Stevan: [00:00:00] All right, Bonzaar. Welcome to All. In this episode we'll be talking about simplifyre our thoughts and review of the modified Modifyre burn, give some behind the scenes information to the event, and talk about the background, history and future of Modifyre or Burn Arts Incorporated, as well as the Brisbane and Queensland burner community.

I'm joined by, uh, Jeff Chau and Ang. Rainbow Anj, how you guys going?

Rainbow Anj: Good day.

Chau: Hello. I'm doing well. Thanks for having us on.

Stevan: Uh, let's, let's, uh, can we do like a quick, uh, introduction of, uh, what your roles are and what you guys do for the, uh, Brisbane burner community?

Rainbow Anj: Yep. Um, so I'll go first. Um, so I'm currently the treasurer of Burnouts.

I've been to all the Modifyres, right? That was my first burn, was the first Modifyre. Um, had various roles on the EPT, um, was camp coordinator for a couple of years and ran the theme camp for all but the last two.

Chau: Yeah, thanks. So my involvement with, um, the burnouts. Team, [00:01:00] first team, my first Modifyre I signed up to be, uh, the center camp lead.

Feel like I'm physically incapable of just gonna a and not helping out in some way. Otherwise, I'm on the board of a

secretary and I've recently become committee member of the Build Arts Committee.

Stevan: Yeah. Cool. Um, so setting up simplifyre, what, what's the background and, and how did you guys come up with, uh, this modified version of Modifyre?

Rainbow Anj: So, this all came about at the A GM this year, which was, um, on the 15th of March.

Um, we had it at one of our, um, at our founder, um, and I found, um, CC's, um, apartment. There were about 30 people in attendance. We did the official A GM business and then, you know, opened the floor and there was a lot of people saying, oh, can't we do something? Like, let's just do a camp out. Let's just keep it really simple and do a camp out.

Hence the name Simplify. So that's more or less what it was supposed to be. We've had camp [00:02:00] outs, um, for the last few years, generally about 30, 40 people. We did want it to be a bit more than that. The community would really like to see things like start happening. So we talked it through on the day, um, yeah, and we were just gonna have a camp out.

It evolved from there and became basically a micro burn, not, not too dissimilar to the first Modifyre in 2015. Yeah. So with, with it being like a scaled down, well originally there we weren't even gonna build, uh, you know, an FIG G or anything like that. And as the word got out and there was this informal, um, WhatsApp group.

And more people came along, more people had ideas, more people put their hands up and so it became simplifyre.

Chau: Yeah. I think to to echo Anj's sentiment there, when you think about sort reigniting a CUNY after a period of absence with our last officially recognized event being 2021, you know, the, the year [00:03:00] after we attempted to run an event at the same scale and it wasn't successful, I think because, uh, we'd assumed that the drive that had brought us to that point was still there.

And that just wasn't the case. You know, the community, there was elements of burnout in the event production team. There were elements of burnout through our theme camps and that sort of, that lack of lack of motivation can really seep into the community as a whole. Uh, and I think we've seen examples of this where, you know, maybe a regional burn has had some, a successful history.

And then the first event back is this. Ideal large scale production, and it just doesn't work because people need time to reintegrate into the community, to connections that have maybe become dormant over the years when an event doesn't happen. And so we really wanted to run an event that we knew wouldn't be beyond the capacity of our community.

So the temp supplier reflects, [00:04:00] um, how do we scale down an event while keeping its principles, while allowing an event production team with, uh, less experience than we've had in the past to run an event successfully. And at the end say, fuck yeah, we did it. Let's do it again. And not, fuck, that was such a mission.

I never wanna do that again. And to that end, I, I think we were really successful in that. And as it turns out, when you sort of promise a tiny thing, you know, the, the event, uh, numbers ended up being I think about a third of our, our peak numbers in, uh, in that late 2010 period. So it didn't end up being that much smaller than it would've been otherwise.

And that, that growth mentioned kind came about slowly as we put the feelers out.

Stevan: Yeah. I love how you guys applied the kiss kind of rule. You know, just keep it simple, but also keep it silly. Yeah. Uh, and let's talk about some of the favorite stuff that you [00:05:00] actually, you know, some of the favorite things that came out of simplify for you.

Rainbow Anj: Um, it was great to have some of the community back together again.

