Stevan: [00:00:00] All right, a Bonzaar. Welcome to everyone. Uh, this episode we will take a look at building the Blazing Swan history, the formation of the Blaze Committee and the Blaze community as well from a founder's point of view. So with me, I have three of the OG original founders of Blazing Swan, Cat, Hana, and Frank.

How you guys going?

Cat: Going good.

Frank: Excellent.

Hana: Yeah. Good thanks.

Stevan: Uh, let's, let's get into your origin stories. This is my favorite part of the, uh, of the segment, um, is to find out how we all got into the burn culture, how we got, uh, uh, you know, like found the, the Burning Man kind of, uh, culture and just your, just your, your journeys in, into it and Yeah.

The Blaze community also.

Frank: Yeah. Look, the first time I ever heard the two words Burning Man was, uh, my best mate, Louie and I just got back from Canada, a snowboarding trip, and, uh, just as we've landed back in Perth, he gets a text from his friend saying, mate, pack your bags. We're going back to North America.

We're gonna a little festival called Burning Man. And, uh, that was the first time I'd Herbert, I was very happy for Louie. I was spent after my snowboarding trip, and so, uh, good luck to him. Off those [00:01:00] two friends went and, uh, when Louis came back, uh, two weeks later, he, it was a changed man. It's like a, a man possessed looking at and just said, Frank.

Do in your, I was in my electrical apprenticeship at this point. He said, he said, save up those biscuits. Get your ass over to this event. It's fing, unreal. And, uh, he couldn't explain it. Like I now have realize,

Stevan: did, did it make sense at the time, Frank was, your, your snowboarding, you're in the snows. And he's like, I just go to a desert.

Frank: No, no, we just got back to Perth from this, this trip. So, um, he's literally, yeah, exactly. Jumped off and straight ahead over, but, uh, once you go, you realize, yes, I can see why he struggled to explain it. So he comes back and, uh, he has a little, uh, uh, a shack in the dunes. And let's point about an hour and a half north of Perth and that New Year's, he said, oh, I'm putting on a New Year's Eve party.

And I didn't really, you know, Louis's put on parties before, but when I got there, uh, he had built, uh, geez, it [00:02:00] was probably a six meter man. We were up in the dunes and, uh, he was really sort of pushing these, these principles and I'd never, you know, he didn't really, he sort of touched on it, but he really, he really was trying to, uh, get something going that was in line.

And, uh, that event was really where some, some key people were met. And, uh, there was a few years later, there was another one in the June, and I believe that's when I first, uh, met, uh,

Cat

and Uher. And, uh, then that event got shut down from the police. That time I was, um, privileged enough to help him and, and deco build man, and I'm sure there others that contributed, but took this photo of me lying down.

A week out from the event, and he put it on Facebook to say, come on everyone. Look at this man that we built. You know, try up the troops. And, uh, this photo course goes on. Facebook gets picked up by the authorities, and, uh, they sprung us New Year's Eve and, uh, shut down. Was trying to kick everybody out, but did his best, that his two, two, and, uh, convinced the cops, look, it's just a stupid idea.

People have already [00:03:00] been drinking. And, uh, he won him over and he just, the cops just said, look, if there's a single match being lit, we can't wanna get you. Uh, so yeah, that, that night nothing went off. No one apart from catching a girl at 4:00 AM trying to light the, the man, um, stupidly, she got shut down pretty quick.

That photo I drive home after the event, helped Louie pack down, and I sit down and I turn on the tv. And the very first bulletin. Police a party in gonna this man. And there's the photo of Facebook, me lying down, the man effigy. And the story goes, um, Paulson, he had just moved to Perth from South Africa, sorry, he was on the Committee of Africa.

And he said it was because he saw this, this image that he was like, the hell, there's a burn community here in Perth, no F and white. And so he reached out to Louis and said, Hey, what's, I know how he found and Ka you might be able to add to that because you were touching on, there was a [00:04:00] connection there, flamer.

But he reached out to Louis and I'm in the car with Louie and he says, Hey, we've, we've gotta make this serious. I've got all the knowledge. I've just come off the committee of Africa Burns. You guys are doing it underground, but I can actually make it real. And so for me, I, my journey was that I look up to, to Louie and Paulson as the two people who really was the genesis of magic, of coming together to get something going.

Um, so yeah, that's my little input on how it came to be for me.

Stevan: So back to the, back to the, um, those principles that, that Louis was raving on about, was it ver verbatim or was he was just trying to grasp it himself?

Frank: He, he was, he was, uh, using the same principles from Burn.

Stevan: Yeah.

Frank: Um, you know, people were like, leave no trace.

You know, it. You know, pick up up yourself. Mm. You know, we're generally pretty respectful people, but the, and, and the crew, um, in our circles. But, you know, um, to leave the place absolutely spotless, uh, that might've been a first

Stevan: and, and the communal effort and the [00:05:00] whole, um, the network, uh, the, the communal effort, but the participation is key as well.

Frank: Yeah, I mean, Cat touched on it just when we were off air, the first initial meeting up in the hills at Paul Jorgenson's house that had Hana there, that had Cat there. Uh, we had all the core sort of crew. I can't recall everybody. And, and maybe Hana and Cat can touch on it later. Exactly. Everyone that was there, but I believe it was Hana, Angus, Louie, Pauls and Cat Laer myself, we.

Maybe, maybe some others 15, 15 years ago, especially maybe exactly who was there at the initial, uh, long table. But that was, that was the moment that we all genuinely, uh, felt that there was an excitement in the air that this could actually become, uh, an official, and, you know, I'm, I'm being mindful, I'm not wanting to have it on too much because I've got two other guests here.

But you know, you can be the one that tries to go in on the depth, the depth if you want, Stephen, in terms of what happened from that point [00:06:00] onwards and, and how we made that official. And of course, we lead to that, that photo that has, uh, picked your interest and probably kickstarted why targeted us three for this, this particular podcast.

Stevan: Yeah. Cat, would you like to introduce yourself to the community?

Cat: Actually, I think Hana should go first because I only came to it through Hana.

Stevan: Okay.

Hana: All right. Well for me, um, I got involved back in, I first heard about being mad back in 2002 and my best friend at the time was away backpacking in Thailand.

And she met this guy who was buying all these little knickknacks and do dads. And she was like, what are you buying all this stuff? Or what are all these bracelets and things for? And he said, I'm going to this thing called Burning Man. So she was like, well, what's Burning Man? He kind of explained it to her in Thailand.

She thought it sounded awesome. So she spoke to me and I was living in the UK at the time and she said, I reckon we need to go to this thing called Burning Man. And I had no clue. And she was actually flying over to Canada to work this species. [00:07:00] And I was living in London and we were like, Hey, let's meet up with San Francisco and we'll go to Burning Man together and see what this thing is.

We were entirely clueless. And um, there was this beautiful lady that allowed us to have a ride share in her rv and she'd been doing it for many years and her partner was on the setup crew of the event, so she allowed us to stay at her place since San Fran. And we were like, what, what do we need? What do we need to bring?

We were so green because this was back in thousand two, there wasn't really much media, so 2003, there wasn't much media out about burning. You couldn't just kind of Google and get all the information you can now. And so she was. And we were like, oh my God, we're so not prepared. We went with like this tiny little two person home tent and we had the best time ever.

Like we were just in amongst it the whole time. And up until then I was kind of bored in life being like, adulting is so incredibly dull. [00:08:00] Like I looked forward to being an adult the entire time I was a kid. And then I finally gotta be an adult. And I was like, this is so boring. There's gotta be more. And when I went to debating Man, I was like, ah, this, this is more, you know, like all this creativity and expression and all this fun,

Stevan: um, it's like a playground for adults.

Hana: Exactly. Yeah. I was just, but also like Burning Man works in not just the creativity and the fun, but there's a lot of science and technology and like work and everything coming together. Anyway, after I left that went back to London and I really wanted to become like a fire performer because they looked so cool and amazing while I was there.

And so I found like a little community of fire spinners in the UK Learn fire spinning. And then I went back again the next year and then it was after that. So I'd been to Burning Man twice and then I came back to Australia and, and I was just like, well, where do I get some of that? Where do I get some of that community in connection and all the art stuff.

And then I happened to meet. Night [00:09:00] here in Perth, in Northbridge, and I was like, where are the five people? Where's the stuff? And so that's how I kind of got into the Perth fire community, which has running for a long time. And then through that I met Angus, and then Angus ended up being the one who was at that meeting you were talking about Frankie.

So Angus and I actually went together again. We went in 2006 and went. I'd been four times by the time we connected with Frankie and Louis, and I was at the New Year's Burns that they did, um, up in lan. And so we started to realize, oh, we're not the only ones that have been to burning. There's other people here that have been to Burning Man, and maybe between us, we could make a thing happen here.

You know? Because once you realize, oh, there's a few other people that are interested, then you're like, well, maybe we can create our own thing. And then obviously Paul Jorgenson joined in with that and he's like, Hey, I've done this before. So [00:10:00] now we're starting to grow in numbers where that idea of like, oh, maybe we could put something together, started to kind of, you know, formulate.

So yeah, that was my origin story.

Stevan: I, I believe you got married there. It's about finding that other person in, isn't it? In, in the community. Hey, what was that? It's just, it's just about, sorry, Frank, you were saying.

Frank: Oh, I was, uh, which, which of the years did you get married with? Angus? Two eight.

Hana: 2008. Yeah. We got, we got married at Burning Man, because we were gonna go to Burning Man that year anyway.

And we were gonna get married anyway. So then we were like, well, let's just get married there, because what, what cooler place could you get married in? You know? So, yeah.

Stevan: And, and how, how refreshing was it to find out there are other, you know, other geeks out there, or other burner nerds and passionate people?

Oh, it must have been so refreshing.

Hana: It was, it was great. 'cause otherwise I seemed like lunatic walking around the Perth fire community going, you guys, you got a burning man. Burning man sauce. You should go there. And people looking at me like, burning Man. What's burning man? So the [00:11:00] more people that went, the more people that got it.

And then also, you know, when we tried to create our own one, then people had that idea of the principles and what we're kind of aiming for. So yeah, super great.

Frank: Just trying to recall what year that was that we all came together after at Paul Jorgenson's. Was that 2012? 2013?

Hana: I dunno. I dunno. Because that meeting at Paul's, I was actually home with the kids and Angus went to that meeting.

That's the one important thing that I haven't been to because I was home with the kids and one of us had to go. So he went and then I ended up being on the committee because he is like, I'm not gonna paperwork, I don't do forms. I can't be bothered dealing with that. So you actually go and do the committee stuff.

So yeah.

Frank: Right. Uh, the 2012, I believe by that point, every single person at that long table had been the burn. So, you know, as I touched on earlier, Louie being [00:12:00] the, uh, the encourager for me to save up my pennies and get across my first year was 2012. And so I do feel that it must have been 2013. Ignite 20, late 20, 30 minutes.

And then the initial blaze was 2014. So yeah, all around those circa, circa those years.

Cat: Yeah, it was quite quick, that first one. So yeah, my story kind of piggybacks off the back of Hana's. My name is Cat. I go by teacup on Playa, um, or Cat or hey, you, whatever, whatever comes outta your mouth. I'll be like, what?

Ah, where, what did I do? Uh, I came to Perth originally as a student. Uh, in 2007. I came here on a study abroad, a refugee from the US and met all these amazing people, uh, through, I saw a bunch of people riding by, uh, on campus and they were on unicycles. And I was like, oh my gosh, those are unicycles. And they said, yes, they are.

Would you like to learn? I said, yes, please. And [00:13:00] everything they pulled out, you know, juggling or PO or whatever. I'm like, teach me, teach me, teach me. And they're like, oh, hey, you'd like the fire community here in Perth? And I'm like, you have a fire community. Uh, and so they introduced me to Fire Tribe, to Hana and Cat and everyone down there.

And Jed and everyone in the Perth Fire Group were just so amazing and welcoming and generous with their knowledge and just amazing people. And I learned so much here in Perth. Most of it. Out of university. And a lot of people I met here were like, oh, you're from the States. You must must know about Burning Man and all that stuff since you're a fire performer.

And I'm like, I just started fire and I have never heard of Burning Man before in my life. I grew up in a very religious household, so Burning Man was not in my scope. Um, I had to travel to the other side of the world to find out what it was, and I was like, oh, that sounds cool. Went on with my life. And uh, the next year, 2008, I'd [00:14:00] been still chatting with my friends I made in Perth for that whole year.

And Hana and everyone were like, Hey, we're coming to the US and we're going to Burning Man and you're coming with us. So I was like, okay guys. And, uh, got kidnapped by a bunch of Australians and dragged to Burning Man and had the most amazing time. Um, I spent the summer in my work in the props department at university, building a geodesic dome for us all to have like a little camp thing to, to stay in as a group.

And, uh, yeah, just had a, an absolutely amazing time. Uh, finished my degree, moved right back to Perth 'cause I missed my friends and my community and. Everyone here and started sort of getting my life settled in Australia. And then a couple years later we're, uh, a group decided, okay, well, you know, some of us went in 2008 for Hana's Hana and Angus's wedding, and it was amazing and beautiful, but there's still people in the Perth fire scene who haven't been.

So let's organize another trip. [00:15:00] And through Hana's friends at, um, in, in, sorry, through Hana's friends at the Burn Controlled Burn, a couple of other friends, she managed to swing us Fire conclave performance tickets when, you know, it was, it was easier to join in with another group. And so we're like, all right, cool, let's take another group over.

So 2011 was that second year we went over, we had a great time. We road tripped across America, great fun. And then every year we were like, oh, we need a regional event. We need a regional event. You know, no one's doing anything. We have a regional contact, but he is not doing nothing. So eventually 2013 rolls around and, you know, people meeting people, meeting people and flame's.

Like, let's just have a meeting at Paul's house on this day. Just chose a day out of a hat. And people who were keen showed up and, you know, we were all going back and forth about, okay, well no one's doing a regional, you know, what's everyone's [00:16:00] experiences? Do we wanna do this? How do we wanna do this? Do we even wanna be a Burning man regional, like officially, or do we wanna be unofficial?

What do we wanna do? And yeah, I, uh, you know, it just got to the point where everyone was talking and talking and talking and talking, and I was getting tired. And I'm like, okay, well how do we maintain this momentum? Because everyone's so keen and, you know, we've been chatting for years that we needed an event, but nothing had happened.

So to sort of keep up the momentum, it's like, okay, well let's, I propose we just meet once a month, every month and just start with talking and getting to know one another. And, you know, through meeting every month regularly, um, we started finding other people and finding where we wanted to go and finding a direction.

Uh, so yeah, it was definitely right, people, right time and, uh, all coming together and just talking.

Stevan: Was there other, was there also other small, smaller gatherings and events that you guys did just to keep, keep that momentum and, and the [00:17:00] whole team together? The whole talking point discussions?

Cat: So, I mean, part of why this gathering came together was because Louis had already been doing his Dunes parties and the Perth fire group got involved, I think that second year to try and do some fire.

