Stevan: [00:00:00] Hello everyone, A big bonzaar welcome to everybody. Uh, this episode we will focus on the BoNZA. What is Bonza Bonza Community? It's background organization and the Bonza Summit. Uh, with me, I'm joined by Justin and Leanna. How you going guys?

Leanna: Hi. Hey guys. Hey, how are you,

Justin: Howie, folks?

Stevan: So let's, let's start with, it's talking about bonza.

What is bonza? So, I've actually did a bit of research and the term bonza, like it's a colloquial Australian word, term slang that means excellent or first rate. It also can be used as adjective noun. Adverb or interjection to express approval, enthusiasm, and or pleasure. So for example, Bonza mate, she's a ripper.

It usually means that it's uh, you know, it's everything's excellent, right?

Justin: Yeah,

Leanna: correct. Exactly.

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

Justin: It is an acronym, and it was Phil Smart who came up with that acronym in March [00:01:00] 2015.

Phil Smart.

Regional contact, burning Man Regional Contact. He is also was a director of the production entity that used to own and run Burning Seed, and we owe a lot to Phil Smart because he is the reason that Burning Seed started. So that's probably podcast all on its own.

Stevan: His name is very familiar. I haven't met Phil yet, but yeah, his name is very familiar.

Justin: Absolute champion of it, man. And I'll, I'll jump in if you don't mind and little bit of history about the name is that we, few of us have been having conversations in 2014 around some kind of entity that could encourage and support the new events coming online and the, and the wider communities. Not so much a summit.

Of the conversation, conversation. And Phil, I'll never forget, it was two days before I spent a weekend at the Blazing Swan Nest in Fremantle helping them their trucks or Blazing Swan that year. And he said to me on the [00:02:00] phone, oh, you know, you could call this thing bonza. I was like, huh. And he said, you know, burners of New Zealand, Australia.

And I, I just had this light bulb moment and um, so we can thank Phil, the name. However, that was a bit early, that idea of some kind of entity or association early, there weren't as many regional contacts or events happening at the time. So the idea for a summit, if I can jump to that second chapter, was in 2016, there used to be a thing between 2007 and 2017 called the GLC, the Global Leadership Conference.

And that brought burners, regional contacts, community leaders from around the world to San Francisco, was produced by a Burning Man project, four days of networking, listening to inspiring stories, um, workshops. And it was a smash hit. It started out with about, I think, 80 people, 2007, 2017. In its last year, [00:03:00] there were 700 people there.

However, it, my, uh, what I know is that it became too expensive, quite an expensive thing to run. Tickets were quite expensive for the participants, and, but it was gonna cost more to keep running them. So they put a hold on it.

Stevan: And this is all in-person,

Justin: this is all in person in San Francisco. I think in 2017, chip Conley, who is an ex-director of Burning Man project, he opened up one of his hotels to let them use the conference area.

So it was a, a bit cheaper for them, but quite inspiring anyone who went to it. Whether you are an artist, a regional contact, or you are an event coordinator for a regional burn. Came away with all of these contact, great networking opportunity and came away inspired. So after the 2016 conference, I was like, man, we, it'd be great for us to do something down here because it was rare for Australians to go there or Kiwis to go there.

So I reached out to all the regional contacts in Australia and New Zealand said, Hey, do you wanna do this? Why don't we have our own little Australia, New Zealand version of it, [00:04:00] A little summit and the, uh, Jared Taylor put his hand up. He's the Sydney RC at the time. And um, so we started working the phones and the emails and we got our New Zealand brothers and sisters on board Blazing Swan modifyre.

And in 2017 we had our first summit. There was 28 people here in Melbourne. It was, yeah, humble beginnings. But at the same time, I reached out to the regional network team at Burning Man and said, Hey, we're thinking of doing a summit here. Can I use your, you know, some Burning Man logos and stuff? And they said, oh, did you know that there's another five of them happening mainly in the state?

We'll put you in touch with them. So that next year in 2017, they also started a thing called the Local Leadership Event Organizers Group, and that's about 12 or 15 people. So. If you can bear with me, I'll just tell you how many of these summits there are around the world and there are, I left my notes in my car, so I'm jumping between things.

But there [00:05:00] is European Leadership Summit, which, um, that has about 200 people at it that is going to every two years now. There is the Southeastern Roundtable Cert, which is held down in the Carolina part of the world. So that's a few different states that get together. There's the multi-regional summit that's normally held around Tahoe, Sacramento, so.

Nevada burners and California burners. There's the Mid-Atlantic Leadership Conference. I'm not sure that's running anymore, and there's about three others that have happened and aren't still happy. There was an Asian burner summit that happened once in 2014, I believe, and that brought together burners and regional contacts.

They were in Taiwan that year. So there's a few of these summits that happen every year just like ours. It was, it was out. We weren't alone in our thinking

statement and facilitate dialogue. Skill sharing, knowledge exchange and [00:06:00] relationship building between burners artists, regional contact theme camp leaders, community leaders, and burner event org organizers across the burnerverse. So basically once a year, regional contacts from Australia and New Zealand, um, Southeast Asian rcs are also invited.

All of the endorsed burns in Australia and New Zealand are invited. And also the ones that aren't endorsed or or who don't have official status, they're also invited. And then community members. So come together for two days at the beginning of June and listen to presentations from fellow burners and network.

It's a great network in opportunity. But if I can go back a little bit to 20 16, 1 of the main drivers about it was collaboration was the end goal. And to get there, you need to be networking. Now, some of these people have known each other via social media or email or phone, but they've never met. So you, you know, we, people from Blazing Swan come over.

The crew from dragonburn China come down, then they get in a room with the kiwi burners. That's [00:07:00] you, you can't replace that type of in-person networking. And then out of that comes collaboration, comes knowledge exchange, comes sharing. So it's um, it's been a smash hit, I think. And I'll stop, I'll stop talking for a minute.

Let Leanna say something?

Leanna: No, I, I just have to piggyback off, um, what Justin said. I.

I guess, was it 2017 and um,

Justin: you came in 2017? Yeah. Yep, definitely.

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

Justin: Dito.

Stevan: So it's been a success in person.

Um, what about the online side of things? What are we looking to, to do with that?

Justin: Well

Leanna: be more specific.

Justin: Yeah.

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

Justin: Yeah, well, [00:08:00] I'll, I'll just jump in there, Leanna. So we had a couple of years, or three years, once COVID hit, we went online for summers.

Stevan: Mm.

Justin: And whilst it was nice to connect, I think everyone had Zoom fatigue, you know, in those few years in the Dark Ages. But the website that we've got, it's more of a holding space really. So it's got. Um, I'm gonna give, put it in the chat there so it can be shared. It's got all the information, it's got all the program guides, so each summit we hard copy or a PDF people have and it's got the names and the details of each person attending.

And then it's got a short blurb on each presentation and of course a timetable of the weekends goings on. And that is a great networking tool. I know that they used to do it the GLC in the early days, so you'd go home with this little booklet. It's got a photo, email address, contact of, you know, oh, there's Leanna, she's a regional contact.

Newcastle, I'm gonna be in Australia. I've gotta get in touch with her. So it's a great little networking tool and Memento we all love our bit of swag, but the website [00:09:00] kind of piggybacks on that idea. It's there if you wanna learn.

And at this stage we'll see where it goes. Perhaps it would become a portal for different events to lock into and, and share their, you know, pro, um, their event operations guides or, um, we do it this way. Here's our volunteer procedure, here's our gate procedure. That was, you know, a bit of a dream in the background.

But we're waiting to see, you know, let's get the networking happening happening consistently. Just, you know, the early days of the summit people came and went, yeah, really excited. Oh, I'm gonna give you an email. I need to, I'd love to learn about that. They'd come back the next year and go, Hey, no one replied to me.

Emails. That's not happening so much now. People, um, I. Appoint a liaison person for each event and each entity. And that person deals with all the other burns and entities and they share knowledge exchange and, and [00:10:00] skill share and such. But at this stage, the website is like a library. Leanna, what do you think?

Leanna: I, I was gonna say the same thing. So the website is and will become a more sort of fortified sort of library or database the. The gold is in the annual meeting. So everyone comes together, networking happens, connections are made, and that's where the real, you know, the good stuff is the, the sparkles, the, the magic, all that, like burner awesomeness happens in person because you're meeting leaders, leaders from other regions.

You're learning how they do things. You're talking about little curly things, snafus that happen in the background that, you know, the, the participants, the community members that come to these events aren't gonna know about. And you're learning from each other and you're adopting new stuff to become better.

You're gonna continue, uh, connecting with those people on your own sort of [00:11:00] personal threads throughout the year. It's not gonna necessarily be through us. We're just a, the bonza and website is, is a repository. The network is the live and dynamic thing.