You know, there were, we did have quite a, a number of new burners, but there were some of the old time burners. And being on the paddock again felt great. It was quite exciting that, you know, that we had actually managed to do it. Like there were times when, when there was a bit of doubt, um, around whether, you know, it was in the early days, you know, everybody goes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do this thing and there's a bit of excitement for a week or two and then it drops off.

So we managed to get over that. Yeah.

Chau: Yeah. It definitely resonate with, um, the feeling of reconnecting with old, uh, burners. You know, when when you meet people on the, at a burn who you really connect with, you feel like you have this connection with, and you always make this grand catch up in the default world.

And that never happens or doesn't always happen, but you can bet that you'll see them again at the next burn. And I definitely ran into [00:06:00] people that I hadn't seen in five plus years and the last time I've them was the last one. So it was special for me that I got reconnect with that I hadn't seen in a long time.

Another thing that I found special, this was. I suppose it's different in expectation where maybe for myself, I expected that this burn would bring mostly old timers back, people who had missed what was to them in the past and would return to that reason. And that did happen. But when we did a quick poll of, uh, the at er and we asked them, are you returning or is this your first time?

Over half of the ticket holders, it was their first time. And so that renewed this belief, at least to myself, that there are people out there who want something like this who haven't been around another burn before. And we jumped on the chance when an event came out. Uh, in the,

Stevan: do you think that [00:07:00] with the post pandemic, that had an impact as well?

I guess people wanted to connect more or people were also maybe uncertain of what this, uh, community space is.

Rainbow Anj: I think that the fact that we'd had Modifyre and all of us that attended Modifyre are still fairly traumatized by it. You know, and that wasn't, we call it Modifyre because the mud, but the pandemic also had a big impact in there.

And so we lost a lot of, um, old time burners. We lost a lot of experience. And so to get it going again is almost, it's almost a new crew. Yes, there are a few of us from that time back, but there's a lot of nuance, um, which is very exciting. You know, it's like new people, uh, with lots of ideas, different backgrounds.

The committee is, there's only one member of the committee that was there before. The rest of us are all fairly new and it's a [00:08:00] whole different vibe to what it was before.

Chau: Yeah. I think the culture of the committee and is marked different from my memory of Modifyre mid to late 2010. There was, I mean, a difference in age and experience.

Um, and that translated to how we communicated with participants, the sort of tone that we use when we communicated, um, by email, by social media. The, the team that's here today, everyone's young and fresh, and. Expectations that have been set in the path. And so we've allowed ourselves to, when we're starting from the beginning again, build a new community, community and culture from the ground up that reflects what we wanna see moving forward.

Stevan: So you mentioned that it was, it was more simple and smaller, but you still had an effigy and a temple, uh, a Rangers team, and was it other theme camps as well, or was just a one stage or? [00:09:00]

Rainbow Anj: Um, so we, for the actual like community, we only had an effigy bird. We did have a small temple, but that was more just for crew.

After the event had actually finished, we had a few theme camps. I think we had about four. Um, we didn't. We didn't go out, we didn't actually market, we didn't do a lot to actually drive that. You know, it was sort of like quite organic and our community has a lot of details in it. And so, you know, as theme camp coordinator, one of my biggest challenges was to make sure that you, you could accommodate all the sound camps where you would place them so they didn't play over one another.

That they all the sound to point in the right direction and all of that. And sound was a very big part of the previous Modifyres. So one, somebody in our community had come up with the idea, um, a little while ago that when we started again, it would be a lot better for us to have one sound camp or one, one sound stage where everybody could then have a turn.

And [00:10:00] we were so grateful that Chow was, uh, put his hand up to be the king of hearts. And that was our sound camp this year.

Chau: Yeah. So the context of the heart is, um. Camp. It's a space where everyone meets connect. There's workshops from anyone to perform there. Um, there are also events by the event team. So we have a potlucks year, uh, and we also have a town hall meeting, a place where people can meet the, you know, everyone who sits behind the scenes and, and makes things happen before and after the event.

Another thing that the center camp this year was background. We all know how much effort goes into money. I think, you know, allocating the plot, organizing all the infrastructure, making sure that, you know, you have a team that's dedicated and experienced enough to pull off Multiday production and for the scope of er, that can be too [00:11:00] much to us.

And so for this year, when I designed. It was designed so that people who had offerings or the sort of framework, skeleton of a theme camp didn't necessarily have the team numbers to build their own theme camp. And present their offering, um, in our center camp. So to that end, we had about three or four theme camps worth of offerings under the one space.