Or maybe it was first year, one of the years. My, my brain is real hazy on exact dates, but I know that I did go to one of those dune parties. We did a bit of fire. It was a lot of fun. So, um, like we'd been involved in on each other's radar, but no one had actually like, started a regular thing. Uh, and by the time we started.

Meeting regularly and deciding what we wanted to do and decided we wanted an incorporate organization. There had been various little parties, but nothing official. And then by the time we found like a, a place to officially have our first event, there's another event that takes place on that property. So it was, okay, we can do this first year in six months or in a year, in six months, and we don't think we can sustain the momentum for [00:18:00] a year in six months.

So six months it is. And we just plowed through and like all, you know, heads, heads down, bums up, ran for it. And so that first event was like, we were all working towards that one thing and it ended up being extremely large, um, quite a bit larger than we expected. And

Stevan: was that the 300 person gathering? Was it up in the hill somewhere called?

Cat: Yeah.

Hana: So there was that event that we hads place. Yeah, that we had a horse property when he lived up in the hills. Yeah. And that was a 300 person event that wasn't, that was kind of, I think about six months maybe before we did the first burn. Something like that.

Cat: Okay. So yeah, that would've been six months after that initial meeting.

But then six months before the actual burn.

Hana: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that was like the first little warmup event of like, can we get a crew of people together and can we kind of feel this out a bit? And I know that we had our geo dome [00:19:00] set up at that line and we had like, I think Louis had his caravan set up doing music.

We had some fire spinning. There was some kind of small effigy that I vaguely remember.

Frank: Yeah. It was a kangaroo done by local artists. Yeah. Had kangaroo that I ripped off one of the arms 'cause the trees were so low trying to get it in.

Stevan: So there was an a giant red kangaroo. How iconic. So you're burning to the Quantas symbol.

Yeah. That's pretty cool.

Hana: So yeah, it was really good. We had some light set up. I think Angus did some gas flame projectors. He did the kind of flower things. And so it had like a really good small burning man vibe. And I think that gave us that little seed of like. Maybe we could do this, because if we can do it on this tiny scale of 300 people, then you know, we've got a little bit of momentum here for something

bigger.

Yeah.

Cat: So, yeah, I've, I've been to Burning Man a couple times since then, uh, because of Blazing Swan. So I think I've been like six times. I dunno, [00:20:00] it's, I've lost count. I've, um, A DHD, so my time schedule is now and then all other times. Mm-hmm. So at some point in the past, things happened. I'm sorry if I don't remember exact dates.

Thank you for, for keeping that up and keeping me honest. Everyone with the timeline.

Hana: It's, yeah, that's, it's a blur after all these years.

Stevan: Yeah. It's been 11, 12 years after all. But that, uh, I mean that initial, so this year we had cosmic coincidence. It, it seemed like it was a cosmic cosmic significance that you all, you guys got together, you know, a a bunch of doers to, to actually form a committee and then a community as well.

So do you guys have, have, uh, some vivid, uh, memories about, uh, that meeting at, uh, was it Artifactory in Osborn Park? Yep. And that photo, how many people? It was about 20 people showed up.

Hana: Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't a lot of people. It was, yeah, it was maybe like, yeah, 20, 30 people. And do you know what? I can't really remember too [00:21:00] much of the details.

The only thing I really remember in detail, standing out the back during a bit of a ing break, trying to work out what we're gonna call this thing. And, because we were like, oh, we wanna have a regional, what do we wanna call it? You know, something burning, something blazing, something fiery sounding. But then we wanted it to sound kind of like local.

And I just remember having this conversation and we were tossing out the words and then I was like, oh, we should, and this has never stuck. But my idea was like, we should call it, we should have the words swan in there, because then we could have it with a little s and a big and a little, because it's in Western Australia.

So I was, I was like in for having swan in the name. It ended up being called Blazing Swan. But the whole big Wa thing never took off. So then it ended up being like, why are we burning Wan does. But to me it was because it had wa in it and then it's the state emblem. So [00:22:00] yeah. But that's the only bit that I really remember from that meeting.

Frank: I, I recall with that meeting, that was the AG gm, so that was the official to form the not-for-profit and newspaper ad went out in the West Australian back then. Probably don't do it like that today or maybe, but there were strangers there that had turned up that we had never, never met before who were burners who saw the ad or got wind of it.

Uh, and that's why it was only quite small. You know, you put it out in the paper, but you don't expect many people to see this little, you know, we forming an organization, come down if you're interested. Uh, and so on that day we, we did have votes and they were counted and we formed the committee. It was all done in an official process and that's how we ended up with the, I believe it was seven originally on that original committee that check with guys.

I think it was seven. Yeah, I'm looking at the seven. Seven. Yep. And, and then there was sort of a little bit of a celebration Dex kicked off and, uh, Hana pulled out a, a flame thrower, uh, pistols. And I think that's where we got [00:23:00] that, that photo. So that's an answer to, uh, what you've always been in, in, um, interested in there, Stephen, trying to track down what's going on with that photo.

Cat: I remember several meetings at the Artifactory. It was a local makerspace that had a good area, and, um, a lot of the, some of the OGs, uh, we and a couple other people had links to the Artifactory, so they were like, Hey. We can use this space for our meetings. So yeah, I remember a couple meetings there where we were talking about what we wanna do, how we wanna do it, uh, and then the ag GM was the like, okay, let's make this official.

We'd already talked about Dan, uh, Taylor, who is one of the OGs as well. He is a lawyer, patent attorney, very smart person. He, you know, pulled out, okay, this is what we need for a organization and this is what we need for a committee, and here's a bunch of, you know, like standard type forms for forming these things and this is what we need to do, and then how we need to do it.

And made sure we had all of our ducks in a row, as it were. And yeah, I, [00:24:00] I only remember the, the runner up. The runner up, uh, name was Flaming Gah, which was a lot of fun, but not really specific to Western Australia. So we just wanted to make sure that it was tied to Western Australia being very regional.

Stevan: And a flaming swan kind of seems to, uh, yeah, too cruel having it flamed up.

Cat: Yeah. Our, uh, our state emblem is the black Swan. Yeah. Um, and yeah, you know, flaming gah the, uh, cocCatoo, which is. You know, every, everywhere has cocCatoos, but wa is, uh, known for the black swans that live here.

Stevan: Yeah. Yeah. It's very iconic.

Yeah. Okay. So we, yeah, so the, the other alternative names, what, what else do we have? So besides, uh, flaming glar, and so we trying to stay away from burning, I guess, the, the word. And obviously having the swan is, is ideal, which is great.

Frank: Yeah. Well, the one that jumped out for me was burning. Burning and Cool.

You know, that came about, I don't think we had officially locked in at that point when [00:25:00] across. Whether that that could be an option. But, uh, yeah,

Cat: so yeah, so we named Blazing Swan Incorporated, which is the body, you know, we needed an official name for the official organization, but we hadn't like, named the event.

And there was a bit of chat about whether we give the event a different name or the same name, or we went round and round. Um, but I think blazing is because pe some people did object to Burning Swan, like we didn't wanna burn swans. But if a SWAN is blazing, then it's, it's having a great time, it's doing it intentionally, right?

Stevan: Yeah, sure. And those hippies out there would, would associate blazing with blazing saddles, which is

Cat: exactly, yeah, we wanted it for a couple of different associations rather than just specifically the swan is burning.

Stevan: Yeah. Cool.

Hana: Yeah, because there's only so many fire words you can use. There's, you know, burning, blazing, flaming, what else are you gonna work with?

So it had to be kind of one of those, and then [00:26:00] something relevant for wa so, yeah.

Stevan: Okay, so now we've got the naming of Blazing Swan. Um, there's also the site, uh, the first year now you guys with the camp out. It was the successful camp out was for about 300 people. Now, what was your per projections for, for the actual event?

Like, how many people did you think would, would be coming to this WA event?

Frank: Well, we probably, that wasn't so much as the high priority. It was more about finding the place was the priority and yeah, you know, we didn't know if the place that we would find would've limits. We didn't know if it was gonna be open expense, but the number one goal was to find a place.

And having with as a friend, um, prior to all this, you know, it went very easy for me and to jump in the car on the weekend and for weekend drives. I grew up down south town.

Uh, I felt that there, there could be some potential [00:27:00] through connections down that way.

And, uh, Louis was always happy for coming along for the drive.

Um, one of my friends from, from Bail who now is part of the, the royal jellies and does the wild camp out, and she had a friend over in Williams. Louis, there's this potential place, let's go check it out. So after that, driving out there that weekend, we'd already been to a few places and we'd gone into lake.

There was still the, I think the general consensus of the, the group that we would like to create that, you know, replicate that and experience that, that burning man. However, lake dumb young is just mud straight up to your ankles. It was just never gonna work. Finding a really hard lake per was not easy.

They tend to have just like the mud out, mud, salty cap looks very firm. It doesn't take long to realize it's just all mud underneath. [00:28:00] So we had sort of started to look elsewhere and see what else was out there. This, uh, particular property in Williams, she too was, was an American and, uh, married Australian.

And she ran a bio farm out there and they went home, just randomly rang off the back of this referral from Lara, you know, from bailing up and, uh, the sun answers and just off the fly pitch to him. Look, we're, we're keen to this event. We're looking for X, Y, Z. We're hoping that, you know, through the connections there, you might be open to us coming out and, and meeting you and going for a warm.

There was lot of potential to the site. It wasn't, you know, a complete flat open space like a lake. Uh, but there were large flat areas and sort of surrounding hills and amphitheaters. Uh, there was[00:29:00]

to particular property that got us excited. So next steps, let's talk to the parents, but they weren't there that weekend. So we went back to Perth a little bit excited and we said, right, crew, let's, let's head back out and, and meet this couple. Um, I don't recall everyone that was there. Uh, I definitely recall Wes Oron, maybe Dan, I'm not sure if, I can't recall.

Cat and Hana, if you were there on that first trip out to Williams. No, I wasn't on that one.

Cat: Sorry. No, there was I.

Frank: Okay. We did the full two hour, three hour hang with them, checked it all out and they were very warm to us. We were getting, you know, warm and fuzzy thinking, this is, this has got all good vibes about it.

And we get to the end of the day and said, well, where you from here? And they said, look, um, let us think about it. We'll get you guys back in a week and we'll have the answer. So. We waited with anticipation. We went back out the following week. It was like a after work, one day night drive. We get there. It was just a car load of us, I believe.

So it might have just been the five of us. And [00:30:00] we go into their kitchen and we sit down after a bit of small talk, sort of waiting. We're all excited, we're feeling very, uh, confident. And she sort of pauses, the room goes quiet, she looks around and she goes with her hands in the air, places them onto the table and says, so I've spoken to God.

And God said, no. And we were just shocked. We were so certain she was gonna say yes, and we didn't think that there was gonna be a, a, a God element to it. So we all got the car that night and, and I remember. Just as we drove out the driveway, I just said, when we find a place, I'm gonna call my camp. God said yes, and we all chuckled on the way home.

And, uh, I, I recall when we skipped, fast forward to the, uh, situation, uh, Louis saying, uh, surprisingly saying, I named my camp, said no. So that was how the God said yes. God said, no camps haven't. And God said yes. Camp, uh, lasted two years, actually was sharing with Papas, which, uh, went on to be a great camp.

So [00:31:00] we're all a bit down and out. Bit, bit bummed, and I think I have, I have a feeling was Dan Taylor or someone saying, look, what we should do is do up a letter and just send it to all the Shias and Councils within four hour radius of Perth. And

Hana: yeah, that, that was me. I wrote, I wrote letter. I remember writing it.

I still have a copy of it somewhere in my hard drive.

Frank: Excellent. Yeah. Excellent. Oh, the original letter. Well, yeah, we were blown away because, uh, it didn't take long. This woman called Jen Whi, who was a perf girl, but married a farmer, and her job out at Klum was to stimulate the economy of Kum, very tiny wheat belt town.

But she shared with us that what's happening to a lot of these wheat belt towns is the kids. They don't wanna do farming, you know, lawyers, doctors, and big smoke. So these, these towns have slowly become ghost towns, and it was her role at the Shire, the council. Try and look at things that would stimulate the local economy.

And [00:32:00] she immediately latched onto this letter from Hana and, uh, was very excited. She said, look, I think, I think I've got just the place. Uh, and that was ongoing racing. We, we'd never heard of Colin Bush Bros. I certainly hadn't. And yeah, we all drove out there and as we hit the Tin Horse Highway, there was a really good vibe.

There was something about the creativity of those horses on that long stretch out to site that that made us just give us, it was a good sign. It was like, the people out here, you know, they're creative folk. And uh, that's a good sign. And, uh, we went out into the property and, yeah. Maybe I can just hand it over to you guys who were out there on that same day with you guys there on that first initial, initial with Jen.

Hana: I remember doing this land search. I remember when you guys came back from that trip where you'd been down south and you, we were having a meeting at your house, Frankie. 'cause that's [00:33:00] where we were having meetings at the time. And you and Louis were saying to us, God said no. And we were like, what? You know, and that's when we did this.

Land search letter and it actually got sent to all regional councils, all shy councils within an eight hour drive of per,

Frank: oh, it was within eight hours.

Hana: We cast that net wide because we were just like, we may not be able to find something close, so let's, let's go all the possibilities. And I remember getting, like sending these emails out and most councils didn't reply at all.

Others replied and said basically, we don't have the capacity to deal with the logistics of this in terms of policing and whatever else. Like pretty much nowhere was interested except KO and came back so positive being like, yes, we have a site, we would love to come and talk to you. And we'd be like, ah, because you know, you wanna be somewhere where the community welcomes you, where they want you.

And um, so it was so exciting to go out [00:34:00] there that first time and feel this kind of positive energy from the local council of wanting something else to be on that site and then going out to that site and then seeing the big salt lake right next to it and being like, oh, it's kind of like, and I remember thinking that that first year, like we can't climbed up cave rock, looking over the surveying the land kind of a thing.

And kind of thinking, could we make it work on the Salt Lake? Could we Maybe just a little bit. And I know that first year Louis built, God said note on the Salt Lake, on the very, very edge of it because we wanted to have that kind of burning man kind of thing going on. But it was really exciting being there the first year, you know, on that first trip.

But I remember looking across the farmland thinking it's not enough of a blank canvas. It's too many fences and trees and buildings. It was like existing infrastructure. But then somebody mentioned, yes, but there's [00:35:00] also plumbing and showers and toilets. And I thought, well, it's not gonna be all that bad to have a bit of infrastructure, is it?

So, yeah, it was great.

Cat: For those of you who haven't been out there, the drive from the local town of coolant out to site is called the Tin Horse Highway, where all of the farmers along that stretch of road. Use barrels and various steel rubbish to make sculptures of horses. And they have horses who play tennis and horses, flying planes and horses playing golf and uh, the shoe horse and lots of different puns on types of horses.

And just the scale of the creativity on show, on this little stretch of road leading out to site is incredible. So we were very encouraged to see art was already being made in that area by that community. So, you know, they were keen on art and making sculptures. And then, uh, [00:36:00] yeah, going out to the site.

