at times to make sure the
hay's been cut before we setup.
We just recognize that we do,we do impact as operation.
So we are great.

(18:12):
Very grateful for being on site here.
And you can actually come here a yearafter the event, look down from the top of
the hill onto the site and you can stillsee effectively the impact and the imprint
of the marquees on how it, the grass.
So it's a lot of peoplethink it's nothing.
It's just camping for a week,but it farmer year round.
So we're very appreciativeof being to here every year

Julia (18:35):
and burn scars as well.
Those stick around for a whilebecause it's literally on grass.

Andy (18:40):
We are very fortunate that the landowner wasn't
quite a burner when we arrived.

Julia (18:45):
He is now,

Andy (18:46):
he might have been burner adjacent to some people, but he's
now a solid convert to our cult.

Julia (18:53):
We're not a cult.

Stevan (18:54):
Yeah.
So you built that relationshipthroughout the years.
Would you like to talk aboutthat a bit more in terms of
how important that is to it?
It is private land, I'm assuming?

Andy (19:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a family owned farm.
It's been in, I think, four or fivegenerations, so it goes back to the
18 hundreds type of thing, and we'rein very close contact with the owner.
We would consider ourselves friends asfar as, quite a few of us are concerned.
I make a point of, I'm basedup in Auckland, which is
five and a half hours away.
I try and make a point of beingdown here every six to eight

(19:24):
weeks and I meet the landowner.
I meet the local council various times ifthey available members or representative.
That's not all that regularat the moment because they.

(19:49):
Just building relationships, even if it'sjust going out, having a cup of coffee
and catching up with people, findingout what their families are up to and
what's going on in the community, whattheir concerns are, how we can help.

Stevan (19:59):
And Julia, in terms of marketing communications.

Julia (20:02):
Oh, well, I mean, yeah.
So I, uh, for, for clarity, so Ilook after, yes, the communications
department, although we are rebrandedas the Department of Propaganda.
Trust us.

Stevan (20:13):
Yes.

Julia (20:14):
Um,

Andy (20:15):
at your peril.
Yeah.

Julia (20:17):
We might be telling the truth.
We might not.
Um, and we, uh, uh, welook after the website.
We've got a newsletter, socialmedia, also regular media.
So I've done, um, other interviews andwhatnot before liaison, uh, of any kind.
Also graphics, design, photography,all of those sorts of things.
We certainly don't needto market kiwi burn.

Stevan (20:37):
No.

Julia (20:37):
Uh, we're heavily

Stevan (20:38):
word of mouth

Julia (20:39):
subscribed.

Stevan (20:40):
Mm-hmm.

Julia (20:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I mean, this is a little bitof a bucket list burn for many
international people as well.
We have many Americans here.
We have many Europeans here.
Obviously many of that comeyear after year as well.
But it is one of those thingsthat people put on their list.
Like, oh, one day I'll make itto Kiwi burn because we are, it.
The, arse end of the world here, soa little bit harder to get to, but

(21:03):
yeah, so we certainly don't do anykind of marketing, but very much
involved with raising awareness ofwhat this event is actually about.
Again, I'm, I'm one of those people,like even I'm in a reasonably, uh, high
powered corporate job and, you know, theyknow my involvement, uh, with Kiwi Burn.
I, I, I have no, no qualmsabout talking about that.

(21:24):
Some do, of course, that's perfectly fine.
I don't.
And, um, so always on the forefrontof making sure that people
understand what Kiwiburn actually is.
Which is primarily to me, an art festival.
So it isn't about, like Andy mentioned,the drugs sex and rock and roll.
Rock and roll.
I mean, that is a part of it.
Not gonna lie, as you know, butit's also, uh, just an amazing

(21:45):
community, which is probably the thingthat I'm most proud of, so, yeah.

Stevan (21:49):
Yeah.
You mentioned the, the unique,uh, animals and wildlife, there
are on site, like sheeps andcows and what, what else can we.
Find it's, uh, quiteunique to New Zealand.
Kiwis?

Julia (22:01):
No, no Kiwis on the site.
No

Stevan (22:03):
Hedgehogs.

Julia (22:04):
Uh, we've got hedge.
Yeah, hedge.
Funny you should say.
Yes.
We've had a number of hedgehogs run ins.
We've got, you know,there's quite a few possums.
There's actually a feral catpopulation on land, which is
very much considered a pest.
Um, obviously cats are not nativeto New Zealand and they do a lot of
damage to the, to the bird population.
Many, many birds, of course, and yeah.

(22:24):
But you know, other than that,there's, there's the sort of farm
animals that you get, get around.
We've actually, um, been unofficiallydubbed sheep burn this year because
there's a group of about three or foursheep that just keep wandering sight.
We keep chewing them out.
They, there's obviously a way through.
We've considered wristband them and just,just welcoming them into the community.

(22:46):
So the sheep are a little bitmore part of this year than they.

Andy (22:55):
Them into that group as well.
Yep.
The one other, um, animal specieswe have down here is native bats.
Um, so they're based in the forestand the farm owner, along with other
farmers in the area are actuallyworking on providing a green belt
going through this area for them.
Um, so we very wary of that and we've hadpeople who are taking note of whether we

(23:16):
have any impact on the, um, bat populationin terms of their feeding habits.
We believe we actually help it for a whilebecause when we burn things, we attract
moss and thats just, but yeah, we're,we're working with the local community
and the farmers in the areas like thatalso with the condition of the river.
Um, so there's droughtand things in there.
Um, so the local farmingcommunity isn't trying to improve

(23:38):
the water quality population.
Um, so we keep in touchwith them about that.
But for our event, we don't allowanybody to put anything in the
river, that's, there's soap, shampoo,or oil or anything like that.
But yeah, that's pretty much it.

Julia (23:58):
I would actually say, um, one, one other animal that's made its presence
known more so than I've experiencedpreviously are quite large wolf spiders.
I have a pet one named Charlie andthe portaloo that I tend to use.
So we, we, we have chats every night.
Um, but obviously this, thisis New Zealand, so nothing's
poisonous, nothing's gonna bite you.

(24:18):
I mean, they might bite,but they certainly aren't
gonna cause any lasting harm.

Stevan (24:21):
Well, in Australia they do bite.

Julia (24:24):
Yeah.
But, and they're, and they're,I mean, they're good size.

Stevan (24:26):
Yeah.
Well, give, give us a sense.
Give us, you said big, giveus a sense of like, um.
An average palm.

Julia (24:33):
Yeah, a co. A co I'd say a cup.

Stevan (24:35):
Well, that would freak a lot of people out.

Julia (24:36):
Yeah.
Well, we had one,

Stevan (24:38):
but they don't bite, yeah.

Julia (24:39):
Yeah.
I mean, I've, I've not heardany, any, uh, spider bites.
We have quite a few bees aswell, but I don't think we've
had any bee sting so far.
No.
And obviously, you know, they livehere, so we're invite invading
their land.

Andy (24:58):
So actually
has come site as operational sos phe,just casually wandering through the times.

Stevan (25:16):
Yeah, its lush.
Um, can't, I can't actually.
So I've never been to Kiwi burn.
New Zealand, so I can't wait to,uh, to visit and, uh, experience it.
I've done a bit of research and nowtell me, I've got this right now.
Kiwi Burn is a mustard economy and DJsand Bogans are beloved, yeah, yeah.

Julia (25:31):
Uh, well, yeah.
DJs, DJs are, are made fun of.
So if you, if you come to Kiwi Burnand you, you claim to be a dj, um,
you better have a good sense of humor.
Um, we've, we've, as the Department ofPropaganda have pointed out many times,
you know, there's about seven non DJsroughly give or take a half on site.

(25:51):
So yeah, many, many people comeand pride themselves on being dj.
We tolerate them.
Really, I'm one of the seven non DJs.
I believe it's six.

Andy (26:00):
I say I'm one of the other.
Yes.
So while we're in a position of power,we can still keep control of them.
Yeah.
Um, we, we do, we do follow the principleof inclusion, so we do allow them to come.
Otherwise we would havea very small population.

Julia (26:12):
We tolerate them.
But yes, we are absolutely, thisyear we are a mustard economy,
goes very well with sheep.
So,

Stevan (26:19):
and that, and that's from, uh, hippie Tim.
Is that, is that right?
He started the joke,

Julia (26:23):
correct?
He did, he did start, he did startthat, uh, that rumor and then
on Facebook it just took off.