Justin: Yeah, I like to think of it as a, uh, a library.

Leanna: I like that.

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

Leanna: Tasmania. Yes,

Stevan: yes.

Leanna: Amazing. So those legends, uh, they all joined us this year at bonza and provided such an amazing, I don't know, everything. They gave us an overview of the event, uh, energy overview of the event from, they also like from the beginning of their org. And it [00:12:00] was super fresh and really, really inspiring. So we can't wait to see what happens next.

In Tasmania, we've got a lot of really amazing humans who are doing incredible things.

Stevan: And what, what were the other organizations that, um, participated?

Justin: I'm just trying to find my, in my notes list.

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

So we had Boss, we had mod, uh, we had the Melbourne, Melburners and then I guess PACT puts on the tassie burn. So there was a little bit of separation but not separation there as well.

Justin: Yeah. Look, we have a pretty, a reasonably strict invitation [00:13:00] policy, and that's because we wanna capture, we wanna get a balance between the community leaders and the event leaders, because otherwise it, it could go very event focused.

And we want to hear, you know, from the theme camp people, we wanna hear from people that are doing, you know, burners without Borders type stuff out there in the community. So the events that are invited are pact. People, arts Collective from Tasmania, uh, Melburners, who are the, um, entity puts on the Melbourne Decompression under land through common arts Victoria.

So as I read these out, you'll notice that some are endorsed events.

From, um, Marian in San Francisco. So we've got Underland, we've got Kiwi burn, which is the longest running burn outside of the usa.

Yep. Ragland burners. That's been around, wow. I could say at least 10 years. Very small, maybe 150 people in Ragland, [00:14:00] New Zealand, Northern Burn, another burn that happens in New Zealand on the North island.

They're getting official status this year. Ignition another burn in New Zealand capital, uh, sorry. Canberra Incendiary Authority, which is the Canberra burners. They have a little solstice burn every year. There's boss from Sydney, burners of Sydney and surrounds burning seed. Uh, then you've got third degree New South Wales, blazing Swan, Western Australia, modifyre Queensland and dragon burn from China.

So we, there's quite a few events there. Some are official, some are not official. And so they're the event invitations and they get sent 70 invites each and they get to invite whoever they want. Could be board members, could be a team lead crew member, and then each regional contact from around new gets to, so get this, this balance between.

Event organizers and community leaders. So that's who makes up the [00:15:00] delegates.

Stevan: Hmm. Can we also talk about the collaboration with Burners Without Borders?

Justin: Yeah. So for your, listen to the listeners out there in the Burner verse, burners Without Borders, we're gonna put a link into, into the podcast about who they are.

'cause not everyone's heard of them. They, they hand out small grants each year to community groups around the world to encourage community activism. Really, I don't think that's what they say on their website, but it could be things, anything from, um, you know, cleaning up your local creek in the, in the suburbs day to our, the summit this year.

The Bernard Without Borders was. Margi Pizza oven, and this is a group that could take a pizza oven out into the community and feed people for free. And I have to do also say here, Stevan, that as you know, you were pretty much a recipient of the same grant. What happened at the summit? Everyone was, it was between two.

What we do is we meet over a few hours, we go through all the [00:16:00] applications from the BWB grant applicants. It was 15, um, dollars, uh, usd Sorry, which was about,

I'm not sure what that is. Probably a

Stevan: 2000. Yeah.

Justin: And we whittle it down. There's a criteria which you won't go into, you go through the criteria. Some people obviously don't fit the criteria.

And it came down to two people. That was the room of delegates, decided it was two people. One was for what became the bonzaar podcast, and the other was for Mar Margie, the pizza oven. And one of our delegates stood up and said, you know what, Margie is a very, both of 'em are, um, worthy recipients of this money, but what I think we should do is I'll give my money to the bonzaar podcast and the BW DB grant can go to Margi, the pizza oven.

So it was, it was amazing. It was quite, it was one of those moments, you,

Leanna: it was amazing.

Justin: It was so good.

Stevan: Well, that's, that's absolutely correct. You don't have to fact check that, that that's, that's actually what hap happened. So, uh, I was really inspired by everyone's, uh, [00:17:00] um, encouragement as well.

Justin: Oh, it's, um, you gave a great, uh, great application.

Um, and just so everyone knows, you know, Stevan, when we were doing the voting, he left the room. So it was, you know, there wasn't any favoritism. Favoritism or anything. And we had someone from Western Australia stand up from Wiki Burn and say, Hey, I'll, I'll throw the cash in to, to support this great initiative.

And here we're,

Leanna: which is awesome.

Yep. Here we're, yeah.

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

Leanna: I've already, I've already done that cap.

Justin: Oh, there you go.

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

Leanna: So the grant without, yeah, absolutely.

So Burners Without Borders also help facilitate our Newcastle Burner Run Makerspace Spark House. And I applied for this grant in 2018. It might have actually been 2017.

Justin: Yeah.

Leanna: Yeah. 2017.

Justin: 17

Leanna: 20 17. And so we [00:18:00] got the Burners Without Borders, sort of. It was an ignition grant, um, which helped jumpstart our organization.

So Spark House here in New Castle, new South Wales is a burner run, but also community run Makerspace. Was born from our garage. Really, uh, as you start, uh, getting more involved,

Stevan: most startups do Yes.

Leanna: In the, uh, in the burner communities. You, you know, you're making stuff all the time and if you've got a garage and space are coming to your house to build these things.

And we got a little bit older and having children and we.

We had one of those spaces like, you know, places we've visited in America, uh, where people could go all the time and you would've access to materials, to [00:19:00] tools, to a brains trust. And we started looking at, uh, commercial venues and we were really, really lucky. There was sort of this experimental arts and maker idea being floated in Newcastle at the time.

And Newcastle, if you guys dunno, is home to the largest cohort of artists in Australia. So Newcastle home is home to the largest cohort of artists and makers in Australia.

Justin: Wow.

Leanna: Which I know. I know. So, uh, luckily this also sort of, uh, there was some grant, other grant opportunities available, so we were able to secure another council grant and.

That's applied us with the needed funds to pay rent in a somewhat uh, experimental space. And that's where we landed. And I think we opened our doors in December, 2018 and we've been going strong [00:20:00] since then.

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

Leanna: Oh my goodness.

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

Leanna: hundred. So Newcastle and I think Australia, central Coast. I can say this for Australia as well. So there's a lot of people who embody the burner ethos, who are also deeply entrenched into doof culture. So doof culture has like the scale of DIY versus commercial festival sort of ideals and where the DIY di culture and burner sort of culture meets is like, there's a big space there.

Like there's a lot of overlap. So what we found is that probably half of our membership are burner type people.

Justin: Burner adjacent,

Leanna: burner adjacent or burner type people. Another aspect of the makerspace was, um, making space available for local theme [00:21:00] camps in our region. So as a theme camp, you need to store your camp stuff.

Somewhere. And you also wanna place, ideally in the perfect burner world with tools, materials, and the space to build large burner projects. And Spark haus fits that built. So we've got a large warehouse, you can build anything there. So yeah, it's kind of a, it's a dream. Come for DIY burner DIY Heaven.

Justin: Brilliant.

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

Leanna: I have been, yes.

Stevan: Yes. What can you share with us?

Leanna: Well, uh, after, [00:22:00] I guess nine years now of the, what began as. Um, and then sort of gained a lot of traction into doings. We completed the restructure last year, so we completed the restructure from Red Earth City, which was a privately owned company to a fully community owned or membership based organization this year.

So the organization is now called Sunburnt Arts, and it has a, well, there's another organization called Sunburnt Events. And so these two organizations work in tandem with each other to, um, sunburnt Arts owns the IP and all the things that we've, uh, collectively gained as a community, the assets, so to speak, and sunburnt events.

Puts what we know as burning seed and we've got our, uh, first community [00:23:00] owned burning seed event happening in June 2025, which is really, it's really, really exciting.

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

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

But there were, like I said, many people mm-hmm. Who helped facilitate this process throughout the years. Captain being one of those, it has been many years.

Justin: I think some of it's just, you know, nudge it along and then some really capable, knowledgeable, um, we have to mention Marty Bortz, who's got a doctorate in, in, in all things to do with that.

Well, I dunno what the [00:24:00] doctors for, but you know, there's been some amazing, really educated, experienced people.

Leanna: a hundred, percent Marty. Marty Bs led the restructure charge for many years. He was there, Alicia, Boyd, Jacqueline. I mean, they were, they're snorky. There were so, so many people. Next time we have a podcast, I'll have a list of them and we'll, we'll publicly acknowledge all of them because without them we wouldn't be here.

Justin: And I have to, we, and that, that restructure happened to a large, very large percentage because of you, Leanna, because for a long time you were the go-between, between the directors and the restructure group.