The site is on, just beside a very large salt lake. It has a couple of large rock formations. There's Jillan Rock, which is outside the site, quite a large rock. And then cave rock, which is a little smaller that's on site and accessible during the event. And climbing up cave rock, you get a beautiful view across the Salt Lake, the other direction across the farmland to the sunset.

And it's the most stunning view and a treasured tradition to this day to go watch Sunset on cave rock. And we went out, we walked on the Salt Lake, Ollie got bogged on the Salt Lake immediately. So we're like, all right, well we can't drive on the Salt Lake, but we can do a little bit. And we were dreaming about, you know, what art could we put here?

What art could we put there? You know, what could we do with this site? And it was a really good blend of. There's a little bit of infrastructure to support us in our starting years, and we were thinking that if we got big enough we could move to, you know, one of the fields that had no infrastructure [00:37:00] and do it over there.

But yeah, it's just been a beautiful relationship with, with the town of Coolant and with the, the Kees and the Bush Cool and Bush Races crew and their committee. And, uh, everyone's been very supportive and yeah, it's been a, a wonderful ride with them.

Stevan: So how long did you guys have to actually pull it off, you know, since being rejected from the Williams site and, and to the coolest site?

How long and, and, and the actual opening gate,

Hana: I think it was three

months from what I

recall. Yeah,

Frank: it was pretty quick.

Cat: Yeah. So because the Kulin Bush races happens every October, we couldn't run it anywhere near the same time, so we had to, and we didn't wanna run it during summer or during winter when it was too gross.

So it was like, all right, well we gotta do this in, you know, six months or in a year, in six months. And, you know, by the time we had decided for sure, it's like, all right, clock's ticking, three months, let's go. Yeah.

Hana: It was, it was, it was,

Frank: I recall the shortly, yeah, I recall there being a few discussions around when should we have the event?

And [00:38:00] I remember there being quite lengthy talks from people saying, I'd like it to be the, the very first sort of, um, festival of Spring, and then others were talking about, you know, uh, summer and then your challenges with the fire. Then you realize, well, okay then it's only X amount of time. And then, uh, some people actually, I give credit to my mom on this one because she said, oh, you wanna do it in Autumn because you get the best sunsets.

That was the only thing she said. And uh, I thought, well, if we're gonna do this for a week, what public holidays? Around that time, of course it was Anzac Day and I think we did consider that, but then realizing of course, well if you only take two work days off, you actually get five take Thursday and the Tuesday off, and you're getting six days in a row.

And that made a lot of sense, uh, for everyone. I think everyone in that moment realized that Easter would be it. There was, I think, some grumbles potentially about that being, [00:39:00] you know, not only for those who are religious, but also it's often a, a, a family time. So that did have, it wasn't all thumbs up from everyone, but I believe that's, that's my memory of how we ended up on Easter was it was a healthy debate to get to that point.

And we also were a little worried though, because Easter jumps around, I think happens once every a hundred years is, is what someone mentioned is a crazy stat. But, uh, I think the earliest Easter you can get is in February, uh, happens once a hundred years. So it's, it's quite a remarkable situation. So yeah, you would've issues there with fire at that timely.

It doesn't happen often.

Stevan: Yeah. That hasn't come around yet. So you guys haven't dealt with that issue, the February issue yet, so yeah.

Cat: But the beautiful thing about it happening on Easter is it's a Luter holiday, so we always get a big, beautiful full moon during blazing swan rising up over that salt lake.

And some of my favorite memories out there are just watching that big red moon rise over the salt lake with [00:40:00] a couple of inches in water of water in it, behind one of the effigies. It was just, it's absolutely magical. The site.

Stevan: Yeah. And, and weather-wise, I mean, April, uh, autumn, it's, it is kind of chilly, but there's also a lot of rain, so, uh, I, I guess the site is quite good in terms of, um, being workable when it rains as well.

Frank: You haven't heard about the first event?

Stevan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I was, was getting to. But you know, we, we, we learned our lessons, but it's a, it's a site that, uh, that yeah, caters for, for rain, how shine during the Bush races, so.

Hana: Yeah, look the, the site, the site caters for rain ha or shine if you understand what the site does during rain ha or shine.

So, you know, we didn't understand that the first year and everybody wanted to camp by the trees because the trees nice and shaky. And it took us that first year to learn that the trees are also there because that's where the water runs when it rains. [00:41:00] And so we had a hundred mil of rain in one night on burn night the first year, and the site just turned into rivers.

There was just rivers everywhere. 'cause those rocks that cat mentioned, the big ones either side of the site, they're big granite rocks and the farmland area where we're, it's kind of a drainage point and it drains from there into the salt lake. So the site kind of turned into a whole bunch of rivers.

Camp S had a knee deep river running through it. And I remember I was the event manager the day after the rains walking around in the morning and just so many camps washed away. So we learned a lot of lessons that first year. So now, yes, we can handle that site. Rain, hay will shine. But it, it was a big lesson we learned the first year, but it also created the most beautiful coming together of the community where you'd think it would've been a complete disaster.

But actually what it proved was that we had a very strong [00:42:00] community from that first year because people were sleeping in other people's cars or tents. People were pulling each other outta bogs. They were lending each other things and helping each other out. And I think it was really where that sense of community and working together was in that.

So it ended up being a good thing.

Cat: There's an amazing vote video that floated around for a little while. I'm not sure who took it, of this just absolute banger of a dance party happening in one of the lus that year. Just everyone was sheltering in one of the few solid buildings there, which was one of the, one of the toilet blocks.

And someone had a guitar and someone had one of little shakers and they were just singing and dancing and pounding on the walls and just having a whale of a time. And yeah, at the end of the event we had to have all the local farmers come out with their tractors and un bog everyone's vehicles. So, and yeah, so that year we almost did burn the effigy because of all the rain that was coming.

And we had a [00:43:00] little gap, a little gap in the, in the rain. And we were like, all right, we have a half hour burn it, go, no fire performance, just burn it. Uh, so we, you know, we burnt it. It was a bit rainy and, uh, you know, we, we had, we managed to, managed to do it before the skies opened, so it was definitely providential.

Hana: Yeah, we, we did actually, we did actually end up having a fire conclave because fire conclave started and it was drizzling and then it started just completely bucketing down and then the pyros kept shorting out that was supposed to get the IGN United. So the pyro team kept being like, keep going, keep going with the fire performance.

While they were trying to fix the pyrotech technician on the effigy, the fire conclave ended up going for an hour. Everyone was soaking wet, freezing cold, wondering maybe I just blocked it from my memory when the heck they could finish. And then eventually the pirate team was like, okay, [00:44:00] we're ready to go.

And then do you remember we had a streak up because the farmer who owned the land, it was the first rains for the season and he always does a run in the rain when we get the first rains because it's gonna be good crop. So then he's running around the back naked where, and then eventually we managed to it and get that it.

Soaking wet and everyone was freezing cold. It was, it was quite a burn.

Stevan: Well, Frank, your, your camp was, was probably the driest outta the whole site. So God did say yes, you know, and follow. He got us together.

Frank: I had to sign up as the God said yes camp, but I think God was also sending messages of, uh, God saying no to this event.

You know, the, everything Hana just touched on, it was, it was getting comical and, uh, then it turned to, well, no, this isn't, uh, very enjoyable for a lot of people. Uh, but, you know, those little moments, you know, uh, l doing the Newie run and uh, bringing [00:45:00] some chairs, uh, you know, this is the farmer. This is his property.

It sent a good vibe message that he was, he was one of us sort of thing, you know? And uh, this rain, I remember being a sort of a steady sort of, uh, it wasn't, wasn't pouring at that point, but it was enough just for keeping that. But yes, there was definitely this, uh, issue and it was a stuck fuse. I remember Shane and Goose were just tearing their hair out.

I had my 6-year-old son in my arms, uh, and at one point they were getting down there with the torch and to my son over to random. And it was dark and it was wet. And yeah, the boys were stressing hard and eventually Shane found a tiny little piece of wire that had been left from the previous show was causing the shot.

And when that was found, it was on. But then, because that rain had been going steady for so long and Hana and all the team arms are nearly falling off from running the fight for an hour, GY was soaked. And it was this [00:46:00] moment where the flame almost went out and we just thought, oh, it was a lot of people praying.

So it was great that once it took off, then it just came down. It was just remarkable. I've never seen rain so heavy like that in West Australia. The tropics to see it just was moment. And the farmers could not believe it. They were walking around stunned saying, you know, Jen, the lady from the council, her and her husband, they were like, we have never seen rain this heavy.

And uh, what ended up happening through those floods was people realized, shit, we've gotta find dry ground. And Papas said Yes. It was just in that, it was just one of the lucky ones. There were a few lucky ones and, uh, kind of between the two Granite rocks and sort of wash away from it. So it became a bit of a savior tent and, and through that was many lovely friendships forged.

And you know, everyone who's been a Burning man can see this is where

[00:47:00] Bird gets that community testing times and testing weather and, you know, sharing tools and shit. I didn't bring that material. We're missing this. And I think that that was, um, you know, just one of those moments that really forged a lot of magic.

Cat: One of

Stevan: the, so a after all. So after all this time, can I still send, send out a, a complaint to the original Blaze Committees about the weather? Um, it was a lot of rain.

Cat: One of the, one of the locals told Matt Robinson, my partner at the time, also one of the OG founders, uh, if you bring rain like this every year, you guys can come back no matter what.

Stevan: Yeah, bring your Psytrance. Bring your mud. Stopping. Yeah. We want you back, right? Yeah.

Cat: Just bring your rain.

Stevan: Yeah. Yeah.

Hana: I remember that. They were keen on us. They were like, yep, if this is what you're gonna bring every year, I back every year. That was the good rain.

Stevan: So like, okay, we'll be back. Well, did you guys, did you guys see the, the moth, the rain moth around the site, [00:48:00] especially around the toilets?

Was that huge?

Frank: Huge.

Stevan: Is that a prophecy? Was that a prophecy?

Frank: That's what I mean, teachers were saying, they're saying when they turn up, it's gonna rain heavy. There, there's, there's something, there's some connection there.

Stevan: Were you made aware that you, you saw these all moths and this is gonna come down and everyone's gotta Yeah.

Well there was no really warning really. It was just that we're just having a celebration of the burn. So

Cat: yeah, we didn't know what they presaged. We just knew that in Camp Hart where the rangers and the uh, organizers were kind of trying to run this big thing. There were these huge fricking moths that we could not keep out.

They just kept coming in and flooding in and we're like, where are all these giant moths coming from? And yeah, after the fact we learned that those guys only show up when it is going to bucket down. Yeah. So now every year when we see one, we're like, Ooh, ooh, we're gonna get some rain. But, uh, we've never seen so many as we did that first year.

Frank: I remember leading a, a small group, p said, let's, let's go out and see what, what else is [00:49:00] happening out there because this is, this rain is still coming down heavy and we're just up in the papasan's uh, tent. And, uh, there was about six or so people who were keen 'cause they knew they were gonna get soaked.

We all knew as soon as you go out there, you you'd, so, so, uh, off we went. And first up was these, like three people huddling, huddling in their tent looking very miserable. We came in with a bit of excitement, like, Hey, alright. And they just looked at us like f off, like, we're not happy, you know. And so we moved on, came across the large, uh, tent where they, there was a folk band, live band was gone.

I bump it to, to Jen and Ben, and that's when they were just in awe, um, kept running down. And then there was, um, oasis, my god, that was just remarkable. It was knee deep water. They were right in the Cos Creek, hence what it's called, cos Creek. But everyone was sitting on the tables. There was no power. And there was people with phone torches, some headlights, and they were all just sitting on tables [00:50:00] like camp.

And, uh, yeah, there was murmuring and, and sawing. Uh, you know, it

was, it was such a mixed bag.

Some people.

Stevan: And this is probably where, where the whole Blaze community kind of formed as well, or, you know, during that moment. Um, you know, and, and going back, I remember the first, you know, that first year, you know, I, I entered Blazing Swan through like selling, through like camping. Like, we're gonna go out there into this paddock and just gonna camp with a bunch of weirdos.

And, and after the experience I was just like, this is amazing. This is, you know, I was inspired. I actually made a little, little kind of 10 minute video after, after collecting everyone's photos from Facebook that year. Made a, made a little commemorative kind of clip about the whole experience. So I loved it.

And then the next year kind of inspired coming back and, um, running my own theme camp for the first time. So yeah, that was [00:51:00] fantastic. Yeah. So blazing Swan the next year, how did you guys follow up? Would've been, uh, a big task.

Hana: I think the first year we learned how much we dunno because we literally had just our, essentially our committee of seven people running the entire event and you know, it's a new site, it's a new event, we dunno who's gonna come, we dunno what's gonna happen, we dunno how things run.

And then we had this weather event as well. So we were just, everyone was working. The seven of us that was essentially running it. This was before we had a DPW and a whole crew of people assisting. Like now we have a lot of leads and teams and there's loads of people making the event happen now, but back then, I'm pretty sure it was just said when I was running around dealing with overflowing toilets and burst pipes and the flooding and generators and all sorts of things.

And um, yeah, so we just thought we can't do this on our own. [00:52:00] We need more help, we need more people, we need people with, you know, event experience or keen to do any role in there because, um, even though we had a great time and we were thrilled that we pulled it off, it was horrendously exhausting because we were such a tiny team doing a lot with a new event.

So I think that that was probably one of the first things that we were resolved to do was get more help. Like it can't just be seven of us doing this. And then we were also excited that for the second year we had 12 months. To plan and prepare and not just free. So, yeah, and I think, I think also there was that idea of like, well, it can't be any worse if that's as bad as it's gonna get with all that flooding and everything.

We're on the up and up, like the first year's done, the hard bit's kind of done, we're off the launch pad. So yeah, I think we've been excited for that second year because we did feel like even though we had the adversity, we did, we accomplished what we set out to achieve. And it was like taking a block from Burning Man and [00:53:00] clunking it in a wheat field.

So we were like, we're off to a good start.

Cat: And we also saw that we had the demand because we did have quite a few more people turning up to that first event than we thought there would be. So we're like, all right, well we, we need to go bigger and better this year. And we had a bunch of people with big ideas and big dreams.

Paul Jorgenson super keen on the effigy that year, making it bigger, bigger, bigger and bigger. And yeah, it um,

Stevan: that was one of the biggest, wasn't it, thousand 15? Yes. One of the biggest effigies.

Hana: It was insane. Was nuts

Cat: not supposed to be quite that Lauren. And then things happened.

Stevan: Yeah. What's the story behind that then?

He just kept on pulling up and compounding.

Frank: Um, it was, we sat around one night, uh, I think this was over at Louis's house that for this particular committee because, um, meeting, because I recall we'd saved images of, you know, different pose, uh, angles, different um. Poses of the swan. And there was one that everyone sort of really liked, which was the sort of the flapping, like it was sort of coming [00:54:00] off out the lake to sort of lift up, you know, when they, they just would fla their wings and then they'll sort of go back to their, their paddling position.

