Episode 07: 2025 Blazing Swan COSMIC COINCIDENCE Review (Georg, Nina, & Vida)

Stevan: [00:00:00] All right, a Bonzaar Welcome to anyone out there listening. In this episode, we'll take a look back at the 2025 Blazing Swan Cosmic coincidence event slash burn slash gathering slash not a doof slash festival. We'll reflect back at some of the things that went right or wrong and some of the improvements for next year for next burn, some highlights and the magic moments, and the controversies in the community learnings.

Uh, with me, I have Nina, George, and Vida. Now, before I ask you guys, how was your, how was your blazing swan? How was your burn? Did any of you guys, um, actually mention next year was better to anybody? 'cause if you did it, uh, it, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It, it came true.

Nina: I didn't, I can't say I did.

But now that you've said it, next year was,

Stevan: so how was your blaze? How was your burn?

Georg: Well, my burn was wonderful. I avoided all the sound camps. I, uh, I zoned out wherever I could. I did a bit of [00:01:00] rangering and I walked around naked when the temperature was right. And to me, that's, that's all I look for in a burn, just to be myself.

Nina: Oh, George, I saw you with clothes on a fair bit this year.

Georg: Uh, it is weird. Yeah. When it's too sunny, i, I burn. So there were times when I had an umbrella and I didn't have clothes on.

Stevan: Well, let's start talking about, about the weather this year at Blaze. How was it and compared to previous years, was this one of the best fucking perfect?

Nina: It was the best we've ever had. I can't stop raving. It was amazing. There were no flies. There were no double gees. There was no dust. There was no rain, there was no hot, there was no cold. It was perfect.

Vida: Yeah, it was bloody amazing. Although we did have a hailstorm the week before everybody arrived while we were setting up.

But during the event, yeah. Yeah. And the rock turned it on for us. It was perfect.

Georg: No, I have to agree. The wind is generally the killer out there in the desert. And this year I thought the wind behaved itself impeccably. It was just wonderful.

Nina: It was like [00:02:00] a pleasant little breeze. It was, it was like not blazing swan weather wise.

Georg: Exactly.

Vida: It was bloody cold at night though. But you know.

Stevan: Yeah.

Vida: Unexpected. Yeah,

Stevan: it is late April as well. So yeah, let's talk about your roles and your community. Um, eng Well, participation at Blazing Swan. You guys are longstanding members of the community. Let's start with you, Nina.

Nina: Um, yes. I was not like a founding member anything, but I've been to all of them, uh, the first year as a very, very mind blown punter.

And then, then I've done a bunch stuff. I don't really. Like some of our other panel members that I organize, I, I cat herd. So I've beening for a few years. I've done greeters. Um, this year I organized the event app that we've been using. Uh, previously I've done the what the fuck guide. Uh, I used to be the theme camp manager, a whole bunch of stuff.

Uh, I helped organize the Ranger [00:03:00] camp this year and I also run the best event at any bird in the entire world. Ask a drunk scientist.

Stevan: And what and the, the, can you explain to the listeners out there, what, what is the dust app, the, the guide that, that people use?

Nina: Sure. So it's an app developed by um, a guy named Damien, who is Australian but for some reason lives in Nevada.

Um, and who, so he developed it for the big burn, you know, the Nevada regional. And then he's offered it for free as a gift to any other regional burn that would like to use it. So it's, it's an app specifically developed for burns and it works offline. It's free, blah, blah, blah. It, it has a fair bit of functionality in that you can add all of the events, the theme camps, your art pieces, that sort of thing, and a map so that you can, geolocate discovered this year you can broadcast your location from an art car so that people can hunt you down.

So we've used it, kind of trialed it last year and then used it this year for the events. 'cause we're still working through [00:04:00] whether that's a better way to do it than a printed guide. I think it's brilliant. It just does have the drawback that you would have to carry your phone around to look at it. So it does, for some people really impact the, the principle of immediacy.

And did,

Vida: oh, I just wanted to ask a question about it. I tried to get on the dust app this year a couple of times, and I feel like there was so many phones trying to access it. Did it stop functioning at some point?

Nina: Uh, so it didn't, and I only know this because I had the exact same problem, even though I, the.

Um, the problem is if your phone is on because you have Telstra and every other year it works, dust is trying to update. So if you turn your Telstra phone on airplane mode, then dust functions be like four days to figure that out.

Vida: That's what was going on. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay.

Nina: I dunno, people with no mobile service were fine and those of us who like actually have Telstra, we're not

Georg: Wow.

Vida: Classic

Nina: next year's learnings.

Stevan: So was it, what was the feedback? Was it very popular? People were using [00:05:00] it, it helped a lot of people out.

Nina: Um, my feedback's entirely like anecdotal, so you know, the randos I spoke to everyone loved it. I have spoken to other leads in the organization who had different anecdotal feedback who said people really don't love it and they wanna a print it guide because they don't wanna carry their phone around.

We tried to alleviate that issue by putting a PDF of the events on the website. So if you don't wanna carry your phone, you can just print it out. But comms were tricky this year, I suspect, because the world has stopped reading. So I don't know, we haven't done like a proper feedback or anything and I don't even know how we'd do that 'cause people don't read.

Um, I, I, I really can't answer that in a scientific manner. I heard great things, but I, I'm not

Stevan: sure. Yeah, I read some great things on the as well would involvement.

Vida: Sure, [00:06:00] absolutely. Like Nina, I've been going since day one, um, inception. So for the first five years of Blazing Swan, I was the camp lead for Camp Koasis, and then I came across the org, joined the committee, did a year on the committee as an ordinary committee member, and my background's event management, so I kind of got involved with event management on site From that point.

Did a couple of years as the chairperson of Blazing Swan, and then probably the last three or four years I've been site managing and then the last two kind of doing all the planning and event managing organization for the event. So yeah, pretty big role. A lot, a lot going on in that space. It's been a big learning curve this year.

I feel we did really well in that, in that area. But yeah, always curve balls and ways to improve and new problems and [00:07:00] having to think of new solutions. I never get bored anyway.

Stevan: Cool. And you, George, what's your, what's your involvement?

Georg: I started blazing in 2016. Um, oddly enough, we were on a, uh, a nude cruise on the Swan River.

And, uh, we'd, we'd come across a couple of Canadians who'd just come from a, uh, a blaze, and they were telling us all about this wonderful festival because they were nudists, they were able to express themselves with their nudity. And, and I thought, gee, that sounds wonderful. Uh, we'll have to go next year.

So we did. And, and that was 2016. And, uh, we, we've never looked back. I, I love the Blaze experience. I love the community. I love the fact that nobody judges us. Uh, in my, uh, in, in the de in the default world, uh, I was a, um, a corporate lawyer working for the, uh, for the government. And I can tell you, uh, judgment happens every single hour of every single day.

But day at Blaze, there's no judgment. It's, uh, it's just all love and acceptance. And, and, and now, [00:08:00] and on that note, um, I was not a, um, a physical, uh, hugger or a, a person who was able to show any kind of, um, uh, of that kind of emotion. But on day one, we got greeted by about 20 people. And, uh, and after your 15th hug and hugging becomes like second nature.

And in that first place, I think I hugged about 200 people. And now all I do is hug people. In fact, as rangers, we, we incorporate the hug as, as part of the development and proliferation of our, uh, our social capital. So, uh, I joined the Rangers in the following year and, um, I, I've never looked back. I love, I love Rangering.

I, because I'm older and I've got a, a lot of world experience, but not much, uh, festival or, uh, or or bla experience apart from, uh, from participating. So I, I love the fact that I can, I can look after everyone there and, and they're like my kids. I just, I love them all, and especially Vida. I, uh, I see VI everywhere.

Look, I, I feel blessed to be amongst Blaze royalty. [00:09:00] Watching Vi on the screen here and listening to her talk, I was in awe of, uh, of Vida's abilities as an event manager. She's just everywhere at Blaze, and I feel like a fraud in this, uh, in this podcast when I'm, when I'm competing with people like Vida and, and even Nina.

Everyone loves Nina. Nina's, uh, she's the adorable, uh, adorable person that blaze. Everyone calls her adorable. And, and everyone loves Nina. Everyone knows Nina and everyone knows Vida, but not everyone knows the naked Ranga.

Nina: So if I could just interrupt, it'd be great that Georgie, everyone knows the naked Ranga.

You are a much nicer person than me. Every fucker out there loves you. You've served on committee, you've also surfed as theme camps. You were also the lawyer counsel for Blazing Swan. Stop downplaying your contributions. I agree with Nina on that.

Georg: Without, without Vida we just wouldn't have a, we wouldn't have a party, would we?

It just wouldn't be, it wouldn't be a blaze

Nina: Totally true. I'm just saying you're awesome too.

Vida: Use words. It just wouldn't be as good.[00:10:00]

Stevan: So are there any, um, yeah, yeah. Are, are there any operational talk that we can, uh, share, uh, stories or, uh, behind the scenes stuff, uh, Vida

Vida: behind the scenes stuff? Oh, well I could tell you guys that, um,

Stevan: like when, when do you guys start actually arriving there and, and, and building and you know, packing down all that stuff as well?

Vida: Oh yeah. Well, yeah, the whole, to be honest, the whole build and pack down is where I have my fun. During the event. I feel like I'm just working, like I might get one or two days off, but I'm always worrying about these 3000 people that anything could happen. And then, you know, we might have to implement our emergency planning and, and deal with some hard incidences and situations.

So during the event, I'm always kind of a little bit on guard and a little bit, um, I guess I don't relax so much, but during the setup when there's [00:11:00] like 30 to 50 to 60 of us there and we're all building a thing together, that's my real time to shine. And, um, we build a little family and by the time everyone gets there, we just actually want them all to go away and leave us to.

Family that we've created. No, no, love, love, love when everyone arrives, but also slightly resent having to line up from a meal at the kitchen after being fed first for three weeks. But yeah, it's a really experience. Um, this year having all the Irish guys build the temple was really fun and that, that added a good little, uh, bunch of excellent Irishmen there.

Lots of laughs around the fire every night. Um,

Stevan: did they bring the cracks of

Vida: Oh, they always bring the crack. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They definitely brought the crack go out there. Quite a few

Nina: toast with irons. They brought the crack.

Vida: They're amazing. And yeah, they run the magical frontier as well, which I [00:12:00] have to say is my new favorite theme camp.

I absolutely love that place.

Nina: So good.

Vida: But yeah. And then pack up. Yeah. Behind the scenes is the funnest bit for me. I can tell you a little stats that I heard from the policeman last week. I don't know if you guys know, well, you probably do, but every week our whole festival gets breathalyzed and drug tested on the way out.

Not one person, not one person came up positive on the whole way out of Blazing Swan. Wow. So that's an amazing little tick for us as far as our event presents to the bigger community. So that's pretty awesome is that although we did some kind of, we did

Stevan: some kind of. The Exodus team?

Vida: Yeah, so we've got a new team that kind of started this year called The Leavers and their role is to just check on everyone on the way out, kind of like the greeters on the way in, make sure, you know, they've had enough sleep, they've had something to eat, they're feeling okay [00:13:00] to leave the event.

And um, yeah, obviously that that work paid off this year. And we do got some kudos from the local cops about that. But yeah, we're just gonna make a little bit of a plan to maybe have some coffee there as well and you know, keep improving on that. 'cause that's obviously made a big difference. Oh, and we shut everything down at midnight the night before, which some people aren't the happiest about, but it ensures that everyone gets enough sleep so they can leave safely the next day.

So I think that definitely helped that situation as well. But that's just one of those little things I'm quite proud of this year.

Nina: I'll also add, um, I was hoping out the theme camp team this year, and you're right, a number of people weren't thrilled with that decision, but I think once it was explained, they all understood, you know, why, why the event team said that.

And I think most people are cool with the shutting at midnight the night before it ends.

Vida: Yeah. Well, I mean, theme camps can just shut their doors. They don't wait for another day, they can just shut. Oh yeah. I have [00:14:00] their own private parties. I ended up in Camp Koasis at midnight because I wasn't ready to.

She

Nina: I went to after and Mo's it was fabulous.

Vida: Yeah. So we managed to find a way around it, but the 1500 kids had to all go to bed.

Stevan: Yeah. So what are the, some of the stats, um, from this year's blaze? 1500 kids over, over 3000 people. Yeah. I think we actually fif 54 theme camps altogether as well. And you had over, like the participation rate this year was quite high, so it's good to hear.

Vida: Yeah. It was, I think it was over 500 volunteers, which is amazing. So yeah, basically volunteers and theme camps usually equal about half of our total. And then we're actually 3,300 this year, so a good 300 more than previous years. So we are growing, which is exciting. Yeah. But 54 theme camps. [00:15:00] Awesome. A bunch of new theme camps.

Like the Graveyard came out of nowhere into double story SC deck, you know, like you, they were amazing. Massive.

Stevan: They also is a sound camp.

Nina: Yeah. But they also did a lot of interactive day stuff. They, it's the graveyard. So they did, um, tombstone painting. They had a scavenger hunt around site and the guys running guys and goes, the, the people running the theme camp were just lovely.

They were really looking out for, uh. Everybody who entered their space, they were just delightful. And yeah, that structure was sick.

Vida: Yeah, I was so impressed by their whole vibe. It was awesome.

Nina: And they're brand new, so that was cool.

Stevan: And there were more varied, varied mutant vehicles as well and, and art installations around.

Nina: Um, the mutant vehicle numbers were high, but I feel like a lot of the mutant vehicles that came have been coming forever. They just, you know, finally properly registered, um, which is great. [00:16:00] Uh, but there were some cool new cars. Uh, the mutant vehicle lead rehabilitated, a broken piece of crap from his yard into a super cool space crab shuttle.

So that was nice. Yeah, there was good art as well. I think there was, there were more theme camps than last year and maybe a bit less art, but the art was really good, I'd say.

Vida: Yeah. I feel like the art was, wasn't as much as last year. I agree with you on that. Last year, I feel like the 10th anniversary last year, everyone just really went all out.

And maybe people were a little bit burnt out from that this year and it went down a little bit,

but it'll come back no doubt.

Nina: The Shart Gallery was pretty cool though. It's like an art gallery that was gallery

Stevan: was art installation gallery.

Nina: Yeah, it was an art installation. So it was an art gallery, except it was, it was, you know, shart It was shit.

Art shart. Um, so it was like a little house she went into that was an art gallery and all of the art on it was, it was hilarious.

Vida: Yeah. [00:17:00] Walking the temple, burn, for the, uh, opening and got some wine and cheese and enjoyed the art. It was great. Oh, I missed that.

Stevan: Super cute. And George, you, you're also involved in a theme camp yourself?