Stevan (26:30):
Yeah.
I thought, I thought that was hilarious.
How snowballed.
Yeah,

Andy (26:33):
it's getting towards cryptocurrency territory.

Julia (26:36):
Oh, it's a bit, yeah.
It's some illegal mustard tradinggoing on, on site, I'm sure of it.

Stevan (26:40):
Yeah, that's right.
It's a black market for it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, well what about the,this year's, um, lottery system
Now that's quite different.
Haven't really experienced it.
I guess Burning Man used to do it as well.
Let's talk about the, the lotterysystem that you guys adopted.
The model

Julia (26:56):
that started a couple of years ago, so three years ago for the burn
that happened, that was, was mud burn.
I believe that was 2022that the sale happened.
We are heavily oversubscribed, as Imentioned, and we had virtually all
tickets in baskets within 10 seconds.
Excuse me.

Andy (27:15):
Yeah, so as Julia said, up until then, it was basically the keyboard
warrior, but uh, you know, first,first, first served and there was
lot of backlash from the communityabout that because obviously a lot
of them were disadvantaged to them.

(27:40):
For the lottery.
And then basically we completelyrandomized the order of who applied
and we did all sorts of interestthings as to how we randomized that.
Sometimes it was based on howquickly it took something to, and
it was run independently of us,so it wasn't us influencing it.
And that would just reallocate positionqueue we tickets so, so that was our
first movement towards a lottery system.

(28:02):
And we're now in the process ofeffectively getting rid of the lottery
system and moving to a 100 percentparticipation model or volunteering model.
Some people will call it, depending onyour definition of what volunteering
is, but we mean that it includesthings like participation and

(28:30):
so.
3 54 tickets to that lottery system.
Um, next year plan is thatthere'll be zero lottery.
Um, and everybody will beidentifying as a, as a, as a
contributor in one form or another.

Stevan (28:45):
Yeah.
If, if other burns are looking atthat system, that ticketing, uh,
lottery system, what, what are someof the issues or feedback from it?

Andy (28:53):
Well, as I said before, the, the main thing really with the lottery
was because we're oversubscribed.
Um, obviously that's, that's the problem.
What we had to do was limit the numberof tickets that people could buy.
So if you went to the lottery, youcould tickets and even if you on, you
still couldn't go back for another buy.

(29:19):
And win lottery and buy two tickets.
Careful with looking formultiples or multiple, make sure

Stevan (29:36):
double, double,

Andy (29:37):
double dipping or triple dipping.

Julia (29:40):
Sorry about my coughing.

Andy (29:41):
I think the only thing, other thing with the lottery was it just
meant that because you were allocatingthat number of tickets to lottery,
you have the likes of theme camps, um,who are saying, Hey, we contribute so
much, but we don't get enough of ourtickets for our theme camps to attend
because you have to rely on the lottery.
So that was also one of the moverstowards a contributing model.
And we do.

(30:05):
Absolutely.
And obviously and Oh yeah.
And they don't need tickets becausethey just fly in and fly out, so, yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, that was, that was oneof the things was thats were getting
caught short because the lottery And somoving more towards that contributing
model took away that anxiety Yeah.
For the,

(30:27):
but.

Stevan (30:29):
Yeah, he tried it.
Yep.

Julia (30:30):
And you obviously mentioned we've just conjured up our own ticketing system.

Andy (30:34):
No, I haven't mentioned that.

Stevan (30:35):
Yes.
well.
We,

Julia (30:37):
yeah, so we, we've been working with Quicket who, uh, south
African Company has recently beenbought by Ticketmaster, so you
know, boohiss, corporate overlords.
So we've got some really clever ITwhizzes that worked with our services
facilitator who is looking afterticketing among many other things.
And we've actually writtenour own ticketing system.

(30:59):
I just had a chat with one of the mainarchitects and coders, uh, that wrote it.
And I know ours and well months,days have gone into writing this.
It was a lot of work.
But he did just say just this morning.
That in terms of the, the draw onhis time during, in the, in the
lead up the last week or two beforethe event and during the event.

(31:21):
It's been a fraction of what hehad before, making all of his hard
work over the last few months.
Very much worth it.
But, uh, we have our in-houseticketing system now.
It's worked really well, so massivekudos to the team that's done this.
There's still the odd ironing out, ofcourse, as you know, as is with anything.
But it's worked.
It's worked really quite well.
Very, very proud of the guys.

Andy (31:43):
And as Julia said, originally we've been using Quicket and
they're a South African company, butthey're originally, they're burners.
Um, so developed from a and.
Parallel that we wanted one source oftruth through our volunteer management
system, and we settled on using Airtable.

(32:05):
So we would actually develop that first.
And then the next logical stepfrom that was rather than having to
interface with quicket, we should haveticketing within the same group of apps.
And so that was the nextstep, was bringing to.

(32:31):
And it's, it's open source.
So we're happy to share our experienceand how we do things with others.
We've already talked with a couple ofburns in Australia that reached out to us.
So yeah, that was, that was thereason, that was the sort of the
final straw to make us come in house.
And then as Julia said, we found out thatthe quicket, um, organization being sold,
but no disrespect to them, individuals.

(32:52):
Excellent.
Absolute.
I'm sure they'll
around the world.

Stevan (32:58):
Yeah.
I do like the, the volunteerbased kind of ticketing structure.
Do, do you think, uh, this whole.
Sort of like educate or inform for people,more people about how the event runs

Julia (33:10):
and how do you mean, sorry.

Stevan (33:12):
Well, uh, if everything is, is, is not, uh, catered,
we, we, we all do ourselves.
Um, so it's a do-reaucracy sort of thing.

Julia (33:20):
Yeah.

Stevan (33:20):
The vol volunteer actually makes the, the burn go around.

Julia (33:24):
Hundred percent.
I mean, we had a, um, a chap who'staken it upon himself to create an
app for the event guide, for example.
He did it last year.
He stepped up his game and he's,nobody asked him to do this.
It's very welcome.
It's a very good app and gives youthe, the map and everything and
also allows you to add personalevents for yourself that aren't

(33:45):
necessarily part of the event guide.
So you can actually build a little bit ofa, a sort of a, of a, a plan for yourself.
And that's a very good example I think, ofsomebody seeing a need and just doing it.
And it works out really well andwe've told everybody about it.
Reception isn't awesome on site,so it's available offline as well.
But I think that's a perfect exampleof, like I said, somebody seeing a

(34:06):
need and creating something in theirown time, using their own resources
that literally everybody can use.

Stevan (34:12):
Yeah, that's what I love.
You guys, uh, you guys have, youguys are setting the benchmark there,
building your own apps and all that.
I don't, I don't think we everhave that here, uh, for our.
our burns so well done.
Uh, especially with

Julia (34:22):
Kiwi ingenuity.
It's, it's, it's part of, honestly,it's, it's not just a burner thing.
It's a kiwi, it's a New Zealand thing.

Stevan (34:29):
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.

Andy (34:30):
It really comes from being so remote compared to other
places having a small population.
So although Australia is prettyclose as, as being remote to other
continent, large population to on
new

(34:52):
zealand if.

Stevan (34:54):
Yeah, the event, the events guide looks, looks very, uh, there,
there's a lot, there's there a lot to do.
Uh, have you guys, oh my God.
Have you guys experienced anything in thelast two days that you've been on site?

Andy (35:06):
It's, it's actually Julia's annual headache doing the event guide.

Julia (35:10):
Yeah, it's so much.

Stevan (35:11):
Tell us about it.

Julia (35:12):
It is hours, hour well days because we, so people put in events
throughout, once we open events,which is about August time this year.
So people can add events.
Obviously there's also theme camp,but theme done descriptions, there's
the map and there's the art map.
And then sometimes there'sdescriptions about, like this year
we're including artists own wordsabout the effigy and the temple.

(35:34):
And, um, but we never know what we'regonna get in terms of the file to then
create the, the physical a five eventguide until we actually download it.
As I'm sure you can imagine, peoplewanna get in at the last minute.
Oh, I haven't done it yet.
They've had months.
You know, people so often they'll, they'llask us to hold it for the last minute.

(35:56):
We work with printers in Auckland whoare very patient and very good with us,
but the formatting of the event guideevery year is an absolute pain in, in,
in the, in the, in the, you know what?
Because like I said, we don'tknow what we're gonna work with.
So there's a lot of shuffling.
I also have to go through, um, froma, uh, from a comms perspective,

(36:17):
make sure nothing's being said.
That shouldn't be said.
There's a number of things that are,that we, you know, we, we obviously don't
condone drug use or anything like that.
We can't have that in officialcommunication, so making sure that
that's, I mean, I, we had a visit fromthe police and I literally handed them

(36:40):
issue, but yeah, it's, I work,I designer of my comms team.
We go through that and we arriveat a printable version every year.
We get it done, but it's many,it's many sleepless nights.