But to do that, I mean, it looked like, uh, a lot less when it's the photo, but when you actually build the structure, you need to be able to support those wings because they're so heavy. And that's why it became, oh, sorry. That, that was the first year, wasn't it? Okay. I'm talking about 2015 showing an image.

Yeah.

Hana: Frankie talking about the one where it had the wings out, like, like it was kind of hugging something in front.

Frank: Yeah. And it just got so massive to be able to support the structure. You know, it's, it's one thing a architect or, you know, we didn't, I remember we actually went to an architect once, but they couldn't do it in the end because they were too busy.

They, which looked pro bono work that they, you just sort of, when it, if you comes to the crunch of building it, it's the realization of making sure that it's safe and the structure. So I think that's just how it sort of grew and grew and it got so big that I remember calling, uh, emailing Guinness Book of Records because [00:55:00] I felt that we were certainly onto something here with the world's largest timber swan having been built.

But uh, at that point they were the final hours. Many late and, and hats off to so many of the team who just pushed through, um, so many late nighters to just get that eff complete as, as did happen previously.

Hana: It had, it had telegraph poles holding it up, I think like big, like huge trees essentially holding it up those wings, they were massive.

Cat: And then we had a lovely, uh, welded steel egg in the center that the swan was protecting, um, that had fire going in it. So people would come up at night and just kind of hold the egg to get a bit warm.

Hana: And I think, and Paul had that vision of it being like a space as well that people could use for events.

I think that was part of that sort of wing embrace thing that it actually made a space so that people could run workshops in [00:56:00] there or play music or, you know, so it was actually a usable space.

Cat: Yeah. Paul was running Burning Man dreams on a blazing Swan budget.

Frank: And was that the, the egg was that, um, Matson who welded that egg and it now

Cat: sits Yeah.

Matson,

Frank: the shire of Cool and right in center of town.

Hana: Yep. Yep.

Cat: Now sits in town.

Hana: Yep. Still there. Just wait. Yep.

Frank: And, and that was the great joy after the first year, just some incredible people just stepping up, you know, just people that were extremely talented and, uh, just, uh, gave their all. And, uh, I was.

Simple moments that just blew me away, such as, um, the brothers,

Phil and Peter, who were cool and locals came out to the first one, saw all of us running around cleaning the toilets by ourselves, trying to, you know, keep them reasonably tidy for, for the patrons. And then those guys come because you shouldn't be down.

You need to get more people outta here to help you do this shit. So, hey, how about [00:57:00] we help you do the toilets and just guys like them, you know, they're in their fifties, forties and fifties.

Two, two brothers, they cleaned the toilets for the next two or three years until we could actually afford getting contractors in.

Uh, so yeah, stuff like that was just

Cat: a lot of people who had either been to that first year or a lot of locals had, they suddenly understood what we were trying to do. And so we had like double the amount of theme camps. Like, it was, it was crazy. The, the growth of participation, not necessarily the number of people, but the number of people actually making something to bring or making a camp or, you know, just really enthusiastic about giving back to the community was, um, much better that second year than the first.

Hana: I recall that first year as well. Cool. And council gave us a lot of support in that. I think they gave us like some marque and structures and things for free and, um, because they were saying that like they remembered how difficult it was to get the cool and Bush races [00:58:00] up and running and how hard it is that first year, you know, to get off the ground.

And 'cause they wanted to help us succeed, then they actually, you know, helped out a lot with like, farm machinery and gave us the big covered area that's at the top of the site, I think, you know, for free and all that kind of stuff, which was really lovely to help us get off the ground to make sure that we could get going and be successful.

Cat: And finding out what was really important to us as term in terms of like, volunteers. Like, I remember the first year we didn't have, uh, like staff kitchen or anything. Like, we had a kitchen space, but we didn't have anyone running it or making food for us. And we were all, you know, working our tails off and just the, the build crews wouldn't stop to eat.

You literally could not get them to stop and eat. I like, we had people making sandwiches and driving 'em out and like trying to force them to put down their tools and have a sandwich. So second year it's like, we need a kitchen. We need someone feeding the people who are making this happen because we don't have, we [00:59:00] can't feed ourselves and keep ourselves alive and build this amazing event.

So getting those really key volunteer support crews were very, very important for the continuation and, um. You know, Louie and Ollie and Frankie were absolutely magical with the, with the, uh, DPW and with, you know, getting that sort of the ground floor volunteers who are out there for months on site building all this stuff and creating that really tight knit crew.

They were really, really good with that.

Hana: Yeah. I think it's also where we had safety starting to come in as well, because that first year it was kind of like, oh, let's see what people bring. Let's see what happens. And then some of the things were like, oh, this is a bit dodgy. This is a bit Slack dash, it's cool, it's awesome, it's fun, but oh, I dunno if this is, you know, designed to do the job that it's doing.

And so we started thinking more about, well actually, if we're gonna have all these people doing all this cool stuff, we're gonna need to bring in those safety elements and some kind of [01:00:00] structure in that regard to make sure everyone stays safe and people don't get hurt. So, yeah.

Cat: Well, temple, the first year, um mm.

Matt Robinson stopped someone from running into the burning temple. Yes. You know, and that was when we realized like, oh shit. You know, safety perimeters around burns ultra important. We need to get that locked down. So we need rangers, we need, you know. At least for the, these important big safety, these big burns really need safety and they need that good solid foundation to be able to do this massive thing in a safe way.

And luckily we learned that first year because that fire the second year was proportionately large to the, to the effigy. The effigy was gigantic, the fire was gigantic. We did learn some things about wind direction and burnt down a couple of tents, but luckily it wasn't too bad. Um, you know, we did, we didn't burn down anything like the protected jar forests or anything important.[01:01:00]

Not to say that, sorry, my medication is wearing off so rambling a bit. But we did burn down a couple things, but not anything huge. And we did learn very important lessons about wind direction, but at least we had our safety as far as patrons were concerned on lock that year because of events in the first year.

Yeah. If

Frank: that's, I've noticed that's what caused the effe to move, was it?

Hana: Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Frank: Yeah.

Hana: And if I've noticed one thing over the years, there's certainly been more paperwork and structure and safety and things coming in over time, but even though it's like a painful amount almost these days for all the different facets of the camps and the event, a lot of it's come about because of those early years because of mistakes that were made and things that we learned.

And so we kind of have brought in more people, more experts in various areas and built in more of that stuff so that as the community grows, we can make sure that everyone stays.

Stevan: Yeah, I, I, I remember during that, [01:02:00] that period there was a lot of committee growing as well. Mm-hmm. Um, not just about talking about what, whether it's wearing, you know, the, the hairdressers or whatever, whether it's appropriate or not, but more in terms about gifting, I think, I think there was some conversations about gifting, like in terms of health issues, you know, with passing around food or, or gifting food or, or drinks, uh, stuff like that.

So, yeah, it was, it was good community learning.

Hana: Hmm. Yeah, for sure. I think, you know, we realized that even though we were a small event relative to something like Burning Man that has a lot more people, we're on a smaller scale, we still have to have those same rules around, you know, food safety and responsible service of alcohol and structural safety and burn safety and all that kind of stuff to make sure that it's all running smoothly and we don't have the problems as, as we progress and as we grow.

Cat: And on the scale of regional events, our first event was massive. No other event hit that number of people for its first year anywhere in the, in the world. And [01:03:00] so, yeah, as far as regional Con are concerned, we're quite a large regional. So, you know, that necessitates the bigger infrastructure. Um,

Stevan: probably the most isolated regional as well.

Maybe not sure about that. I think that might be why it's, yeah,

Cat: that might be why it's so big, is because it's very isolated. A lot of people will never be able to go to Burning Man, so this is their chance. Uh, Australia has a very good doof, uh, d sorry. Australia has a very good diff culture. My American is showing.

So yeah, we got a lot of, a lot of DERs showing up and being, oh, what's this party? And sort of all of a sudden being like, oh wait, this is na diff. And you know, the greeters educating came in to try. And one of the reasons our greeter section is so strong is because we had a lot of people who hadn't been acculturated, they didn't know what Burning Man was, they didn't know what regional events were.

They just knew, ah, it's a big party. Let's go to the big party and crank up the music and make trouble. So a lot of what we have done has been in effort to let people know what we're trying to get [01:04:00] at, you know, to try and give people a little taste of Burning Man so they know where we're going. And in, I think after 2015.

Uh, Matt, Matt Robinson, myself and a couple other people have been able to go to Burning Man on, um, mentorship scholarships to try and understand how the big burn does it so that we can do it better. So, um, Matt mentored under the communications people to try and learn about more about radios and communications between the different teams and how they managed that.

I mentored under, under the Fire conclave to learn how they did burning the big things safely and doing the fire conclave safely and met amazing people and had some amazing experiences through that program. And they had a, uh, summit. So what Banza is based on is the Burning Man Regional Network Summit, which happened every year for a couple years there where they get people together from.

All the regional events all around the world. Um, they get meta regionals who, people who are contacts [01:05:00] for areas of regions and it, it is very different where in the states, you know, every state has their own regional or even multiple regionals. Uh, and in Australia we, we at the time had two, uh, and for our whole country.

So it is very different the um, the size of the scale and the amount of people you get from burn to burn and regional to regional. But it's been really great having that network to be able to learn from. And uh, you know, that's where Banza came in to also try and, you know, share our regional learning in Australia from making these burns in New Zealand.

Kiwi Burn being the, one of the oldest regional burns actually Kiwi Burn and Burning Flip side in Texas are the two oldest regional events. Um, they started very shortly after Burning Man started. So yeah, trying to get their knowledge and share it with everyone else and make connections. It's all, it's what it's all about.

Stevan: Yes, it was 2015 was when Blazing Swan became a regional 14. Uh, that was second year.

Cat: Um, 1415 was the [01:06:00] second one.

Stevan: Yeah. So when did it become a regional

Frank: That's a good point because, um, so remember Paul Jorgenson said we need to have, we need to have a regional contact over here in the west to be the conduit to make sure did was so 2014, I dunno if we had the official stamp.

So I. Came through 2015 was when officially recognized. And every year after you had to do the application. And that's when the incident came up. And there was lots of back and forth between Steven and I because he was saying, dunno if we can approve you guys, because you've got all this very comfort infrastructure out there.

You've got the giant commercial kitchen, you've got showers, you've got, uh, what else we have, we've got multiple water point access points. So that wasn't, uh, kind of in the ethos of the, the burn. Um, but they eventually came around to it. [01:07:00] Uh, thankfully, I, I think it was a common sense approach in the sense that, hey, look, we, we don't expect everyone to be able to have a, a beautiful ancient bedrock flat, uh, great for bike riding ply in their backyard.

And, uh, in, in your situation, this was pretty structural. This wasn't you guys bringing this and setting that all up, um, yourselves or anything like that. Um, so yeah, they eventually signed off on that.

Stevan: Yeah, I think the, the criteria has changed because, um, third degree, which, which is a new regional event in Australia, I think in 2024 when they established that they, they have a preexisting, you know, infrastructure as well.

So I think the criteria's changed.

Frank: Hmm.

Stevan: Yeah. A bit more flexible. I think it's good. Okay, this is gonna be quiz segment time. I've actually designed a, uh, a short, uh, Kulin quiz. So you guys wanna play along. Let's brush up on Oh yeah, your Kulin knowledge. How many times can we actually drive that down?

That way? Many times.

Cat: Too many you remember?

Stevan: Yeah. So [01:08:00] question one about Kulin in which regional part of Western Australia is Kulin The wheat belt? White belt? Yeah. Direction wise

Cat: East. What are we looking at? East of where? Direction wise. From where?

Stevan: From Perth. Sorry. Oh, Western Australia. In what region?

Where? Wheat belt area a half. Otherwise, yeah,

Cat: we built three hours inland from Perth.

Stevan: Yeah, Southeast. I would've accepted Southeast. That's the answer. Yeah. So you're not driving east to Kalgoorlie. Go. You're driving Southeast.

Hana: See, we, we know the road so well. We don't even look on maps anymore. We just do the drum drive.

We punch along the road. Yeah.

Stevan: Okay. What is the distance between Kulin and Perth then? Okay, this is multiple choice. So I'll, I'll give you some, uh, some distances. Is it a 288 kilometers? Is it B 277 kilometers C 283 or is it 280 kilometers? A b could make this easy. Could

Cat: you Two [01:09:00] kilometers, a hundred kilometers.

Hana: I think from my house it's 278 kilometers

Cat: between two and 300

Hana: because I just Google mapped it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's two.

Frank: Oh, you're cheating Hana.

Hana: I'm, yeah. Yes, correct.

Stevan: So if, if you're going through the Brookton highway, it's 2 77. Otherwise, if you're going through York or Merridin, it's 2 83. So

Cat: if you're going in a 1968 VW Bug, it's a lot longer.

'cause you have to stop and go into town and go on little side.

Stevan: Yeah. It depends on what you're towing, right? Yeah.

Cat: Yep.

Stevan: Yeah. Okay. What is the population of Kulin town? You guys? know.

Frank: I grew up in a population of between 200 and 300 and Balingup up and I reckon it's close to 300.

Hana: I have no idea. Oh wait, in 2021 it was 352 people.

Frank: Anna, what you doing? That was the last consistent,

Cat: I think her cameras turned off.

Hana: Yeah. I'm cheating on the question.

Frank: That's why [01:10:00] you

Stevan: Yeah, it's around roughly about 300 people. Yeah. Not, not that many. Um,

Frank: hi, here's, uh, here's a, a question add. Um, where did the in horse highway get their inspiration from

Stevan: the bull and push the, the, the Kulin Bush races?

Frank: No, it was from the small farm field Day in bailing up with the scarecrows. Ah, and, uh, Mary Mary Lai tells the story. Because she's been around for a very long time and uh, that's where they got the inspiration to do something similar out and Kulin it, I was quite surprised.

Hana: Nice.

Stevan: Yeah. Cool.

Hana: I, I think part of the intention as well was to have people go through there when they're heading out to like Wave Rock and further out East, they were thinking as part of like a tourism thing that people would take the drive through Coolen to go go see the Tin Horse Highway rather than taking one of the other route outfit they can take.

And therefore we would bring more tourism and people through town as well. [01:11:00]

Stevan: Well, Frank, do you, well you guys, do you guys know when it was actually started? Like what year? The Tin Horse competition? No, 1995. That was the same year as the K Bush races. That's when it started. Yeah.

Hana: Nice question is, what was the first Horse, do we know?

Quiz you back?

Stevan: Who was the first horse? I dunno, it wasn't a Whopper, was it? Yeah, the Whoppers, uh, built later on.

Hana: Oh dear.

Stevan: Okay. When is the 2025 Kulin Bush races on this year? What dates

Cat: October sometime?

Hana: Yeah, that, that was gonna be

my entire October. Sometime

Stevan: early October. Yeah, this year's gonna be on the third, fourth, and 5th of October.

So it's a whole weekend, uh, of, uh, festivities there. Have you guys been anyone? Anyone been?

Cat: Yep. I went once. It was a lot of fun.

Hana: Yeah, there's a fire and circus festival that I run every October and it goes one side pretty much to the same weekend as Colin Bush Racers. So I can never go 'cause it's on at the same [01:12:00] time.