Uh, yeah. The library

Georg: in, in the second year that we, uh, we, we went to bla we, we joined John Mack, who's a, um, he's the smartest and nicest, uh, most decent chap I've ever met in my entire life. He loves books, he loves everything about books. And my wife Nu um, is exactly the same. So those two hit it off from day one from our first place in 2016.

She fell in love with the library. So she got us to join John in 2017. And since then, we've presented the library every year apart from the, uh, the two years of COVID and the, and the small, the small burn, uh, when was that? 2021. So yeah, the library, um, has been bigger and it's been smaller. Next year it's gonna be even bigger.

So yeah, we, we, we were energized after this year's, uh, this year's place, we [00:18:00] had a lot of people come through, but because we only had the one tent set up, we, uh, we had a lot of people that we, uh, we had to turn away. And so, um, yeah, we took a lot apart from that. So we're gonna try and put a bit more of it into it next year.

And it may mean rangering less or we, uh, we built a, a bigger team. We only, we only had basically the, uh, the five of us this year. And we probably need someone a bit younger who can carry books. I mean, there's three and.

So it's, uh, and I'm not getting any younger, it's a bit of a physical effort. I

Vida: was ask heavies that sea container on site, George it down, is that right?

Georg: Yeah, I'm not And the Fran struggle, is that right? Like, have, you might have to go digital. These

Nina: guys have an entire sea container literally filled with books and as George says, there was only one pretty large belt tent, uh, to present this year.

Like how do you pick which books do you just show the ones that are at the front?

Georg: John John's, uh, he's very good at curating books. He has a, uh, a real sense about what people might wanna read. And what he [00:19:00] does is, uh, as someone comes into the, uh, into the tent, he engages with him in conversation and, and talks about what books they they're looking for in particular.

And bugger me if he doesn't wander into the container and come out with the exact book that this person's asking. I, I don't dunno how he does it.

Nina: Oh, you restocked from the container? Okay.

Georg: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we, we were con constantly restocking from the container. You know, he is got another 10,000 books at home in Albany and, and we've got 5,000 here.

So there's probably only about five or 6,000 books in the container. And we only put out about between 15 2000. So yeah, there's, there's, there's a lot more capacity. So the library can get bigger and bigger.

Vida: Is it called the library?

Georg: It's, which sounds like a cross library. People necrophilia books. I dunno.

Just, yeah, a bit like that.

Vida: Yeah. I was wondering where that new name came from. It was,

Nina: y'all changed, changed the name, what, like three years ago? And the [00:20:00] larger community has just like refused to get on board. I know, I know, I know.

Georg: I mean, we, we were called the library then we were called Rock Library and I mean, we've had lots of different names, but Yeah, I think, but I do like, sorry.

Stevan: Yeah, I, I I, I do like the, the library being there as, as well as the post office. You need these, uh, you know, community services, you know,

Georg: the post office is, I love the post office. It just adds community towards, you know, the whole site. Absolutely. We, we had a two, two of our camp went to the, uh, to the post office to get mail that they'd left for themselves last year.

And I just thought it was lovely. I, I can't believe that they hung onto all that mail. And there it was, it was all there. You just go and select and you read a letter that you wrote to yourself a year ago. Just incredible. So much energy in that camp. And they're all beautiful, beautiful kids. Just, I love them all.

Vida: Yeah. Speaking of how beautiful they are, a bit of controversy this year with the, um. [00:21:00] Doing the halftime show at the Grundy walk off. And then that being so popular that one of the girls ended up actually winning the Grundy walk off from the halftime show. Wow. Controversy. Outrageous. Wow. Because it's

Nina: the first time y'all have let girls compete.

Yeah. That, that's my controversy. Sorry, not y'all. You don't run that camp anymore?

Vida: Uh, no, but I agree. I think that was controversial, but I think the girls, the girls did well, obviously.

Georg: Yeah. See, that's something that I can't do. I don't, don't own any underwear,

Nina: George. You know, most people who do it make like don't wear underwear costumes. Or don't wear underwear.

Stevan: It’s all about, it's all about strutting. It's not what you're wearing.

Georg: No, I understand. I understand my strutting. Those are over.

Stevan: One of the things I loved was the group photos, the, the group shots. Uh, there was plenty of them I saw. Were there any other, uh, were there any inter [00:22:00] camp shenanigans and fuckery that you heard of?

Vida: There was definitely some of that.

Nina: I can, yeah. So I did not arrive until, uh, two nights before the event opened, so probably Vida knows more of how this happened, but apparently House of Orb and the Church of Deliverance have continued their flame war. Uh, the only bit that I saw is when somebody had stolen the doors off the church, bolted them onto the house, a crane got involved, and then it ended up with an orb burning in the embers of the church that somebody cooked an omelet.

Whoa. None of that'll make any sense to anybody who wasn't there.

Vida: Yeah. So I, I know a little bit more of the history, so the Orb stole the church doors last year, but the church didn't even realize until they arrived on site this year to start building the church. Oh.

We were all looking [00:23:00] everywhere through the compound, through the site, trying to find the doors of the church because we've been storing its site a It was a long game.

Yeah. So eventually we figured out they weren't there. Meanwhile, the orb has them hostage and had built a little mini house to mount the doors on to present to the church as a prank. So yeah, they built, they built the little mini house in the middle of the night one night and mounted the doors and then got out crane driver to drop it right in front of the, the next day.

Obviously this was horrifying to the church, but at least they'd got their doors back. But they proceeded to graffiti profanities all over the, the orb structure. And, um, yeah, they took their doors back and then got the crane drive to then deliver the house next to their theme camp, which was down in Sound Camp Alley and continued to graffiti the hell out of it.

[00:24:00] However, the mini, the mini house that the doors were mounted on was not an approved structure on, so we allowed this all to go on before the event started. Then we made the orb pull his structure apart before event started, um, because it wasn't approved and it was a little bit big, but yeah.

Nina: But could we be fair?

Vida: It was a fun joke.

Nina: Let's be fair. The church started this shit last year to add my profanity. They stole the orb, they hoisted it on a crane. They have video of somebody having relations upon it, and then they hoisted it up into the air. So orb couldn't get it back. And I'm pro church in this instance just saying they started it.

Vida: Absolutely. It was hilarious. And there was also a lot of, uh, just camps stealing each other's mascots. So Koasis did their, their classic rub punch Monday. And uh, but on Sunday night, an up and coming member who was trying to [00:25:00] get in a general camper that wanted to earn their stripes at Koasis was sent on various missions to get the mascot of other camps and bring them back to wais.

And then WAIS gang mounted all of the mascots on the big container wall in the beer garden on the day of Rum Punch Sunday. And, and Grundy Waroff and proceeded to have a big party with all the mascots on the wall.

Is that why somebody stole the camel then? As like revenge. Ah, yeah. As if, as if

was bound to get violated.

Um, yeah. And so that, that also, and that's not the first time and probably won't be the last, but yeah, it was actually in the end I good promotion for the other camps. Having all their mascots on the wall for the, for the big party, you know, s anyway, fun and games. Fun and games, loads of it.

Nina: I hate to keep talking about [00:26:00] the church to whom I am not a member, but you did ask after, um, pranks and my favorite this year.

So the church has been a camp for a very long time and they've been threatening to build their church for a very long time and we all kind of just figured it was never gonna happen 'cause they're full of fucking shit. Uh, but they did actually burn it this year. And so people, unnamed people decided that before that happened, we had to recreate a previous prank from years past.

And so a, um, blood covered, decapitated unicorn head was in fact staple gunned to the church doors before they burnt it. And it made me very happy.

Vida: Love their pranks. Just going for years and years, especially with the church.

Nina: It was years ago. It would've been six years ago that started. They thought it was funny.

To be fair, it was all in good fun.

Georg: No, the.

Stevan: Highlights. Uh, and favorite workshops or events that you guys remember?

Georg: Well,

Vida: well, I've worked too much. I [00:27:00] never anything, so

Georg: my favorite is year we, we used to run a, a mass mood shoot, and we started up on, uh, rock and we'd get about a hundred people up there, and most of them had, had never been naked in a public place before.

And it was just sensational that, uh, at 10 o'clock on the Thursday, uh, Thursday morning, it's fresh. People are just arriving, but, you know, they get up there and they just open themselves up to, uh, to everyone, and it was just wonderful. Uh, it's been too hard for us to organize it in the last couple of years, so we've handed it over to Nimrod, and this year he, uh, he took I think about 70 or 80 people out onto the lake for the mass nurture.

So you won't see any of those photos. You've gotta be a, a participant to be able to, uh, subscribe to the photos. But, you know, it's just such a, um, such a, a communal fun time and, and no stress. And everyone looks just amazing. It's just all this, all this sea of pink, uh, on the, uh, on, on the White Lake. It's just incredible words.

Can't [00:28:00] describe how, uh, how beautiful it is and how, how uplifting it is for, uh, especially for old time nudists like us. So, yeah, to me that's, you guys

Stevan: are, uh. You guys are afraid of a cold out there at all? The wind in the, in the salt lakes?

Georg: Nah. I, I can get naked down to about 10 degrees. It's um, there must be a bit of viking blood in my family.

It's all good. Body, body parts don't look so good. There's uh, a lot of shrinkage of course, but I always say to uh, to my wife that uh, a bit of cold makes the female form look, uh, look 10 years younger.

Nina: If I could nominate my favorite event, which is in no way similar to that, I don't know if you guys made it to the, uh, bureau of Bureaucracy, which was a new camp this year.

Uh, some old time Blazers started a new camp to basically just take the piss out of office jobs. And I didn't know how this would go 'cause I work an office job and I was like, I don't want my day job on the [00:29:00] paddock. But it was brilliant. It was the funniest thing I've seen in years. And they ran this event, which I dragged myself outta bed for.

I was violently hung over. I was in like the roughest condition I've ever been in and I was like, I don't care. I'm going to this thing. I have to go. It was called PC load letter. Which if anybody, maybe y'all are old enough to remember Office Space. The movie Jennifer Aniston or Livington. Yep. Yeah. Where they beat the shit out of a printer in a field because they hate it and it needs to die.

They brought a printer. It was BYO Hammer. I brought a hammer. I was 30 minutes early. I have never been early to anything at Blaze, ever. I was 30 minutes early. They were like, why are you here? And I was like, I need to beat the shit out of a printer with a hammer. So they made me wait. Um, and then we beat the shit out of a printer with a hammer.

They put a tarp down to catch the moop. That did not help. It exploded. It was delightful. There were sledgehammers. It was really, really therapeutic for a lot of office drones. The toner cartridge exploded. There [00:30:00] were clouds of death. It was like the most glorious thing I've ever done, and I loved it. I hope they come back.

That is all.

Vida: I just thought the lines at the bureau were amazing. I couldn't on the P to

Nina: get who the hell is gonna queue up to go to bureaucracy here at a burn. The lines were down the road. It was so good. That's great.

Vida: Yeah.

Nina: What a win. Yeah, a little

Stevan: weird. It's very, it's very meta as well. I think. You know, having to line up, having to line up for something at a blaze

Georg: to a says it's close, who work in offices, it was like back at work.

Nina: Because that was my thought until I went in and then I was like, oh, this is so funny. Like they've got, you have to go through a little ticketing queue to get in and it's done in red 'cause it's red tape. And then like there's only in, there's no out. So when they turn you around, there's no out. So you're [00:31:00] going in and out the red tape simultaneously.

You had to cue to get an, did you consider these idea?

I can't describe it. It was brilliant. Would I consider it was,

Stevan: it would, would you consider it as a like a performance Performance,

perform performing arts perform?

Georg: Yeah, yeah,

Stevan: yeah.

Georg: Yeah.

Nina: Uh, it was verging on performance art. Yeah.

Stevan: Yeah. Interactive performance art more.

Yeah. It should be more of that I think, I think should be more encouraging. Yeah, absolutely. I think

Nina: that's great. I think, I mean, you guys might have different opinions 'cause I think everybody wanders around and has their own different blaze. It's big enough to do that. But I feel like there's been more individually creative performance or type things as Blaze has, has gone on through the years.

And I quite like that.

Vida: Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that. I, I really enjoyed that art car this year with the stripper pole in it that the Circus gang went, oh my god. Driving around. That was, that was excellent.

Georg: Yep.

Vida: Was great. But yeah, the performance on Wheels everywhere it went, it was excellent.

Nina: I think Blazing Swan in particular has [00:32:00] the reputation maybe of being just like a big duff.

And I don't think that's fair. But I do think our particular burn has more sound camps, diff crews than other. S of the same. And I liked that this year there was a whole lot more than that. Like we still had the sound camps and new sound camps and it was great, but we also had all this other stuff that was really cool this year.

Vida: Hell yeah,

Stevan: I did like, uh, the transformation of chainsaw of Cobra into, I thought that was pretty, uh, innovative.

Nina: So the clowns, um, so cherry bomb runs circus events here in WA and she's collaborated with chainsaw Cobra Camp before and they've done clown stuff. But yeah, this year, um, the long time theme camp lead basically handed it off to a new guy who is also a fringe performing clown, and it just basically became clown camp.

And I thought that was unexpectedly brilliant.

Vida: Yeah, [00:33:00] I think that's going on into the future as well, so

Nina: I hope so. I spoke to what's his face who ran it this year, and he'd never been to Blaze. He's a long time performer, fringe artist, et cetera. But he'd never been to Blaze. He'd never done anything like this.

He didn't know how it was gonna go. He was very confused and then he pulled it off brilliantly and he says he's interested in doing it again.

Stevan: Hmm.

Nina: George, did you go in the clown camp?

Georg: No, we didn't. We went to a couple of their shows. Yeah. Look, it, it's, it's hard, Nina, when you, uh, when you run your own theme camp and, and you also ranger, it's really hard to get out there and see and do an awful lot of stuff.

I mean, you've gotta sleep as well.

Nina: Yeah. And,

Georg: and we're all getting older. I know. Oh, goodness me. I love a, an afternoon nap nowadays. Yeah. I

Vida: feel that.

Georg: Well wait till you retire.

Nina: I was reading something I wrote after the first blaze, and I think I'd slept, I'd counted 'cause it was so appalling. I'd slept like 10 hours and like [00:34:00] five days or something.

Something just

Georg: Wow.

Nina: Dumb. And I was like, oh, right. I was young. Right. Okay. Yeah. Look good

Vida: Old days, 11 years later, it's not so easy. Uhhuh. I saw one sunrise this year, so I was proud of that last year. I don't think I did any,

Nina: I only saw one this year and I was very proud of that. And heard you.

Vida: Did you see the Blaze star?

Nina: No, I didn't.