Had to give up the ghost, they'd run out of energy and patience. And you stuck it through all the way to the [00:25:00] very not bitter end. It's an exciting end. But thank you for all your efforts. Um, a lot of people have. Thank you. Thank you. Yes,

a lot. Thank you for Thank you. Well said. Thank you so much.

Stevan: Well said.

Yeah. And, and the, I've, I've seen, I've seen some of the, the fruits of it now. There's, uh, we have a date for seed. Uh, we also voting for, for, uh, a theme as well for the upcoming event.

Leanna: I know.

Stevan: So that's very exciting. Yeah,

Leanna: I did find out too, I just wanna let everyone know who the Burna verse, uh, locally in Australia, that there is room for burnable art.

So if you were thinking about some sort of cathartic art that needed to be burned,

do it.

Do it.

Justin: And we're can we'll put the website or link up there, won't we? To the art application. I think it's $5,000 for large art and 2000 for small art.

It's a good chunk of cash.

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

Justin: Yeah.

Leanna: I, for I [00:26:00] for one, have a lot of ideas. She says for the, well, I mean, they're a surprise obviously. Alright, here we go. Re Grant

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

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

And I'm so excited to have both of them back on the paddock and just bounce from camp to camp every night. I'm really, really excited.

Stevan: Did you go to the 2023, uh, burning seed event, Leanna?

Leanna: I did not. Um, I had taken extended leave from work, so I took, what's it called, long service leave, and we a lot overseas travel, so Burning Man.[00:27:00]

In the mud and then, uh, took another eight weeks off after that.

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

Leanna: that's one of, one of the really lovely things I love about our community that we're close to and not close to is the resilience.

Like, oh, you can't burn. Okay, well let's do something else. We're gonna do so, and we're gonna have the best time ever doing it. So that's certainly one of the things I love most about burners.

Stevan: Yeah. That's when the, the creativity, you know, comes out

Leanna: when the weird, when the going gets.

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

Justin: Yeah, we'll be back in Melbourne. So now we alternate between Melbourne and Sydney. We'll be back in Melbourne planning's well underway. I think [00:28:00] with burning seed happening the following week.

We may be down on some of our burning seed organizers, but you know, whoever shows up, shows up will, it'll be a great summit. You know, it started in 2017. In 2019 Leanna, um, that's the year that Leanna came onto the two of us producing it together. And we had 98 people and that was, that was a real watershed year for bonza because you know, we started with 27, then we went to 40 something and then people just went, yeah, this is amazing.

You've gotta go, you know, in that community leader world. And so we had the COVID years, this year we had around 50, I believe. I don't have the number in front of me, 50 to 60. So we're just coming back, you know, so this year, next year will be. Boots, so to speak. One of the things about, and everyone listening to this will know when you, when you get a group of burners, especially leadership burners, community leaders together, they all pick up a, they all do something.

They can't sit still. You know, [00:29:00] they, they're not gonna fall asleep in their camp chair next to the fire. They're gonna be, you know, they're all doing something or Can I help? Can I do this for you? Do you want me to cook you something? And that's one of the differences with our summit, is that we ask you to turn up, be present, listen or present, but you don't do anything.

Your role is to be inspired by the presentations and to network, network, network. Go home, stay in touch with those people that you've met, the other delegates. So it's very different to other burn events. You know, you, you turn up. It's very, you see people moving in their seat because they want, they wanna get up and straighten things or sweep the floor off help.

We do have one they wanna help, which is amazing. We do have one delegate who's been to almost all of them, and I'm not gonna put a link up to the photos, but, and it's a, he, he tends to fall asleep at the, on a Sunday morning at the event. So that, that's great. We've got this collection of photos of his head on, on the table.

Stevan: That person is a social butterfly. I, I guess

Justin: he's, yes.

Stevan: Late nights. Late [00:30:00] nights. And, you know,

Leanna: I think we all have photos of this.

Justin: Yeah. You know, it's whispered in, in back alleyways and, um, toilet cubicles that, uh, it's not a burner event unless this person is there. So there's many names for this person. Not all flattering.

But, um, yeah, there's a lot of characters. You know, you get any group of burners together, there's a lot of characters. Um, so, but it has a different feel to it because they're not all doing something. They're not pulling a hammer out. They're not, you know, carrying something. Um, but they turn that energy into meeting new leaders they haven't met before, they may have heard of, and they network and they hopefully go on to collaborate together.

You know, Australia and New Zealand also. Sorry,

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

Justin: I mean, some such inspiring stories. I'm trying to think of the gentleman's [00:31:00] name.

He went to Burning Man. He went to the playa, then he went back, took some art, and he came along to the summit and gave this great presentation 2019 about how it inspired him to go and study art in Paris. Like, you also learn about how it's changing people's life. Uh, a burn event or just meeting burners and, and realizing that your people are out there.

It's, and like you said, you know, it's intelligent conversation. There's a lot of thinking. And when you're on, on the paddock or on the playa, there's a lot of twinkling lights. There's a lot of distractions, a lot of late night partying. Um, whereas here it's, you know, we do enjoy ourselves after hours, but we it sit down, have intelligent, sober conversations with fellow motivated burns.

It's great.

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

Leanna: Captain, I'll let you go first.

Justin: Yeah, I, I have friends. We've always got, we've all got that gateway friend, haven't we? [00:32:00] And he'd been telling me about this thing, oh, you've gotta go to Burning Man, it's amazing.

Rah rah rah. And he's, um, he's, he's pretty loopy my friend. I love him to bits. And so I thought, okay, I'll, I'll go with you. And a small group of us went, 12 of us, and, you know, that classic story I got there and I was just, I was walking around mouth the gate the whole time. I'm like, oh my God, this is,

Stevan: and what year was this?

Justin: 2007. And, and

Stevan: so that's a different world back then.

Justin: Yeah. I, you know, I,

Stevan: this is without, without, well, without iPhones

Justin: and also, um, not as many twinkly lights, which isn't a bad thing, but I, I still think the essence, it's still the same. It's that we change, you know, go back 20 years later, you.

It's a community bringing the energy, but then nothing can, you know, I've been to regional burns, but nothing is like being on that flat playa. You've got the black rock, black granite, mountain range, towering over the playa. Um, there's no natural landscape like that for an event. It's amazing. But [00:33:00] straight away I got the community in the Cal collaboration thing with our, you know, camp next door going on and it's like, oh yeah, I get it.

This is amazing. So what about you Leanna?

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

People, nobody was wearing a mask anymore. They were real and interacting with me with who they were. And that was so intoxicating and I left feeling like, oh my God, this is how I wanna be like the rest of my life. Like this. I wanna show up for me and for, you know, everyone I meet [00:34:00] always. Yeah, of course.

You just keep coming back. Yeah. And then I moved here, uh, because I met my now husband there at Burning Man as well. Aw. And that was also a big thing, but I mean, it's just, I've reaped so many amazing things by engaging with our community and helping to nurture our community. That that's why I keep showing up.

Justin: Yeah. Brilliant.

Stevan: And you, so you both had a gateway friend. Uh, was there any, anything particular that they saw in you, like the character or the kind of like the style that you had that, that actually said that you actually perfect for this community, this, this culture?

Justin: I'll, I'll be honest, it was 'cause I could party as hard as he could to, to be, truth be told.

But I, I think

Stevan: that's a good answer. The Aussie way,

Justin: he did look at me and saw that twinkle in my eye after eight hours and went, see you get it, don't you? And I was like, yeah, I totally get it. Um, some [00:35:00] things. Words can't, you know, that transformative, it's already used the T word, but that transformative experience that is your first burn, whether it's a regional burn or the big burn, it's um, it's just life changing

Stevan: and finding the, the community in Australia.

How did you discover that? The burner community?

Leanna: I Google, I Googled. Burning Man Australia. And I found us and we showed up at Burning Seed in 2012. Uh, my husband and I, we, I mean we brought breakfast burritos and that began a real freaking like, history of

Stevan: it's tradition. Now

Leanna: it was an institution and we camped right next to captain here and at the end of the event he was like, so you guys are coming back and you camped, right?

Justin: Yeah. I had a plan.

Leanna: You did. And it was, it was fantastic. It was really fantastic. Yeah. It was really what the first [00:36:00] burning seed I came to was, you know, there was only a few hundred people there, but it was phenomenal.

Justin: I, I think it's incumbent on, um, and at the time I was how I was on the crew of burning seed, but I think it's incumbent on us, especially the regional burns that.

When you see those people, no matter, you know what the burner community's like, young, old, um, whatever their skillset, but when you see that they've got that spark that twinkle in their eye, I think it's important to encourage it and, um, enable

Leanna: hundred percent, hundred percent be the enabler, be the gateway driver.