Stevan (36:53):
Was the, was the police presence, was it check, was it just
a routine checkup or how's the, how'sthe relationship with law enforcement?

Andy (37:01):
Very good.
Um, it's all part ofthat community outreach.
It's also part of ourresource, so Australia.
Local district council has toissue permits to us, and that has
various requirements and annualrequirements that all emergency
services have to be contacted.
Generally with hospitals, mentalhealth unit, people like that.
They just, the events running, whatare the dates, blah, blah, blah.

(37:24):
Site manager, phone number withthe local community police,
um, we actually invite them.
I can't say, but

Stevan (37:36):
are they interested in participating?

Andy (37:38):
Uh, they probably would.
Do some of them have interest?
Absolutely.
I can safely say that we know thereare certain members of our community
uniform, but not when they're on site.
But no, they're fully aware ofwhat activities might go site.
But they know that we as acommunity look after ourselves.
We have full medical support services.
Um, so we have our contractedmedical providers who can take

(38:00):
treatment to a certain level.
They then have the Kiwivolunteers who they coordinate.
But some of those volunteers aremuch more professionally qualified,
schooled, experienced than the, um,professional hire service that we have.
And that means that those people canstep in, if there's an emergency,
they can then go to the next level.
They can supply and administer drugsthat our contract service can't.

(38:22):
And we also obviously have immediateavailability for helicopter evacuation.
And those people can actually not onlycall it in, but they can also travel.
Local police know that local police,we support our community internally.
We never impact the external community.
We don't have people who aredrunk and rolling around in

(38:43):
the town or anything like that.
They see our people come in and helpclean up and participate in events.
So they're very, very supportive.
And one thing I would like to pointout is that Kiwiburn, many years
ago started, um, drug testing.
He did that initially on a unofficialbasis because it was illegal at the time.
And that gradually developedand was happening unofficially.

(39:04):
We couldn't advertise it, buteverybody knew it was happening.
And we were the organization,um, know your stuff, were
pushing for it to be made legal.
We got it across the line once,um, it was vetoed by one vote.
Um, but the second time around itbecame illegal in New Zealand and
also supported in New Zealand.
So you can test, for drugs,you can educate, obviously you
do not promote drugs, but it'sbasically, um, harm reduction.

Stevan (39:28):
Yeah.
Well, yeah, the harm reduction.
What was the pushback?
Why was it less miss votes,like people were against it?

Julia (39:35):
Parliamentary vote, obviously.
But yeah, people are just assumingthat if you are there, that there's a
correlation between, um, allowing drugsto be tested and people taking more drugs.
Obviously, that is the wrongperception in that case, wouldn't you?
Drugs are gonna be a thingwhether you want them to or not.
Wouldn't you much rather know what'sactually in them and keep our people safe?

Andy (39:58):
So when it went through the first time, it was even supported
by both the, um, police association.
Um, so those who representthe police front line.
It was also supported bythe police commission.
Um, but it was just a political, if youlike, one that decided that they were
gonna take a, against us from happening.
But second time round it went throughwith full support and, um, our

(40:21):
kiwi burners have been recognized.
So they have received the queenservice medal and things like that
for their services to the country.
And it's now that program is nowfunded by the government and their
model is being used elsewhere.

Julia (40:32):
Yep.
It, it makes everything so mucheasier if medical professionals know
medical, what kind of drugs theymight be dealing with versus with
what people think they're taking.
We, uh, populize this information as well.
So we'll say we've got more of onething or another thing, or this type
of drug isn't, you know, isn't as purethis year or what, you know, whatever.
And, and we publicize that so tolet other festivals know as well.

(40:56):
If there's certain thingshappening in in the undercurrent,

Stevan (41:00):
yeah, I think

Andy (41:01):
the whole process is totally anonymous, so there's no repercussion.
The police do not take actionagainst anybody who having drugs
tested or anything like that.
And it also provides very usefulfeedback for the police in terms of
what drugs are out there, whetherthere's bad, what the consequences
could be for the emergency services.
We've seen that in the last couple ofyears where there's been some folks

(41:22):
that have been contaminated or whateverand that has to, um, serious medical,
um, events through the country, butheads up advance, things are country
and services can be prepare for.

Stevan (41:36):
Yeah, education is very important.
Now one of my favorite things, uh,is, is to listen to people's, uh,
origin stories, the burner stories.
Would you like to, to share, uh,with the listeners, uh, how you
got involved in the community?
Uh, and, and how did you find the,the localized Kiwi Burn community?
How did you discover that?

Julia (41:57):
I'd actually heard about Burning Man many, many years ago.
Uh, as you can tell by myaccent, I'm not from around here.
Um, and, um, I was traveling, um, acrossthe US and this was in 2003 and I was in
the area and I heard about Burning Man.
However, I was also traveling witha cat, so I couldn't actually go.

Stevan (42:19):
No pet allowed.

Julia (42:20):
No pet allowed, no.
And, um, and many years later I arrivedat New Zealand and I was actually,
uh, going on a, on a first date.
With the person that happened to be thetemple builder for the next Kiwi burn.
Uh, we met in November, 2017 and he wasbuilding the temple for Kiwi Burn 18.

(42:42):
And he spent much of our firstdate talking about the big erection
that he was gonna be involved

Stevan (42:49):
on a first date?

Julia (42:50):
On a first date.
And he told me a littlebit about kiwi burn.
Then I actually helped withbuilding, uh, elements of the temple.
Didn't make it to that burn, butstarted to become involved as
a volunteer very shortly after.
So I've been volunteering for a yearbefore ever coming to my first burn.
This person and I, uh, areactually still very close friends.
We're no longer dating, butthey're still very close friends.

(43:12):
But he's introduced me into the community.
I'd like to think I've made it my own.
Now I've been on EXCOM for five yearsthis year, and again, I was involved for
a couple of years, you know, in, in othercapacities, always as part of comms.
Um, I can talk, I can write,so that makes sense for me to
hang out in that department.

(43:33):
And, but again, it's, it's in my natureto wanna get involved pretty quickly.
I always joke that all of us,certainly on the executive
committee, there's a, there's afierce sprinkling of neuro spice.
Through all of us and other sort oftraits that are common amongst us.
We're all reasonably opinionated.
We're strong personalities, and wedo this because we care and because

(43:54):
we're in a position to actually makea difference and change the event.
Some of the infrastructure elementsthat we've brought on site such as water
are changing the face of kiwi burn.
I believe very much for thebetter, and I take enormous
pride in being involved in that.
So that's, that's my story.

Stevan (44:11):
Cool.

Andy (44:12):
So, um, I became aware of Burning Man probably in the early two thousands.
Um, so that was through my interestin art, particularly large art
and particularly large public art.
And I saw what was going on over there.
I couldn't actually make it 'causeI was a self-employed consultant and
couldn't afford to take time off.
And so then probably about eightyears ago I decided hard enough,
long enough, early, and six and Kiwi

(44:42):
made the mistake of the town hall meeting.
And they announced there that the thentreasurer was about to immigrate to the
UK permanently and no one was puttingtheir hand up and the society would
be folding without all its officer.
I had made the mistake of befriendingthe regional contact Lumos, who many
on the podcast may know and happened tobe standing next to them and said, oh
look, I, I've got accountancy background.

(45:03):
I can stand in for a few weeksbefore you recruit someone.
So my hand was raised by Lumos.
Seven years later, or eight yearslater, I'm still the treasurer.

Julia (45:12):
Yeah.

Andy (45:12):
Um, and then probably I think five, six years ago, we had a few
changes from the chair rotatingthrough and it didn't quite settle in.
And so I, in as acting chairwhile we recruited somebody and
spent a lot of time recruitingthem, uh, we never found anybody.
So for treasury?
Yeah.
Or no, for chair.
Chair initially, sorry.

(45:32):
So in the end I said, look,I've been acting chair enough.
I'm working with outside parties,like councils and people like that,
and staying on the acting chairdoesn't give them much confidence.
So I would rather be the permanentchair and find a new treasurer.
And so I became permanent chair andbasically I spent a lot of my time
liaising with external parties.
So most firms have somebodywho does that dealing with

(45:53):
councils and government agencies.
And so that's what I've
Kiwiburn.
And it can be anywhere from sort of20 hours up to 60 or 70 hours a week
with the various roles that we do.
Um, but we do it because we love it.
That's our passion.