Vida: Yeah. The, the one I stayed up for the sunrise. 'cause the blaze star was in the sky, which was apparently the Cosby Venus incident of why, um, well, someone was calling it the Blaze Star and I was

Nina: Venus. I know there is also a Blaze star. She may have seen it.

Vida: Say that. Be Aling.

Nina: Yeah. I I believe you.

Vida: I believe it at the time. Don't my Georg.

Nina: Steven do you wanna hear about like the, the rationale for the theme of the [00:35:00] event this year? The, the cosmic coincidence?

Stevan: Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious.

Nina: I don't fucking know. I didn't listen. Vida, what's the cosmic coincidence?

Vida: Well, apparently it was, well, well, I've got two stories actually, but there was gonna be a meteor shower during the event that something to do with this blaze star.

So, but then I've got a different story that morning that the reason it was called cosmic coincidence is because the Blaze star was gonna be shining and, and, um, visual in the sky at Blaze during the event, which was why I believed that that was the blaze star that I saw that morning.

Nina: So I heard the second one. Yeah. So this blaze star is the star very far away or something, and it's about to explode. And the best astronomers could do is that it was going to explode in like a one month window that basically was over blaze. So what a cosmic coincidence, because it's actually called the Blaze Star and Oh, really?

And I didn't follow up, so I don't know when [00:36:00] exactly it exploded, but clearly after Vida saw it, or maybe you saw the explosion.

Vida: Well, I think the explosion was, yeah, the, the thing that people were saying was gonna look like a media shower. But I don't think that happened during the event, but

Nina: it definitely didn't happen before.

It hadn't happened yet, but then I got distracted by clowns and printers.

Vida: Yeah, I heard a week or so ago that it had happened, but it was like, oh, but like then not during the event. So yeah, it happened two weeks or so after the event.

Nina: Okay.

Vida: Um, yeah. Well that, that's what I've heard. Again, haven't done my research and followed up on the scientific facts.

Nina: Yeah. Sorry, I feel remiss as the science event runner person here. We didn't look into it.

Vida: Yeah, you should not in Nina.

Nina: I'm, I'm not an astronomer.

Georg: Was there an astronomer in the um,

Nina: um, not technically, [00:37:00] but Paul Castle would like to think himself one. Wow. Just naming names. Um, so Paul is on our panel and he's a mathematician, but he is been really digging into this blaze star stuff, so he totally would know.

And I did not ask him. Sorry.

Stevan: Yeah. One of the traditions that Blaze is to watch the sunrise or sunset at. What other traditions are there that you can think of that that blaze that people must do you reckon?

Nina: Well, I think mud bathing has fallen off and I'd like to take credit for that. Um, because for many years at Ask Adjunct Scientist, we would do a public service announcement about why you are all autonomous human beings and can do what you want.

But it is a terrible idea to bathe in the mud of Jillan Lake. I dunno. People used to always go and bathe in the mud, which like, cool, but the, the mud out there is not particularly something that like, it's a lot of farm runoff and heavy metal precipitation and it's just not something I'd wanna be putting a person.

I think it's a, even though I [00:38:00] have to

Stevan: traditional,

Nina: so I think that's kind of fallen off. It reminds them of

Stevan: Yeah. Yeah. That used to be a big thing probably.

Yeah. Woodstock

or something like that.

Vida: Yeah. But no flashbacks says don't do it people, if you ever one please don't do it.

Nina: Like I've tell people for years, it's a terrible idea.

Stevan: Yeah.

Vida: However, do run around the effigy naked after it's burned. That's a great tradition. That's definitely one of our big traditions, George, getting bigger and bigger.

Nina: Do you run the new Nudie run?

Georg: No, I don't because that, to me, that's, um, that's something for people who I think never go naked do. No, no. Well, we're, we're nudists.

We're not exhibitionists. We, we don't, I live naked. I don't need to, to, to do an event like that to express myself. No, no. I, I walk around the entire paddock naked.

Nina: Don't The Nu Runner's exhibitionism though.

Georg: No. May mean to an nudist. It is,

Nina: but the Nudie run is an exhibitionism. It's Oh, okay. Well, it is, you're right.

The one time that people who don't generally run around naked. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Feel free to do so.

Georg: Yeah. [00:39:00] May look one day.

Nina: Steven, have you done the Nud Run?

Oh, the podcast. Can't, but he's shaking his head

Stevan: usually. Um, I, I'm either, uh, doing the perimeter or, or Yeah, yeah. Okaying. So, no, I haven't done it yet.

No,

Georg: but there's no reason why you,

Vida: I, as the event manager have never stripped off all

Nina: Wasn't gonna ask you. I assume you always working.

Vida: Lewi did it this year, the chair. Oh, did we did it last year. Kind of semi tradition as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you ever done that, Nina? You've asked everyone else.

Nina: Oh God, no.

No. I don't do Naked. Have you? You, I did. Um, my first You want a good story? My first Blaze 2014, the first Blaze, I did not know what was happening. I had never heard of Burning Man. I mean, I'd heard of it, but I didn't know what it was. Blah, blah, blah. We go out there randomly, it's mind blowing. Amazing. And I walk up to this tent and it turns out it was the unicorn camp.

And a person who I will not name in Shame comes to the door 'cause she's lovely. And [00:40:00] she said, oh, do you wanna come in? And I said, yeah. And she was like, tops off. And I was like, what? And she was like, tops off, then you can come in. And I was like, oh. And I was there with workmates. Like we decided to go to this thing and ugh.

So I look at them and they look at me and we're both like, are you going in? And they were like, we're going away. And I was like, great, I'm going in. Um, and that I think is the last time I was topless at Blaze. Maybe not like I used to do topless, but it just, you know, the kids with their cameras, I No. Yeah, just not,

Stevan: yeah. That's a, that's an issue. We can, we can talk more about that. Especially with the nudity run as well. There was some confusion, but there's some confusion every year. I think people are running the wrong way, opposite way. Dunno what the etiquette is. Um, and, and I think a lot of people are actually thinking twice about doing the nudity run as well. Naked hippie run

Vida: well, yeah. This year we did have a little bit of an issue with the perimeter because [00:41:00] we'd agreed that the firies would create an inner perimeter once the fire was ready, uh, for the Nudie run. However, when it came to the Nudie run, we let the whole perimeter down and all the Nudies and everyone else came forward.

And so then all the Nudie people ended up going inside the perimeter. They'd created, 'cause there was actually no room for them left to run. So everyone had come forward. Oh wow. So that was a bit of a thing. So we are gonna improve on that next year. But that did, yeah, create a little bit of an issue. But luckily,

Nina: so I rangered the, luckily the perimeter.

Vida: Yeah, you were there. I know, yeah. I arrange the permit. Yeah. To look after that power box for me.

Nina: Yeah. I'm ranging the perimeter and Vida comes over and she's like, you need to stand right here. So people who are naked do not, yeah. It was quite a large power box that was not marked. Um, so that was communicated to us and we were kind of like, that sounds great.

How do we drop the perimeter for what only naked people? Or [00:42:00] how do we hold a second perimeter for the non naked, or, I think it can be done, but we just weren't quite sure how, and we were told the Firies would do the second perimeter, but then the whole crowd came in and they didn't know, and it could work out in future.

Vida: I, I met up with Gareth, our head fiery today actually, and we had a little chat about that. So we've got some ideas. We'll improve it next year. But yeah, that was, yeah, just a little issue that we, we came across with the Nudie run this year. Um, but no one got hurt and it all worked out, so, you know, we live to do it again better.

Mm-hmm.

Stevan: Alright, so let's, let's move on the, to the next segment. I've, I've got a Ablazing WAN quiz. You. This, this is like the side B of the, the quiz. I asked, uh, that, that I, that I, um, did with, uh, Aaron and Will, um, this is about blazing Swan themes and, and what year it was on and, and [00:43:00] also the attendance.

If you, it's on the website, so if you can remember four roughly how many people attended do we get for that year?

Nina: Do we get a prize if we win?

Stevan: Of course you do. What's the prize? Of course you do. You get to, you get to be honored again. Yeah.

Nina: Oh God. Alright, I'll play. Alright,

Stevan: so, so we, this, this, this is a good, uh, memory game because it helps to be there as well be.

So question one, in, in which year was the theme Elemental used for Blazing Swan?

Nina: Oh, dude, it's on my wrist. Gimme a second.

Vida: Second year or the third? I'm pretty sure that was the second year. So two, it was absolutely

Georg: be at 16 or 17.

Nina: I'm gonna guess 2016. Yeah. But it could been, it could have been 17.

Georg: I would've said 17.

Yep. Yep.

Nina: Because we had three years of one word theme that started with an I and I really liked that. And then I guess people ran out of I [00:44:00] words. Yes.

Stevan: Yes. How many, how many people you reckon attended that year in 2017.

Good answer. Well done. How many one word theme have blazing Swan used?

Nina: Four.

Stevan: Correct. Do do you know all of them? Do you know all the four?

Georg: Inception?

Nina: Inception,

elemental. They're literally on my wrists. Dude. Gimme a second.

Vida: Oh gosh. Really?

Nina: They both start with eyes memory Banks. Yeah. Okay. Teamwork. They both start with eyes

Stevan: Inception.

Inspiration. Inspiration. That's right. Illumination. Ah, illumination. Yeah. That was one of them. Yeah. An elemental.

Nina: We've already told you.

We all old mate.

Vida: Well, our, our virtual COVID year where we canceled was also perception, so yeah, that would be five if that one counted

Stevan: perception. That's a good one. Yeah.

What was the theme for blaming this one in [00:45:00] 2019?

Nina: Happy as Larry.

Vida: Happy as Larry. Larry. Yeah.

Stevan: Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys, do you guys remember that anything that stands out there? The effigy was quite different. It was very different.

Nina: Can't say no.

Georg: No.

Nina: I don't wanna say no. I, I'm really,

Georg: I'm happy to say no.

Nina: I'm a bit of a bitch about the effigy. I just want a big ass swan.

Georg: Me too.

Nina: I don't want all this creativity and like some twined up snakes that if you burn 'em the right way and look at it from the right angle, it looks like a swan. I just, I mean, I love the designer, but I just want a big ass swan man.

I'm an effigy purist, so no, I did not love the tap hat.

Stevan: Do you know how many people attended that year? 2019? It was kind of like Peak swan probably.

Vida: Yeah, let's say 3000.

Nina: That sounds, yeah.

Stevan: Yeah, yeah. That's quite a big number there. In 20, uh, in 2016 was the year that Blazing Swan [00:46:00] grew to a population of almost 2,500.

What was the theme for that year?

Nina: Fucking mud.

Y'all remember that?

Vida: Well, that was Inspira illumination. That one.

Stevan: It wasn't, it wasn't as as bad as the first year. I think the mud,

Nina: it depends. You were at both of them. Stevan. The first year was apocalyp of flooding, run for the hills or die. The third year was you are going to lose knee high wellies in a mud pit because it's been dribbling for five days straight.

And the mud is so deep, it's eating hippies. Yeah.

Vida: And the toilet sunk. And then all the vehicles got bulged trying to pull the toilet out.

Nina: Different styles of rain. Yeah,

Georg: but we had, we had the boat on the lake and that was a sensational art piece.

Nina: Oh yeah.

Georg: That was Oh,

Stevan: that was the same year, wasn't it? Yes.

Georg: Processing the, was the arresting of the boat people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Just a brilliant piece of inspiration. Yes.

Stevan: So the answer was [00:47:00] Illumination. Illumination. Which year was the theme? Theme? Inspiration news for Blazing Swan. What,

Nina: 2015?

Stevan: Yeah, 2015. Second year.

Georg: Second year, yeah. Yeah. Didn't go.

Vida: And that was, was the biggest effigy that ever existed with the big

Nina: Oh, was that the double swan?

Vida: No, that was the one with the big wings that came down and Yeah.

Georg: More like a dragon than a swan.

Nina: Yeah. Holding.

Stevan: Was that the one with an egg as well?

Nina: Yeah.

Vida: Was it, was there an egg? He had his wing down like

Nina: Yeah, there was an egg in it. Like a metal egg that maybe Ryan made.

Vida: Yeah.

Nina: And then you're right. Third year of

Vida: all of our time.

Georg: Wow.

Stevan: 2015. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That was a good, burn.

Nina: Do you know what that budget was?

Vida: Yeah, it was roughly 80 grand.

Georg: Wow.

Nina: For the fucking next, give a bit of, wow. I Wait, was gonna try to stop swearing, but you, you shat on that 80,000 for

Vida: Yeah. And for the last three or four years, it's been between 15 and 20. To give you some [00:48:00] perspective on how much bigger that was.

Nina: That's more what I thought. And I'm aware would cost a lot money, but.

Stevan: Yep. Well now you know how big you can go. Yeah. Good Benchmark. Uh, 2014, the theme was

Nina: Inception.

Vida: Inception.

Stevan: Yeah. Inception. It was, do, do you know the, any stories behind that Name, that theme? Obviously Inception has to be,

Nina: I just assumed it's, 'cause it was the inception of this event, but I maybe Vita was, I was not involved with this before, you know, on the, like the pre burn when the founders decided to start this thing.

Stevan: Mm-hmm.

Vida: Well, I wasn't either. I was just in koasis back then, so I don't have much, um, details behind that, but I would just assume what is obvious.

Nina: Yeah.

Stevan: Yes. Okay. This is a question is in what year did John Stein from Hug Nation attend Blazing Swan? [00:49:00]

Georg: It was,

Vida: yeah, I think it was actually

Nina: Do you mean that, that Yankee with the like videos

Vida: Pink hair

Nina: Halcyon.

Stevan: Yeah. From Burning Man, that's right. Yes.

Nina: Halcyon. Um, and

Stevan: I think there's a street still named after him

Vida: Pink theme camp at Burning Man.

Nina: Think it was 2019

Vida: Think so

Stevan: 2016 was, was Illumination. I think we light up all those streets in 2016.

Nina: Okay.

Stevan: In what year was Blazing Swan? Not on

Georg: 2020.

Nina: Blazing Wan was not in 20 years. 2020 and 20 and 2022.

Stevan: Yeah, you're right. Yeah.

Nina: Yeah. You rewrite your question. We know

Stevan: in what year was the theme? Phoenix Rising used for Blazing Swan

Vida: 2021.

Stevan: Yes. Yeah. That was the In between. In Between, yeah. The smallest small attendance.

Georg: 15. Yeah. Yeah.

Stevan: Do you guys, yeah. Do you guys [00:50:00] remember? Yeah. Do you guys remember anything from that? Like what was the whole situation with COVID, whether you

Nina: Great Year.

It was best. I'm not confrontational.