Justin: That's it. Be the gateway person.

Yeah.

Stevan: Yeah. My, my connection was through another community. I'm pretty sure you're familiar with couch surfing. Uh oh, yes, yes. Yeah.

That was, that was my, my gateway. Um, well, it was, it was more like a cross pollination, I think There was a lot of burners that we are couch surfers and, and, and a lot of couch surfers who, who are now burners.

So my hundred percent first, uh, introduction into the burner community was Blazing Swan back [00:37:00] in 2014. Yeah. Amazing. So we had, we, we were invited, uh, to set up a couch surfing theme camp. So that's how we got introduced to Blazing Swan and. The, the story goes with, with the God said no, with the, with the site, with the Blazing Swan site.

How, how it was, uh, I'm probably butchering the story, but they, they didn't get, they didn't get permission, uh, at the first uh, site that, that they saw. So, because the, I think the reason was, um, it was a nun's covenant or something. It was a property. It was owned by a group of, uh, kind of religious people.

And they said that they talked to God and God said, no, you cannot have your event here. So that was the, uh, introduction to God said, no for me. Um,

Justin: fair, fair enough.

Stevan: The thing that I got out, it was, I mean, it wasn't known to me. At that time was, uh, collective Ves e effervescence. And that was, that was such an overwhelming experience because what happened at the first blazing Swan was, um, there was a biblical flood [00:38:00] that tore the Kulin race course.

So it was about a hundred millimeters of rain with a couple of hours. Um, but that was, that was quite intense kind of a camping experience for me. 'cause I've never been to a burn. But, uh, I love the creativity of the, of the whole community. And so through, um, through trauma, I guess, and through adversity, you know, I've, uh, continuing going to these events.

So I should have in my head examined. But that's, that's the love and the passion you have when you

Leanna: hopefully.

Stevan: It's either adversity or something that's sort of like challenge you in your life and in your perspective of things and that makes you think,

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

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

Leanna: Correct you. You don't just show up and things are given to you. There's no commerce there. You've gotta rely on what you've brought to the table. Hear those outlier stories of.[00:39:00]

And it certainly doesn't comprise the 99.9% of us who, you know, bring something to share, bring something to give. Like that's our, that's our kink giving and participating and engaging others.

Justin: Yeah. And I, that challenge, I think that extends to, to interpersonal relationships because you're not with your tribe necessarily.

Your tribe might be there, but there's all these other tribes and that's that beauty of that, that collaborative spirit that we have in our community. That you will get someone from the doof camp or the, or the kink camp or whatever, and you'll work together. And that's, um, that can be challenging. Inclusion can be challenging, but it makes us.

Leanna: My entry into our first burning seed. So Ham and I are notoriously late for everything. I have this really optimistic view on time, but it's based on some sort of like [00:40:00] wormhole that doesn't exist. And we got there at night and we ended up in the spot that we would forever call dirty birds and would be there but Dane Murray. And he was like, Hey, do you want some help setting up your tent in the middle of the night?

And we were like, yeah, we do. And he just like gathered all these helpers who he also didn't know. And all of a sudden we were set up and like 10 minutes. It was amazing.

Stevan: What a legend.

Leanna: And we're lifelong friends. Hmm.

Justin: Brilliant. Is that how you met?

Leanna: That's exactly how we met.

Justin: Oh my gosh. Crazy. Crazy.

Stevan: I love that story. Little connections

Leanna: just happened to be there when we rocked up and started unloading.

Stevan: And then the next year you, you did, um.

Leanna: Exactly right. And he's just emailed me exactly what happens to me in the last week and he's like, Hey, dirty birds of paradise, what are your thoughts? Should we do this? I was like, [00:41:00] oh, responsibility.

I'm gonna ignore that for a couple days.

Sorry, dane, I'm getting back to you soon.

Stevan: Well, same, same but different for me. I mean, the second year I so inspired and, you know, so, um, had so many ideas of, of what I wanted to do and so I came back the next year, the second year of Blazing Swan, running my own theme camp, um, of Silent Disco.

That was my whole, my whole idea was, uh, was, I loved the interaction with music. While you can't even hear it. Yeah, it, it, it seems like a social experiment to me. So that was a whole theme of getting people together and seeing the, uh, seeing people's movements in terms of what music styles they love to listen to.

So yeah, I ran that for about two years. Uh, and after five years of Blazing Swan, I thought. There must be, you know, it's, it's like kind of graduating from primary school to high school. There must be, you know, there must be more people out there. There must be else, what else is out there? So I ventured back to Sydney, back to the east coast and, you know, experienced burning seed, experienced, [00:42:00] um, all these other reach small regionals such as modifyre and, and recently underland.

So now I'm addicted. So that's my, that's my story in a nutshell.

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

Stevan: Uh, there are nuances in terms of the music style and choices that people, you know, prefer. Yeah. Um, there's also, the landscape is probably the, of one of the most obvious reason, uh, obvious comparisons, but really the community is we all burners.

Yeah, I think we're all burners inside and it shows in terms of how we prepare and how we, um, stage, you know, the event. Yeah. You guys been to Blazing Swan as well? Uh, from what I've heard, I've, I've, I've done a bit of survey around asking people what they think about Blazing Swan, and a lot of people say, well, most people say they love it, and I'm just, because I'm quite biased, so I'm not sure what, what to, whether people are genuine or being sarcastic.

I [00:43:00] love places one yeah, people do actually love it. So I would like to know what are your reasons? Like what,

Justin: it's got more mad max feel to me,

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

Stevan: Captain.

Justin: Oh, I was gonna say, and then, you know, you go to a paddock and I just wanna pick up on what you said. It, it, it doesn't matter if it's a dusty playa or a salt lake in the wheat belt of wa or a green paddock in Paradise Victoria, which is a town in Victoria. Listeners, it's not, you know, Victoria is paradise, but there is a town in Victoria called Paradise where Underland is, it's when you get that group of people together and, and some fire, and know a little bit of music.

Not too much me, but yeah, magic happens. Do.

Stevan: Now. Um, during my research, I also found out that Bonza is also a failed airline That happened, uh,

Justin: that's correct.

Stevan: [00:44:00] Last year in Australia. So I've got a little quiz. Yes. Yeah, I've got a little quiz if you wanna don't mind playing along with me now. This is for it.

The Bonza Airlines Fair Income Facts is a true or false, right?

Leanna: Fair. I like alot

Stevan: fact checking. Yeah. This is kind of topical. So the reason why bonds are, because this is question one. So the reason why Bonds Airlines failed was the fact that the company adopted a radically app first approach. Is it true or false?

So let me explain it a bit more. So what they did was they used for bookings, they only used. Mobile devices or apps. So you couldn't really go to the website, bonza Airlines and book it through there. Is that true or false? What do you think?

Leanna: Uh, no, you could, you could schedule through their website. So they, bonza had a bonza website.

They only went to a few select destinations, but

Stevan: That's right.

Leanna: Yeah. They had a website.

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

Leanna: could book tried through. [00:45:00] Bonza flew from Newcastle. Oh, no.

Justin: So bonza flew, bonza

Leanna: bonza flew BoNZA. So Bonsa I, as far as I knew, um, I thought they only had like a very small fleet of like seven 40 sevens.

And their competition, well, they couldn't really compete with everyone else.

Stevan: Yeah,

Justin: they did have small or something. Yeah, they, they're what? Cessna planes, you know, or the rubber band one that wind up

dual. Sorry, back to the quiz.

Stevan: Yeah. Yeah. So the, the, well, the, the actual fact was that they, their, their strategy was you can only book through the app, but they did have a website and the website which would show you like the, the itineraries and scheduling, but you couldn't really book through through the website.

I think that's where it failed. So, yeah, it was true. Then

Leanna: I only used my phone for said bonza activities and that was probably because I was at work listening to people who were like, oh my God, fly bonza. Don't, yeah. So that's that approach work. Don't tell [00:46:00] my work people I phone. I they're not, don't tell those people.

Well, I doubt they're listening.

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

Is that true or false?

Leanna: False.

Justin: I don't, I dunno, but I'm gonna say true.

Stevan: It's actually true. They did have, they did have the fleets,

Leanna: but I think it's false.

Stevan: They had their small little, I think four fleets or something, five fleets only, and.

The Shaza and Sheila and Bruce as well. Where are,

so you could be flying with Bruce or Shaza.

Leanna: Yeah, Bruce the shark. Bruce. Bruce. That, that's my, one of my most favorite Australian male names is Bruce.

Justin: Bruce,

Leanna: maybe because it's so [00:47:00] easy to like have an Australian accent where you say Bruce.

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

Leanna: Well I think I was first introduced to Bruce, uh, off Finding Nemo.

'cause there was Bruce the shark.