Stevan: Is it as rowdy as, as what we pictured to be?

Cat: It's pretty rowdy, but it's a different sort of, oh, are you talking about spun up? Are you talking about the Kulin Bush races?

Stevan: The Bush races?

Cat: Uh, yeah, the Bush race is a bit rowdy, but it's uh, it's a different crowd. It's, yeah, you know, it's farmers, it's, uh, families.

But the, it's kind of like a weird inverse of Blazing Swan, where Blazing Swan, all the action happens, you know, out in the, in the paddocks and, uh, the kitchen area is like just staff and the people who are just making, making shit run, nothing to see here. Whereas at the Bush races, all the action happens up at the kitchens.

They turn it into a big, you know, bar and have, uh, serve food and alcohol and all sorts of stuff up there. And that's sort of the hub for everyone. And then the paddock is just rv after rv after rv, just full up of RVs that people come and park. But yeah, the, the real interesting bit for me was [01:13:00] just. The different races.

You know, they had, uh, all sorts of different races for different groups, different categories, and they even had a, had a dog race and a kids race and, uh, all sorts of that. But it was, it was a very interesting inverse of Blazing Swan in that, um, it was a big moneymaking opportunity for coolin, you know, selling booze, selling food, and the gambling and the, you know, lots of money, money, money.

Whereas, uh, Swan is like, no money go away. No money here. Um, but yeah, still a real good fun time. A lot of, uh, there was some live music, so it was a real, uh, a real fun event for that community. And those, uh, you know, the people in the area. Yeah.

Stevan: So it's a family event, so it's more concentrated for during the daytime activities.

Yeah.

Cat: Yes. And you know, in that big marquee, they, they run it in their big marquee that they have on site. Um, so it's all, you know, fine if it's raining, fine, if it's sunny, whatever. Um, we only started using that marquee like a couple, you know, a couple years in [01:14:00] and only half of it and only the top of it.

We were trying to use as little infrastructure as we could, whereas the, you know, the Bush races is just like, you know, how much infrastructure can we get?

Hana: I think they also have 5,000 people as well, which is like a fair bit more than we have. Yeah.

Cat: Yeah. It's definitely much more like broad interest kind of event, whereas ours is a bit more niche weirdos.

Stevan: Yeah. Okay. Name at least three agricultural or livestock. Or grains that you'll find on the paddocks and farmlands around Kulin,

Cat: canola, wheat, sheep, sheep, wheat. That's what,

Stevan: yeah, that's great. They also do, they also do, yeah. Oats and barley and rye and, and, uh, and, uh, sorghum. So yeah, a lot of, uh, yeah, it's a wheat bit wheat built area.

So yeah, all the grains. All the grains. Okay. What is the floral emblem of the Shire of Kulin? [01:15:00]

Cat: It's years. It yellow. I think it's yellow.

Frank: Yeah. I was thinking,

Hana: I don't, I'm not even gonna pretend it's a fla.

Stevan: It's a flowering gum. It's the eucalyptus macrocarpa. Is it yellow? It's yellowish. Yeah. Yeah.

Cat: Hey, I got the color right.

Half a point.

Stevan: Okay. The Kulin Aqua Aquatic Center and water slide is uh, open from what month to what month?

Cat: Not during Blazing Swan.

Stevan: That's correct.

Hana: But they, they do open it for us though when Blaze is on, they will have it open at certain times so that blazers can come for a slide.

Cat: I've never been able to get out there.

I've always been keen to blaze. I've never been able to, um, yeah. Open during the summer months when it's nice and warm.

Stevan: Yeah. From November to March. So Yeah, it's a tiny window, so, yeah. So hopefully there's a. Uh, a period where we can go in February. Did you say Frank?

Cat: What we need to have is like a blazing swan sponsored pool party where we all wear, like, have weird, uh, inflatables.

[01:16:00] You know, we bring all our inflatable unicorns down and take over the aquatic center and take 'em down The giant water slide.

Hana: Sounds good. I like that idea. Let's do that next year. Little, little blazing excursion.

Cat: Yeah, I'm good at the ideas. I'm not good at the, uh, organization of people. That's why we have the committee and the other people involved.

'cause none of us could have done this alone.

Stevan: Okay. Is this true or false? Kulin has the biggest water slide park in in regional western Australia. True, true or false is very,

Cat: they had the biggest water slide.

Frank: Yeah, they had the biggest water slide and they shipped it over on multi semi trailers from Queensland.

I think they can claim fame to it being something like the tallest or something like that.

Hana: I think, I think it was the longest, I think it was the longest water slide in the southern hemisphere at one point

Stevan: 18 meters high. I think it's,

Frank: it's too, it's too show the angle isn't steep enough. So when I went on it, I was [01:17:00] just like, I'm having to like do the, the dog butt drag sort to, you know, get down the slide.

Cat: Maybe your butt's just not the, quite the right. Your buts too grippy, grippy apy, but

Frank: grippy grip but syndrome.

Stevan: It's not a bad landmark for, for Kulin. The, the water slide.

Hana: Yeah. Yeah. I think between the, the bush races, the water slide, the Tin Horse highway, you know, they've got a lot going for them. It's, it's worth going through if you're going through the wheat belt

Cat: and they have a giant egg in the middle.

Yes. A blazing swan. Exactly. There's been talks about doing a little sculpture park, um, for, you know, art that's been at Blaze before. And the Kulin community is lovely. Always worth stopping at the pub, having a chat, having a game of pool, go into the IGA, you know, the cafe, it's, it's always a lovely, they have a little hardware store if you forget something.

I have stopped there on numerous occasions 'cause I've forgotten one thing or another. And that second year we relied on them quite heavily [01:18:00] for, you know, fixings and fasteners and things that we forgot for building the effigy. And, you know, before we got all our shit together, we had to, you know, send people into town daily to pick up another pack of screws or this drill bit that we didn't know we needed, that we didn't have.

And so, yeah, they've been a wonderful, supportive community out there in town.

Stevan: Yeah, I think they're pretty prepared now for, for the stuff that we need. Uh, what, what is the distance between KU and town and the Ku and Bush races? Track

Hana: 15 minutes of the car.

Cat: 25 Ks.

Stevan: 15 minutes.

Cat: Yeah. Is it 25 Ks

Frank: minutes in the Stinger?

Cat: I remember doing a 20 5K sign.

Stevan: Yeah. It's about, oh, it's about 16 ks from. Jilikan Rock North Road. Mm. So if you start from that point, it's about 16 Ks. Yeah. So, yeah, like you said, coolant does offer a lot, um, for a small town, and they've been part of the Blaze community, uh, since day one. So yeah, we're really lucky to have them.

Frank: Yeah,

Hana: absolutely. Yeah. The, the, I think the first, the, the shop. Normally changes its trading hours when Blaze is on [01:19:00] to ensure that they can like the, the iga so that people can get food and drinks on their way in and on their way out. And, and at times on the weekends when they wouldn't normally necessarily be open, they change their trading hours to accommodate Blaze.

They now know the sorts of things that we need and that we want, they get extra stock in. I remember the first year when we had Blaze, I was talking to the, the pub owner and the shop owner and said, look, we've got all these people coming through. They're gonna want these particular things you might wanna stock up.

And they didn't really listen that first year. I don't think they necessarily trusted what was gonna happen. And um, and the bottle shop that runs out of the pub sold out of all of these like particular drinks that Blazers drink, they were just sold out. The shop had run out of certain things. And so by the next year they were like, okay, we're prepared.

Now we, we know what's coming. You know, and I think the, the first year as well, the community wasn't sure who we were. You know, like anyone that knew maybe anything about [01:20:00] Burning Man was just like, oh, we don't want all these smelly, dirty hippies coming and having a party here and being a problem. And then when people came into town in their fun sparkly costumes and tutu and everything else that people were wearing, everyone was so friendly and lovely to the shop owners and everywhere that they went in that all the locals that I think experienced blazers were like.

You guys are so nice. You're so lovely. This is so great. So not only was it like a boost to the economy with everyone buying things in town, but then everyone was so nice that the locals were like, oh yeah, we love having this event here. We're definitely all on board now supporting this. And they've been quite consistent since the first year in that, you know, in, in supporting Blazing Swan being there and accommodating our community there.

So it's great

Cat: and also getting involved, um, Erin and the Cool and Arts Association. Uh, Erin has a camp out there, the Tin Horse Experience Camp, where she makes little [01:21:00] tin horses that people can race around. Um, and, you know, brings out just tables and tables full of goodies for people to decorate their horses with.

And, you know, they've been involved since the very beginning. You know, and are still going strong. And, uh, all of the local police, Brendan and the local ambos have all been incredibly supportive. And, you know, it's always good seeing 'em again and being like, oh, you're here again. And, um, yeah, getting a good old catch up with the old crew.

Hana: Yeah. Actually, the, this, this, those sorts of services have been super lovely the whole time. Like even the police, when they first came out there, they were like, oh. This is quite nice. Like you guys are like, they were surprised how organized we were, you know, having rangers within the first couple of years and being self-policing and how well behaved everyone is and, and the local ambulance people have been super lovely and just, it's been great.

It makes a huge difference. I think too, a regional event or any event, if you've really got the local council on board, you know, the [01:22:00] local police, you've got the local ambulance, all those services, if everybody wants your event there, then your event really thrives. And I think if they don't, you're going to struggle, you know, because some communities don't necessarily want to see these things there for whatever reason, you know?

So we've been super lucky.

Cat: Yeah, we did have a little bit of pushback in the first couple years with people not understanding and our music was too loud and, you know, all that stuff. Uh, and you know, finding out that oh, if we point our speakers this way, it travels across the Salt Lake and everyone on the other side of the Salt Lake gets upset at us.

Um, so we learned where to point our speakers and you know, how to accommodate the local community and having sound cutoff times so we're not, you know, blasting sounds all night long, too loud across the Salt Lake. So, you know, trying to have a bit of give and take with the local community, I think is also what has enabled Blazing Swan to stay at the same site for our entire, you know, our entire existence.

We haven't had to move sites, and that's a. Big thing for a burn. 'cause [01:23:00] if you have to move sites, if you have to go somewhere totally different, you have to start almost from square one, relearning where the rivers are and um, where the high ground is and where you can put in tent pegs and all that good stuff.

So yeah, we've been really blessed to have developed this symbiotic partnership with the community.

Stevan: Yeah, there's, uh, there's also, um, so forging the, the rapport and the relationship with coolant is important, but also with the First Nations engagement as well. Frank, do you wanna talk a bit about that?

Mm-hmm.

Frank: Yeah, sure. So a lot of the community knew that I was a proud of wa job. You with No Man. And for me, um, it was really important that we had had a welcome. There wasn't a welcome in the first year because of, as we touched on earlier in this episode, the mad scramble just to get the event and the, um, deadline that we set ourselves.

And having never actually been out there, really, we, once we found the place, we were all guns. And once the dust settled on that event, I was able to take the [01:24:00] time, um, to connect with Mob. And, uh, my first, uh, connection was through my auntie because she knows about that way. And the Coard, Don and Sylvia Coard was someone, she said, well, look, I, I'm quite close with Neville.

You should go talk to Neville's folks. They're out in. Um, so I just did a day trip and drove out, introduced myself, um, didn't take long for Don Pollard to make the connections to his cousin Charlie, uh, the Shores, which is, uh, my bloodline through my father's side. And it was just a really humbling, um, experience sitting on the front porch with Don and Svia for that afternoon.

Uh, probably five hours just listening to them and their stories and their time on the, they had really tough and, um, Don,

Don and Sylvia, they [01:25:00] cleared so much of that farmer's land. And um, you know, when you think about just how difficult that would be in the sense that you are not getting paid, you know, you're getting sort of a wage in the sense of food and shelter and to be clearing your lands, you know, that were once yours.

There's a lot of difficulty and, and struggle through what that would've been like, and you sense that and their stories. Don also, there's stolen Jen matters through his family. So they had, they've been, they've had a pretty tough life, but their ability and their resilience and their. Towards me and, and as a stranger, effectively, even though there's, there's distant, um, relation connections there, just, it always impressed me that no matter how hard they've had it, they always found so much warmth within [01:26:00] themselves to make others at Blaze feel that they were very supportive of this event.

And, you know, for them to say, yes, we we're happy to come out and to do the acknowledgement, uh, sorry, the welcome to country and the, the relationships that they forge. I, I was always, um, you know, pleasantly surprised just with random moments of people who really took the time to connect with Don and Sovia, um, their daughter, Glens Coard.

And, um, their, just the, I think what was really special was that they had felt for the first time a community was really getting behind supporting them and their, their connection to the butcher, their connection to that region. They, uh, have always had it, but with Lays you could see that they, uh, really felt an immense sense of respect from the community.

And they're always so excited to [01:27:00] come back out. Um, sadly, Don passed a couple years ago now, and, uh, you know, Tommy's getting on. It, it, it was, um, her first year that she missed this year due to just age. And, um, soys has taken over. Andys has been really helpful with, um, you know, sort of giving me the confidence that she's up for the task to assist with, uh, the next gen.

And that since the passing of Dawn, she was, uh, forthcoming and saying, Hey, I know that in previous Blazers you have wanted to really sort of step up the welcome. I've always had a real, uh, keenness to make it, uh, a much bigger event and a centerpiece of the event. I, I feel that that is something that's really important to me, and I know there's a lot of people that would like that as well, but just due to that elder relationship with the daughter, that she would say things like, I, I [01:28:00] absolutely can understand that that is something you would like to do and expand more involvement with other mob, but one.

They tried to take it on themselves and for whatever reason it just, things didn't work out. So with now sort of stepping into that, uh, under the, of her, since the passing of her father, she has been more supportive and that's where I've been able to bring out Outba, our dance group. And they've, uh, performed the last two years in a row, Lou and I were just hanging out the other weekend and we were both just waxing, uh, talking about what we would like to do, and that was just between me and him.

So it is a space that has massive potential to grow and be more of a centerpiece. It's tricky in the sense that traditionally a welcome is at the start of an event, uh, with [01:29:00] Blaze. The fact that you've got the gates opening Wednesday lunch, but people coming, you know, just starting to stream in and where Friday, Saturday you've probably got the peak.

Saturday is probably the peak of the, the amount of people there. We have always chosen to try and get that happening around Friday, Saturday. We're still toying with that. We felt well, um, this year was, was quite good in the sense that it was, um, we learned lesson from the previous year, which was the sun was in people's faces.

It was in the middle of the day. So if it's a, it's an Easter that's a little closer to summer, and uh, you that positioning, right, that was actually causing a discomfort. Some people sort of.

So this year was, was much better, uh, in the sense that it was, um, closer towards sunset and, uh, uh, you know, that sort of afternoon, late afternoon with the Sun. So we'll continue to, to look at how [01:30:00] we, we develop the welcome there. But the, um, the connection was, was beautiful in the sense that there was, um, just a relationship there.

Just another beautiful sign about, uh, why was, was a great spot.

Cat: It's been really wonderful to watch the welcomes grow over the years and to see the dance trip out there. It's been extraordinary.