I agree with Vida and you. It was smaller. It was hardcore blazers. It was everybody who'd like made it through the, you know, the year of the rona. It was only core crew and attendees. Like, it was great.

Vida: We all wanted to keep it like that. Why we took it back

Nina: also wanted to keep it like that.

Georg: Yep. I still do. Hands up. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Great. Controversial.

Stevan: Did it still, did it still feel like a, A town, a city, like a

Nina: Yeah, of course

Georg: it did. Yeah. Yeah. We just had more room people. Weren,

Stevan: but half the size. Yeah. Yeah. People weren't living my impression.

Nina: Yeah. My impression the first year at 2014, and my memory's probably shot, was that it didn't feel like a city.

It was very spread out. The things to see and do were quite far apart, but that was also my first burn. So what do I know that 20, 21 year, it very much still felt like a city to. [00:51:00]

Stevan: 2018 was a year that JRC reached an approximate population of 3,200. What was the theme for that year, 2018,

Vida: beyond the Black Stump?

Nina: Oh God. Great.

Stevan: Good memories from that one.

Vida: Yeah. Was a great year. Yeah, that was a great think. That was the first year I was doing blaze blazing swan stuff, so yeah, it was a really good year. That one.

Nina: And I know I just grunged, but I did like that they, the theme was like aussie as,

Vida: yeah. Loved the artwork.

Loved what everybody, all the theme camps did with that theme.

Nina: Yeah.

Vida: Went real australiana with it, because that was fun. Yeah. Felt like a real Aussie burn.

Georg: Was that the year made like official 10 pieces?

Stevan: I think it was. Oh, so well either that was, or 2017, I think.

Nina: But could we maybe propose another Australian theme?

Could one year be like, not here to fuck flies

Vida: Or [00:52:00] Spiders.

Georg: Spiders

Nina: excuse. Correct. But it's blaze. But it's blaze. There's flies. There's flies. Come on.

Stevan: What year was Bat County suggested?

Nina: Every year. Every year. Been suggested every year.

Uh, but there was

Stevan: joke about that for the listen, but there

Nina: was, there was a recon bobb where the then committee threw a bone and called the recon bobb Bat Country.

And they thought that would shut people up. And it, it did not.

Vida: Yeah. I was on committee.

Nina: It was a noble gesture.

Georg: I've gone to, I've gone to the site, uh, quite a few times outside of a blazing swan, and every time we go there are just these little tiny bats that fly around everywhere and they fly within, within a foot of you if you're sitting on the ground because they pick the midges outta the air.

It's just incredible. I, I hadn't realized that there was so many bats in all those trees around, around the, uh, the perimeter. Just incredible.

Nina: So you're saying that's where the theme suggestion comes from because it, I think so is there's a lot of bats out there. Yeah. Okay.

Stevan: And are you [00:53:00] guys aware of how the, these themes come about?

Like who is there a committee? Is there There is a committee, yeah. Yeah. Voting process.

Vida: I, it has gone out to the public a few times though, and there's been voting process. Um, Cosmic coincidence that all just came about from Yeah. A fun little thing that happened at the science junk scientist and then,

Nina: excuse You, is Drunk scientists.

Hells Down invented space crabs. And we, we only had the votes to make the theme space crabs, and apparently we were shot down in Committee by one human, and I don't know who that human was, so I can't correct them. Um, no, we wanted space crabs and we were denied because apparently committee thought it was too reminiscent of like.

Vida: Well, you know, they, they compromised and gave you something that you could still be [00:54:00] a space crab at. I guess not good enough.

Nina: I'm over it. Uhhuh. I would like bat country though.

Georg: We have to have it one year. Yeah. One day we're

Vida: just gonna get the Alliance crew on the committee and I'm sure it'll happen.

Georg: Yeah, yeah.

Nina: Yeah. It's less exciting now that Alliance doesn't attend. Yeah. As a camp.

Stevan: Uh, before we go on a break, uh, let's talk about Koasis Creek Vida. Mm-hmm. Uh, let's tell the, uh, listeners a bit about background about that, how that came about, and, um, what's the story behind that?

Vida: Oh, yeah. Well, year one, we've, we've mentioned it a couple of times in, um, in this conversation, but year one,

Stevan: it's in the legend of the map now.

Vida: Yeah. The great floods of 2014. Um, koasis, my home and heart theme camp, uh, were positioned in what we thought was a lovely position at the time. We had some trees around and mm-hmm. As I told Nina this year, um, in some [00:55:00] comms about ranger camping where, uh, trees grow, rain goes, um, yeah. When the big grains came, the, uh, we, we actually ended up in a river.

So our whole camp, all the floors lifted, all the carpets lifted, all the cushion lifted and ended up down at the fence by the lake. Um, at one point we had our DJ holding the power cords up in the air while he continued to dj and people were dancing on our bar because they couldn't dance in the river anymore.

This was all happening while they were trying to light the effigy, which was just outside our kind of door. And our camp had the best viewing spot for the effigy to be lit. So we kind of pushing the, the roof with poles while drowning, while trying to save electrical stuff while trying [00:56:00] to watch the aber and all happening at once.

And yeah, just my whole tent was gone when I went to go to bed that night, had notes to us gone, but I had to jump into the back of a friend's ute and be like, I, no one could

help me. But yeah, absolute chaos, but absolute bonding experience for all of us in the camp. And you know that. And, and hence we got our, a river named after us, which is now prominently signed.

Don't camp here unless you wanna flood and die or drown. Um, yeah, now it's got its own little permanent position on the. When you actually look at the site from the air with all the drone footage we have now and the tech we have now, you can kind of see exactly where the water's gonna go because there's a big tree line coming all the way down from the rock to the lake.

But, um, yeah, we didn't know that then. Um, we certainly know now.

Nina: So I never heard any of that because I was at the effigy when they did [00:57:00] get it lit and whatnot. And then, you know, the heavens opened. I had no idea you guys were already flooding it up in there trying to DJ from a held cord on top of the bar, because I went into Koasis after the, the, the skies opened.

Um, 'cause you know, you guys had a tent and I had no clothes on or whatever, a few clothes. And I get in there and I, I spent the rest of it in there. And at one point your genny cut out, your genny must have flooded. And I was like, huddled on a mud hill with some dude who I still don't know. And we were like, fuck, what do we do?

And like, there's no lights. And everyone had left and, and, and, and I don't know if he's alive. 'cause we both fled in different directions. It was such a good night.

Vida: That sounds not right.

Stevan: My, my, my memory of of that night was, uh, people just say Don't go to koasis So we ended up at God said yes instead. So that was the party there.

And uh, thankfully God did say yes.

Nina: Oh, you were at Camp Anita?

Stevan: Yeah. That's, that's how it fled. Papazhans. Yeah. Papas

Nina: God said yes. Camp Anita. What? Call it, it was the spot. That's because it was the,[00:58:00]

Vida: the, this was.

Nina: Mm.

Vida: Yeah. It's not a bad spot. So, good

Nina: memories.

Vida: They were good times.

Nina: It does make me laugh, like, Georg, you weren't there for 2014, but you've been there in muddy, terrible rain.

Georg: We were there in 2016 and there was, it was muddy. Yeah.

Nina: Yeah. Like do you guys crack up when some newbie comes and they're like, oh, it's raining.

We're all going to die. And I'm like, you dunno anything.

Vida: It's bonding.

Stevan: Yeah. We pull. Yeah. We're all pulled together. Yeah.

Nina: Also, you're gonna be fine. It's gonna be okay.

Vida: Yeah. Rain stops. The sun comes out.

Nina: Yeah.

Vida: Eventually, sometimes,

Stevan: well, 10 years later, we all still here. So it says something tragic camping experiences.

Nina: Mm-hmm.

Georg: And none of us have talked.

Vida: Yeah, it does crack me off though. Like when we had that little sprinkle, was it last year? No, two years

Nina: ago. Yeah, two years ago. And everybody was like, and half of general camping left. Yes. And half of Jen Pop left. And I was like, it hardly [00:59:00] rained y'all.

Vida: It was good though. It got rid of the, of the, uh, you know,

Nina: um, I agree with you.

Stevan: Did you tell them No. Refunds

Vida: of course.

Stevan: No refunds. Refund.

Nina: No refunds. That's, that's printed in the T&Cs that the back of your ticket.

Stevan: Okay. We're back. Let's talk about some of the improvements over the years at Blazing Swan. Uh, the site layout as well, maybe.

Vida: Do you wanna start on that, Nina, or, um, the site has definitely changed a lot.

Nina: Sure. So, as Vida was saying earlier, there were many learnings the first year, mostly about drainage patterns.

And so the first year, as I recall, everybody was just higgly, piggly fucking wherever. And then the second year after the violent God sent God, God said no to our site plan. And then the second year there was a lot more thought in my impression put into like, where should the theme camps actually be, where we're not all [01:00:00] gonna drown.

Um, over the years, that's progressed further and the events grown bigger, obviously. So theme camps at one point, I think maybe around like 2018, I could be wrong in the year, but around then they, the, the powers that be decided that theme camps would all be at the north end of the site and the racetrack where they run the horse races, the bush races out there would be for, uh, general camping.

And we were chatting in the Break about how I may stand alone, but I really don't like that. Um, I think it creates a lot of segregation between people who've never been to a barn. You know, we, we, I end up calling them Gen pop because that's what they are, and I'm aware that's rude, but that is how this segregation has resulted, you know, like theme camps have a lot of issues because people who have never been to a burn, who aren't volunteers, who aren't involved come up and just take it as, you know, a free bar for the night, which is.

rude and people who are shunted into a horse corral [01:01:00] down the end and don't know what's happening, have no idea that the amount of work that goes into a theme camp is mind boggling. So in my opinion, if we went back to where everybody was interspersed and theme camps covered the whole site, art covered the whole site, uh, punters covered the whole site.

I just think that works a lot better. I think that would bring other issues. Like, you know, the guys who slave away for six weeks to put in the power grid would have a much harder time of it and roads cutting and, and that's a real concern. But I don't know. We're meant to be inclusive. Yeah. We're not meant to have gen pop down in a racetrack cordoned off with an actual fence where they have to throw their own parties.

'cause, 'cause they're not invited up into theme camp land with your separate car passes. Now I'm ranting. What do you guys think?

Vida: Well, I, I mean I can see point, I can see how the each one teach one is a little bit harder to do when one is on one side and one is on the other side. Yeah. Um, however, being the girl behind the [01:02:00] operations, as you said, it would be a, a tricky feat to give what we give currently to half the site, to the whole whole site.

He, he, you know, and it, as I also mentioned too, in the breakout town planning coordinator is about this as well. And so. I guess what Blazing Swan needs to do is a bit more longer term strategic planning about where we wanna go and then how we're gonna achieve it. Currently we're just kind of rolling through year to year and, um, evolving.

As you know, we put in more infrastructure and develop the site, but we haven't long term strategically looked at what would be the best for the event in say, five years or as we grow. So currently as the site is now, and this is why it came up with town planning, is that the 1500 people that are camped on the north side are running outta [01:03:00] space.

But yeah, there's still plenty of camping in the race, uh, or space in the racetrack that could be used. So how can we kind of work the site to, to utilize that and yeah, make it better for everyone And yeah, the inclusiveness thing would be, would be awesome if we could figure, figure that out. I'm with you on that, but just logistics

and I hear you on the other aspects. Logistics.

Nina: Yeah. Did you notice this year, because I, I was actually a bit confused 'cause we sold more tickets. Yeah. And then I'm looking down on like the Thursday, Friday to the racetrack and it was not full. It was hardly, hardly even half full. And it's because that overflow camping existed and I think a lot of the, um, general attendees went up in camped overflow camping because it's closer to the action, which is totally cool.

Except that that overflow camping is basically in koasis Creek.

Vida: Yes. But no, so we actually feel every did that I like because, um, it rained three days [01:04:00] before the event started and the entry into Yeah, that's right. I heard that. Um, entry into the general camping got really muddy. So that's, that's one of the issues is our current entry into general camping does bog out if it's rained.

Um, and the bottom corner of general camping also gets really boggy and marshy. So to sort of wake for that to dry out the first couple of days of everyone arriving, we probably parked them all in overflowed first. So that's why that got, that got filled up and then general camping didn't fill up, so

Nina: Yeah. Yeah. Totally cool about that.

Vida: It's good we've got both because we can adapt, adapt the environment. But yeah, if it rains, I'm just wondering then sucks down there

Nina: if there's room in gen pop and we could, if we were to, we, I'm not in the org, if the org were to drop the segregation barrier, you know, I, I'm not sure there's actually that much room down there [01:05:00] unless we do use that whole gen pop, uh, sorry, overflow camping area and then that could get bogged if it rains again.

And I guess it is complex.

Vida: It is. It's hard. Yeah. 'cause once you start putting power and infrastructure and toilets in the boggy bits, um, yeah. You get you that swamp pool. Yeah. So we just put people in there. Um,

Stevan: Georg. Georg, were there any, so when you were arranging, um, did you walk towards the general population camping area and were there any stories coming out from there?

Georg: We, we, we always do a couple of laps through there. Um, especially around the, uh, the burn times because there's, there's no one in there and, and I remember one burn we actually had a spate of, um, cars being broken into for, and people were looking for things like medication and stuff like that.

So we're

someone lo around. [01:06:00] Doing, you know, doing something that that, that it shouldn't be doing. So yeah, we always look after, we look after everyone. We pr we patrol the entire perimeter.

Vida: But it's pretty fun in there when it's not quiet too. Right. Georg? Like, when I'm been managing and I drive around in there, there,

Georg: there are, it's gone there.

Lot of parties going. It's, it's, and and in fact that's one of the biggest problems after, after about midnight, we get a lot of people in gen camping who, uh, who don't wanna have any noise at all because it's really quiet. I mean, once you're down there you can't hear any of the noise from the sound camp.

So it's really peaceful and you can get a lot of sleep. But after midnight, if there's too many parties breaking out in the general camping area, that's when you have a lot of, uh, a lot of potential conflict. So yeah, we, we ranger of that a lot of times. And that's another thing that's changed a lot of complaints.

It's complaints.

Nina: I remember there was a year or two forever ago where there was an actual designated quiet camping area where it was like quiet camping slash kid friendly slash you don't want to have the super fun going off that I'd rather hang out at. Um, and I thought that was nice for people, but you can't really, [01:07:00] I think we've grown to the size where you can't really have that.

Vida: Well, it's basically the ass ass end of general camping.

Nina: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then I was on ranger shift a couple years ago and we were down the ass ass end of ranger camping, like literally across the fence from greeters. And some dude had parked a rig up there. He was alone. He had been blasting side trans at like volume at 11 for, I've been told 48 hours.