Justin: Shark. Bruce the shark? Shark? Big deep voice day.

Leanna: Good day

Justin: here. Oh, I like it.

Stevan: Okay. Bonsa. It's question three. Bonza. Airlines commenced operations on. January 31st, 2023, and entered voluntary administration on 30th April, 2024. Is that true or false?

Justin: Wow.

Leanna: I feel like that might be true. Uh, I wanna, I wanna say the ending was definitely last year, but I felt like Bonza was more part of our life during the, like,

Stevan: COVID years

Leanna: From COVID.

Yeah, exactly. Like [00:48:00] they, they offered us hope this was the Bogan Airlines, so to speak,

Justin: Bazza and Shaz,

Leanna: and shaz they were offering sparkles.

Justin: Yeah.

Leanna: At the end of our sort of COVID isolation,

Stevan: it became at a, at a point. So they did have a good marketing strategy, but, uh, it, it didn't Yeah, it is true. They, they only lasted 15 months

Leanna: a year?

Stevan: Yeah. 15 months. Yeah.

Leanna: Wow.

Justin: Yeah. Bogans shouldn't fly planes.

Stevan: A short but impactful stink, I think.

Justin: Yeah. Okay.

Leanna: What should they do?

Stevan: Sorry?

Leanna: What should they do?

Justin: Drive Commodore.

Leanna: I was gonna say drive old Commodore, hire camels,

Justin: do burnout.

Stevan: Okay. So bonza and strategy was focusing on underutilized and, and un uh, serviced route between regional and domestic cities in Australia.

They, they failed because there was a lack of density within, uh, the population within these regional routes. Is that true or false?

Justin: True.

Leanna: Uh, I think it might be false. Like, I [00:49:00] thought the reason they failed was because they couldn't scale to the same extent as the other airlines.

Stevan: Yeah. That, well, they, it, it's true because we, as you can see, there's a.

You can see it like a, there's a sense of how regional and Outback Australia is, how vast and a hundred percent and small it's as well. So it's, it's a tough market. It's very hard to service these, uh, regional centers where you only have less than a hundred thousand people. Yeah. Yeah. And most cities in the US or Europe or Asia countries, they can sort of like sustain that.

So yeah, it's unfortunate.

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

Stevan: Yeah. And usually, have you guys done any surveys in terms of how far we us burners in Australia have to travel for, to go to these events?

What's the average do you think? Idea.

Justin: That's a great question. Idea. I dunno. Uh, burning seed used to run a survey and they had some good figures [00:50:00] on,

Leanna: we had census data. Yeah,

Justin: yeah. Kilometers driven, which also helps with mapping out a carbon footprint, you know. Um, but I couldn't tell you no.

Stevan: Yeah. The closest burn.

Leanna: Me Immortals. Yeah. Yeah.

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

Leanna: our closest burn would be third degree. Hundred percent.

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

Justin: how many from Sydney is that driving?

Less than

Leanna: an hour. Two Central coast. Oh, brilliant.

Yeah. Or an hour. Yeah. If you're coming from the CBD, it'd be an hour.

Justin: What about if you were on Bruce's bonza plane?

Leanna: Oof.

Depends.

Stevan: Have go through the app first, sort of mar somewhere.

You'd have to book it like an Uber, like

Leanna: Frasier Island mate.

Justin: Yeah.

Leanna: Got stopped by the emus Yeah. Come Amen. Or

those other things. What are the, the, the dangerous emus that might kill you?

They're not emus there

Justin: Ostriches. No, [00:51:00]

Leanna: no. Uh, they're like dinosaur related with the big claws. They like emus. Do they? They're on, they're on magnetic island. Oh. Oh, come on guys. You're Australian's.

Justin: Wrong side of the country.

Are Oh, you mean goannas?

Leanna: No, no, they're birds.

Stevan: Flightless bird. Like an emu

Justin: cassowary.

Leanna: Yes. Yes. cassowary

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

Leanna: No. Oh my God. They're in Australia as well.

Justin: Come on, Bruce.

Leanna: Bottleneck.

Dinosaur, they're, they're actually related to dinosaurs. They are.

And they got that mostly harmless.

Exactly. Yeah. Until they're hungry and chasing you around for your [00:52:00] Pluto pop. Right. This has happened, not in my life, but I've heard stories.

Justin: Right.

Stevan: And where can you find I gonna magnetic? Magnetic island. Right?

Justin: Magnetic island. Really? I'm gonna go.

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

but in the wild.

Justin: Yeah.

Stevan: You guys we have

with the bin chickens as well.

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

Stevan: Love it,

Leanna: love

Stevan: You got the bling is showing earrings. You

Leanna: Did you guys know that there are red ibis?

Stevan: What? Flamingos

Leanna: Red Ibis. No, no,

they're not Flamingo, which I love. Yes. Obviously I have real fondness for Flamingo, but they're Red ibis. They're red ibis here. Where do live? Where

Justin: do they live? Magnetic Island, again, in

Leanna: Australia, [00:53:00]

Justin: so we don't use, they're rare birds down south of the border.

We don't have that kind of problem with bin chickens.

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

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

Stevan: No, that that was, that was kind of like, that was it. Because, uh, as you can see, the trend is the or true. The, or how, how it happened.

Oh, how bonza are happened.

Justin: I shoulda followed.

Leanna: That was a good tr

That was a good trend. I shoulda have picked up on that. True, true and true. Yeah. I was just, I was, I had this hope for bonza that these bad facts were not in fact facts.

Justin: Well, who knows? With it all changing with meta and facts are, you can put whatever you want, don't you?

Leanna: Really Interesting on social media mostly. Facebook meta, the things that have been happening to them. Oh my God. Yeah. [00:54:00]

What? I had no idea. Lots of kinks.

Justin: Yeah. That fact checking changed overnight, didn't it? It was just like, no, we're not doing, don't worry about it. Write whatever you want. Including pictures of me with other oligarch.

Leanna: It's disconcerting. Especially as the oligarchy seems to start forming in this country that we know of anyway.

Justin: Yeah.

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

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

David: Hi, my name is David j Cryer, also known as DJ C. I've been part of the Blaze community for 10 years.

First Blaze was in 2015. I was part of the Papa zahns crew. I did my own sort of personal arts, bought a cloning table and made a game called the Blazing Swan Game. The next year I made um, two mechanical horses and I called it the horsum chariot. Full size mechanical horses at shat Mars bars and did many other things.

And it was designed to pull a DJ around. Um, the next year I was part of Alliance where I actually, um, made electric shoe bike, 28 [00:55:00] shoes, rocket launching frame, many extras. Um, then I ran my own camp in 2000 19 called Frequency, where I basically showcase cast all the art that I've created over the years.

Um, last year I um, joined up with the Hep Crew Human Excellence Project and we did a major installation, um, the hearts, um, leading up to Temple Burn, 14 hearts, all LED controlled. And we also did another one called the, um, Hep Taurus, which is basically sevens in a large Taurus shape. And we also did the lighting.

So that was all controlled from a central room, 50,000 pixels, all synchronized. So anyone I attended last year would've known what we're talking about. We also did their two sphinx and God said no and the center art piece. So art's been my major part of blazing swan. Um, so I can't speak highly enough about this burn principles.

It's not just another festival. It's got 10 principles. People leave no trace or leave it cleaner than they, they started there. So if you can never make it to a blazing swan, it can, everyone I've just known that's been there says [00:56:00] it's life changing and definitely changed my life.

Marty: Good day everyone. Marty Bortz here.

Been burning since 2014. Big shout out to all the crew volunteers, artists, theme camps involved with Underland and Common Arts. Victoria. Can't wait to see you on the paddock this year, next year, or wherever else. Lots of love. Till next time.

Stevan: Let's, let's talk about more, let's talk about the, um, regional, uh, contacts.

What is it and like, how did you become one and who are they and how do we, what's the, the service for the community?

Justin: Do you wanna answer this Leanna?

Leanna: Um, well, you become one by having a need and a desire in your area. So if you're in the midst of a bunch of dynamic and excited burners, you should probably find someone who has the bandwidth and the [00:57:00] energy to lead the call, right?

And so the basic requirements for Burning Man is that you have Burning Man and you've got the energy to do stuff in your region. And. I can say that it is a very exciting opportunity to reach out and cultivate community. I personally, that is one of my most favorite things is community building, community gathering.

That's why I love the maker space. That's why I love being regional contact. I love to build community and make it more resilient and just kind of strong. Um, I think that it's needed just for each other. Like I always dreamt, yeah, you read, you read of these like village sort of scenarios, but they don't exist unless you build them.

And so I'm really passionate about building those things in so far [00:58:00] as getting a regional contact. So you apply to Burning Man and you need to be nominated by your peers. A regional contact. And then once that has happened, then you have interviews and Burning Man sits in on those interviews and you're, if you have regional contacts sort of outside your region, they'll also sit on, sit in on the, those interviews.