(46:14):
We wouldn't be doing it otherwise.
Yep.
We do have to have thick skins, so a lotof people don't understand, and it's very
various things at us, but I always say toour new facilitators, just grow a thicker
skin, you know why you're doing it.
People will understand eventually,but we do sometimes have to make the
tough decisions and it's really, weneed, probably need do a bit more
self-promotion to make people awareof what goes on behind the scenes.

(46:34):
And we're doing that partly bybringing more and more people into
the, if you like, the organization.
Um, so bringing in event deliveryteam rather than just having,
giving people the, the exposure andexperience to understand it's not
just take only takes five minutes toget two thousand people on paddock.
Um, it's actually probably threedays of preparation, if not more.

(46:56):
We actually more or lessthinking about not just.
I personally, I'm think aboutour 25th anniversary, which
is another four years away.
We've only just had our 20th, butlet's start thinking about the 25th.
Um, let's make that a big one.
Yeah.
Um, so there's a lot goes on behind thescenes and people also don't realize
that once you get to a certain size,there's a lot more factors come into it.

(47:16):
Like councils, governmentregulations, health and safety.
And so your team just gets largerand your responsibilities get larger.
So there's a lot that has to go on.
There's a lot of decisions theyhave to made, but the general
community just aren't aware of.
Yeah.
But as I say, we do it because we love it.
We wouldn't be doing it otherwise.

Stevan (47:36):
Yeah.
Awesome.
I'd love to hear more aboutthe Kiwi Burn Organization.
Should we take a quick breakand, and we'll come back.
I've got a Kiwi Burn Triva to testyour memories that we can talk about
previous Kiwi burn, uh, events as well.
So how about we take a shortbreak and we'll be right back
after these burner messages.

Christian (47:54):
Yo, it's Christian here from the camp of.
Loose ends, uh, started thecamp of loose ends a very long
time ago at Rainbow Serpent.
Um, it's been been to nearly 20 burns,which have been Japan burn, kiwi
burn, all three of Australia's burnmodifiers, modifyre blazing swan, uh,
burning seed, plus the big burn twice.

(48:14):
Um, been to 20 burns in total.
Be be going over to Blazing Swanand also, um, setting up the camp
of loose ends at burning seedthis year, which would be great.
So come down and enjoy yourself.
Uh, I really love theAustralian Burner community.
Feels like people are veryconnected to earth, um, very
connected to, to, you know, nature.

(48:37):
Um, whereas, you know, likegoing to all the other burns can,
can be a little bit different.
You know, America's not really,you know, a natural burn.
It's like, how big can you go?
Uh, Japan burns really quirky.
Um.
Kiwi burns really beautiful andsoft and gentle, but you know,
the people are, are like us.
They're, they're a lotmore connected into land.

(48:58):
Um, which is why I really lovethe Australian Burning Man
community because there is that,you know, that connection to land.
It's not, not all about, Hey,look at me, I'm so, so cool.
It's more about let's connectand, and really get in.
Although that is prevalent, you know,and, and a functionality of all the burns.
Um, yeah, really beautiful space, burningman and, and, uh, love to be a part of it.

Lumos (49:24):
Hi there.
I'm Lumos.
Kiwiburn is my home burn.
Back in 2008, I drank longand hard, the Koolaide.
As a result, I've ranged at manyAustralian burns This year I plan
to continue my tasting of Aussieburns, taking in burning seed,
blazing swan, and third degreewith a side dish of Africa burn.

Stevan (49:46):
Okay, we're back.
Let's, how, how do youguys go with trivia?
Do you guys love, love trivia?

Julia (49:51):
Everybody loves trivia.

Andy (49:53):
Doesn't mean we're good at it.

Stevan (49:54):
I've got

Julia (49:54):
No,

Stevan (49:56):
I've got some kiwi burn trivia here for you.
Uh, shall we, let's see howyou go with your memory.
Uh, let's start.
Okay, so question one, in whatyear was Kiwi burn not on?

Julia (50:08):
It was two.

Stevan (50:09):
When did, when didn't happen?
That's right.
Yes,
that's right.
Not just one year.
Yeah.

Andy (50:12):
2019 and 2022.
Yep.

Stevan (50:16):
Correct.
Well done.
Okay.
Why was Kiwi Burn canceled in 2019?

Andy (50:21):
Uh, the resource consent hadn't been, uh, processed.

Stevan (50:24):
Julia did it.
Do you know why?

Julia (50:25):
No, no.
That's, that's correct.
So there was a resourceconsent issue in 2019.
Very different reasonsfor cancellations in 22.
Um, there was a, therewas a virus going around.
I don't know if you heard of it,but it was a bit of a worldwide,
you know, pandemic issue.
We were, we burned in 2020because our event is so early
in the year we got away with it.

(50:46):
But like before anybody knew whatthis COVID thing even was in 21
because of New Zealand's fairly, um.
Uh, uh, uh, you know, uh, no excuse.

Stevan (50:55):
More progressive,

Julia (50:56):
yeah, aggressive approach, I think is a good word.
Um, we were pretty much COVID free in21, but by 22 it had crept up again.
So we made the heart decision in Decemberto not December of 21, to not have a
burn for 22, and then the country wentinto, uh, restricting events two days
before we would've otherwise happened.

(51:17):
So it was a good decision.

Stevan (51:18):
Well, that was my my third question.
Why wasn't kiwi burn?
Why was Kiwi burn canceled in 2022?
Yeah, you're right, the pandemic.
Okay, so how many, question four, howmany one word theme have kiwi burn used?

Julia (51:31):
One word theme.
There's

Stevan (51:31):
several, actually one word theme.
So this year is

Julia (51:35):
decadence metamorphosis.
Um, missing a picnic time travel.

Stevan (51:41):
That's, that's not one word.

Julia (51:43):
No.
Was that two words?

Stevan (51:45):
Two words, yeah.
not

Andy (51:46):
in Kiwiburn.

Julia (51:49):
Exactly.
We one word.

Stevan (51:53):
Okay.
The answer is metamorphosis.
You're right.
Um, combust, combustion, unity.
Yeah.
As an old word.
Elementally.
Enlightenment word asin WYRD and decadence

Andy (52:10):
wide with a y.

Stevan (52:11):
Wide wired.
Yeah.
Wide.
Not weird or word.

Julia (52:15):
Yeah, yeah,

Stevan (52:16):
yeah.
So there were six.

Julia (52:17):
Alright.

Stevan (52:18):
So yeah.
Yeah.
Six themes.

Julia (52:20):
Nice.
Nice trivia.

Stevan (52:21):
In what year was the theme Robots are coming used for Kiwiburn

Julia (52:26):
17, was it?

Stevan (52:28):
Yeah.
Very.
Yeah.
That you're right.
You're right.
Well done.
Yeah.
Do you remember that burn?

Julia (52:32):
I wasn't there.
That was the year before.
Before I joined.

Stevan (52:35):
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Question.
Uh, 6 20 16 was the year that Kiwi burngrew from nine, 900 attendees to almost.
1500. What was the themethat year, do you remember?
2016 to the year.
Previous to decadence.

Julia (52:52):
Is that the wonderer?

Andy (52:53):
When was the robots?

Julia (52:55):
The robots were 17.

Stevan (52:57):
Yeah.
17. So yeah.
So a year before robots are coming.

Julia (53:02):
Oh, damn.

Stevan (53:05):
Potluck and emotion.

Julia (53:07):
Ah, yes.

Stevan (53:09):
That's an interesting theme.

Julia (53:10):
Yes.
The potluck.
Yes.

Stevan (53:13):
Okay.
Metamorphosis was the themefor Kiwi Burn in, uh, 2007.
Do you remember, do you know thenumbers of burners at the event

Julia (53:21):
in, sorry, what year?

Stevan (53:23):
2007

Julia (53:24):
Wouldn't have been very many.

Stevan (53:25):
So this is when Yeah, this is, yeah, that's right.
It's very early days.
So it would've been few hundred, yeah.

Julia (53:32):
Five, 600.
Yeah.

Andy (53:34):
That was when it, when it moved.
Location.
And so

Stevan (53:37):
two-o-seven,

Andy (53:39):
yeah, I would say was probably around three hundred, maximum.