And his neighbors were about to like. Actually lynch him. Um, so we went over slightly better. I don't blame them. I don't blame him. I don't blame anyone. I'm a ranger. Um, so we went over and we, we convinced him to turn it down to like eight rather than 11. But because I agree, if you're willing to hike to the ass ass, end of gen pop, let's put quiet camping there.

And I think his point was that there was all this free space where he could set up his thing and you know, like [01:08:00] unless you actually designated it's not gonna work.

Vida: Yeah. That's some good feedback for the, uh, town planning team.

Nina: He was really lovely.

Georg: Mo most of the feedback I got, not quiet. Most of the feedback I got from, uh, the general population campers is that, uh, they love it down there.

They love the peace and quiet. They love the fact that you've gotta go away from where all the cars and where all the people are to actually see the fun things. Because where, where we are in our theme camp, I mean, we we're at our theme camp, our cars there, our tents there. We don't ever get away. But if we, if we were in, I mean I've, I've camped at, uh, in gen pop once and I thought it was pretty good to be able to just leave all the ranging and all the other stuff behind and go back and have a quiet night.

I mean, I, I loved it. And most of them feel the same way. If, if you gave them the choice, they wouldn't wanna, uh, set up their, uh, their tents in Sound Camp Alley. They love the fact that they'd stand at the racetrack. So, I mean, I, I disagree with you, Nina. I think, um, I think that's totally fair of people.

Nina: I think that's fair of people who camp down there [01:09:00] intentionally.

Yeah. I don't think it's necessarily fair of people who've never been to Blaze before.

Georg: Uh, my experience is, would get a lot more out

Nina: of it if they could camp. by a theme camp.

Georg: Yep. Well, tho those people who want to, they always, they always say, oh no, I'm, I'm with a friend who's with a friend and they end up finding places to camp, you know, where they wanna camp.

Yeah. There's so, so many of the general punters end up, you know, where we are. There were people parked behind us. There were people parked in between other them camps. I mean Yeah, people sneak in everywhere. Yeah. No, my experience is that, um, everyone I speak to in general camping just loves it down there.

They, uh, they, they don't wanna go anywhere else. And, and those that do, I think, um, they, they where as they come in, they see the general camping population and they think, well, is there another place here that we can park? And they drive around until they find a, uh, a little spot and they, and they just park in there.

We had a few campers near us that, uh, they, they were definitely gen pop. They weren't with any theme camp. And they were parked in. [01:10:00] Yeah, we used to have that. Yeah, it happens everywhere. You must have had that.

Nina: Like I, when I used to run shit gift, we'd have kids come up, kids, we'd have people come up every year.

I ran it for three years and they'd be like, Hey, you got all this field, can we like, we're gen pub, can we camp in your backyard? And I'd be like,

Georg: well you had a great little, your location was fantastic. It was on Camp koasis, you had that lovely little clum of trees. You had the, so we got lovely camp

Nina: of trees covered in rocks that might flood.

So I would explain the topography to them and then they'd be like, yeah, we got all this space. I don't care if you're gen pop camp in our backyard. And they'd love it. So I think you're right. People who like gen pop really wanna stay down there, whether they're theme camp or normal people or whatever, but, but some people be, they theme camper, normal people or whatever, really wanna come up top.

And it would just be less awkward if they didn't have to like wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Yo Nina, can I camp here? And I'd be like, yeah, I don't care. Just tell everybody you have a car park pass. I didn't say that. Yeah, but do remember I do. But imagine if everyone did that. But everyone did that for four years and it was [01:11:00] absolutely fine.

Well what's there? And I'm sad it died, but I think that we just got too big. Yeah.

Vida: Yeah. Having 500 volunteers means we have to look after them and put them somewhere quiet so they can sleep in between their shifts. However, that being said, I personally was trying to open it up a bit more for some smaller camps this year and we got a couple back in.

Um, but I got a lot of pushback from. Certain people about that. So then it got kind of reserved again for crew. But again, I felt like there was still heaps of room up there and we could have possibly, you know, fit a few more people, maybe some families, maybe some other people that wanted to be there. But, um, there's a bit of a lot of it

Nina: because crew gets there so early and puts in, you know, this four weeks beforehand.

And of course they should have wherever the hell they want to camp preserve for them. But because people arrive staggered, the [01:12:00] space is not utilized as well as it could be if we all rocked up on the same day. But there's a huge amount of space like behind Cunt Rock. So like you've got the infinite loop that's always quite full, but then there's that whole space like where Louis camped this year, I won't say where because he had the best spot in the house.

Um mm-hmm. But over where, you know where Louis camped? Yeah. There's so much room back there and it's not suitable to all vehicles, but you could put fit a lot of crew, a lot of families, a lot of stuff back up

Vida: that actually in fill up quite a bit towards the end and yeah. Okay. With people in vans and caravans and stuff.

Because anywhere around the rock it's rocky. You can't get pegs in for a tent. Yeah. If it's windy tent's gonna blow away. But with caravans and stuff like that, it works. But

Nina: I mean, to be fair, that's the other issue with the site. Like half of it's gorgeous and Peg something and oh.

As it work. So I've never tried issues before site.

Vida: Probably double pegging [01:13:00] is what you need to do with blazing.

Nina: Oh, I would've just said a much longer rebar. peg

just hold the,

Stevan: it needs to be drilled down.

Vida: Drill P double begged. And drilled down, you know,

Nina: um, it'd be fun when there's no aussies listening to this.

Stevan: And over the years, the, the DPW crew, um, the infrastructure, uh, it's, it's improved a lot.

Uh, so you guys have a bit more, more comfortable, a bit more, uh, it's less dramas, I guess.

Vida: Yeah. Like I'm not a lie. Having, um, money behind us from having a couple of good years of, you know, getting the numbers and having a tight budget and having a little bit of extra room to move with actually being able to get the equipment that we need to do the job and buy the tools that we need to do the job probably and, you know, be able to feed the numbers that we need to do [01:14:00] the job has definitely made the job easier.

And this year we, we actually took down the big kitchen marquee at the end of the event. We had our quickest ever packed down. So in all the years I've been doing pack down, the earliest I've ever got out is the Monday morning after the event shuts on the Tuesday. This year we packed up and took down the whole massive marquee that we've used as our shelter for the last, well, forever.

And I was out, our budget o'clock on Sunday afternoon was amazing. Hmm. So good teamwork. Yeah, and just having those return volunteers definitely massively helps as well because everyone kind of, they're looked after, they're treated well. They come back and they know what they're doing. So it means we get things done faster and we've got the tools to get it done with less drama makes our life easier.

So, so, so good.

Nina: I really think as an outside [01:15:00] observer that also having Vida employed as the event manager for the past, what you said three years now? Two, three years.

Vida: This is my second year. This year. I,

Nina: yeah, two years. I think like as an outside person, having that has made the faces of everyone involved so much smile, like thanks.

It has been so much smoother from people I've talked to. Like just, I mean, not just having a person as event manager, but having you like you're great,

Vida: oh thank you.

Nina: I'm not complimenting anyone else today. That was it.

Vida: Cute. Well, yeah, I just think that one person actually overseeing from beginning to end.

Yeah. You know, documenting everything and you know, knows what's going on instead of this volunteer can do that week and then that Volunteerer can do that week, but they don't actually know what they're doing and you know, but they're trying, so let's just make it work. That kind of. Yeah, we've gotten out of that now, which is great.

Stevan: Sure.

Nina: Yeah. Stevan, are you ever coming back to Blaze?

Stevan: Uh, probably next year.

Vida: Oh,

Nina: maybe. We'll see. Oh [01:16:00] my God.

Vida: Okay. Silent disco.

Nina: Yeah, see,

Vida: do miss silent disco. And I miss the roller derby, the roller rink as well.

Nina: I love that roller rink. Yeah. Do you want the, the people to hear the story of how you, um, used to run a camper blazing swan and then you didn't?

Stevan: Uh, sure. Uh, yeah, the silent disco, but it, well, it first started with couch surfing, so we're just a bunch of travelers, a bunch of, uh, I guess nomadic people, um, international backpackers or tourists or whatever. Uh, that was the first year and our camp got flooded, so some people didn't wanna come back and, you know, I didn't know what to do.

Well, we didn't know what to do, so I thought maybe we'll do something more interactive, uh, less work maybe. Um, and that was a silent disco.

Nina: That was for a couple years. Great year. And Steven, a great event. Did any of you guys geor? You went that Vida, did you attend the year? He [01:17:00] ran naked, silent disco with a competition and a trophy.

Vida: I I, I'm like you babe. I don't get naked, but, um, I think,

Nina: oh no, I just watched.

Stevan: I was Well, you're naked except for headphones.

You wearing, headphones you wearing and

a smile. Big smile.

Nina: He blindfolded everybody. They got, you know, consensually, they got naked and they silent disco and it was like a dance competition for like naked blindfold, silent disco.

It was so much fun.

Georg: Oh, that sounds amazing.

Nina: It was really cute. Cute.

Stevan: Well, you know how in Toastmasters where, you know, you get told to, to visualize people being naked, you know, to, to lessen the whole anxiety and Yeah. So if you blind blindfold yourself, you, you won't be, you won't have that much anxiety. I guess.

Nina: It worked as well. People really let loose with the dancing.

Stevan: Okay. So something I want to, one thing I wanna talk about is the, um, over the years, how years I think live music has, has been dying, um, in, in the burn, in the burn communities. So, [01:18:00] uh, I'd like to say more of that. Um, wood blazing swan. I remember the first few years there was a live camp, jam camp, things like that.

Progressively abode has been doing some live things chainsaw Cobra with the lounge. Uh, what do you guys feel about live music in general?

Vida: Oh, for it. Yeah. Um, that's why I think Magical Frontier is like, yeah, well, koasis had the beer garden this year, which was a massive excellent addition. So big beer garden out the front and live music pretty much every afternoon, like pub vibes, like pretty cool beers on tap, live music, pop vibes out the front.

Uh, that really went off. And I think they'll keep doing that. And then of course, I'm just gonna rave about the magical frontier because I love them and I love being able to get away from the doff and actually just feel a bit of heart and soul and listen to some classic max. Yeah. And they just like, yeah, it was mostly covers down there, but [01:19:00] it was classic covers

Nina: and it was so good.

Yeah. You find them and you walk in and they have humans singing songs with words and the words are words that you know, and they let you sing and it Oh yeah. It was mostly covers. Who cares? It was brilliant. They also, a couple nights I was at Magical Frontier, they had people in the crowd come up and be like, Hey, yo, I, I can jam.

And they'd let whoever wanted to come up on stage. Um, oh wow. They had some Swedish kid who was backpacking who'd never been to a burn, blah, blah. I think he said he was 19 and he came up and they lent him a guitar and he sang some songs he's written because he's trying to become a muso. And I'm not gonna say I'm gonna follow him, but I love that that happened.

Huh? That was rude. He was fine. Not my jam. Um, but it was great. Like more live music? Yes.

Vida: All about it. Effigy last year actually had a little live music this year a bit less, but yeah, there is. And the big bad wolf, they weren't here [01:20:00] again this year, but last year they were doing that kind of vibe. And yeahs definitely.

Nina: They actually set up in, in gen pop this year. They Oh, cute. Yeah. Didn't know that

Vida: too much red tape?

Nina: I don't know. 'cause they're, they're theme camp lead is on committee, so I, I don't know.

Vida: Yeah. Funny. Yeah. I'd love to see a Jam camp Live camps, specific live music camp come back. But you definitely still getting a tad of that with a couple of the camps, which is where I always end up being actually.

Nina: Yeah.

Stevan: Could we, could that be something considered as a, like for an arts grant, like performing arts grant or something that can encourage more to scene?

Nina: I would be very surprised if the arts department was interested in giving a grant to somebody for live music.

Georg: Karaoke. Yeah.

Nina: They definitely do performing arts.

Sure. Like, you know, clown camp. But they try to really keep it to, to the structural. I, I [01:21:00] don't, I'm not structural. Yeah.

Vida: Visual.

Nina: Visual, yeah. Visual. I really think that'd be a hard sell. Um, I think maybe in music camp would get a theme. Camp Grant. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Because we do roving camps as well as inplace, you know, actual placed theme camps.

And so, uh, once live camp died, the guys who ran it still did like an art card that had a live band on the back, and they would do live music for a number of years before they branched into something else. And that would get a theme camp that be called Charlie, would it? Yeah. Champagne. Yeah, champagne.

Jelly. Champagne Charlie. So that's definitely something that could be promoted, funded through theme camps, but I don't think it would quite, I mean, there's this weird overlap between what is art, what is theme camp? What is neither, what is both? I, I I would send them towards theme Camp Land.

Vida: Yeah.

Nina: And one thing you said, Steven, you said you think live music has gotten lesser or died off over the years.

I, I don't know that I agree with that. I don't think, I mean, I've [01:22:00] only been to two different regional burns, but like, do you think there used to be more live music? I don't,

Stevan: um, I think, yeah. Well, you know, with o over here in the East, uh, with Burning Seed, we used to have, uh, trash Mansion, which was, you know, all about, you know, the live music, the whole, you know, kind of like you said the, the, the pub feel as well.

But, um, besides that, I think EDM is actually taking over, so it seems like it becoming more like a, I guess like a culture. But it's wrong with that.

Nina: No, there isn't. I'm just. Over think it's always been EDM 90% of the time.

Stevan: Yeah. Maybe caters to the younger crowd, maybe the, I'm not sure what the answer is or what the situation is happening with live music.

It's also outside of TheBlaze community in general as well.

Nina: Yeah. Okay. That, that I might agree with.

Stevan: Yeah.

Georg: Well, speaking for someone who's old enough to be all of your, um, fathers, I would love live music. I'm [01:23:00] sick and tired of DJs who just produce exactly the same sound to me in every one of the camps. I mean, I, I, I, I honestly can't stand it if I have to range down at Sound Camp Alley.

I just, I look for an excuse to go up the other end of Jen Pop. But yeah, live music, I, I actually heard some John Denver playing from, um, from a rumor or something like that. My favorite. And it was wonderful.

Nina: Georg, you should have been there at the Ranger camping this year when I had to explain to a group of, I swear to God, 15 people who Roger Waters was.

Georg: Oh my God. Well, there you go. See,

Nina: like, yes, you're slightly older than me, but live music would be great.

Georg: Yep. We don't have this hair for nothing. I mean, you know, just,

Vida: I think we all agree there more live music, more classics, more diversity.

Stevan: Yeah.

Nina: I mean, part of that's the size of the event. Yeah. Like we're getting bigger and that's cool.

And I think we all agreed there was more diversity of creativity this year. I like diversity's great, but it's hard when it's small.

Georg: Hmm.