And it's a democratic process. It's not a, oh, you're cool, you're the regional contact. Now in places where there's never been a regional contact, it might be you are the person because no one has ever wanted to be a, you know, regional contact. But in the context of Australia, there are lots of burners here and it's definitely a open and transparent experience.

Justin: Yeah, that's a great explanation. So the regional contacts. [00:59:00] To be clear, burning Man. Regional contacts, uh, appointed by Burning Man after. Yep. As Leanna said, community consultation. There's around two 50 regional contacts around the world, um, everywhere from South America, Africa, Indian, subcontinents, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, all over in, I think, 34 countries.

And the regional network doesn't just comprise regional contacts who are there to foster community. Um, we, you know, there's a bit of admin that goes with the role as well, so we do a bit of IP protection if people using, uh, the not-for-profit burning man's name inappropriately. Um, sometimes there's a bit of mediation between waring burners and also endorsing events.

So what that means is an event, a burn, wants to say that they're a Burning Man regional event. There's. Some very low hurdles to jump and the, [01:00:00] and the local regional contact is kind of burning man's eyes and ears on the ground. And they go, yeah, they, they, these guys are doing all the right things. They've got all the right paperwork, you introduce them to Burning Man, and then, uh, they sign a, um, an agreement, an MOU, between each other.

The regional network's been around for about 25 years, a bit over 25 years. There are three full-time staff and there was three part-time staff, but there's been some changes. So there's three full-time staff in the Burning Man office, and the idea is to spread, spread the gospel, if that's appropriate, to say, spread the good word.

About what? Burning, yeah, no, that wasn't Leanna speaking then. So it's, it's about networking, it's about connecting, it's about spreading our community values and ideals and you know, some regional contacts here in Melbourne. There's two of us, myself and Jody Rivet, and it's the most active, you know, the very energetic burner community, but some regional contacts.

[01:01:00] There's Neil Padger, who's in Singapore, and that's a very small burner community. So.

Uh, you know, some areas there's not much action, but when they can, they try to encourage and enable people in other areas, there's lots going on, so they just have to adapt a little bit. But doing the basic things like doing the IP protection, endorsing event. Just spreading the good word. I think it's also, I think the average is about two hours a week work across the board.

Some do a lot of hours, some do five minutes work a, uh, a week Leanna.

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

You're not necessarily, you know, saying this is the burn that you need to go [01:02:00] to, but you're enabling them go to, or burning or, and you're just that conduit of, you know, information flow that do thing. We have all the information. Yeah, and it's kind of our responsibility as a regional contact to disseminate that or at least be a point of contact to allow people to get themselves to these awesome events.

Yeah, so that's, that's how I take it. So in Newcastle, we've got an event, whether it's a fun event or just a burning pub every month. So last month we had the burner beach ball, which was a fun, frivolous event where burners came together and just in ball gowns and jumped into the ocean. This month we took.

Because that event was the 30th of December, and then we've burner Meetup on the third, [01:03:00] second or 3rd of February as a info. Then we'll have the brides of March, which, which is another frivolous event, and then we'll have another infosesh. So it's just, it's just being that, that weirdo holding the flag. Really.

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

Leanna: hundred percent, hundred.

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

Leanna: hundred percent. Hundred percent. Yeah. Definitely. There's so many more people wanting, needing information as Burning Man looms large. But then there's a massive amount of community who are drawn [01:04:00] to the smaller events locally.

Especially in the wake of, you know, how climate change is hitting us. People are like, I would, I don't wanna travel across the world to meet like-minded people. Let me find them here. And we're those people that introduce.

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

Leanna: Percent. Anyone in my region wants to blazing swan. I'm gonna,

Stevan: there's also letting

Leanna: any other, any other burn,

Stevan: yeah. Letting people know that they're not alone. They're not, you know, like they, they could be, uh, heading to a small town that you, you never know that there could be burners there or something to do.

Justin: Absolutely.

Leanna: Percent.

Justin: Yeah. Yeah. We're everywhere saying goes. Yeah.

Leanna: We're like the sticker says.

Justin: Yeah.

Stevan: And would you like, captain, would you like to illustrate a bit about the Asia Pacific region? Who are the contacts there and Yeah. Where [01:05:00] they're representing?

Justin: So a couple of them, you, if you go on the website, I think we're gonna put a link in with this cast.

There, there is a map of the world of where regional contacts are. It's not always up to date. Um, so at the moment there is an RC in the Philippines who's stepping away from the role. There's one in, uh, Singapore as I mentioned. There's, uh, used to be one in Thailand, actually a burner here in Melbourne is the ex Thailand rc.

There's not a current one there though. There is, um, one in Japan. I'm jumping all over the latitudes here. One in Japan. There's one in Taiwan and there's one in China. So kind of good spread there. But like Leanna said, you know, if you know you are in a community of burners and you and someone, one of your contacts, Burnman says, Hey, heard about this regional contact, it'd be great to have one here.

I think a lot of people, the more energetic community leaders in our community are doing the role of a regional contact. Already a lot of people already doing it and continue to do it even without the [01:06:00] email address. But the Asian community, we've tried to, Leonna and I, every year we invite them along to the summit, and I'm really tough to say.

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

Leanna: Well, they're coming from China. They're coming from China,

Justin: yeah.

They're coming from China, from Shanghai. So there's not a lot of, there's different laws about gatherings, like burns in some of those countries. So they're a little bit more restricted on, on what they can and can't do, including even burning pubs in, in Singapore, it's tricky to have a burning. So, but if you use social media and you type in Burning Man barley, for example.

That's a really active community there, and they have a little, um, tj who many of you know, TJ, uh, used to have a little burn on the beach over there. So there's, there's burners everywhere and you, social [01:07:00] media, unfortunately, is the easiest way to meet those people, which ties me into a little good little avenue down into Aussies and Kiwis on the playa.

If you're on Facebook, there's a group called Aussies and Kiwis on the, it used to be called Aussies on the, was started by that famous guy. Chairman Lau Andrew Lau from Sydney. That one guy, yes, that guy. And, um, always my mayor. Yeah. He, yeah, he, uh, had started this group and then he was taking some time off and I said, do you mind if I run the group?

But I add Kiwis to it. Um, because, you know, we, we pretty much this bottom part of the world we're, we're flying from the same destination, almost 48 hour flight. And that's proved to be

Yeah.

17 hours or whatever it is. So, yeah. So that's been really good. It, it's, there's a lot of people in that group that, you know, don't interact with it so much.

Might have gone to one burn or several burns, but don't interact so much. But it's kind of that knowledge call [01:08:00] that's sitting there. Newbies come into the. Where do I get a tent in Reno and there'll always be someone to jump in, but really good, which is something that was part of the, what I wanna do with it is people are sharing equipment too.

So, um,

and this is all about going to the playa. It's not about local regional burns, but a lot of people fly over there. They go to Walmart, they start at one end and they go through and they buy all their food, then they buy all their camping gear, and then they buy their booze and then they buy their water in the nursery section at the end and they chug it out to their vehicle.

And quite often a lot of that stuff ends up in a dumpster back in Reno or Las Vegas afterwards. And it's a terrible waste. So. What that group has done for some people who people have put their hand up and said, Hey, I've got gear in storage in, in Reno. Here's the code. Jump in there, grab whatever you need.

Um, so even just from that point of view, it's been a success I think. Um, so we can thank Andrew Lau for that. But small things, you know, people, you can read the survival guide a hundred times, but [01:09:00] you won't realize how long it takes to drive from San Francisco to Reno 'cause of the Big Hill, no matter what Google Map says, or you know, look, I'm looking for a ride.

I'll put my name in the group. Bingo, you've got a ride. You know, meet me in the next to the, um, the Reno arch sign and I'll pick you up. So it's been really helpful, especially for newbies, but also for our more experienced burners

Stevan: and it's a good way to, to connect and meet people before you actually go there, which is probably even more difficult to find, you know, the people that you wanna hang out with or the people that you kind of vibe with.

Or even just Australians and Kiwi.

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

Leanna: uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Justin: 20, 25 people all because of that page of that, that group.

So, you know, it's, and those people go on to have connections later on in New Zealand and Australia. So, um, and lifelong friends after that. Yeah. [01:10:00] Yeah. Damn burners. You can't get away from them.

Leanna: I mean, this is what we're best at.

Justin: Yeah.

Stevan: It's that whole collective.

Leanna: This is, I mean, this is

one of the best things about our culture and community is being present, forging those ties and becoming a village.

It's great. Yeah, it's great.

Justin: This global village. Yeah.

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

Leanna: I think it. A lot of it for me is I love the spark of imagination, the magic the can do, we can do everything.