Stevan (53:44):
It was less than that.
It was 145.

Julia (53:45):
Oh my goodness.

Stevan (53:47):
So this is the early days.
Yeah.
Like, yeah.
Back uh, 2007.
Yeah.
So we wasn't

Andy (53:53):
first couple of years on the south, top of the south island.
Then we moved, moved northand that was metamorphosis

Julia (53:57):
manakino.
Yeah.

Stevan (53:58):
Yeah.

Julia (53:59):
I wasn't even in the country at that point.

Stevan (54:03):
In what year was time travel used as a theme?

Julia (54:05):
Well, that was, that was the burn.
Yeah.
Ironically, that was canceled.
So, uh, we, we had picked that theme forum, 2022 and then very fittingly, traveled
it forward by year and used it forwhat turned out to be Mud Burn in 2023.
But it was technicallythe theme for two burns.

Stevan (54:25):
Yeah, that's what I got down as well.
Mud burn 2023.

Julia (54:28):
Yeah.
It was very,

Stevan (54:29):
what do you remember about that?
Very?
What do you remember about that Burn?

Julia (54:32):
Mud wood chips.

Stevan (54:33):
Mm-hmm.

Julia (54:34):
Um, it.

Stevan (54:36):
Was it traumatic?

Julia (54:38):
Um, I wouldn't say traumatic.
It was just, it was a, it was a hardlesson for us to learn because I
think we'd, we'd always relished, wealways knew it was a matter of time
until we had a rained out event.
We've been very lucky.
This is a relatively stable time ofyear as the world is changing as well
though, with those kinds of things.
And we had what they call a century event.

(55:00):
There's a few of those, thesedays of, uh, of just a massive
storm system descending on us.
In the ran, caught the tail endof it, the north island and man in
particular, was much more affectedthan we were, but it rained a lot.
And the other issue that we hadis that it had rained a fair bit

(55:21):
in the lead up, so that meant thatthe ground was already saturated.
Um, again, there's sheep and andcattle on the, on the paddock.
So there were many grooves and inparticular in the upper paddock
where it was actually quite hazardousto walk around from all the, been
through and hard and soft and hard.

(55:44):
So the water table was relatively high.
Our biggest concern reallywas to get people out safely.
So we ordered many, many tonsof wood chips that we put down.
It wasn't actually, by the timeMonday came around, it actually wasn't
that big a deal to get people out.
We never got anybody properly stuck.
We also have farm, uh, vehiclesand ways to get, get, you know, old

(56:07):
camper vans dislodged from the mud.
The biggest problem for me, personally,was probably the river, because the forest
area, we keep a lot of art there, andthe river is a big feature of the burn.
And we had to shut the entire forestera area because of flooding risk.
The river was a torrent, definitelynot safe to swim in, and it meant

(56:28):
that there was a lot of a, a hugeelement of kiwi burn was lost in the
forest, in the river, and in the art.
I myself never actually got to see anyof the art in the forest because we
had to shut it off for safety reasons.
So.
That was probably thebiggest learning for me.

Andy (56:46):
Yeah.
As basically if, if people had thepatience to wait until the official
on Monday, we had everything in place.
We had the means to get people out,but the problem was that flooding up,
up and also in areas which Zealand, so
who had relatives, um, affected

(57:12):
ahead.
So
Kiwi.
Whose lives have just been devastated.
And, um, we had to get them outtathere so they could go their lives out.
And some of those people are still in asituation many years later still trying

(57:32):
to get their aspects of lives sorted.
It was a major upheaval for part.
Yeah,

Julia (57:40):
as you can imagine, wifi and access to, you know, cell phone coverage
and whatnot isn't super awesome on sitebecause we're in a bit of a valley.
So by the time information startedto trickle through, there were
some reasonably dramatic videos.
So yeah, people started hearingwhat was potentially happening.
Auckland is the biggest townin New Zealand by extension.
The majority of burners live inthe Auckland area, and a lot of

(58:04):
people simply didn't know whatthey would come back to as well.
So it was, it was quitetraumatic from, from that sense.
That's absolutely true.

Stevan (58:12):
Yeah.
It's, it's unusual that we getthis, uh, kind of downpour kind
of, uh, wet weather in the summer.

Julia (58:18):
Oh, it was a cyclone.
I mean, it was a full on cyclone.

Stevan (58:21):
Oh, right.

Julia (58:22):
And it was, yeah.
And, and it was, uh, again, a centuryweather event and it, it rained for much
longer and much harder than they forecast.
Again, I wouldn't wanna be a,a meteorologist in New Zealand.
It's, uh, it's, uh, fairly changeable.
But yeah, it was, it was just oneof those things that was outta the
ordinary might happen more oftennow, obviously the world over.

(58:45):
But yeah, nobody knewquite how bad it was.
And then when, when reports started totrickle through, uh, of buses driving
along in the motorway and the buseswere literally like, you had to put
your feet on the seat in order to keepyour feet drive in the bus, you know,
that's, that's pretty scary stuff.

Stevan (59:01):
Uh, let's continue.
The next question is, in what year did,kiwiburn reach over 2000 attendees?

Julia (59:08):
Wow, that's fluctuated.
I would've thought that was mud burn.
No.
Yeah.
Was it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because last,

Stevan (59:17):
yeah.
2021 and 2023.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Julia (59:20):
Yeah.
Because last year we ran,there's another burn.
That runs every otheryear called Ignition.
And we're a small island small community,so it draws on many of the same people.
So last year was anignition year, as it were.
So Kiwi burn was significantlysmaller as a result.

Stevan (59:40):
Okay, next question.
What was the 2021 Kiwi burn theme?
I like this one.

Julia (59:44):
20 mythical picnic, I think.

Stevan (59:46):
Correct!
Yes.
Well done.

Andy (59:48):
Can you, can you, in what year did, can you tell that the, uh, Julia's
communication department is responsiblefor producing the patches, the badges,
the stickers, and designing them

Julia (59:57):
well, that was also the case.
Well, she's doing very, very well.
I was on site the whole build, so yeah.
I remember 21 better than most

Stevan (01:00:03):
in what year did, can we burn, move site from Manakino to Hunterville?

Andy (01:00:09):
We have now been on site for 11 years On the site.
Yeah.
11 years ago.
2014,

Stevan (01:00:16):
correct.
2014. Well done.
Um, how many burns did Manakino hosted?

Andy (01:00:23):
Uh, I think they were third one onwards.

Julia (01:00:27):
And it's our 21st anniversary this year.

Stevan (01:00:30):
So you're doing some good math there.
Mm-hmm.
You're doing some goodmath calculations there.

Julia (01:00:34):
This is the accountant.

Andy (01:00:35):
Right.
So we went from 2006,three to 2000, I believe

Stevan (01:00:41):
That's right.
Yeah.
2007 to 2013.
Correct.
Yeah.
So seven altogether.
The of seven.
And how about Hunterville?
How many have hunterville hosted?

Julia (01:00:51):
11.

Andy (01:00:51):
This is, this is our 11th year and our ninth event.

Stevan (01:00:54):
Correct.
Two,
nine.
Yeah.
Plus, so 10 this year.
Yeah.
What was the theme for Kiwi burn in 2020?

Julia (01:01:03):
2020 was.
Electric Avenue was

Stevan (01:01:07):
decade.

Julia (01:01:07):
Decade, yes.
Electric, yeah.
Was a decade.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah.
Yes.

Stevan (01:01:12):
And bonus points, how many people do you reckon you had that that year?
Do you remember?
About

Julia (01:01:16):
1800, something like that.

Andy (01:01:18):
About 1850?

Stevan (01:01:19):
Yeah.
Just under 2000.
From what?
From what I've got here, the WikiBurn site is the, oh, 19, 19 95.
So you never trust,that's a good year too.

Andy (01:01:29):
You never trust that because it comes from communications
or propaganda demand.

Julia (01:01:31):
That's right.

Stevan (01:01:32):
Yeah.
And it doesn't get updated.
But that's, yeah.
That's the only source of, uh,information we have, um, at the moment.
Yeah.

Andy (01:01:38):
That's because it's all secret.
So we can't reveal that it wasactually 3000 people, but you
know, we don't tell people.
Yeah,

Stevan (01:01:44):
right.
Okay.
That's a lot.
Yeah.
So Disaster holiday was a themeused Kiwi Burn in what year?

Julia (01:01:50):
I do not know.

Stevan (01:01:51):
Disaster holiday.