Uh, and that's not a new concept. There are a bunch of theme camps, uh, a bunch of around Australia where camps take over camp spaces, and it's just a way of sharing resource, managing capacity, and making sure that there, you know, isn't this sea of dead space where have new places to be. And so, yeah, the design really reflected the script back version of what we were planning

Stevan: and the arts around the paddock.

Were the microgrants, were there micro grants? Were there grants given for these? Uh, uh, installations there. [00:12:00]

Rainbow Anj: Um, so we only had three months, like from the a GM to when we did, it was actually just over three months. So no, we didn't actually put out for art. We didn't put out for theme camps and we didn't do any fundraising.

So there, there weren't grants. Um, this time we're, we're hoping to move back to that more, um, to closer to the original event, sort of, um, activities than that. It will never be the, it'd never be quite the same, but yes. Um, this time we didn't, I can't really recall whether we actually had any art pieces out there.

Chau: So from memory, um, there's at least one, um, interactive art piece, uh, which was called the, and it's layout was quite, there were two landline phones, one in our center camp and one in a telephone booth, 50 or centimeters away. You know, you pick up one side and the other side ring and [00:13:00] it'll allow you to have conversation with someone else in the paddock that you didn't necessarily know or had never met.

Um, and that was partially subsidized by the, the center camp budget.

Stevan: That's a pretty cool interactive art. Can we talk about the site at, at itself? Is is it still at the same site as previously or you guys have moved?

Rainbow Anj: No. Um, so with the funds that we were, you know, that we were likely to make out of this, we've actually moved all of our equipment back.

We used to be out at Inglewood, which was like four hours drive, sort of southwest of Brisbane. We've moved all our infrastructure back up to the Sunshine Coast, and so this year it was actually, um, near Gympie, which is about two hours north of Brisbane. Two hours drive. It's where we've been ha having these camp outs.

So there's a place called Gucci Creek. It is actually a caravan park, quite a large one. And we had a cordon off section that was much like a footy paddock, like it was a rectangular, fairly flat place. [00:14:00] Um, quite a bit of trees and that sort of thing, but we were all able to fit into the, the one, the one area.

And so yes, the camp was open. The, the campground was open for other campers. There weren't very many of them. And only after the effigy burn did any of them venture over our way. So it's quite a nice site, you know, it, it was, um, reasonably easy to deal with the people. We didn't have fire permits, so we were limited, um, to just under two meters for the effigy.

As a result of that. But you know, it, it had an emergency road down the back of the effigy, which made it quite safe. And there is the possibility that we could get, uh, rural fire, fire permits so that we could build something bigger in the future. The owners were nice and easy to deal with, and when we've had camp outs there before, they have actually built our, uh, built us campfires and one of the ones that they built was actually bigger than our effigy.

Um, [00:15:00] there has been no complaint about the burn scar. Um, it was quite a big burn scar given the size of the effigy. Um, but you know, guys cleaned it up really neat and tidy and she was most happy with it. So I think that we, we are likely to be invited back there and while we haven't really had a committee meeting since simplifyre, but I think general consensus was that yes, we could use that site again and we could grow on that site.

Stevan: And the effigy design. Was it, how simple was it?

Rainbow Anj: Well, uh, man and I one night, um, came up with a concept of, oh, right, it's simplifyre. What are we gonna do with the effigy? Oh, let's have an ant. So that was what the concept was. So it was, there were all little ts stuck on it and that what, what we got wasn't really what our original vision was, but it, it was a really good effigy.

So it was more like a term mount that we had with some ants on it. It was solidly built, it burnt for a very long time. It took ages to [00:16:00] fall over. They had, they had quite a bit of, uh, mystic fire in the actual effigy build itself. But it wasn't very obvious like it, you know, you could see some of the rainbow, um, colors in the fire once it felt to a certain, like once half of it had fallen down, then.

I think around another 15, 20 bags or sachets were thrown into the fire, which, so we sort of had like a second burn of it. It, it was quite remarkable the second time, you know, with that in it. And, um, yeah, we, we had a truck, so we took the truck down to the paddock. That was the only rain that we, um, had. So we took the truck down to the paddock and two of the members of the community played on some decks out the back of the, you know, out of the back of the truck.

So it was quite similar in nature to our previous Modifyre. effigy burns.