But behind that is a community that is allowing you to be you, accepting you for what you can bring to the table and who you're Yeah. And inspiring you to reach for the stars. Like you may think you can [01:11:00] do this, but I bet we can do this thing together and believing in you. There's a no limitation zone in this community and I love that.

I, I just love it and I love that people, they operate that like people are really true. They're open and they're present. I said that earlier and I don't find that in, you know, just kind of the regular default world. And when I do, I'm like, Hey, maybe you'd like to come with me to an event. And another times I do.

I lot times I do. So yeah, I, I just love that. I love, I love people who are radically welcoming and accepting and allow people to, to experiment. We don't have it, right. We're all in this together.

Justin: Hallelujah.

Stevan: And for you, Justin is burning man. Change yourself. [01:12:00] Change your life.

Justin: So much changed me, but it reminded me on the playground, little kids, you look at them, they help each other, they, Hey, come here, gives a hug.

Doesn't matter how they look, what gender, whatever they're, yes. Just like, Hey, come here. Hey come. I'm making a sandcastle. And sometimes they might do that. What do you call that? Parallel play. But they're there together. You know, nationality, race, it doesn't matter. We're all humans. That's what, just a reminder, I.

That younger self where you can be that free. Everything Leanna said, and, and also the encouragement, like you were saying, Leanna like, Hey, you can, don't just reach that star. You've got to get further out there. You can do it. We've got this, we can do it together. Yeah, we've got this. And, and you know, also, you know, talking about collaborative, but there's not many events you can go to, whether it's a burning car or a burn where, you know, your friend Brucey, who's a mechanic who's [01:13:00] turned, rocked up in his Commodore, is gonna be having a conversation with a doofer about a light project that the local scientist has turned up who might be a bit bit geeky and they're working on this thing together, but go back home and they, they, their path would never cross.

Leanna: A hundred, a million percent. Yes. I love

Justin: that. Yes. I try not to use the word default, but I, I love when, you know, people bring some of that world that we all love and know and spread it in, you know, the local sporting club or, or school or their workplace. I mean, you can't have, you know, no pants Tuesdays at work, unless you're a lifeguard or something.

But, you know, if we bring more of that pad into the rest of our lives, we're gonna make a better world. I know that's a big call, but the world can be a, a scary place. So, but it doesn't have to be, if we all pull together and recognize and appreciate each other's

[01:14:00] differences,

Stevan: I think it's more colorful and more vibrant, you know, with, with this in burner world, more inspiring, more innovation.

So. I love it as well.

Justin: Yeah. And, and Stevan, what do you, is that what you, you see and you get outta it?

Stevan: Um, there's different aspects. Actually. I'm, I'm endlessly intrigued by the culture, uh, o obviously the community has also fascinated me, uh, like you said, with the diverse background of people and their, you, their experience, uh, where they come from, what the knowledge set and skill sets.

Um, there's also that, that tribal aspect that, you know, it's, it's been with us humans. So it is a human experience. You have to actually go out there and sort of like, you know, take part of it, take, you know, you have to participate.

Leanna: Yeah.

Justin: And we all tend to, especially in our late in our teenage years, you know, we, we, you might get a certain haircut or wear your clothes a certain way and you tend to try to find a tribe, don't you?

You know? And, uh, to fit in, you know, you feel [01:15:00] like you have to fit in. And then as you get older, um, some of us at an age where we, I. Don't mind if we don't fit in, but when you go into a burner room or, or space with burners, you, you fit in no matter what, what you wear, what you look like. Yeah. No pants, no problem. You know, whatever.

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

Leanna: I think that that's really important because at least speaking from my generation, we were less technology focused and, you know, forged relationships in person. And now with all the technology in. A lot of us, us are forging relationships online like we're doing now, which is amazing because you can reach [01:16:00] so many people.

But it also trickles into social media and friends and how we date and how we meet new people. And it's changed that dynamic of these interpersonal relationships and how we relate to each other into this digital relationship. There's not, like, I was having a conversation with a friend earlier about how when we were in high school and at uni, there were all these parties, but now those kids are less interested in parties.

They just meet people online.

Relating is different.

Justin: Yeah. Immediacy is so important.

Leanna: Yeah. Immediacy is, Immediacy is removed.

Stevan: Especially with the, yeah, with, with all these new technology. I mean, there's [01:17:00] also changing trends of how people also partying, people, you know, indulging in, in, I guess alcohol as well as, uh, recreational drugs. Yeah.

Justin: Yeah.

Leanna: Hundred percent. I mean, I dunno, the incidents, you know, like if it's higher, lower than it was a decade ago, but it's still,

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

Leanna: Oh, I agree. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Presence.

Justin: Yeah. And to go back to your question, um, Stevan, about, you know, introducing the younger generation, I've got a 21 year son and 16 year old son.

When he was eight and he, and he loves it, but he, you know, now he's older, he is not, he's not so much going to it. But I, I kind of hope that someone like that or our children turn back to burning and then start bringing in their, their people their age and go, oh yeah, this is amazing. Oh, come along to this.

You know, because there is that time period for a lot of people where you just [01:18:00] go off to the commercial events or go and get silly or get messy or whatever, and not, I've gotta say for depending on the local state laws, I think burns in New Zealand, Australia are really trying to lead the way in, in, um, safe burns when it comes to the different substances that people take to.

And it was, it was kinda shocking to me. I saw people that had obviously taken too much, whether it was alcohol or, or um, some kind of substance, but their friends weren't really there for them. That, you know, they were pointing and laughing, that kind of

attitude. Whereas I've never seen that at a burn.

I've seen nothing but care or compassion for some, someone's got messy, okay, they've, they've done whatever, but even the stranger will say, Hey, you okay? Should I, should I get a medic? Should I get a [01:19:00] ranger? You know? So there's that compassion you get at Burns, which hopefully spreads across out to other events as well.

Stevan: Yeah, I think that's, that's important. If you have a community and a support group within culture, it actually, you. The, for the punters.

Justin: Yeah. Yeah.

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

The support.

Justin: Yeah. Look, I, I think if I could you, you know, if we're talking about substances, 2017 was the, for burning seed was the first year that was a heavy police presence. And I, I won't go into why it wasn't anything they'd done wrong, but gone from the local policemen turning up one once a day, you know, doing a drive around, came bring his family along to burn nights and have a blast

Leanna: true

Justin: to a van full of policemen driving around.

And they only came along to, I think, two or three events and said, Hey, we're not coming back next year because [01:20:00] there's no, there's never trouble here.

Leanna: You guys are really boring.

Justin: Yeah, exactly. We're scared they joined. Mm. So, yeah.

Leanna: Not a bad thing. Not a bad thing,

Stevan: but I, but, but I do like your outfit though.

Justin: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. What,

Leanna: can I borrow that?

Justin: Yeah. Is that a submarine that just drove past me? Yeah.

Stevan: Well, the thing is, I mean, these, these law enforcers enforcements, they're human as well.

And, and, and then, and they also have, uh, friends or or family that actually probably go to these events. And, uh, there is probably some compassion there and understanding

Yeah. That, that we, we we're not a, um, destructive kind of group.

Justin: Yeah. I, know on playa. Whenever I saw someone. See, see a law enforcement person, and there's so many different groups there.

You know, you've got the BLM, you've got the sheriff, you've got the state police, the local police, but always would ride up and go, Hey, thanks for, thanks for doing what [01:21:00] you're doing. And there was never a, you know, a snarl or anything. There was just a smile and wave back. And I, I think it's important that we, that's not, you know, that's real.

That's just like, they're, they're doing a job, you know? Thank you.

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

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

Justin: Yeah.

Leanna: And it's because people's intentions are different.

Justin: [01:22:00] Yeah. They,

Leanna: they there for different reasons.

Justin: Well, back day, you know, there are people there that are inebriated or under the influence of things, like they're at a bar, but they, like you said, their intention is different than it would be if they had a noisy pub somewhere, you know? Yes.

Stevan: Yeah. Well, back in the, back, in the early days of Burning Man, it was known for, for gun enthusiast and it was, was also known for Santacons and you know, pranksters and stuff.

So all sort of people

Leanna: we still do santacons.

Stevan: Yeah.

Justin: Well, there's a. A little bit of history about burn. I think it was 1997 and I'm sure some burner nerd is gonna write him say I was wrong. But that was the year of the first theme camp, and it was a Santa camp, and that was a group, a gentleman, his name escapes me from the Cacophony Society.

He played Christmas jingles and Christmas music 24 hours a day. Dressed in Santa claus, and that was the first kind of theme camp. Um,

Leanna: can I say that one of my most [01:23:00] favorite experiences at Burning Man, this was in 2010, was having a santArchy. So we were all dressed up as Santas and we brought an ice machine and had a snowball fight on the playa

Justin: Brilliant.