Andy (01:01:52):
That would've been an, this would've been.
Say about 2009.

Stevan (01:02:02):
Yeah, 2012.
Bit.
A bit more later than that.
Yeah.
Okay.
20 20 11 featured the, the theme.
Title Twisted what?
Twisted

Andy (01:02:10):
Frequency.

Julia (01:02:11):
No.
Twisted Frequency is a wholenother, I don't remember.
I ha I can sort of see it.
Um, twisted, don't Remember

Stevan (01:02:21):
Twisted Reality.

Julia (01:02:22):
Oh, actually that's not what I was thinking at all.
So I would've been, yeah.

Stevan (01:02:27):
Okay.
Final one.
What was the theme for Kiwi Burn in 2014?
This is when you guys moved.
Sites 2014, you've forgotten already.

Julia (01:02:38):
Can't speak for sure.

Stevan (01:02:39):
Forgotten.

Andy (01:02:39):
It was before my time.

Julia (01:02:41):
Well, it was well before my time.
Yeah.
Um, I don't,

Stevan (01:02:45):
well, there is, there is the word forgotten in it.
Forgotten dreams.

Julia (01:02:48):
Ah.
Course.
Yes.
Well, you're asking us to remember 21years of themes, but yes, there we're.

Stevan (01:02:56):
Yeah.
Well, that's also for thelisteners out there as well.
Absolutely.
Of course.
For all time burners.
Yeah.
Who's actually been to it.
And so let's, let's get a, a,a, a quick, uh, background of
and history of, of Kiwi Burn.
If you guys can fill, fill usin, in terms of how it, uh.
Yeah, it became about,

Julia (01:03:13):
well, um, we have a, we have a sort of a, a godfather of Kiwi burn, um,
uh, yo Yoman is his name, and he visited,um, burning Man and thought, uh, and
I'm, I'm not entirely sure of the year.
Yeah.

Andy (01:03:26):
So he oh three or something.
He was actually a geologist, um,working with the University of New
Zealand and go on sabbaticals to Nevada.
And one year he happened tobe out in the desert and heard
about this thing called burning.
What the hell that, um, went toit, fell in love with it, went
back to it, and then decided hewanted to bring it to New Zealand.
So he went presentation to boardand said, I wanna take this

(01:03:48):
new, and said, that's wonderful.
You're gonna be the first burn outsideof, outside of the US continent.
Um, so that was in 2004.

Stevan (01:03:57):
So the first international burn community,

Andy (01:04:00):
correct.
That's outside of the us Yep.
Um, we had some close competition, butbecause we happened in January, um,
we beat the others out by a few weeks.
But yeah, yo brought it to New Zealand.
So it started in the, and itactually started as a sub part
of another event, so they wererunning parallel to share resources.
Um, and then it just got expanded alittle bit and then after two years

(01:04:22):
it moved up to the north islandbecause it was just too much for the
population to go down to that area.
And so that's, that's how it all started.

Julia (01:04:30):
Is he here this year?
Hmm.
Is Heman here?

Andy (01:04:32):
He's normally here most years.
Yeah.
We keep dragging him.
Yeah.
Cool.
Dragging him back to seewhat he's, what he's created.

Julia (01:04:38):
Yeah.
It's all grown up now.

Stevan (01:04:41):
Yeah, of course.
Yeah.
That's beautiful.

Andy (01:04:44):
We're coming of age.
Yeah.
21.

Stevan (01:04:47):
Now you talked about the organizations earlier and what you,
what you do, uh, how, how importantis having this, uh, volunteer
based kind of, uh, operations?
And also the question is, how doesa festival, or how does an event
that runs entirely by volunteerscontinue to operate that way?
How, how do you guys actuallysuccessfully, uh, manage

Julia (01:05:10):
tick kicking and screaming?
Um, so yeah, we've got our, we'vegot our executive committee that
has a number of facilitators, um, onthem, and then, you know, reasonably
traditional structure underneath that.
Um, how do we do it?
Well, again, we, we try for morefacilitators, we generally ask that they
commit for two years, and then if theyare thinking of stepping down, obviously,

(01:05:31):
I mean, you know, life happens, butthat's what we, that's what we try.
And then if somebody is thinking ofstepping down that they bring it 2IC on.
At a reasonably early stage,uh, and get them inducted.
So we've had that with services.
For example, we've had our awesome Chloe,who's been looking after services for
a few years now, and she knew that shewas gonna step down after this burn.

(01:05:53):
So for the last severalmonths, actually her two IC has
been joining EXCOM meetings.
Um, I think it's gonna be the smoothesthandover ever, ever, so that we
get better at succession planning.
That's not something that we've beenhistorically super awesome at, partly
because of the volunteer elements.
So somebody leaves, again, there'sa life event that happens, um, and

(01:06:14):
then they kind of vacate their postand the rest of us are like, right.
So figure this out.
But that's one of the things that we'reactively trying to address, is to try to
keep people in roles as long as possible.
I do feel the need to shout outto my own team at this point.
The comms team.
I've had people that have been on thecomms team for years, years and years.
Comms runs itself now, whichallows me to be a true facilitator

(01:06:38):
and just remove obstacles.
Be more involved with governance versusthe day-to-day running of my team.
They're a well-oiled machine,so I'm very, very proud of them.
And that's kind of, and there's otherteams that are aspiring to that, but
that's probably longevity and roles andempowering people to make decisions.

(01:07:00):
And finding the right peopleand, and succession planning.

Stevan (01:07:03):
Yeah.
You have some really talented writers,web gurus, photographers, social media

Julia (01:07:08):
Absolutely.

Stevan (01:07:10):
And c community liaisons.
So yeah.
Yeah.

Julia (01:07:12):
Our, our shit posting is on point.

Stevan (01:07:14):
And also red on your, on your profile, something about shark
attack or something shark attached.
Tell me what's this about?

Julia (01:07:21):
Yeah, well, I couldn't tell you too much about it, but yes.
For some years, um, uh, a friendand I ran the same friend that's
introduced me to Kiwi Burn.
We came across a drink in a bar inNew Orleans called the Shark Attack.
And, uh, I can't tell you toomuch about it because it has a
significant surprise element.
Um, but we would, we took the sharkattacks on a roaming, uh, event

(01:07:43):
throughout, throughout Kiwi Burn, and itinvolves, it's the making of a cocktail,
uh, involving the, uh, the, the run shark,which is very much fictional and, um,
and yeah, so it's, it's just good fun.
It's a bit of performance art.
That results in a yummy cocktail.

Stevan (01:08:00):
Yeah.
Cool.
And Andy, you, you also on, on, on the, onthe profile page, you also, uh, submitted
a long term vi viability plan as well.

Andy (01:08:11):
Yep.
Yeah,

Stevan (01:08:12):
tell us about that.

Andy (01:08:13):
When I came on board, the one thing I found that was lacking was that
we were working from year to year andpeople didn't know whether they could
start a project, whether it be continuedthe next year and things like that.
And also because obviously the populationdid wanna grow, we just couldn't do
it without some, some planning plan.
So we had to come in with some sortof, where does our population, what

(01:08:36):
services and support to make happen.
What money do we need to makehappen and what money we have got?
What we gonna ring fence for?
Various things.
And one of the big things was sayingthat we're ring some as a contingency
so we a bad weather event or so thatdoesn't us under, so we subscribe
to the fact we're not for profit,we don't want to make a surplus.

(01:09:00):
We had by default made some small.
Um, infrastructure build majorasset purchases in terms of
equipment and things like that.
And the back of the minds of everybodywas, would we ever buy our own property

(01:09:22):
that may have gone outta the windowover the last, you know, 10 or 12 years
with the way property prices gone.
And also the fact that we've got a verygood site here, but we needed to have that
long term planning so people knew that ifI was an infrastructure facilitator and
wanted to start a project that next yearit wasn't gonna be chopped off because
somebody didn't lie the idea anymore.
And that those funds were committedfor 1, 2, 3 years, whatever.

(01:09:42):
Still haven't got, still haven'tgotta a 10 year plan yet.

Stevan (01:09:46):
That's the grand vision.

Andy (01:09:47):
Yeah.

Stevan (01:09:48):
So what are some of the things that you guys love about your roles
in helping out with the community?