Stevan: [01:24:00] And what were your thoughts about some of the workshops?

Nina: Not sure I went to one. Sorry.

Stevan: Oh, we didn't go to heavy metal Yoga. No.

Georg: Heavy yoga.

Vida: I was basically

yoga podcast.

Stevan: I think the church used to do that.

Vida: Well, there used to be Bogar, which was Bogan Yoga. That was amazing.

Nina: The church definitely did heavy metal yoga for a number of years. I, I'm aware I did the app of events, but I can't remember if they did it this year. Yeah. Well there was a lot of yoga this year. There was like 17 different kinds of yoga every day and I went to none of it.

And I love yoga.

Vida: Same

Nina: George. Sure. That you went to one workshop.

Georg: Well, I, I kind of had to, uh, my partner ran the, um, pussies pancakes and Polaroids there session. There you go. And that was so well attended. This was lovely. I just,

Vida: where was that George at steampunk the Oh, at library.

Georg: We wanted to, uh, to go to steampunk, but um, yeah, they were, they were all asleep.

Vida: Mm-hmm. Yeah. [01:25:00] Well there was that new Garden of Eros Camp, which I didn't go to, but they appear. And I heard that you had to do a four hour workshop to then go workshop beforehand.

Georg: Yep.

Vida: To a session. Um, I actually don't know much about it. Does anyone know anyone that attended?

Georg: Um, I.

The whole, all the crew, but I didn't go to a single one.

Vida: I didn't go to just four hours to be able to go to anything. Like I, I don't do more than five minutes anywhere at Blaze. I'm so busy. I'm like, you know, I'm there, I'm there, I'm everywhere, as you say. And I don't, I don't have time to do four hours just to go in for

Nina: I'm with, with you, and it's not really my scene.

Um, but the point of them having that is that they were running workshops on consent. I was not aware they were four hours. Um, but they were, uh, they all hate this, but so they're a sex camp. Um, and so they were running things that you had to attend to be [01:26:00] informed about consent and stuff before you could attend any of their workshops that were a bit more sexy time.

Um, and, you know, bless 'em for doing that because probably absolute shouldn't just let anybody in. I don't know about that four hour time length thing there. Yeah. But yes, it's good that they did have the, the, so you'd have to attend a workshop and you'd get like a different colored wrist spend based on what they'd seen you complete, and then you could attend further things.

Georg: But all the sessions were packed. I mean, the tents were always full. We, we ranged past there several times and there was lots and lots of shoes out the front.

Didn't hear anything,

Vida: hear anything?

Georg: No. No. A lot of the stuff was, uh, nonverbal. A lot of a.

Nina: It's a nonverbal sex camp.

Georg: Wow.

Nina: Sorry. That's delight.

Vida: I don't, I don't understand.

Nina: I don't either.

Georg: It's like a marriage things, verbal without sex. But anyway,

Vida: the opposite.

Georg: It's the opposite. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stevan: [01:27:00] Well there was some, uh, there was some community controversies and, and learnings added from these, from this year's bla as well.

Let's, um, introduce a new segment where we can all play along and, and talk about some of these topics. So, so this new segment I'm gonna introduce is called burnier than thou. Oh, I remember, I remember hearing this, uh, this, this, this sentence, burnier than thou first time. And I thought, well, how does this apply to our communities?

You know? Uh, it's, it's like the holier than thou, right? So we're all morally superior without judgment and thoughts. So the first kind of topic maybe we can talk about is, are foreigners or backpackers? Ruining. Blazing swan. Oh my god. That was something that came up.

Nina: So I find this, I saw that you put that on the thing and I find it particularly hilarious given you're a foreigner.

I'm a foreigner. We met via blazing swan because you ran a camp specifically geared towards backpackers slash foreigners slash couch. Surfers slash. [01:28:00] Whoever might be in Perth and hasn't heard of this thing and might wanna go and do this thing and you started a camp to support them when they don't have like, you know, tents or food or whatever.

So I thought it was really interesting that you were putting that up because we both joined this as dirty foreigners. You're right. Well, let's, let's feedback.

Vida: I don't wanna come across as racist to you guys, guys, but I'm gonna say that neither of you're French. I was waiting for you to say French. Someone had to mention that there is a massive

Stevan: French German. Yep.

Nina: Oh, German. You haven't been Stevan. You haven't been. It's French. It's French. It's French. It's French. For the past two years it's just French, French, French, drowning, and French. There is a love, and I find this also hilarious because I speak fluent French and I saw such a difference this year and last year because yes, both years were inundated with Frenchies.

But last year every single French person I spoke to was, sorry, a cunt. And this year, every single French person I [01:29:00] spoke to was delightful. And I am a data point of one, but I have a theory that the French, the cohort has rolled over. We have a new crop. I like these French. I want to keep them.

Vida: Okay, well what about the French theme camp that just didn't roll up?

Nina: Sorry, who was that?

Stevan: No limit

Vida: Healing Island. Oh dude, they didn't show, did they, were they French? They didn't even roll up. They got 50 band camp tickets. No, they totally didn't show. And they hired a stretch in, they got a stretch plan put up for them. They got the thing, did they Money that didn't come. Wow.

That's, have we put them in the black book? They're definitely in the black book. Okay.

Half of them rocked up, but then, you know, their lead wasn't there and they, none of their stuff was there. And they just ended up randomly camping, in general camping because Wow. Their theme camp [01:30:00] leaders didn't arrive.

Nina: All right, I'll retract my, all the French were lovely, but, well I mean

Vida: those guys weren't there, so,

I dunno.

But some of them, but

Nina: to be more silly, I do think this like Vida's, right? It's been an inundation of French for two years now, but I think this whole discussion is just not racist, but just a bit bullshit. Like, so you're foreign, so you're backpacker, so you're whatever. Have you been here for 13 years?

Like me or your whole life like NamLay or you know, are you just off the boat? Are you moving here on a visa of some sort or are you literally just backpacking through, are you a foreigner who came from a country where you've been to the Nevada Regional for 12 years running and you wanted to come to Blaze, but ooh, got your French.

Like you can't lump all this together. And I think the main problem is burgeon, not foreigners or frenchies or backpackers or whatever. It's burgeon.

Vida: Absolutely. Like some of the, but, but that, even that being said, like some of [01:31:00] the, uh, people that volunteered in the kitchen and DPW and and came from the beginning were all first time burners that now changed their life.

Really generalized. You're actually, it's not even,

Nina: it's

Georg: comes up people that are on outside of our tent. I mean, it, it can't help but leave a sour taste. Yeah.

Nina: Have you been to France? Toilet etiquette is different. It's not their fault.

Georg: No, I understand that. I know, but we all know where toilets are. I mean, bloody hell, it's no, honestly, the French don't, doesn't like

Nina: God intended.

I love France. Pee outside as God intended.

Vida: Have they got different signs for like when, like for toilets or something over there that aren't little? They have a lot more open air toilets.

Stevan: You [01:32:00] make a, you make an interesting point. I mean, our signage is mainly in symbols or, or English, right?

Nina: No, it, it's in symbols.

Fine. It's symbols. It's pretty fucking clear.

Georg: You, you've got more toilets this year than I've ever seen at any other blaze. You've done Well, there's toilets, bloody everywhere. There's no reason. Yeah. There's no reason to pee on a tent. I mean, that's just disgusting. No,

Nina: there is no reason to pee on at tents.

I am pro peeing outside, but not on other people's possessions.

Georg: I mean, there's people peeing on the fence, I guess. Don't have a problem with that.

I mean, if I, I saw one person peeing at a fence. It was literally 10 meters away from the toilet block. I mean, how lazy are you?

Nina: Yeah, I'm pretty lazy. I so Vida's. Right. You know, it's not just burgeon. I take that back, but I don't know that there's any way to differentiate when somebody just buys a ticket between No, I know.

Because a lot [01:33:00] of people on the page have suggested, oh, we bring back the burner profile. Have you been to a burn before, blah, blah, blah. Yep. And I just think that's, I think it's quite gatekeeping and I also don't think it would achieve the goal. Like there are, we all know there's some people who been to blaze 10 times who are still kind of cty.

Georg: Well, on, on my first blaze, Nina, there was a greeter who, uh, you know, wound down our window and said, have you got enough water to last you five days? Yeah. And I said, yeah, we've got 200 liters of water. I mean, they went through a checklist of things and I don't, I haven't been greeted since, because we always get in early now.

But I, I would like to, we still do that. We're still asking these basic questions.

Nina: They still do that. Yeah. The gate, the gates still. And people still come in. Yeah. Yeah. They still do that. People still come in. I remember place and I, I didn't know what the hell was happening without food. I mean, I didn't, because I've all my, don't they, but, well, they manage it by sping or being nice people or somehow.

I just don't think there's any way to differentiate who's gonna be a [01:34:00] nice community member and who's gonna piss on somebody's tent until, until you see them.

Georg: Well, when four people rock up,

Vida: I'm with better profiles. You know, I wouldn't mind if I

Nina: Oh no, I'm okay with that as well. I just don't think it would solve the whole problem.

Vida: No, but, but if we ever do get to the point where we are selling out, which we're not in any threat of that at the moment, because technically we can get up to 5,000 people on the site that we've got.

Georg: Wow.

Vida: Um, so we've got so much room to grow, so we don't need to be picky. But as we, as we mentioned earlier, we really liked the event where it was only 1500 people and it was on the crew as well.

Georg: Yep, yep.

Vida: Depending on yet again, long-term strategic planning of what we actually want to happen with this event and who we wanna be there and all of that thing.

Nina: But it's exactly that. And that's what you said before about each one. Teach one, each one teach one is fabulous. Each one teach 12 is unsustainable.

Vida: Yeah.

Nina: And there's not historically been appetite from the organizers to [01:35:00] do strategic planning, long-term growth, et cetera. If somebody were to actually do that, that would be great. And if they were to consider, perhaps we should cap the number of newbies. The ratio of newbies to previous attendees. I think that would fix a lot of it.

And I don't care who those newbies are. They can be disgusting French backpackers, they can be delightful. French backpackers, they can be whoever. But if you capped newbies to to old ft, you know, I think it would be a lot easier to onboard.

Vida: Yep. That's a good point. Or little, well, I can making this

Nina: point in public for 10 years and nobody listens to me, so I'm done now.

Vida: Yeah. Well if the committee time, I'm sure they would like to long term strategic plan, but I feel like I, that's always the problem.

Georg: Yeah.

Nina: There is no time. I'm not blaming, there's never enough committee, there's never enough

resources, you know? All right. I'm blaming the committee, but I'm not really blaming the committee.

There's never enough time. And then you end up with this, you know, NamLay like clearly touched a button for me at least. Yeah. But like this subject comes up every year and it will come up forever. Mm-hmm. Because there's never [01:36:00] time to address it.

Vida: Yeah, true stories.

Stevan: Okay, so, so foreigners are, are ruining blazing swan,

Nina: not what I said.

Stevan: Let's move on.

Vida: Oh, also I wanted to mention the other type of burnier than thou of the now vowel foreigners. Ooh. Which are foreigners that come from other burns that think they're other than you because they've been to all types of other burns and they come, can I say something? See our little West Australian burn and go, we down do everything so good And I've never been, can say something inflammatory and think they know more than you.

That is another version of burnier than thou

Nina: I wanna say something super inflammatory because you annoyed me earlier, Stevan. I'm just gonna say Halcyon,

Stevan: right? Okay.

Nina: Because I met him and yeah.

Georg: Wow. But they don't, what about co They don't get showers and power in any of these other burns, do they? I mean, we're really spoilt.

Nina: Yeah. But kiwi burn gets a river and forest bathing.

Georg: No, no. I underst. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's true. Forest bathing. But the big [01:37:00] burn, there's no river there.

Nina: No, I think you're right though.

Vida, you get people in who've like been to the Nevada Regional Yes. Said it three times, um, 15 times or whatever, and they're like, oh, hmm.

Vida: But we at back over there. We do it like this. We do it like this, we do it like that. You're like, you're here now and this is how we do it.

Nina: They're just different things, right? They're just different things. Like, like Stevan um, sent me all sorts of fascinating articles about different burns in Asia and some of them I look and I'm like, oh no, that's not a burn. But that's just me being burner than thou, like everybody does it their own way,

Vida: of course. Hmm.

Stevan: Well how about cultural appropriation always comes up every year as well.

Nina: Um, I dunno if it did this year, did we escape that this year?

Someone was disgruntled, um, because they saw some people who they thought were costuming in [01:38:00] Kafi. As as, um, it was unclear. The person who posted thought that they were culturally appropriating and being offensive to Arabs, and a number of commentators thought that they might just have been like, showing support.

And I, I stopped reading at that point.

Vida: Oh, I didn't, I didn't actually come across any of that this year. I thought it was minimal in regards to, you know, the South American headdresses and the, you know, but I mean, how far does that go again? Like the Egyptians in God said no. Like,

Nina: well, there is one actually the same camp lead of God said no, hilariously is actually Egyptian.

Vida: Oh yeah. Karim.

Nina: Which I find so appropriate.

Vida: That's fairly culturally appropriate.

Nina: That's, he is, he is not appropriating, he is actually Egyptian.

Georg: You might say it's Faro enough. Mm-hmm. Not

Nina: George. Man. You'd made it this far. I think it won.

Vida: Yeah. Good one.

Nina: It should. [01:39:00]

Stevan: Well, how about this one, Georg? The, the, the photography and consent?

So you, you mentioned the, the, uh, naked shoot, um, that was fully consented amongst everybody. Yeah. There.

Just consent in general with photography and with technology. I mean, it's pervasive now. I mean, think about in, in 10 years time, it, it wouldn't have to be just a, you know, a square or rectangle object. It would be a wearable, you know, glasses or something.

Georg: People are wearing glasses. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

Nina: My impress, like the appropriation of culture is that it was better this year than in previous years, but I also didn't spend a lot of time in sun camps this year. So I, I've heard things about non-consensual photography that didn't. I, I think theme camps are cracking down on it more, which is great, but I don't, I mean, you're right Steven, I don't know how you police that.

I also think maybe people think team a bit too far think done pretty well

Vida: in that space a little bit as well. And like putting some signing, like we have taken a few [01:40:00] steps and done some pre-event posts on all the socials and we've got an actual consent team now that are running workshops during the event, you know, telling people about this stuff.

And yeah, you're right, theme camps are cracking down and everyone, uh, each one's teaching one. And like, uh, when I was talking to Gareth today, he was saying our fire lead, he was saying, yeah, it was amazing this year. There was so much less of that. So yeah, I really think it's been better. Yeah, it's definitely the word's getting out those big signage screens this year were pretty cool too.

Like they're kind of just reminding people, just reminding people about some of the key stuff.