Hana: Yeah, I was. I actually, because I've been to it pretty much every year, I think since the beginning, and it's been interesting how it's gone from kind of talking and people not being able to hear, and then we've gotten like microphones and speakers so people can hear the talking.

There's been a smoking ceremony and there's been a little. Storytelling with the welcoming. But then the last couple of years with the dance troupe in there, there's just been like music and dancing and humor and people are joining in with the dancing. There was like a collective sort of seagulls going around on a rock with ocean going this year.

And it was like, this feels like several hundred people all like dancing together. So it wasn't just the, the mob doing [01:31:00] the the welcome, but it was all the blazers joining with that and the joy that that brought to people that like, it wasn't just kind of like us being audience and them welcoming us.

There was this real connecting and kind of interweaving with each other, especially in that last and dance. And so I thought that was really beautiful and, and and seeing that evolution has been amazing. And then the boys that were doing the dancing at that, they came to our camp that evening, so the mob must have stuck around the rest of the day and into the evening because the younger boys that were dancing and they ended up at Fire Tribe and they were watching us like fire spinning and they're like, oh, this is so cool.

And so it was really nice that we gotta see them dance and do their thing. And then they came to our camp and watching us dance with fire and it's like, it's this real like nice kind of interweaving now as well. So I found that really joyful to, to experience this year. Mm.

Frank: You know, that's great to hear.

And I didn't know they, they came and by, it's also with the maturity of Blaze, there are people who have started coming out that might not have [01:32:00] come out in the early years. And you know, it's kind of got that sort of profile now where. People, uh, elder Dennis Simmons, you know, he's a, um, a very proud and prominent figure man.

And you know, what we could learn from him would be do the community service. And he's to do that. Some of the, he shared with already about just the respectful way to climb the rock, Silicon Rock. You know, he, he's saying he's immediately on the front foot saying, look, I'm not coming out here to be telling everyone off.

I actually want to teach so I can share my knowledge and that people can, then I know that I have done my job, that the community,

um, as a whole, the majority of the community will be, um, aware. And that if anyone, you know, isn't that, you know, I can trust that this community pull those people into line.

Cat: It would be amazing to see a camp [01:33:00] out there with storytelling and dancing and education and that's, you know, that would be really, really wonderful to see out there.

Frank: Truth telling

Cat: and, you know, just the history and the stories. It's such a, such a rich place.

Stevan: Um, is there any, um, like First Nations camp or anything? Uh, well, there, there are, I mean, I, I understand that the locals participated in the first year. Was it EMU Export? So there are some local influence with the Blaze Community Blaze event.

Frank: Uh, there's never been a camp. There was a couple hub piece that were built, um, well, a single large humpy built a couple of years in a row. Um, that was by Mullock. Uh, but you know, interestingly, again, Dennis Simmons comes out and sees that the positioning of the hum is such that if there's a [01:34:00] fire out the front with certain wind direction, you actually end up trapping the fire inside the hump.

So there's mob learning from mob, you know, and, and Dennis is, you know, coming at it in a, in a very friendly approach because again, let's not forget, you know, among our culture, aboriginal culture was smashed a bitch by colonizers. So, you know, I just think that with the more genesis that are out there, the more people that are, are wanting to share their, their knowledge and obviously Mon was sharing his knowledge of actually how to build a humpy definitely, uh, would add to experience.

And I do think that a lot of people who come out to Blaze are,

um, europeans. I had French people come up to me after one Welcome. Say, what? What was this all about? They just didn't have any understanding. And I think the more exposure there is to that, um, yeah, the more, um, the more knowledge is gonna be shared.

Stevan: Yeah, the, the storytelling aspect in [01:35:00] terms of what we do in the way we burn. Yeah. It's very important. Yeah, it was, it would be interesting to, to listen to, um, a foreigners take on our traditions. I think. Yeah. Especially, I mean, blazing swan, we, we do get a lot of, uh, international travelers that pass by and, and come and, um, have a look at our events, see what's going on.

I mean, I'm, I'm guilty of inviting some of these people. Um, uh, some of these are couch surfers or, or nomadic travelers, just wanting them to get, to have a taste of this, uh, vibrant burn community that we have in Perth.

Cat: Yeah, that's your fault.

Stevan: Yeah, I've, I've, I've heard, I've, I've heard about all the, all the frenches this year.

Um, a bit of, uh, some controversial about that, about some of the, um,

Hana: yeah, and you, you get people coming in from outside of the community and whether they're from overseas or they're just not part of the sort of Perth wa burner community culture before they come out to Blaze, people just dunno when they get there.

And [01:36:00] that's why we have greeters and why we have the principles that we try and teach them and why, you know, your little burner guides got that stuff in there as well. But I mean, it's, it's written in English, so if you don't read good English, you're not gonna read the Bena guide. Maybe you don't necessarily understand the instructions you're getting at the gate about the principles.

So I think, and you know, blaze events are not like any other kind of festivals and events, so people may just think it's just a big elaborate doof or a music festival or an arts festival, and they kind of treat things that way. And especially if language is a barrier, it can take them a little while to, you know, it may take an event or two or three for them to be like, oh, hang on, I've been going about this the wrong way.

I've kind of not. Realize what's actually happening and that this is unlike any other festival or event that I've ever been to. So I think it's our job as a community always, you know, as they say to Africa, burn each one, teach one where it's everybody's responsibility to teach those around you, about what they're [01:37:00] doing right, what they're doing wrong, and how to kind of integrate with that community better.

And I think that's part of what sort of Frankie was saying, it's all about teaching. So even with, you know, the local mob out there and the elders and the people that know about the land and that site and what's appropriate for the rock, it's in. As much as we're teaching new burners coming in, they're teaching us, you know, we want them to teach us about the land and country and appropriate behaviors there.

So I think everybody needs to always be there with an open mind and be ready to teach, but also to learn.

Cat: Acculturation has always been our biggest challenge. Um, being so far away from Burning Man proper. You know, a lot of the people who come to our event will never get to Burning Man. So, you know, how do you, even if you describe Burning Man, you can't understand it until you're there and you're in the thick of it and you're looking out at this place just going, how does this exist?

How am I here? What is going on? Even when you're there, it's, it's hard to [01:38:00] understand. So trying to educate people who. Haven't experienced that is a challenge. And, um, we're getting better. And the more people who come back multiple times, the better, you know, they understand and the better they can teach others.

But it does take, you know, a little while for some people to really understand what's going on. And if it's just a traveler coming through for a one-off, they'll have fun and leave and whoop, do, do. But, um, we have actually had some, some people from overseas come back year after year, after year after year.

We've had people come from the States for multiple years to help on build crew. We've had a lot of support from the, from international burners. We've had a bunch of international burners who travel around the world going to different burns, just one after the other come through and enjoy our burn and gift to their presence and their experience and their, you know, their little gifts to the burn.

And, uh, yeah, it's been [01:39:00] really wonderful connecting with, you know, not only a local community, but a worldwide community in burners.

Stevan: Yeah. The education phase, the, the, the growth phase of Blazing Swan around around 20 16, 20 17, um, when was it when you guys introduced the, uh, 11th principle of consent? Is that

Frank: might have been when

Stevan: 16 or something?

Frank: Ed greeter. She was, I remember her banging the drum about this needs to really be implemented. Um, I think she was very vocal. I'm not sure if she was the original. Um. She come up with the idea? Maybe she did ask her.

Cat: Well, um, we had talked about adding it from the very beginning 'cause um, South Africa Burn has 11 principles and they added consent to theirs.

So, you know, Paul Jorgenson had been aware of that and told us about that from the beginning. And yeah, so there'd been discussion about whether we wanted to do that for a while. But, um, you know, when we did start encountering more problems [01:40:00] with people not understanding consent and how it informs all of the other principles, um, we decided we just had to spill it out black and white.

So it was a more recent edition, like an official recent edition. 'cause at the beginning we thought, oh, well it's obvious. Like, you know, consent is obvious. It doesn't need to be said because it's in all of the other principles. But it turns out it's not so obvious. And so, um, yeah, we're just a bit more open and outspoken about it now to try and stop horrible things from happening.

Stevan: All right, cool. Uh, let's talk about the effigies and temples over the years now, Cat, you were involved in, in in the second one. Do you wanna talk about that?

Cat: Well, um, so we were all involved in the first couple of effigies. They were very much mm-hmm. Uh, group efforts. I have my big old sketchbook here with the drawings from the first couple years.

Everyone would talk about what they wanted and show pictures, and I'd try and translate it into big sketches to get people's [01:41:00] ideas from, you know, their heads down on paper. And it was very much a back and forth collaborative effort with the committee and everyone involved. And it was, um, those were all very rewarding to work on.

And yeah, second, um, the first year's temple, we hadn't planned to have a temple that year, and Wesley built one on his own in memoriam of a friend of his who we'd lost. And that was a very, um, an amazing addition to the event that we hadn't planned on. And second year, uh, we had another dear friend from the fire community cat, uh, pass away.

And I designed a temple specifically for her. Um, so I designed and built the temple that year. It was incredibly challenging and we had a big collapse in the middle of it and had to put it up and problem solving and, you know, it was a big struggle to get it off the ground and going, but it was, uh, very rewarding to do so.

And we've had some absolutely phenomenal temples over the years. Um, you know, we've had some great [01:42:00] effigies. Yes. But, uh, for me, the temples have always. Uh, really hit something different every year. They've been so unique and magical and, uh, touching and some of 'em are like amazing in the day and not so good at night.

And some are amazing at night and not so good a day. And you know, some are, you have to experience it both night and day and it's always a, oh, I gotta get to this place and see this thing before it closes so I can experience it in all of its forms, uh, before it goes away forever.

Hana: I think part of the, the beauty of the temple is that the temple can be anything.

So that's what allows that structure to just be whatever creative process the, the temple lead and that temple team went through that year. And I think that's why we've had such interesting, unique structures, whereas I think we've kind of dug ourselves a little bit of a hole in a way with being blazing swan is that it always has to be a swan or some iteration of a swan.

So the first few years we had Swans that just kind of got bigger and bigger, and then we had two [01:43:00] swans and we had, it was this swan kind of evolution. But then you sort of think, how many different ways can we represent a swan before we run out of options? And then, um, and then basically angers came along and started putting swans on top of structures, which is very similar to what Burning Man does because obviously the man is the man at Burning Man and he's always the same.

And it used to be just the man standing on the ground very similar to ours just being a swan on the ground. And now if you have a look at what Burning Man is in that structure, there's like a whole huge area that surrounds it of art and lights and sounds and all sorts of things. It's an experience to go and visit the effigy and the man essentially stands on top of that.

So that's kind of, I feel like what we've moved towards with the effigies. Um, so yeah, they're two such different structures that have had like kind of almost different evolutionary sort of stories over the last 11 years.

Cat: I always enjoyed We

Frank: did we, did we do the hat? Sorry,

Larry [01:44:00] Larry's hat in honor of his passing

Stevan: 2 20 19, isn't it?

That was,

Frank: yeah, so that was the first year that we moved away from Swan, I believe.

Hana: Although we did still have little swans around it. I think there was little baby swans all around it. Yeah, the little s kind of around it. Yeah.

Cat: I always enjoy the act of burning the effigy of, of burning the swan or the hat or whatever burning.

I always enjoy the act of burning that quite a bit. I enjoy performing, I enjoy sitting with all my friends and watching, you know, all this thing. We've worked hard on go up in flames, whereas the temple burn is experiencing the temple before it burns is just as important to me as experiencing the burn itself and yeah, very, very different.

Stevan: Yeah. Some people have mentioned that, uh, the way you guys do your temples is that one of the. One of the great things is that it is like a per image. It is further away from, I guess, where the party is, where the whole central blazing swan is with the Boulevard [01:45:00] or the Esplanade or something. So is that like a, like a design choice you guys were having in mind?

Like it's gotta be further away from everything else and you actually gotta explore more, more of the farmland probably just to get there and, yeah,

Frank: absolutely. A lot of the temples and one of the core features of the temple is, is to be, you know, within probably to not be disturbed so much. A bit of like a library, sort of,

Cat: it's a temple, you have to make a pilgrimage.

All good temples deserve a good pilgrimage.

Frank: Yeah. And you know, a lot of people just wanna take some time out,

um, to reflect inside there. So, uh, I think that that is a good balance to where the location it is. Uh, and that was our in the, I believe, and it's never, it's never moved from there either.

Cat: Yeah. It was down in the middle of the racetrack before general camping was there.

We had the temple in the middle of the racetrack and we had the effigy by the side of [01:46:00] the lake. Uh, and then we found out the problems with having, having those downwind of the camping quite spectacularly. And so we moved those upwind of the cap camping and I think we found a real good placement for those.

And so they've stayed in the same place for, since we moved them to the correct location. But one of the big. One of the big things that did change is the first couple years we had our temple burn and we just kind of expected people to understand that we're burning a temple. You should be quiet and respectful.

Um, turns out that's not so obvious either. And so we, you know, started doing a music curfew and having everyone turn off their music around Temple time and really sort of making sure people understood that this point in time should be different from the other points in time. And, uh, fire tribe leading the.

Leading the procession and everything is, um, all the development of that as well.

Hana: Yeah, I think it's not necessarily obvious, especially if people are new [01:47:00] that effigy burn and temple burn are two very different things. 'cause if people are new to the event, they just big wooden structures. You, you can write on one and have a crying in one.

The other one you're kind of partying around, but they don't necessarily understand that when we burn them that they're two very different things. And it's, it's the same experience at at Burning Man. And that's obviously where that idea is taken from. And because I think, 'cause you have effigy burn on the Saturday night and it is this big party and there is music and noise and fire spiting and all this, then people, particularly if it's their first time, they think they're gonna have the same sort of experience with Temple.

And so, yeah, we have had to do over the years a lot of kind of education about having a reverence for what's going on with this space and what it means and what that burn means to people. And it's, it's pretty good these days. Sometimes there is a lot of noise still coming from people because, and particularly people that are drunk people, that's their first burn.

They [01:48:00] dunno, but the community's reasonably good at kind of being like, Hey, now's not the time. You know, like this is a quiet one. And part of the beauty of our temple burn and also the effigy to some extent, is that both those structures sit next to cave rock. So we've got this big tall rock feature, and particularly for Temple burn, people go up there, watch the sunset, the the sunset is behind the temple, and then that beautiful sunset light rolls into the ignition of the temple and the burn.

So it's a really beautiful experience. With the effigy burn, again, it's kind of around the, the other side of the rock a bit. And so we've got the fire conclave and people sit up on top of the rock so that they have the view of the effigy and the conclave, but then also generally from behind cave rock.

We have pyro techniques. We all the fireworks happening, so that's like a beautiful surprise. It sort of pops up from behind the rock. So I feel like. Kind of almost plays a role or is a feature in both of those [01:49:00] burns as well and in terms of how people experience them.

Stevan: Yeah. So what, what, what, what has been some of your favorite uh, uh, builds and, and temple builds over the years?