Stevan: In the middle of summer,

Leanna: and it was fantastic. And we got raided by freaking animal control at the same time, because March

up in

Stevan: as, can we explain to the list what the Cacophony Society, society was or is?

Justin: Yes. Go for it.

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

Justin: Someone else start. Speaker's just gone. Sorry.

Leanna: Uh, alright. So the society started mostly. So it was a group of [01:24:00] humans in California, I think specifically in San Francisco.

And they wanted to be, I think their phrase was united in the pursuit of experiences beyond the pale of mainstream society, which I think we can agree is what Burning Man is, right? So they formed it sometime in the late eighties, early nineties, and yeah, I think that's where Burning Man began. So they had their first event party on Baker Beach in the late 80s.

Justin: Yeah, they,

Leanna: they, burning Man started from there.

Justin: Yeah. They kind of, they were doing their thing from about 1986 onwards and Okay. Late eighties.

Leanna: Yeah. Yeah. I was at least close. I was at least close.

Justin: And, you know, Larry Harvey took that, built that effigy and took it down to Bakers Beach in 87 or 88, was it?

And, um, I should know [01:25:00] that. And then, um, they said to him couple of years, three years later when the police said, Hey, you can't, you can't burn this thing here. It's too big. There's too many people. So a couple of the members, including who is now known as Danger Ranger, who were from the Cacophony Society said, Hey, we do this thing on, um, labor Day weekend out at BlackRock Desert.

Do you wanna bring that thing out there and burn it? And so there's a lot of, um, you know, burning Man in the early days, there was a lot of members of Cacophony Society and those. You mentioned before, Stevan, you know, the drive by shooting gallery and, um, all the other kind of antic.

Leanna: Yeah. That was intense.

Justin: Yeah. Antics that were going on out there in the, in the desert. So some of those people were also members of, I think it's called the Suicide Club of San Francisco and Billboard those early. Yeah.

Leanna: Yes. And but they also add ties in London, uk Yeah. [01:26:00] All, I mean all over the world. So we've been really lucky to camp with some of those early burners who were there during that stage.

Who tell stories of absolute mayhem and wonder

Justin: Yeah.

Leanna: Unregulated just shit going down. Yeah.

Justin: And John Moore was a big name,

Leanna: but not a lot of, not a lot of people getting hurt either. So

Justin: yeah. That's that's a whole podcast. I think I've, so I've got the right person for, I think it's,

Stevan: yeah, that's, that's a great summary.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's,

Leanna: I've, I've got a really good person for it as well.

Stevan: Yeah.

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

Stevan: Yeah. So it's just a bunch of, uh, misfits and odd balls and, and pranksters getting together, merry people just getting together. Yes. You know, happy, you know, fun loving, you know, adventurous people getting together.

Justin: Yeah. Um, you know, that billboard liberation front, that's, um, that [01:27:00] ties in with one of the things that I love about going to a burn is that you're not being sold anything. You know, when you drive down your street in a country town or in the big city and there's billboards everywhere and someone's trying to sell you an overpriced hamburger, and that's another thing I love about a burn and that kind of, the thing about the cacophony society, that absurdity, I love that that's a part of the burner culture.

There should be more absurdity at burns. I. Um, I do too.

Leanna: More scavenger hunts. Yeah,

Stevan: more weirdness. More randomness. Yeah, just more randomness. Yes. More humor. I mean,

Leanna: silly.

Justin: Our Kiwi cousins, you know, built that giant traffic cone over on the ply last year and burned an enormous traffic cone. That kind of absurdity.

Leanna: Well, I have to say, um, one of the things I really liked about Blazing Swan, so we went to Blazing Swan. It was like 2015 and we rocked up [01:28:00] and it was who's Ranger there? The really infamous ranger. Anyway, we got a playa mission and our mission was to change Camp Unicorn. To Camp Uniporn without them knowing.

And they had like, you know, like these big LED letters. And that was, I think I've, I've got a sticker somewhere. I should have pulled it out. It was like intelligent deviant that is, yes.

Stevan: Right? Yes. The, the name,

Leanna: yeah. Of, of the, the mission. Like you were an intelligent deviant if you completed the mission. So we did under the cloak of darkness, but we needed like drills and tools because, you know, everything is situated for [01:29:00] a burn.

Like they've installed their piece and we need to uninstall their piece. It's not a matter of changing a freaking cardboard sign. It was, we're gonna unbuilt what you've built and we're gonna arrange it into a porn word. And boy, were they pissed. Boy was it funny. And like I loved, I loved that. I loved having a mission.

I loved being on a, you know, the hunt to do the thing. And they were reporting back like, yeah, we did it. Here's the photo to prove it. We need more of that frivolity. Yeah. That it's not just about the sand, the sound camps and the DJ that's playing and whatever else. No, like it's the cacophony that brought us here.

Justin: More silliness.

Leanna: Yeah, more silliness. I say

Stevan: more silliness. More randomness. Yeah. I love all the weirdness that goes around as well. It's unpredictable and unexpected.

Leanna: Hundred percent. I love that.

Stevan: Okay, so can we, shall we [01:30:00] end this by, uh, talking about 2025? What are we looking forward to and what are the plans that you guys have for

Leanna: Yeah, let's do it.

Justin: Yeah.

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

Justin: uh, so we are back in Melbourne this year,

Stevan: more networking.

Justin: Back in melbourne and hopefully we're going, have a couple of our friends from one friend from the regional network come over. Um, one of the Burning Man staff members and also a friend of ours Tire, or Kathleen who Leanna knows they're, um, one's RC in Las Vegas and one is an RC in Sacramento.

And they work on a couple of committees for Burning Man. So they've indicated they'd come across and trying to get, well, sorry,

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

Justin: special

Leanna: Yes. Uh, speakers come out [01:31:00] or, you know, cool. Be involved whether they're in person or not.

And so those are more cultural anthropologists like, um, Graham St. John or Francois Gote, uh, I was told Sandra Pike might be someone else that we might hit up. If you, if you're listening out there, yes. We want you.

Justin: Well, Graham saint Johns, um, and so is checking his diary and we'll get back to us. He's definitely someone.

And

so who can talk at length about the Cacophony Society? Great person.

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

Justin: Yeah. What, you know, with the, I mentioned before about the summit, how it's a, you get all the doers in the room, but they [01:32:00] don't do anything. So throughout the year we speak to different events and people and pick up on, you know, what would try weave. So hopefully each year we get, maybe not bigger, but we definitely get richer in the, in its content.

Leanna: Well, and we also try to activate speakers who are gonna inspire. Yeah. You know, this next sort of cohort of people who come through, whether they're new or they've come before, you know, we, we wanna get all the ankles. We don't wanna be sort of blind to one or the other side. We like, we wanna explore everything.

So,

Justin: and one thing we are, that's what we do looking forward to. Leanna and I are gonna give a presentation on anyone as a leader. So the the Bonza Summit is called a community leadership summit. But that doesn't mean you are the leader at the event or you're the leader of your [01:33:00] theme camp because every burner can be a leader.

So we're gonna give a little workshop on that.

Leanna: We're, yeah, I forgot about that. So thanks for reminding me.

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

Leanna: anyone can be a leader.

Justin: We're gonna have a powerful

Stevan: Yeah. We all have those qualities.

Justin: Yeah, yeah,

Stevan: yeah. We all have those, those, those leadership qualities, so yeah. It's good to a

Leanna: hundred percent. Yeah.

Stevan: Well, thanks very much for, for coming together and talking about bonza and, uh, uh, I, I appreciate and respect and love everything you guys do for community, uh, Leanna with burning seed and, uh, and with bonza, and you too, Justin, with building this community of also with the Underland and, and other stuff that you've done as well, and being ambassadors and being just good humans.

Thanks very much for coming on the show. We thank you both and I've got, uh, big plans for this podcast as well. And, [01:34:00] uh, with the help of, and support you guys, um, we wanna get some more talking points, some more discussions, some more conversations and ideas, sharing and knowledge, you know, sharing you, you, I think this is very important for our community as well,

Justin: Stevan.

We are so appreciative that you, um, had us on obviously, but also that you're, you're embarking on this project. It's, um, got a lot of legs so to speak and, uh, especially with the Asia Cons, um, you know, part of it, it's, um, there's so many stories out there from all burners. So looking forward to many years of tuning in.

Thank you.

Stevan: And looking forward to seeing you guys on the paddock somewhere.

Justin: Yes,

Leanna: you'll thank you

Justin: in your podcast booth. Thank you, Stevan. Thank you Leanna.

Leanna: Thank you everyone. Appreciate you guys.

Justin: Bye. Bye.

Transcripts transcribed by Descript AI