Georg: Well, I was up early every morning and what I thought was delightful was that a lot of the general camping people were up really early as well, taking photographs of, um, art installations and cars and, and, and lovely buildings when there was no one around.

Oh, that's, whereas in previous, previous, um, burns, [01:41:00] people would just, they would literally have their, uh, phone or their camera with them and they would take photographs of everything with people around it. So, yeah, this year, even in the, if you community community group on Facebook, there's so few photos taken where there's actually people who don't, like, they wanna be photographs being photographed.

So I think, I think it improving. I think we're learning.

Stevan: And do you guys have special wristbands for people who don't wanna be taken photos taken?

Georg: Well, funny should say, at our NIST club, we've got, um, you know, the wristbands, if you're wearing a wristband, that means that the, the club photographer can take photos of you.

So Yeah. And if you're not wearing a wristband, you just can't appear a photographer photograph you. Right.

Vida: That's actually dropped off as a, as a, um, as a thing. It's too kind of, I guess, hard to manage as a preregister. I don it would work thing and, you know, yeah. Like, just

Nina: so kiwiburn did it for a while where you don't have to pre-register, you just, everybody's [01:42:00] given one at the gate.

And then if you're feeling it in the moment, you can stick on the, feel free to photograph me wristband. And then if you're not feeling it, you can take it off. And I like that, but I don't, I don't know, I don't think it's a perfect solution and I don't dunno that it would work in a crowd. No. Yeah. I dunno the key it, I dunno that it actually works that well.

Stevan: And the reasoning behind no photos on the dance floor. Some theme camps have adopted that,

Nina: um, F cos did that. I think koasis did that as well, but I don't know if anybody else did. And they sounded like that worked. But then I've also heard pushback from people who were like, I'm here with my friends, I have their two faces in the shot.

Why the fuck can't I take a photo of my best night ever on your dance floor? So I, I don't know how to fix that.

Vida: Yeah. Yeah. It's a hard one for you.

Stevan: Mm mm Okay. And let's talk about the naked hippie run. So had a, had a few [01:43:00] confusions. Are there any way we can actually improve this, this, uh, tradition?

Georg: Yeah.

Make it compulsory. Yeah. Everyone should get out there. Everyone should do it. George, you said you don't do it.

Vida: It was my cold, busy George. Uh, it's fucking freezing.

Georg: If everyone did it. It's not exhibitionism. It's just participation then.

Nina: Yeah. But now you're violating my consent. You don't tell me when to get naked.

Vida: Yeah.

Georg: Um, no, you, you turned up at one of our nude shoots and you very helpfully held people's clothes. And you

Nina: I did. I just made friends with George and his delightful wife, and I loved them as human beings, and I accept their lifestyle and they do not accept my lifestyle wearing quotes. And so we had a lot of debate over this, and they're on board now.

Um, but they invited me to the nude photo shoot and I was like, well, that's cool, but I'm not getting naked. And they were like, oh, well. And I was like, well, that's cool. I'm not coming. Um, so I did, I rock top and I, I was the Ong bitch, so I handed out [01:44:00] ONGs to all of the naked people after their photo shoot and I think we all enjoyed it.

Vida: Well, on that note, there has been talk about getting coat racks and having, if someone wanted to give, oh God, I saw that. A coat racking system to the newie rum, that would be super helpful in making them.

Nina: Can you imagine? I saw and I was like,

Vida: exactly. What is that?

Nina: I saw that post and I like adorable. Good for you.

Have fun. Don't talk to.

Vida: I mean, yeah. That was what high every people should be, I experienced because everybody's co for being Jack at the, at the door run. Exactly like I experienced this year at, as the event manager at the nudity run, people not being able to find their clothes. Yeah. Afterwards getting really cold, getting hypothermia, having to end up in medical because they couldn't find their clothes and got really cold and were having too much fun and couldn't get back to their camp at the other end of general camping, and therefore were freezing their tits off and that became a bad experience for [01:45:00] them.

So yeah. You know, in, in regards to coat rack, that might be a nice thing. Or just someone of all had a blanket, a spo to the people that couldn't find their clothes.

Nina: If I ever have the spoons, I will again volunteer myself as like clothes holder for the naked people.

Vida: Yeah. Sounds like.

Stevan: Okay. So that settles.

We've gotta run anti-clockwise then. All Or your naked hippies hip. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that just confuse It'll get you warm clockwise. Yeah,

Nina: they were too hot because the perimeter was too close then they were too cold because they couldn't find their clothes. Like, you can't help everybody.

Stevan: All right. So that's, that's the, that's the segment burnier than thou.

Uh, let's talk about some, some travel tips. The Kulin township. Uh, it takes four hours to get there. What should people go and see and do there? Well, some travel tips. Well,

Nina: so many things.

Vida: Well, there's a couple of things. [01:46:00] Um, water slide number one feature and the beautiful story of the water slide and the cooling community and why we love them so much.

They're like a proper community. So the, the community actually fundra fundraised themselves, uh, to get the money doing a bunch of different events and stuff in the schools and stuff to get the money together. And then a bunch of them traveled over to Queensland to buy this water slide, packed it up into a shipping container, shipped it back, brought it to cool and built it in the aquatic park.

And that's now like the coolest thing in town to do. Um,

Nina: and it's the largest water slide in regional Western Australia. Yeah. And so, I'm not kidding. Like I actually think this is super cool.

Vida: It so cool. And I love how town. They're like a community, like our Blaze community. Like they all come [01:47:00] together to do random shit, like by a water slide or, you know, we come together to do random shit like put on blazing swaps.

So, you know, that's why we fit there. But yeah, so we'll, we'll do that. It, it's only open until the end of March, so if it's a late blaze, you might not make it to go to the water slide. Um, but yeah, we, if it's an early blaze, we often do that when we're building site on days off, go out there and, um, spend the afternoon on a day off, having a bit of fun at the water slide

and yeah.

Nina: And as soon as you hit Kulin you can stop at the pub. You can stop at the IGA. They always stock up for us. Then you take the right hand turn, you pass the water slide and then what happens? Vida?

Vida: You hit the tin horse highway, yeah. Um, again, another community venture as part of that excellent town where every year at the Kulin and Bush races, which is the one other event that happens on our site.

They

Stevan: have, has any one of you guys been,

Vida: I [01:48:00] haven't, I can't believe I haven't, but I haven't,

Nina: I can't believe I haven't either. It's always a bad weekend.

Georg: The problem is it sells out in like an hour. You just, it's really hard to get a ticket. So

Vida: six minutes last year.

Georg: Um, so no, you can't get in. Yes, you can get in if you volunteer. Yeah. Like our, our, our team cam leader, he, he volunteers, he, uh, he cleans, he waits at tables and he cleans the toilets afterwards. So, uh, he gets a discounted ticket.

Nina: Does he go every year?

Georg: Yep. Yep. He loves it. He wants to get us out there too.

Yeah, he, he's, he wants to sell his house in Albany. And how loves

Nina: that doesn't, he would do.

Georg: Yeah.

Vida: Every year at the, they have the competition for the best tin horse and then whoever. And so everyone in the community gets [01:49:00] together, makes all these crazy different types of horses. And then, um, whoever the judging

Nina: have to make sense

Vida: of it. Yeah. Like outta a 44 gallon jump is the usual bags. Yeah. Like

Nina: they're big.

Vida: Yeah. Big guys. So the winner

Nina: of, so you drive down the highway to the site and you can see them in the patterns.

Vida: Yeah. I mean there's all sorts, isn't there? They, they did a sparkle pony in, in order of us this year's new one was, um, was re Reagan the break dancer. Oh God. That's, you've got the cops, you've got everything out there.

But whoever wins the Bush races, tin horse competition gets their horse on the highway, which is so fun. And yeah, there's even a little mini water slide as it coming into town. So yeah. That's the best, best little scenic tour out to our site.

Nina: But there's other stuff as well, like, like, so those are the things that happened on the way to the actual site.

But like, it's only an hour from Wave Rock, which is one of the most impressive things I've seen in Australia. Um, so [01:50:00] I've, I've known people who've been like, oh my God, I've been at Blaze for four days and they've literally paid for a car pass out to go to Wave Rock, see wave, rock climb, wave rock, eat at the pub and come back because it's really quite close.

Vida: Yeah.

Nina: There's a cool shit out there on the way.

Vida: And then is it the bin op shop? Everyone goes on about that. Apparently it's the best regional op shop in WA as well. It's an hour drive.

Nina: But uh, I would debate that because the op shop in, uh, bowing up is the best op shop on earth.

Vida: I reckon you might have run for your money.

I reckon you'd have

might. have to give it a crack next time

Nina: saying this woman, this woman who runs it is the grumpiest I've ever met. And she'll let you rock up to her op shop. She'll give you a bag and she will say, you may fill this bag for $2.

Georg: Wow.

Nina: Will not be nice about it, but like brilliant hop shop.

Vida: Well, yeah.

Same with the Rabin one. Like if you get there, [01:51:00] okay. I think it's only Saturday mornings or one particular morning a week. But if you get there at the right morning of the week, yeah, you got the garbage bag two feel vibe. So yeah, you're gonna give

that a crack.

Nina: I'd also like to shout out the KO Roadhouse wing dings.

They're the second best in the state.

Vida: I'd say their sausage rolls are up there with the best as well.

Nina: I don't think I've had the sausage rolls. They're fried chickens. Okay. But they're wing dings, which they're always fucking out are the second based best in this entire state, which is the.

Vida: Oh, what else goes on in town? Uh, um, we could talk about the, the pub's great. There's a number of people come, they do a good surfing turf.

Nina: There's people who come from Kulin who've been attending Blaze for the entirety of Blaze, and some of them actually run like fundraisers in town. Like do you remember when the, the, uh, primary school kids made steampunk hats and sold them to all the blazers?

Vida: Yes. So [01:52:00] cute. That's so cute. So cute.

Nina: They were doing a fundraiser for the primary school, so they spent all year making steampunk hats and then when the Blazers rolled through on the way to the event, you could go buy like, you know, a bit for your costume.

Vida: Hmm. Hell yeah. That's cute. Yeah. Why don't they still do that?

I mean there's, you know, I dunno,

Nina: I don't think they've done the steam punk in a few years.

Georg: I think there's only four kids in the school.

Nina: There might be that

Vida: they get a lot of money outta our rubbish then.

Nina: Well, but yeah, that's true. They also, they come out and on the last day of blaze when everybody's exodus, they run um, a gold coin donation and they take all our fucking trash away, so Yeah.

Less cooling.

Vida: Yeah, so good. I think this year we raised $9,000 for the local primary school in doing. Oh, that's great. Um, they do a little sausage sizzle as well, but they charge a donation rub.

Just another [01:53:00] little thing we do with the community is, um, they run that and then this year, after all costs I think, yeah, they came, they come up with about 9,000 towards the school, so that's pretty awesome.

Stevan: That was collecting cans and the bottles?

Vida: Well, no, the cans and bottles is a separate thing

by the Lions Club.

And Lions Club. Also the arts, the community arts. What, what's Aaron's thing called? It's Aaron's Art Center. The Kulin Center? Yeah, the Kulin

Georg: Arts.

Kulin Arts,

Vida: yeah. Kulin. And Arts Network. That's it.

Nina: But the trash collection is different. They just set up a thing at the gate and you can gold coin or if you're going to dump something larger, more money.

Um, but it's a donation and so they'll take, you know, your garbage bags or if you wanna dump a, like, maybe not a couch, but you know, larger items, um, they'll take that over, not to the tip, but to the actual dump point. And then they raise that money for the primary school?

Vida: Yeah.

Stevan: Yeah. For a small towns, for a small community.

They [01:54:00] actually do a lot.

Vida: They're

Nina: really active. Yeah, I think so.

Vida: Amazing.

Nina: And a lot of them come out like a whole, like some years, I swear the whole town's fucking there. Um, because they can do like a cheaper day pass just to come out Saturday. If they wanna like bring the kids or just themselves and just see the aig, they can do like a cheaper day pass.

Vida: Yeah, we do locals tickets, shi and.

Stevan: As well as the local ambos and local cops.

Vida: Oh, absolutely. Like we've got, yeah, I just can't, I can't actually go on enough about how supportive the town is of our event. Like local cops are amazing. Like the little meetings that, um, myself and a couple of committee go out to pre-event, we usually do two pre-event meetings with the cops, the council, the ambos, the firies, um, and the bush racers and the [01:55:00] landowners.

We kind of all get together a couple of times a year before the event just to kind of workshop everything and talk about everything and all the nicest feedback. The meetings are always really great and, but they always, yeah, it's a constructive conversation and they're really a part of it, so we're really lucky to have that kind of, uh, support in the community like that, but amazing.

Georg: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Was, was it just my, um, observation or was there more police presence this year? We seemed to get the, um, the, the, the warnings that police were on site every single day was, um, incredible.

Vida: Well, the thing about our event is it's the most interesting thing that happens in the wheat belt.

Yeah. Everyone wants to come and have a look. So basically all the cops around the area are kind of interested to come and have a look and see [01:56:00] how it runs. We've got a really good reputation for how we run things. So yeah, they, they come, they have a look. We, we called them a couple of times because we needed them.

Georg: Mm-hmm.

Vida: And they're there for us like that, so.

Georg: Okay.

Vida: That, that's cool. Um, a couple of times they just came to check it out, see how it was going. But from my point of view, as the event manager, they're, they're on our side. Like they're not, we need them. And if they're there, it's kind of, it's good. Makes people think, okay, this, as much as we like to escape into our own world, that there are a few idiots every time that need to see that there's still reality.

Like if, you know, keep behave yourselves, people, there's still, there's a bit of reality of the background going on, you know, so I, I actually enjoy their presence.

Nina: Yeah. I get to, I also enjoy their presence and I've kind of made it a point over the past, maybe, maybe like [01:57:00] seven, eight years to every event I always wanna talk to.

Um, 'cause bla hires medics usually, and they hire security usually. And obviously the cops come by sometimes and I always make it a point to go talk to them when I can find them. It's.

Every security guy I've ever spoken to, ablaze has said, this is the easiest job he's ever worked. And he will come back every single year until he's not allowed anymore because they love it. Yeah. Uh, the medics generally say the same. The cops say the same. They're like, sure, we need to call them sometimes.

And, and they're always really decent and competent about it, but they just love it. They're like, there's no agro, there's no whatever. I just get to watch, you know, naked hippies having a good time. Yeah. Everybody's friendly. People come up to chat to them. Like some of them are a bit overwhelmed, particularly to like trainee medics.

Yeah. Um, but they just love it. And I, I love to see that it's making them happy on their job.