Anything that stands out in particular

Hana: For me, my favorite was a niche peacock when he did the lotus temple, because that was the first year that I was fire lead. And we had a human ignition of that temple because up until then, actually the first two years, the first two temples, the one that Wes did and the one that Cat did, we did manually ignite those.

But then for several years after that, we had pyrotechnics involved and we had pyrotechnic failures, pys that were meant to ignite it, and then they failed. And then plan B failed. And it was a little bit of a messy process. And um, and I really wanted to reclaim that human element of people coming to it and bringing that fire to it, and [01:50:00] ceremonially lighting it rather than kind of it being ignited with pyrotechnics.

And I knew what the burn plan was for that temple, and we really, ideally needed still wind conditions and we're actually under like a really windy site out there, and we just kind of put it out to the gods that we just wanted this beautiful burn. And that night the air was just. Dead still. It was not windy at all, which is very rare on that site.

And we did this beautiful procession walk around this ignition process, and it burnt so beautifully. And the way that niche had designed it, the weather had come together perfectly. The ignition sequence looked beautiful. And I had so many people coming to me after that burn with like, literally tears in their eyes being like, thank you, that was amazing.

Thank you so much. And it really touched people. And um, and that's what made me be like, ah, this is the way we need to do it. You know, like all the pie techniques and showy stuff is great and it's, it's [01:51:00] fun. But with Temple, it's really nice to bring some ceremony and soul and real human spirit to it because that's what that space is.

So for me, I think that will always be my, my number one burn ever in the 11 years.

Frank: So it's a very difficult question to answer, Steven. I would probably prefer to answer that. For me, I just, I'm in awe of the human effort by so many people who have stepped up and dedicated so many hours not being paid to build the refugees, to build the temples.

The artists that think can, you know, there's just an extraordinary amount of effort that, um, it's always, you know, some people more than others. But overall, um, you know, I'm, I'm still just, um. Away consistently. Every year I go out by people's efforts, and I, I think there's too many that I have just, yeah, been [01:52:00] speechless or to be able to choose a single favorite, but I would rather, uh, acknowledge all the effort by so many who have sacrificed so much time with family, late nights, all nighters, going back on work, work opportunities, other opportunities, uh, for their lover blaze.

And that to me is, is, uh, my favorite aspect.

Stevan: Yeah. For you, Cat,

did you, do you have any more memorable ones besides yours?

Cat: Oh, um, I really enjoyed the first couple years of effigies where it was a, a group effort, everyone on the committee, um, you know, coming together and creating this thing and, you know, I did the eyes for the second year and, and you know, just, uh, doing the designs as a group, and that was a real good bonding experience for all of us.

So I really enjoyed that. But yeah, I don't have a particularly favorite, I don't play, I don't play favorites except it's just, [01:53:00] you know, the one, uh, the ones I have worked on are my favorites, I guess because I had so much, um, blood, sweat, tears and effort, um, and my own skills that had gone into, um, creating this unique thing that had never existed before,

nor will again.

Hana: I, I think they're all memorable for different reasons, and I think the, the way I think of it is because I'm a fire performer and I'm the fire lead for the event. I always remember it in terms of the fire, which fire did I like the most? How did it burn? You know, because all of the temples have been gorgeous.

All of the effigies have been amazing. And as Frankie said, you know, the blood, sweat, and tears and love that have gone into all of these structures, as with all of the artworks of this blaze, is, it's amazing. It's amazing what people are willing to do for just a gift to the community, you know? But for me, I, I have favorites in certain things because of the [01:54:00] way it burned.

How was that burn? You know, for me, the bigger and more glorious, the more I'm like, oh, I liked that one, that one burn so good. But I think that's because I have that as, you know, my, uh, my special interest area like Angus is one, a couple of years ago we all nearly lost our eyebrows watching that one burn.

Like that was hands down the hottest and the iest one, you know, so they're all kind of memorable for different reasons. Like that first year, that was definitely the wettest one and the hardest to light. So they all have little stories and backgrounds to them and, um, they're all lovable in their own way.

And certainly the effort that went into them is, um, is phenomenal. Each year,

Cat: I take it back, I thought of my favorite. My favorite was that brief moment of time, about two hours when we had a swan corn second year. Uh, surprise event. Matson took up the scissor lift and put a giant unicorn horn on the swan for the [01:55:00] unicorn parade.

And, and Paul was livid. Like people were, what the heck is going on? What is that? And uh, Matson had a little, uh, welded steel unicorn horn on his safety hat as he safely went up and safely put a giant horn on the effigy. Um, and yeah, so that just brief surprise, unexpected, you know, unexpected event was definitely memorable.

Hana: Yes, I remember that. That was during the unicorn march. Yeah. That was so good. And that was the giant one, the big wraparound wings as well. Yes. So it was, yep.

Cat: It was the huge eff and all of a sudden giant unicorn horn that no one knew about that Matson had been planning in secret. It was great. It was a wonderful bit of, yep.

It was a wonder, wonderful bit of, uh, shenanigans.

Stevan: Well, they say the first impressions, especially if it's a big one, you know, it, it lasts. So the first, the first effigy 14 meters high, how the fuck did you [01:56:00] guys build that? It's like, that's pretty impressive for like three months, you know, getting the whole thing together, building it, you know, so Yeah.

Hand. Yeah. Helps hat you guys,

Frank: helps, uh, helps when one of the committee members, uh, does training Yeah. All day. So he had access to, and, uh. So that was, that was a, except I think he even, he had the crane out there, um, first and second year.

Cat: And Matson is a professional welder of very high quality. We had a lot of real skilled people.

Frank: Absolutely. And I remember in those early years thinking, wow, we we're pretty, um, uh, lucky to, to get off on this foundation where those skill sets naturally rose to the top into that group of people. Because I remember, uh, c saying something about exactly we just said there, Stephen, the height of the first one.

And they were talking about [01:57:00] not having access to the machinery because they weren't on a farm's property with a giant shed full of modern day equipment. And that was, so again, you had another stroke alert, you know, where this site was, was

um, full of, um, you know, man, a whole range

of machinery that was used of other things.

Eff in

Cat: also some very, uh, clever people with good tools. I, um, you know, people taking their. Vague ideas. I would turn them into sketches and then some, uh, someone would take those sketches and put them in cad and then, you know, we being the computer person would, you know, take that CAD and turn it into plans, and then those plans could be [01:58:00] given to someone who can do the actual cutting.

So it really was having, um, you know, the people at every step of the process with the skills and the knowledge to do their part, to make it as good as it could possibly be.

Stevan: Yeah. And, and we also had, during those periods, we also had some help and participation and support from the East Coast burners as well.

Frank: Yes. Yeah. There was these coast burner support. We were very lucky also to have Shea, uh, president party. Um, Shehar came out, uh, as our, uh, event manager multiple years. Uh, her support was wonderful. There's incredible amount of people who, uh, I'll never be able to list them all off. Um, you know, KA touched on the likes of bear coming out from America, you know, and his, um, knowledge and experience being, and there was, you know, this beautiful consistent turning flow faces.

And [01:59:00] so, I'll say it again, you

machinery.

So many diverse people really just had so many of us stand back in awe of what

was being achieved so quickly

Stevan: during, during the time of, uh, I, I want to touch upon the, those COVID years with Blazing Swan and how difficult that was to, to sort of like manage through, there was two cancellations for Blazing Swan in 2020 and 2022, but you guys had, there was a gap year in 21 where you did have an event, and I think that was kind of critical in terms of, uh, the momentum.

Like it kind of stopped with a lot of, a lot of things around the world. But, um,

yeah, what do you guys remember about those kind of three years or so?

Frank: I'm just putting my hand up now. I, I stepped off the committee in 2019, so this will be a Hana catch all about this one question.

Cat: Unfortunately, I had, uh, large life events happen, um, around the [02:00:00] same time as well, so I actually had to step away and deal with life stuff as well.

So I think the COVID years were the years when I was just too overwhelmed to even go, much less be involved. And since then I've started coming back sort of slowly as I've regained my, my energy and my equilibrium.

Hana: I guess that leaves me then. So we had, when, when COVID first hit, because it hit the rest of Australia a bit harder than it did wa 'cause we closed down our borders and we were doing our best to keep it out in this state.

Even though events were being canceled all over everywhere, we sort of thought, oh, maybe we could still run Blaze, you know, because festivals and events hadn't been canceled yet, things hadn't been shut down yet. And so it was kind of like, well, until we know that it can't happen, we are gonna go ahead and try and make it happen.

So, but it was a case of like, we're going to try and make it happen, but in case it has to get canceled, don't invest new money in it. So the [02:01:00] kind of advice out to theme camps was, Hey, don't buy new sound systems or new structures, or put out all of this, spend a bunch of money because we dunno where things are gonna go.

So plan for something feasible that you can potentially cancel without any, you know, great losses. And then the crew was already out on site starting to build the event. I think they'd been out for maybe five, six days about or so. No festivals, events, none of this stuff is happening. It can't go ahead. So thankfully not a lot of work had been done.

I think people were sitting out there, they kind of preemptively thinking, oh, this is gonna get canned. So it hadn't quite been full steam ahead, even though there was people there. So, yeah, so it got canceled and that was kind of weird because a lot of theme camps were getting ready to head out there and, and build, but we knew it was potentially coming.

So that was that first year. And then

Stevan: there was also a, you guys also had a theme apparently? Um, perception, I think it [02:02:00] was,

Hana: yeah, it was perception.

Stevan: So everything was all ready to go. And then,

Hana: yeah. So the effigy that year was actually two snakes intertwined that if you looked at them from a certain angle, from a certain distance, it was meant to look like a swan.

So yeah. So that was the kind of theme for perception. But that effigy for that year didn't end up happening and we actually ended up using that effigy. The next year it ended up, no, was it two years later? I can't remember.

Stevan: 2021 was when it

Hana: Yeah.

Stevan: Came back online.

Hana: Yeah. The next time we were able to have the burn, we ended up having the same effigy because it was like, well, it's already been built, so we have to use that one from that year.

That never got to happen. Um, but there was an event, um, that was put on by the people that organized P Eclipse. So that's the wasteland kind of event that we have in WA now. And it was called Darken. And that was on a farm [02:03:00] property that happened, and that was south of Perth, and that was about 500 people that went to that one.

So there was a few theme camps that were built for that. Um, you know, there wasn't an eff g there was like a bonfire, but there was I think about a dozen set theme camps that came along to that. And it had a little kind of renegade burn, um, when we were allowed to have events under 500 people. So

Stevan: yeah,

Hana: it wasn't worth running a full burn, but it was worth running this little sort of renegade burn.

Stevan: Yeah. Let's talk about, uh, a, a bit about the, the kind of, well, Cat's showing us a lot of, uh, of these old, are these old designs?

Hana: Oh, you're on mute Cat.

Cat: I just haven't, I recently found the sketchbook I had from those first couple years and all the, just, you know, the first draft sketches of all these different effigies and I thought I'd just.

Show them for people who are watching the video and interested,

Stevan: well, what, what year are the, are these sketches for,

Cat: uh, from the first year? Um, I have first year and second year in here, plus a couple [02:04:00] of other just random designs that we chatted about being a possibility and, you know, around that time and then it took off.

Hana: We, we need to have in all sorts

of different directions, we need to have a blazing Sun museum, I think.

Cat: Yeah, we definitely need a museum. Even if it's a little virtual museum. That'd be

Hana: memorabilia. Yeah, yeah.

Stevan: With, with your letters as well, Hana, maybe.

Hana: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Stevan: So let's talk about the, the, the, the, the wider blaze, uh, or the wider wa burner community where there's a, a lot of, so if, if people actually wanna move to wa you know, to whether to work or, or stay longer.

There, there are a few events that's, that's kind of burner adjacent kind of thing. So pox, like you mentioned Hana earlier, um, which is the wasteland. Uh, you also got spun out, Hana. That's, that's your.

Hana: Yeah, uh, that's my baby. I've been running that one for 21 years now consecutively. So 21st year this year.

And that was actually also inspired by Burning Man because I got inspired to [02:05:00] become a fire performer, a fire artist when I went to Burning Man. And then when I came back to living in WA and met some other sort of fire spinners here, we wanted to create an event for the fire community to grow the community, bring the community together and all help learn from each other and teach each other.

And it's, it's never officially worked on Burning Man principles, but it's always loosely worked on Burning Man principles and particularly that principle of communal effort. So that event's been successful in running for the last 21 years because we don't make any profit from it. So all the money charged for tickets goes back into the event and back into the community and everyone is expected to buy a ticket but also come and help.

So come and chip in and help make the event happen. And that way it can stay affordable for everybody. So yeah, it's our 21st year this year. I'm very proud of that event.

Stevan: And and what do you guys do there? Just, uh, a lot of workshops. A lot of fire spinning. Yeah, so it's learning about fire spinning.

Hana: [02:06:00] It started out as just a fire spinning when it originated for people to learn more fire skills and more fire props.

But then we realized that a lot of fire spinning people have an interest in broader circus skills as well. So we started bringing in things like stilt walking and unicycling and juggling, and just other kind of skills. And then we sort of opened it up to like, well, hey, whatever you wanna teach. So we've had life drawing, we've had origami, we've had balloon modeling, we've had makeup classes, we've had dance classes.

All sorts of things because people generally, creative people have quite a broad range of interests and um, and it can get, you know, just doing the same thing over and over can get a bit boring. So the, the event runs from a Friday through to a Monday. It's two full days of workshops as well as Friday evening.

And then in the evenings we have shows and performances and fire jams. We have a Circus Olympics. So we have all sorts of fun stuff in there. And it's actually really a good sort of starting point where if you [02:07:00] wanna become a fire, you know, in the fire enclave, a burning man or a blaze, you wanna become one of the cool fire kids, come to spin out, spend on the weekend, learning all those skills.

And actually you'll be really well set up for your kind of future in the fire arts community and in the community.

Cat: And a lot of the people from spun out are the people who run fire. Uh, well, Hana runs Fire Tribe and the people from Spun out are involved in Fire Tribe. And we also like, you know, do the conclave.

Help Hana out with her fire duties and lighting things on fire. She trained up a good little, a little hoard of minions.

Hana: Yeah. Our fire enclave around the, the effigy at Blaze gets about 50 people each year, and pretty much all of those people have been to spun out, you know, so they didn't necessarily start there, but they've been through, spun out because we're not just, we're not just teaching the fire skills, but we're also teaching fire safety and how to perform safely together in a space.[02:08:00]

So the, the two kind of compliment each other quite nicely in that way. The two events.

Cat: Then there's PS Eclipse for the people who hate all the rules

Stevan: and el and electronic music, I guess.

Cat: Um,

Stevan: into metal. Yeah. Yeah.

Cat: I can't, I can't speak much for P Eclipse. I haven't been, but, uh, that definitely started from a burner fame camp.

Stevan: Uh, there's also a world camp out.

Frank: Yeah. I mean, wild and Blossom. Uh, very proud of the friends that had the pleasure of some of them getting to know even better through Blaze. But most of those crew, um,

blaze, just again, in awe of,

you know, the, the principles, the ethos of, of Burning Man and, and we're effectively mimicking that at place. Just how that has that effect on people. Generates [02:09:00] confidence for people to go, we, we can do this ourselves. Let's, let's give this a go. We've got a idea. And, uh, I think for me, having the wild in my backyard of where I grew up, it's very special.