Stevan: Yeah. So how, how was the weather? You're hosting it in July, so it is still winter, uh, was it freezing?

Chau: No, I don't, not freezing. Um, cold, definitely [00:17:00] cold at night, but.

Regional Underland being in it was warmer than Underland and about as cold as blazing swan this year, which during period at nighttime during the day, quite pleasant

Rainbow Anj: for us. It was actually quite a bit warmer than our previous burns 'cause we used to have burn at the end of June. And we were also four, four hours inland to me.

Like we used to get to minus four and things like that and have frost on the ground and that, so it was considerably warmer. We didn't have rain leading up to the event, which was great, but we did, there was rain forecasted for effigy burn night. 7:00 PM was when it was predicted to hit, it did start drizzling at about five.

It, uh, there was a lot, a bit of light rain at about seven and it held off, but the effigy [00:18:00] was a long burn. And then at about 10 o'clock the heavens opened and the rain came down. We, we had a lot of rain for about two hours, but it had a very minimal impact on the event.

Stevan: Yeah, I, um, you, you guys don't get the, the cold as, as, uh, as what they get in Canberra at winter.

solstice. That's, that, that's a freezing burn. Yeah. I wanna, I wanna ask you later on about winter burns because burners can be quite picky in terms of the time of year. Uh, season or month they wanna burn. So, we'll, we'll get into that later, but let's get some stats in, uh, for the simplify events statistics.

So the price was one 50 or something, a hundred dollars. It's pretty cheap. And how many people attended?

Rainbow Anj: 1 25 was the tickets, the price of the tickets, and I think we sold 216 tickets. Uh, we had capped it at 200, but then there were some, um, people that we really wanted to be there that hadn't bought their tickets.

This was in, in past events. There were a lot of our [00:19:00] crew that only used to buy their tickets when they actually were on site. We sort of avoided that this year.

Chau: Yeah. The, the ticket price point being 25, I suppose, you know, post 2020 is almost unheard of now for any on camping event or weekend camping event, rather.

But we wanted a ticket price that was accessible to the community. Consider the fact that not everyone has more than that or even that to, to spend on a, um, on an event. And that it didn't need to be any more than that given the scale of, of the production that we were intending do so. And it worked out well.

We turned a modest profit and all of the equipment that was generously lent to us came back in the condition we received it. So there, there wasn't too much in the way of, uh, reimbursement for maintenance or any of that. And I think to kind of step into more of a high level, [00:20:00] uh, discussion about this. A week lead time again is almost unheard of.

And so, uh, one of the things we were grappling with was what can we do in 12 weeks? How can we shape this event so that it's recognizable as a burn, but also can we knock down some preconceptions of what burns should be, you know, what's necessary, what's nice to have? And, and you mentioned, uh, you know, having critical departments such as Rangers and, uh, you know, current to Moss for stepping up and flying from New Zealand to help lead the, the Ranger department.

The simplify this year, you know, the Rangering experie is hard to come by. It's, uh, it's a role that requires the trust participants. It's a role where the trust has been built over years of positive experiences between, and that's, uh, something. Champion in, in the Queensland community. So, uh, as, as far as Rangers [00:21:00] went, we had a ranger training talk at the beginning of the event and allowed some people who might been interested in the role to, to speak to the leads and, and kind of discuss how they could join the team for, for this event or the future event.

Stevan: And you mentioned that, uh, 50% of attendees were, were new burners. That's incredible.

Chau: Yeah, over half. So I think the numbers probably close to 60, 60% just based on when we had a town hall meeting on the Saturday. We just asked, um, everyone, the crowd to, to raise their hands. Their first, yeah, it was over half the room.

And then that combined with just discussions that the event production team had with participants throughout the weekend, which, you know, when you talk about how culture disseminate. From people who are new to any event and the culture they're taught, um, you know, people learn by observing interactions by, by people they, they experience.

When we grew Modifyre, [00:22:00] uh, pre COVID, we had a cap of, uh, no more than 10% growth per year, which is important because we've seen what can happen when, when burns grow too quickly. Um, and once the culture of, you know, leaving a trace, for example, is valued, it's really hard to to kind of get that back. And so instead of the policy of, you know, running a burn at any cost, it's running a burn only if it's safe and sustainable to do so.