Andy (01:09:54):
Biggest thrill if that I get, is watching people grow.
So them helping them get into a positioneven though they think can't do it.
Sometimes giving the confidenceand, and people often come to me
and say, oh, I want your opinionon and opinion what wrong opinion.
Um, and one thing I alwayssay is, is somebody gonna

(01:10:15):
get killed or badly injured?
If not, why don't you justtry it and see what happens?
And if it doesn't work, itdidn't work, try something else.
The world will keep spinning, burning,uh, kiwi burn will still happen.
Um, and just let them develop theirown confidence and their own decisions
and their own abilities, and they'vegot the support of everybody.
Um, and we when instill that notjust in excom, but in all team, full

(01:10:37):
support, hate above facilitating.
Um, but people aren't often aware of.
But that's, that's thething I love most about it.
Um, apart from the art, of course.
Mm-hmm.

Stevan (01:10:53):
Yeah.
I can hear a bit of the music.
I'm just, uh, yeah.
It's enjoying the music.

Julia (01:10:58):
Yeah.
For me it's similar.
That's cool.
Um, I'm nu again, I'm enormouslyproud of, of my own team, um, watching
the, the people go myself as well.
I have learned.
So much being part of this community,things that I would never get
a chance to be exposed to inmy, in my real life as it were.
Um, it's the community that, that Ijust, um, really connect with because

(01:11:22):
there's some amazing people here.
You obviously, the creativity, theyarns at camp is probably one of
my favorite parts of every burn,is just sitting around shooting
the breeze with like-minded people.
One of the qualities that I look for inpeople that I surround myself, the number
one quality I look for is authenticity.
And that's kind of built into theburner community by and large.

(01:11:43):
You know, it's very hard to findinauthentic people around here.
And when I walk across the paddockand I see people truly being
themselves, and again, for some people.
These five days is the only time wherethey can truly, truly be whoever it
is that they, that they want to be.
It fills me with enormous warmth to knowthat I had a tiny part in, in helping

(01:12:03):
making that happen and driving it forward.
So that's, that's the driving force forme is the community, the people in it.

Stevan (01:12:10):
Yeah.
You also look after the, thesocial media aspect of uh,

Julia (01:12:14):
yeah.

Stevan (01:12:14):
Things.

Julia (01:12:15):
Yep.
That's a full-time job.

Stevan (01:12:17):
Yeah.
So it, I mean it's, the landscapeof, of social media is changing.
So how do you see, in terms of how weuse this technology or how do you see,
what are some of the challenges aheadfor, for our community and social media?

Julia (01:12:33):
I think the same challenges that the rest of society faces, to be honest.
So, um, I had never been on Facebookuntil I got involved with Kiwi
Burn and now I run the Facebookside, so I had to get on it.
I'm actually on Facebookunder a pseudonym because.
I hate it so much and I hardly everpost anything, but I have to be on
there to be at the administrator.
And when I first got on, I almostchucked the whole thing in a couple

(01:12:57):
of days in because I was dismayed withwhat people would say online that they
wouldn't ever say to somebody's face.
That's always my measure.
Right.
If you wouldn't say it to the person.
Don't bloody say it at all.
And there was a bit of, uh, venom.
It was actually not the Kiwiburn side.
It was, it was, uh, kiwiburnadjacent that that happened.

(01:13:17):
But I also have to say that again,social media is one of the areas where
the community really comes into its own.
Um, I and my team moderate the,the Kiwi Burn Facebook page and
group sites, and the group hasgot like 13,000 people in it now.
So it's got, it's got a fair reach.
Uh, both of them are, have,you know, thousands of people.

(01:13:38):
So, you know, we've got group rules,of course, and we moderate those.
We know, we know our people.
We know when we, when a certainpost pops up, we're a little
bit more alert than others.
By and large, the community reallymanages these things quite well and
kind of puts people in their placegently or not, depending on the
issue in terms of how it's changing.

(01:14:00):
There's obviously a lot of chatter aboutwhether Facebook is is an appropriate
platform and every year, again, I'm nota fan myself at all, but at the same
time, we also have a duty to try toreach the most people with pertinent
information and give them that platform.
So unfortunately for theforeseeable future, I don't see
it changing off of Facebook.

(01:14:21):
Again, we have a newsletter as wellthat we send out, and everything
goes in the newsletter first.
Before it then is posted on online,unless it's something very urgent.
But it is, it's interesting how it'schanging how people are interacting
on Facebook versus how they'reinteracting on in real life, as it were.
I haven't necessarilyseen it get much worse.

(01:14:43):
Uh, I think it's Facebook or thesocial media sites themselves that are
changing versus the people on them.
So I actually think the change iscoming is driven by the platforms
versus the people on the platforms top.
Yeah, exactly.

Stevan (01:14:58):
Yeah.
From the top down.
Yeah,

Julia (01:14:59):
that's exactly right.
So we're very aware of that.
Uh, photography is another one ofmy departments and, and generally
in the aftermath of the event,photography is the biggest subject.
People continuously post pictures.
They shouldn't, I have to admit thatkiwi burners are particularly camera shy.
Um, so I have a team ofonsite photographers that are

(01:15:21):
briefed repeatedly on consent.
We've also run a yellow, uh,wristband, uh, initiative.
Um, I don't actually wear one myself.
I don't think I have one to show youbecause I'm one of the camera shy ones.
But, uh, we give out, um, yellow,um, stretchy, uh, wristbands at,
at greeners that are an indicationof consent to be photographed

(01:15:43):
by our official photographers.
So again, lots of changes inthat element, like post COVID.
Uh, the burn in 21 in particular was hugefrom a photography standpoint because
I think people had sort of retreatedback into their bubble as part of COVID.
We were pretty much the only burnthat happened in 2021, and I think

(01:16:06):
people had a, had a strong need.
Their share life more so than,than they otherwise would.
So we just saw an explosion of, ofphotography and, and, and photo related
issues that were still managing thefallout because that's kind of people,
people have an increased need to documenttheir lives and to share that widely.

(01:16:28):
So that continues to be my biggestchallenge actually is, is to keep the
photography under wraps as much as we can,uh, in terms of the people and, you know,
anybody being identifiable and whatnot.
So that, that continues to bethe biggest challenge and the
change that COVID has brought.

Stevan (01:16:46):
Yeah, I do like the, the imple implementation of the wristband.
Yeah.
It's, it's all about us.
Education and communication,I think comes down to that.

Julia (01:16:56):
Oh, well, yeah, absolutely.
So we do our best to makesure the community is briefed.
Uh, so we have many, many posts going out.
Again, there's a weekly newsletteror, you know, certainly it's been
weekly for the last few months thatwe stuff full with information.
There's a survival guide online,and again, there's the community
itself, which polices very well, uh,on polices itself very well online.

(01:17:19):
Every now and then we haveto step in and do moderation.
But yeah, that's primary.
The, the purpose of the propagandadepartment is to educate, is
to, is to provide a platform forinformation and information sharing.

Stevan (01:17:32):
Yeah.
Cool.
Let's talk about the burner, the nz, theNew Zealand burner Community and Culture.
Uh, for the people that's notfamiliar, what, how, how would
you describe Kiwi burners?
How are they different to otherregionals and other burns?

Julia (01:17:45):
I haven't been to other burns, so I can't talk.

Andy (01:17:47):
Yeah, I think it's just the fact that they're kiwis.
Um, we do, we do tend to, as we saidbefore, we're remote, so we tend
to be able to fix things ourselves,come up with new ideas, um, but
we're also very willing to help.
Um, so I noticed that when I wentoverseas, I wouldn't, I wouldn't
think twice about saying to somebody,do you need a hand with that?
Can I help you?

(01:18:08):
Or whatever.
I'm not gonna step in andtake it over from you.
I'm just saying, you look likeyou put with a hand and we just
pitch in and have some fun.
Also, we don't take things tooseriously most of the time.
But yeah, that's about theonly thing I can think of.
I mean, the, the burner ethos is prettymuch consistent from country to country,
which is why we all come together.
Why we can go to large events likeBurning Man with 80,000 people.

(01:18:30):
There wouldn't be many other culturalactivities where you can throw 80,000
people together and, and not have someserious incidents happening somewhere.
And all the rest of it.
And where we do have differences ofopinion, um, we talk them through,
yeah, we can work, we can in terms ofwe can work together with differences.
Mm mm

Stevan (01:18:50):
In, in terms of the landscape, what's the concentration of burn?
Are they mainly in Auckland, Wellington,and what's the situation there?

Julia (01:18:58):
Well, auckland is the, by a fair distance, the largest city in New Zealand.
So that is where, uh, mostof our burners come from.
It's about 60 40.
So the Auckland sort of greater, um,metropolitan area, shall we call it.
Many, there's more from the northisland than the south island, simply
because it's harder to get here.