My parents and my sisters, my twos brothers live, so there's something really nice once traversing to something

beautiful,

do something.

Um,

so yeah, different [02:10:00] demographics get attracted to,

to those festivals as well. Uh,

but the, again, the effort by so many to get those events up and running it, it's certainly, um, admirable.

Cat: It's really great to see like at Wild Camp Out, which happens over New Year's. Uh, a lot of big, beautiful art happening on that site.

Really has a good burner feel. A lot of great costumes. Um, a small little ranger crew that goes out and helps them in the same way that Rangers help at, um, at the burn. You know, the same, you see the same faces doing performances and helping run it and helping keep everyone safe. Um, so it's great that people are able to take their experiences from the burn and use it to help make other festivals better.

Hana: Yeah, I think part of what's great about the, the Burn and having Blazing Swan is you have the creation of these theme camps. And the theme camps are almost like the, the breeding ground for the future festivals. It's where you get that [02:11:00] solid crew of people coming together with different skills and you know, people that can do lighting, people that can do audio, people that have experienced in staging and performing and DJs.

And when you get enough of a solid crew together, you kind of get the idea like, Hey, maybe we could put on our own event or festival. You know, like, 'cause we've got all these skills, we've got all this stuff, why not? And that's kind of where these kind of smaller events have sprung up from. And even with the fundraisers, like I think the quality of the fundraisers that our theme camps have is really high.

They're like small, you know, one evening festivals where there is, you know, not just music, but amazing decor and great performances and food being, you know, wonderful food being served. And it's like a little mini blaze for half a day when these theme camps have it at their fundraisers. And, um, so I think it's really beautiful that Blaze and Burner events help to inspire this further creativity outside of just those burn events.

But [02:12:00] throughout the whole year, through these other festivals and events.

Stevan: Let's, uh, let's end by giving out some shout outs or even just talk about whatever you want, like favorite moments or, um, I, I, I can start off with saying that, you know, one of my memorable mo moments was, uh, with, with you Frank, I'm not sure you probably remember this, but, um, 2016, I think this is, uh, early in the hours, is walking back to camp, probably gonna bed or something.

And then, yeah, you drive past, past by and you said, oh, we're gonna go see the sunrise at, uh, Jukin Rock, and you wanna come and join us. So, uh, I, I remember climbing that rock and, and seeing the whole, you know, the whole site layout was probably the first top. I've been up that way. And, uh, it was just amazing.

It wouldn't, we'll never forget that moment just to see, you know, where we've been. And this is about 2016, so what about three years experience of the site and off the burn. Um, and then looking, you know, looking at the horizon, looking forward, seeing, you know, how this is gonna grow even more. So that was one of my favorite moments.

Frank: Oh, thanks for sharing that, Stephen. I, uh, [02:13:00] you're right. I don't recall grabbing you and probably throwing you on the back of propane. I had so many people jump on and off of propane that it was, uh, everyone remembers the, the guy with the flame breathing car. But for me to remember everyone that come joined me on partying on that beautiful car was, um, something that I have always

struggled,

um, in my life in terms of, um, remembering everybody's name.

So I generally have felt quite confident as a person. Pretty good. When I started to

not be able to recall all those who I had met, um, started to

me,

but I just had to accept that's part of, you know, now with my businesses and having

employees, accumulation of this cross pollination of the Blaze community and your businesses community, sometimes public.[02:14:00]

Um, I'm sort of always, um, myself about that. But, uh, I'm glad it was a beautiful moment for you.

Hana: I think I have more beautiful memories from Blaze than I can possibly remember. Like I've, I've been to all 11 years of Blazing Swan, and I can't think of a favorite. It's, it's like Frankie not being able to pick up a favorite effigy or temple.

Like there's so many great moments, but I think the, I think the overarching kind of theme to all my great moments is those moments of close bonding and connection with other people. You know, whether you are all watching something amazing happening, burning or exploding together, or you're all sheltering in your theme camp together with all your snacks and your booze because it's pouring with rain and it's like Armageddon outside, but you're all like cozy in the geodome with the family, or you are like raging together on a [02:15:00] dance floor and it's like silly o'clock in the morning.

The sun's coming up and you've had just the best night of your life with the people you absolutely adore. It's those shared moments of human connection that are just woven through all the years that are just like, that's what fills my heart and soul every year. You know, like the art is awesome. The theme camps are awesome, but the thing, the glue that joins it all together is the human connections and the little families that we create within that large scope of the event.

So, yeah. That's,

Frank: yeah, I feel that, um, sorry, cat. I was just gonna say off the back of what Hana was saying, there is, there was often moments that you knew that this person could have easily been your best friend growing up, or, you know, could still become your best friend. But so many beautiful, amazing people.

You really [02:16:00] only have x amount of time for, you know, less than probably the on your hands for quality best friend relationships. And, uh, I can see a lot of people getting

in through the connections place.

Um,

but I can also see that there's been some incredible best friend bonds and even getting married, just meeting our blaze.

Cat: I also, I can't choose one favorite memory. I have so many amazing memories. I have so many horrible memories. I have so many times where Blaze has challenged me and pushed me to my absolute fucking limits. Um, which are just as memorable as the times when, you know, I've experienced the most magical of coincidences.

And, you know, all those memories are jumbled up in there. I don't remember what year something happened. I just remember it happened and half my stories come from Blaze. And,

Stevan: um, I'm pretty sure we all had a, a good cry [02:17:00] at Blaze at one point or another.

Cat: So many, so many. Yeah. Every, you gotta cry this once a year, at least once a year you have to cry.

Yeah. And uh, you know, you have to get absolutely like crying 'cause you're angry. You gotta get crying 'cause you are feeling, you love so much big feelings and you're feeling you have to cry 'cause you're exhausted. You have to cry 'cause it's just so beautiful that I would have home with my friends. And you know, there's so many reasons to cry out there and you'll experience all of them every season, every year.

You know, it's, it is those things with your friends that you never would've experienced otherwise. There's, you know, things happening that at the time were terrible and you hated. But looking back on, you're like, ah, remember that one year Dan had to knock down the temple with a backhoe. Like, you know, it's just things that are, things morph into wonderful memories regardless of, [02:18:00] you know, what you were feeling at the time.

It's still something that's, that's in there and you've either learned from it or you've, um, just tucked it away as like a beautiful little jewel of a memory that you bring out whenever someone reminds you of something. And yeah, it is definitely the connections and the experiences with people. And the shenanigans.

The, for me, my favorite, my favorite memory is always the unexpected things, the things that I never would've seen this coming. Um, you know, I never thought I would be taken to court by belligerence for skipping them on the five minute dance tour. You know, like these, you know, just love the little popups that you're like delightful.

Um, cunt rock driving around the corner, uh, was it second year? And just seeing silhouette against the sun, uh, against the sunset cunt and, and forevermore, it's cunt rock because of that one thing that happened that no one expected to happen. So yeah, those, yeah, a lot of,

Stevan: lot of little happy accidents along the way.

Cat: Yeah. And, um, [02:19:00] I don't know, I don't even, accidents just things happen. People have ideas and all the, you get a bunch of wonderful weirdos together and it, you know, it's the primordial soup of experiences. You never know what's gonna evolve from it, but, uh, pretty much everything is gonna evolve from it at some point.

Stevan: And, and finally, let's, let's, let's, let's give out some shout outs to, to all these amazing humans out there as well, to your crew, to your teams.

Frank: I would, if I was to do that, I would end up upsetting people because I'd forgotten. There's so many to list. It's just endless, uh, the people that I've met across this journey.

Um, touching on favorite memory,

I think for me, just in that previous question, the favorite memory is actually the.

Um, community ecosystem that has been generated off the back of Blaze. And to see so many groups of people

who have met through [02:20:00] Blaze or the network across just Perth, we just focus on Perth.

Of course it goes beyond Perth, but just in Fremantle alone,

um, it, it was just the most, um,

for me that has been the most special number one part. This whole experience is to see so many people connected in a way that they weren't previously. And, uh, for me, that's, that's definitely my highlight favorite memory of this whole journey.

Um, so the shout outs are to everyone because there is no way that I could list them all. They know who they're, and I know that,

um, they know they have given it. They're all, they're absolute all. And I think that the number one thing that seems to be overlooked at Blaze, uh, is that the currency is appreciation.

And some people just wanna [02:21:00] be told, you fucking did it, man. You just absolutely nailed it.

And.

Something as simple as that can be the difference for someone feeling like they had achieved what they had set out to achieve because they were just recognized for their blood, sweat, and tears. And, and I've seen that go am, miss, and I've seen people put their heart, soul into something that they've committed their mind to.

And talking about tears before ended up in tears, ended up in storm offs, ended up in a frustrated situation because they're actually just being overlooked, not seen for whatever reason. And I think that that is something that, uh, really taken away from this journey is it's incredible just letting someone know the effect of whatever they created had on me.

And I could see just how,

how much that meant to them.

And I, I, yeah, just myself has so much appreciation

to, to everyone [02:22:00]

contributed to Blaze. It has absolutely no single person. This has just been, it's just incredible gym and effort by so many people. So it's my shout out.

Stevan: Yeah. It sounds like we need a, like a 12th pri principle.

Like gratitude would be an amazing 12th principle. Yeah. We all love our volunteers. They cool.

Hana: Yeah, my, uh, my shout out is, is always to the, uh, the people that make the fire magic happen because obviously being the fire lead, being a fire performer, my special interest area is always the fire. And, um, so do my families, all the fire folk at Blaze and at all the burns where it's like, it's not a burn without the fire, you know?

And I love all the people that practice and train and put, you know, as much as people put a lot of effort into theme camps and into structures, the fire performers put a lot of time and effort into, you know, costumes and learning their props and bringing their equipment and putting on the [02:23:00] performances.

And, and it's always so exciting and beautiful to see structures burning, to see fire artists performing, to see the fire conclave, to see the fireworks, and then the wonderful support that we get from the firefighters that come out each year and keep us safe. And they're like, Hey, you know, let's burn this big, awesome, amazing thing, but let's do it safely.

So it's that whole kind of fire community that makes the burn burn so big. Shout out to anyone associated with the fire stuff, making the fires, putting out the fires, and keeping the, the burn's hot.

Cat: I also don't really know how to do a shout out without, uh, getting people upset for forgetting them or, you know.

Yeah, I can, I can list all my friends and the people I've, you know, been close to and have been with through this journey. And there's a lot of people who've been on the journey with me that I don't necessarily know them personally or know them well enough to know their last name or even their normal Christian [02:24:00] non-A name.

Um, but they've still been there from the beginning working hard and making things happen by contributing And yeah, there are a lot of people who haven't been seen or acknowledged. I, you know, as much I myself have not been acknowledged in certain things that I wish I would've been. But, um, part of that acknowledgement comes from just the knowledge of our history.

So I'm very grateful to this podcast for doing these interviews and for bringing these stories and these people to light. And I'd love to hear more of them, more of the original crews telling their stories, because there are things that I forget that Frankie and Hana remembered and things that we forget that Louie or Ollie or Dan or Matt or you know, or Colin or Georgia or Flamer or any of these OG people, or Paul, or even Paul's, you know, like.

Everyone involved at the very beginning will have their own memory of how it happened and how they made, how they helped [02:25:00] to make it happen, their part in it. So I'd definitely love to see more of these interviews. I'd love to see more history being recorded of these events. You know, little online galleries of the original sketches and letters and, um, the old posters.

You know, I have so much art on my computer that I've done for Blaze over the years, you know, and we didn't have graphic designers and then we had graphic designers come on and they've all done amazing things. And having that all accessible to people so that they can really understand the, the richness of our history and how many people and how much effort has gone into this.

You know, the committees who have a thankless job every single year and just make the best decisions they can at the time. And yeah, the evolution of the event and of the people involved, it, it'd be wonderful to have even more documentation of that and more stories being shared and recorded for posterity.

Stevan: Yeah, that was a nice surprise that, to see that you have all these old [02:26:00] artifacts and old pictures and stuff like that, so it's good to to know that. So someone's keeping, oh, so what happened actually to, to that blazing Swan Time capsule thing? Did you, do you guys remember someone started this initiative back in 2015?

I think it was. We are gonna collect all these, uh, artifacts from that year or something and or the first year and, and start this, uh, time capsule thing. No,

Cat: no idea. Dating cord. It might have been. We, I don't, I ha I have a vague memory of that happening, but I'm not sure exactly who it is. And that's what happens with a lot of these things and these ephemera and, uh, artifacts are, you know, this thing ends up with someone, but no one really knows who that someone is.

And unless they come forward saying, Hey, I have this cool thing that I got in 2015, I'd like to share it and have a place to share it. Um, they'll be lost forever.

Stevan: Mm. Yeah. It just fades away

Hana: until some archeologist digs it up in a couple hundred years [02:27:00] and they're like, what the heck is it?

Cat: What's this festival?

What's this doof about?

Stevan: Well, this is, this is the thing. I mean, this, this episode will go straight to the pool room for, for budding historians in the future. They can dig it up and, and listen to it. Yeah. But it's been fascinating. Thanks. Thanks guys for coming on. Um, I, you know, there's, there's still more further to talk about because I would like to sort of like dive into the family within the family.

The community within the community, you know how big Blaze is, but there's also, you know, with your own tribe and your own setup and stuff like that. So that's very fascinating and I'd like to hear more stories about that. So you guys are welcome to come back on anytime and, and expand on your stories and give us your opinions, especially when, thank you so much for having us, blaze is as well, very excited about that.

Um, yeah,

Hana: thank you. Yeah. Blaze, come over to East Coast was endless stories to share.

Stevan: Yeah.

Cat: It's as deep a hole as you want to dig

Stevan: and, and come over to East Coast Burns and Yeah.

Hana: Yeah, absolutely. If you'll have us, we'll be there. [02:28:00] Yeah.

Cat: Thank you for hosting. Alright, thanks. Yeah, yeah, thanks. And recording and doing all the hard work and wrangling us cats.

Stevan: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Thank you.

Frank: Staying up to six, is that right?

Stevan: That's right, yes. But it's been worth,

Frank: I really appreciate it guys, really appreciate what you've done and as I, as I crunched the rough numbers before, you guys have already put in over 200 hours with 14 episodes so far, so huge love and respect for what you guys are doing there.

Stevan: And there's more coming, Frank, especially when you get you and Louis to talk about, you know, before Blazing Swan, how the wa federal landscape was back then.

And, you know, ev everything all came together I think in perfect timing, really

Hana: back, back in the old olden days.

Frank: Touching on the topic of.

Is your age

sustainable as well? Yes. Awesome. So there's many questions

Hana: back before we all gray hair. [02:29:00]

Stevan: Yeah. It was only like 15 years ago.

Cat: Thank you for having us.

Stevan: Yes, thank you.

Cat: Bye Bye.

Transcripts transcribed by Descript AI