Vida: Yeah. Well, the cops actually said [01:58:00] to me during the event this year, um, over this Easter weekend, you guys are less of a concern to us than everyone in town. Like they, they're like, you guys are less of a strain on us than town has been.

You know, like they're like

Nina: in the Kulin town of 500 people.

Vida: Yeah, exactly. It's like six times as many of you guys out here, but town's causing more trouble than you guys. Cool. That's nice.

Nina: And then I have, yeah,

Stevan: that's the wish.

Nina: Yeah. I mean, I hope Kulin Okay, but go us.

Stevan: I think one, one thing they do see is not just the event or the festival itself, they also see the, you know, behind how there's a community, how there's a, a, a professional team. You know, like, although we're all volunteers and we're not, this is not what we, uh, what we do outside, but, uh, they can understand how we all [01:59:00] come together.

Nina: I think that's a factor of a number of committees and a number of people like Vida having spent many, many, many years building a relationship with that town and with the cops out there and so forth. I think they, at this point, and I'm just saying this again as an outside observer, but I think at this point they, they trust this event.

Yeah. And it's not just some new thing that rolled in and they're like, oh, I don't know about you people, how you run this. Like, I think they, they generally press blaze to be better, brought in, better organized, and create less drama than, than other events.

Stevan: And building that history and the, the whole reputation is, is immense as well.

Nina: Mm. It takes years. Mm.

Vida: But again, that's why I love Kulin because they're their own little community. They kind of understand ours a little bit more than maybe another town,

Nina: maybe other towns wouldn't have, wouldn't be this way. Maybe it's just that's really special.

Vida: Yeah.

Stevan: Okay, let's, let's end by by by talking about [02:00:00] why Blazing Swan? Why do you guys love it? What do you guys return, what do you guys do? What you guys do? Because

Nina: Perth sucks ass, and it was the first place I found cool people.

Stevan: But the difference between the other birds, like the Eastern State Burn and Blazing Swan, it's unique.

What's the magic behind it? I mean, obviously you guys and everyone else.

Vida: I think so. I mean, for me, like Nina says that she'd never met cool people in Perth. Sucks ass. But I've lived here all my life and I've met so many cool people, but in all different places and times and stuff. When Blazing Swan happened, all of the cool people in different groups I've ever met, like all came together and they're in one place and I was like, oh, fuck yeah, that's sick.

This is where I wanna be. Like that. That was kind of like what made the magic for me. I hadn't seen people from my rave days at Amber when I was like, 20 were there and then whatever, you know, all these people

all came together.[02:01:00]

It.

You know, that's why I love it. And also, yeah, the comparison of after I went to Blaze, I was like, oh, I've gotta see the big burn. I've gotta see the big burn and you know, it's gonna be amazing. Have you been? Yeah, I've been twice now and like, I went, um, two 15 and two 17 after, you know, being exposed to blazing 2014.

But I've been twice like searching for more and just, I don't need to go anymore. We've got more than what, yeah. In my opinion, they have with our amazing community, with the facts that like you'll meet someone and you can actually see that person again and become lifelong friends and build something with them.

And whereas you're at Burning Man, you meet someone you'll never see them again. Like you have a,

Nina: that's a lot of the reason I haven't bothered gonna the big burn. I mean, there's the price and the logistics and the blah blah, but [02:02:00] like, I could go, I go to see my parents back in the States, but I, everyone who talks about it, the art's amazing.

I would love to see the art, but I don't wanna go to a place where I meet the most amazing person I've ever met. And then I like going to Blaze where I meet the most amazing person I've ever met. And I absolutely will run into them at some point during the week. I like our size. Yeah. I can't compare it to the East Coast burns because there's not been, I've only Kiwi burn and that was quite similar, but they're very different burns.

I don't, I like them in different ways.

Vida: Yeah, and we've got the rock and we've got the lake, like our landscape and um, the land that we're on, there's something so bloody special about that. Like it's just, especially if you're from Western Australia, like I'm just such a, a little wheat belt West Australian country girl that I just think

Nina: the, like I would the best.

That's like Kiwi landscape. I prefer that. I thought it was just so fucking [02:03:00] beautiful. And again, the forest bathing. Um, but I think the community of Blazing Swan is, is world class. I love that.

Yeah. I met George there.

Georg: You guys are all, how can I not come back to Blaze? It's where I met George and his lovely wife.

I was just gonna say, you guys, you guys are also unique. You've all had this history of gonna festivals and dos and things and, and so bla was just a progression. Blaze was our very first festival in 2016. I mean, look, I'm 66 and, and Blaze was what, nine years ago?

Nina: Do you mean any festival, like anything whatsoever?

Georg: Well, we went to like concerts and things, but nothing like Blaze. Nothing. Oh, no, no, no. Nothing overnight and nothing. Three or four days. Nothing. Five days. No. This is a very, very different experience. I mean, it's, it was literally life changing. You know, we, we, we go to Blaze. I mean, I'm, I'm in court every day of every day of the week when I'm working, but when you go to Blaze, it's like you've never lived before.

[02:04:00] You're meeting people and you're not arguing with people. They just. They're just, they're just all like us. I mean, it's just incredible.

Stevan: Now, George, you, you talked about Blaze having the space that really, you know, caters for you being a, uh, nudist or is there any other,

Georg: there's no other places or

Stevan: spaces? No,

Georg: no.

You have join, you guys belong to nudist? We go outta, we traveled to Brisbane to do a photo shoot on a bridge or we go to Queensland to, uh, you know, to spend a week in a, in a tropical paradise nudist resort. But these are all places that are set up for it. They're not like a community that welcomes people from all over the world and strangers.

Nina: You feel segregated?

Georg: Yeah, absolutely segregated. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I just love that people can come go to bla and you can be a musician. You can, you know, you can be a pothead, you can be any, anything you like, and you'll all come together and we'll all have something in common. And it's quite, quite a unique experience.

Nina: The lack of judgment, whoever was, you were saying this earlier. Exactly. Complete lack of [02:05:00] judgment

Vida: and the love of fire. Don't forget that.

Georg: Well, there's that too. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone loves to burn shit. I mean, we're all,

Stevan: well you guys also, um, restricted by, by, uh, the fire bans, right? Not really. What's the period?

What's the period? It's always period is, yeah, well that's thing a calendar.

Vida: The Shire and the council with our risk management plans and all the support we get from the firies and all the equipment we have on site to be able to put out a fire, we can actually get a, um, an out of season permit anyway, which is what we had to do last year because it was so early last year. So we actually do occasionally fall into, not total ban, but extended five ban period.

If it's [02:06:00] total fire ban, we got no chance, but that's only December through to February. But March and April, if it's extended, we can actually apply for a permit to be able to burn anyway and haven't been rejected yet. So we've only done that two or three times, but we have that flexibility. So as long as you got the right risk management strategies and paperwork in on that stuff, usually we can get around it.

Well we have so far

Nina: and there's certainly been years where the fire has been delayed because of weather or the burn has not happened because of inclement weather, but generally it's not been a problem. Or, or like this year our fire lead instituted you need a mesh top to your burn barrel. Um, 'cause some people had, had, had pushed the boundaries.

Um, but generally we can burn all the shit and that is definitely a selling point for me.

Vida: Yeah. We're pretty lucky. I'd like to see more pyro effects and flame throwers and all that cool stuff we [02:07:00] used to have a few years ago,

Nina: dude, I asked the the art car lead this year. He, he literally sent out a message like, what does everyone want to see from art cars?

And I was like, more fucking fire. Um, and he, he wrote me back because he's very professional and he was like, look, we're trying, there are rules and regulations. And I was like, I'm aware. Um, so, so had two these here that had some fire effects on the cars. Yeah, A fire tribe had fire tribe wanted to do a flame thrower off the front of the car, but I was talking to a girl who built it and they couldn't pull it off.

So maybe next year.

Vida: Yeah. Yeah. That'd be cool if we could get a bit more of that stuff happening. I miss Frankie's um, Frankie's thing with the big flavoring, what was it called? His art car. So cool.

Nina: Do you remember the year? What's his face? Brought the trebuchet and he flung Oh yeah. Flaming cannon balls into the salt lake.

Vida: Yeah.

Georg: Wow.

Nina: It was amazing. I saw these [02:08:00] flaming balls of cannon ball being flung into something. So clearly I walked across the paddock to go see what in the fuck was happening. And I met him, uh, what's his name? His name, lovely guy and like Iche. And I was like, yes, yes you have, do you help?

And he was like, he gave me some flame retardant gloves and he was like, I'm going to keep Flemming flaming balls of fuck knows what into the lake and you can go retrieve them for me. And I was like, great. Okay. It was like the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

Yeah. That maybe that's why I keep coming back to Blaze in the hopes that Colin will return with the trebuchet.

Vida: Oh babe, Colin passed away now.

Nina: I know. It's never gonna happen again. Hopefully someone, he was lovely.

Vida: He was, he was a legend.

He also now has a street named after him.

Nina: He does. That's right. That was

Stevan: cool. [02:09:00] Okay, so we also have dates for recom, the decompression party.

Nina: The Recombobulation?.

Stevan: Yeah. That was just announced today I saw.

Yeah,

Nina: yeah,

Vida: yeah.

Stevan: It's uh, what is it, August? No Eptember.

Vida: 23rd of August, I think last August.

Stevan: 23rd of August. Yeah.

Vida: 23rd of August. And usually that's when they announced the theme for next year as well. So that is when we shall await watch Blazing Swan 2026 as in store for us.

Stevan: Isn't there more exploding styles in the universe?

Georg: There always. Is there always doing that. Yeah.

Stevan: There always. Right?

Georg: There's

Nina: also always bats.

Georg: Yes. Bat country. Is it country or county? That country.

Nina: Country. Have you not seen the movie

Georg: Bat Country?

Vida: He just thought it was some bats floating around in Infinite Loop. I

Nina: said movie. Have you not read the book?

Georg: I live with a, I live with a bat.[02:10:00]

Nina: So George's wife's, um, player name is Bat Thing.

Vida: Oh yeah, of course. Yeah.

Stevan: Okay, so let's do some shout outs. Uh, any, um, you guys got any particular shout out you wanna mention?

Nina: I, I do. I didn't pressure you because I really didn't want you to ask the question. Who was the B dj? However, there was a best DJ set I saw, and it was big dread reggae abode.

Sorry, not abode. Ama Big dread. Reggae ama more, more, more reggae. It was epic. He's such a good dj. He's such a nice guy. That set was fucking gold. We went on purpose. I miss Twisted Job more Ed Blaze. That's my shout out.

Vida: Hell yeah. Well, I'm just gonna shout out. Shout out who again? Absolutely nailed a chairperson of the organization.

Total bloody legend and the rest of the committee, um, absolute [02:11:00] legends for everything they do and working all year round. I'm also gonna shout out to a rumor for taking me out on the keg turtle for my night off. I'm gonna shout out to KU for Always being My So Tribe. I'm gonna shout out to my best mate, Holly, for coming to site the day we landed till the day we left to support me.

Um, and all the other legends, um, that were there for the whole time for setup. And pat down.

Nina: I'd like to add Louis gave the best post blaze congratulatory speech to the crew, the theme camps, the whatnot at like the event is over dinner that I've ever heard because I have never heard a human being say Fuck more than me.

He's good at that. It was glorious. He's, he is really good at, um, stirring the troops. I don't know how to phrase it. He, he is really good at motivating people and, and valuing people, and it was a really nice speech and he [02:12:00] did say fuck more than I do.

Vida: Yeah.

Georg: Well, I'd like to give a shout out to, uh, a peer of guys who, uh, I'd never spent much time with, uh, at bla um, Ollie and, uh, and Admiral, we, they took me, they took me on a, uh, midnight shift with them while they were cruising around.

Looking after, uh, after people after the event had shut down. And those two are the, uh, the most compassionate, caring guys I've ever met in my entire life. The way they, uh, they dealt with situations where, uh, where people who were a little bit under the, uh, under the weather was, um, it was just heartwarming to see.

I I, I just saw a different side of these guys and on, I was in awe of their, uh, of their, their calmness and, and their empathy and their humanity was just lovely to say. And on the same note, uh, John Mack is another person who's, uh, who's of a similar, he's just a, a brilliant person. He loves Colin. He spent so much of his time away from, uh, from, from his family and home [02:13:00] and at cool and volunteering, doing all sorts of things.

It's just, I, I dunno how he does it. I dunno where he finds the energy all the time. But, uh, he's just an amazing human being. And my last shout out is to, is to Vida. I have so much, um, love and respect for all the work that Vida does. It wouldn't be a blaze without, uh, without vi I just see her everywhere cruising around in her little car, and she's just always busy and always, always, always where the action is.

Um, I just have my, my heart just warms every time I see vi I know, I know. I'm gonna be at a successful event.

Nina: Oh, can I, can I do one more? Do I get one more? Great. I'm having one more. I would love shout to George's wife. Who could not be with us tonight because she, um, had other plans. Uh, she gave a hundred billion percent at blaz this year.

She always does. She's a, she's on ranger ops. She's a black swan ranger. She gives other things. She attends my delightful event. She cares for everyone. She pushes herself further than she should, [02:14:00] and we will try to stop her doing that, um, because she cares so much. And she is just like, she's not even sappy sweet.

She's just the nicest SST most wonderful giving person on earth. You were lucky to have met her and I am lucky to have her as a friend and at and Abla.

Vida: Oh, yeah. Here, here. Yeah. She's an amazing, amazing black woman.

Georg: She'll love that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nina: She'll hate that and I don't care.

Stevan: Yeah. It takes a village to, to

Vida: It really does.

Georg: It really does. Yeah.

Vida: Yeah, I, I, I actually forgot about saying thank you and shouting out to all my other event managers that help me if I run that event. So thanks for reminding me about them. George. Absolute of legends.

Georg: Yeah. No, Tim was out and about too. He was doing a marvelous job's such every one of them.

Nina: You mean Tim fil with the broken ribs?

Georg: Yep.

Vida: Yeah. The [02:15:00] man's on, he broke his ribs after event management training when we all got a little bit, ran a camp and then he fell over his washing basket after manage training a month before the event. And then I had come to the event,

Nina: he message me something and I was bitching about something.

He was like, I'm sorry, I've been out. I broke my ribs. And I was like, oh, are you okay? I'm not gonna ask how you did that.

Vida: Yeah, wild that night. Anyway,

Nina: bless him.

Vida: Yes.

Stevan: So can we safely say that next year was better? Yes. Yeah, always. Well just keep on saying it full circle. It's gonna be true. Yeah. That's, thanks very much for coming on guys.

Thanks. Thanks, George. Thanks for inviting us.

Georg: Thanks [02:16:00] Steve.