(01:19:18):
And the South island is muchmore sparsely populated than we
have many people from Wellington.
Of course, we're closer to Wellington.
I think Andy said earlier, it's aboutfive and a half hours from Auckland.
It's about two and a halfor so from Wellington.
But Wellington is a much smallercity, so you know there's
fewer people coming from there.
And then obviously.

(01:19:39):
Various rural, um, situations as well.
We've got a couple of theme campsthat are specifically from the
south island and Christchurch based.
Um, so people come from anywhere,but by virtue of being the largest
two cities, the majority of peopleare from either Auckland or, well,

Andy (01:19:56):
we we're developing, we have other happening around New Zealand Yeah.
Adjacent ones.
Um, so there's quite a populationof burn in the northern part of the
north island up in Rey around North.
Um, we've also got a lot on the, um, eastcoast, around island, places like that.
Wellington, though it's veryactive, a very social group of

(01:20:17):
burners who get together regularly.
And Christchurch has got a veryheavy concentration of burners too.
They have various premises that they meetup and various events they run together.
And then we've also got quitea few concentrations in smaller
areas, um, that are very active.
So we have some like placeslike that in South Island when.

(01:20:38):
We actively assisted otherareas to start small regionals.
Not official burning man regionalones, but New Zealand regional ones.
Um, so we have those uparound the country as well.
Yeah, so
API hippie

(01:20:58):
South.
Know, community of burners in there.
Basically you can tour New Zealandand go from burner to burner.

Julia (01:21:06):
Yes, you can.
And people do.

Stevan (01:21:08):
Yeah.
I I love the, the New Zealand tourism ads.
It actually makes me, uh,wanna go there straight away.

Julia (01:21:15):
Yep.

Stevan (01:21:15):
It's, uh,

Andy (01:21:17):
we've, we've already sent you an application for 2025, so you can
choose what you wanna volunteer for.

Julia (01:21:21):
Yeah.
And it really is cool that beautiful.
And again, I think because we're so faraway, uh, in the, the wanting to help,
wanting to provide a soft landing whereverwe can, is a, is very much a kiwi ethos
and by definition, or by extension,rather, a kiwi burner ethos as well.

Stevan (01:21:42):
Okay.
Let's talk about the effigyand the temple for this year.

Julia (01:21:45):
Okay.

Stevan (01:21:46):
Can you describe what, what it is or what it looks like?
Bit of spoiler.

Julia (01:21:51):
Well, I mean, if you're on site now, you would've, you would've seen it.
Um, so yeah, so the effigyis called Oh, flora Fauna.
Well, human and fungi, there'sone word that I'm missing.
I'm very sorry.
Um, and it's, uh, it's sort ofcelebrating New Zealand wildlife and
society and humans interacting with that.
Um, and then our, our overlords,the mushrooms, you know, who largest

(01:22:14):
organisms on the planet and, andundefinable in terms of whether
they're actually plants or animals.
And, uh, so

Stevan (01:22:21):
aliens.

Julia (01:22:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's a large structure.
It was done largely with bamboo lashings.
So he's created the artist, Nicohas created a number of faces,
both human faces and animal faces.
So there's a mouse, there's arooster, there's a bunny rabbit, and
he's done those outta uh, strippedbamboo and lashed them together.

(01:22:43):
So they're really quite, definitelyvery clearly identifiable.
Um, unlike almost like a totem.
Uh, so we've got the humans at thetop and then the animals, and then
the mushrooms and, and sort of treeof of life almost, uh, elements.
So it's about 12.

Andy (01:23:04):
Normally they grow.

Julia (01:23:05):
Oh, they definitely grow.
Yeah.
It always comes out bigger.

Andy (01:23:08):
Apply,

Julia (01:23:16):
make.
I'll let you talk about the temple.

Andy (01:23:20):
Yeah.
So the temple this yearis a, a rather unique one.
So we have, over the years we've hada, a group of people who have been
both our medical service and also ourfire service, and they have operated
since the Manakino days, think it'seither 15 years or 16 years possibly
that they've been involved with this.
So every year they've come along andthey've done their thing, but they've

(01:23:40):
also become part of the community.
And we've always had whispers that Paul,who's the, uh, part of the, the team
of Paul & Kirsty, Paul always had theseideas, finally got into putting a design
forward and it's basically paying homageto all the emergency services workers.
So Paul and his wife Kirsty are heavilyinvolved in the fire service and also

(01:24:01):
saint Johns ambulance, and it's basedon the St. Johns International symbol.
Um, so it's got the, so cross, it'sgot the snake, the name of the snake
and the staff and things like that.
So basically it's in the shape ofthe staff, the shape of the staff.
And this theme is basicallythe heart rhythms.
So each of those arms has a differentheart rhythm that explains what it's,

(01:24:25):
how you get it, what impact it can haveon you, um, goes from birth to death.
And um, yeah, and the interestingthing with it was the way he
designed it, it's what we're callingour first IKEA flat pack temple.
It's now set the bar very high forthe first to be completed, the easiest
to be completed, probably the lowestcomparative budget to be completed.

(01:24:46):
Um, basically Paul and his team builtan offsite and flat panels sector, uh,
warehouse, and then basically truckedon site and bolt it together in a
space of probably three to four days.

Julia (01:24:57):
They local though to be, that helps

Andy (01:24:59):
and.
Um, where we bring thelocal, uh, people in.
And so Paul actually brought it onsite, had it built, um, so they could
actually view what a temple was about.
Nico had his under construction, sothey saw one large structure being
structured and one constructed.

(01:25:20):
So yeah, that's temple thisyear, but don't tell anybody yet.

Julia (01:25:24):
Yeah.

Andy (01:25:24):
Burn tomorrow.
One burns tomorrow, one the day after.

Julia (01:25:28):
Yeah.
I, I have to say that, um, thetemple is like, it, it may, it
may be flat pack as it were.
I personally find it, and obviously thesethings are hugely individual, right?
I found the, the temple hugely evocative.
Um, so he's explained the different,so it's like, there's various
themes, fear, lost, love, you know,life, death, and the different

(01:25:50):
heart rhythms that come with that.
And it's, and yeah, it's, it'sbeautifully, beautifully done.

Stevan (01:25:59):
That sounds amazing.

Andy (01:26:00):
There's a very, very special feature that's been added in the last
few days, so we can't tell you about thatuntil everybody else has experienced it.

Stevan (01:26:09):
Yeah.

Andy (01:26:09):
But needless to say, I'll hint at Zeppelin.

Stevan (01:26:14):
Awesome.
Well thanks.
Thanks very much Andy and Juliafor coming together, like this
and having a chat about Kiwi Burn.
Appreciate you guys.

Julia (01:26:23):
It's been a pleasure.

Andy (01:26:24):
Thank you for having us.

Stevan (01:26:25):
Any, anything else you wanna promote?
Um, Kiwiburn?

Julia (01:26:28):
No, we don't wanna promote Kiwi Burn.
We, we don't need to.

Stevan (01:26:31):
Anything else you wanna say?

Andy (01:26:32):
Just a few.
We expect to see you here.

Stevan (01:26:40):
Yes.
Yes, definitely.
And, and for you guys as well, welcometo, to one of our burns as well.
I, I think, uh, with this initiativeof, uh, knowledge exchange as well
as, you know, like, as well asthe connection, I think it's, uh,
very important for our community.

Julia (01:26:56):
Hundred percent.

Andy (01:26:56):
And I think the whole bonza are, bonza are, uh, arrangement that we
have between Australia and New Zealand.
We're exchanging people all the time.
Yeah.
You know, everybody's gonna, everybodyelse's burn and sharing the knowledge.
And I think we're, we're showing theway for the rest of the world as far as
how regional burns can work together.

Julia (01:27:11):
Absolutely.

Stevan (01:27:11):
Yeah.
And you guys being the firstburn probably off the calendar
as well in, in the new year.
So Yeah, it's, it's greathaving, uh, having that to go.

Andy (01:27:23):
Kiwis always lead the world first to see the light and first
to see the light every morning.

Stevan (01:27:29):
Yes.
Yes.
Well have a, have an awesome burn.

Julia (01:27:32):
Thank you.
Uh,

Stevan (01:27:33):
thanks.
Yeah.
Thanks for coming by.

Julia (01:27:35):
Thank Oh, thank you for having us.

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