Stevan: And do you know where most of these new participants are coming from? Are they Brisbane based, lower Sunshine Coast, or, I know that, I know that the far North Queensland people have, have their own do culture, which is, uh, quite strong and, and kind of weird up there, these people. Um, so you're not really getting many burners coming from the north, far north Queensland.

Rainbow Anj: Um, no, I didn't really notice too many coming from North Queensland. We had quite a few like international students that sort of, you know, and there were quite a few new internationals that have sort of settled [00:23:00] in Brisbane and so they were keen to come and see what does, uh, how, what does the Queensland burn look like.

There were quite a few people, friends of friends, so people that had been to the burn before brought their friends with them. Uh, we did have one couple drove all the way from Adelaide. They were part of the initial burns, though. They drove, um, trippy Trev and um, Penelope drove all the way from Adelaide to come and burn with us.

They were really excited to come and do it again. And, um, yeah. So it had a fair, fair bit of input from international burners that had, even in the, the like event production team, we actually had a few of those that were actually really helpful of bringing their expertise, both from Burning Man and from the US regionals and coming in helping us.

So one of the, one of the people led our like, um, fire, you know, the fire toilet is flame. And another one was [00:24:00] quite instrumental in organizing the tickets and ticketing and uh, social media and that sort of thing.

Chau: Yeah, the demographic was, yeah, in a lot of ways surprising. We didn't realize the extent to which people would travel around Australia to see a small scale, and that definitely happened.

One of our event production team is, uh, Melbourne based and had made their way up to Queensland and was putting the event together. And otherwise, I, I had spoken to few people who had traveled state because they had either wanted to see what the Queensland was like, or they had come to modify and, and wanted to kind of witness its Weber.

Rainbow Anj: Yeah, we didn't have as many interstate bonus as what we have had in the past, but you know, there wasn't a lot of notice for it. The, the numbers were capped and it was actually quite short, you know, like, we started midday Friday and finished 4:00 PM on Sunday, so it's quite a long way [00:25:00] to drive for that shorter bird.

Stevan: Yeah. I think also that, that week or that weekend, there was a lot, there's a fair bit of activity in, in the, in the New South Wales, I think there was a an A GM for Sunburnt Arts. So yeah, a a few people couldn't attend as well. So in that case, um, uh, let, okay, let's take a short break. Uh, we'll go right back and we're gonna lean into, uh, your burner origin stories.

How did you guys get involved in, in the Burner community? Okay. Welcome back. Um, let's get to, my favorite part of this, of the show is Origin Stories, the Burner origin stories. How did you guys get involved or how did you learn about the Burning Man culture?

Rainbow Anj: So I'd been in the, um, festival, um, and duffin scene for, for many years when I was a lot younger in South Africa.

And then when I came to, uh, Australia, I didn't really find it and I'd found it about three or four years before I was found the Burns. I used to [00:26:00] feel a little bit old in that scene and I was, you know, we were going to that scene with one of, or with my oldest child, there was a big fallout between my husband and I and the eldest child.

And basically, um, we weren't really, um, welcome in his crew anymore, so we needed to find something else. I had heard about, um, burning Man. I'd been trying to get my husband to get engaged in it, but he kept calling it Burning Pockets. And so shortly after this big, um, argument, um, was when I'd found the Queensland Burn.

I found it, uh, an event on Facebook. Um, I'd gone, well, I really think we should go to this. Yes, let's go. Um, and then there were, you know, there was all sorts of things happening in this little group that we didn't really understand, you know, like theme camps, but we are fire people and so we enrolled ourselves as a theme camper.

Our name was, um, we dunno what a theme camp is, we just wanna share fire. [00:27:00] And so that was the first one, 20 That was the actual name of the theme. Yep. That was,

Stevan: that's a long, that's a long name.

Rainbow Anj: It's a long name. Um, we had, um, pride Place on the paddock. We were most probably 30 meters from the effigy. Um, and we had a little, a brasier and a lot of rainbow decorations and so forth.

There were a lot of, um, Sydney burners that came up for that. We were camp next to them. They first, first up they said to us, oh, it's going to be really noisy here. Do you think that maybe you might like to camp on the other side of the stream? And we went, hell no. And we spent most of the burn, um, talking to the Sydney burners, who, who used to go to Burning Man every year.

So they, they told us so many interesting stories that six months later we were on the way to, on the road to seed. Six months later we went to Africa Burn. So by the time we got around to coming back to the second Modifyre, it was our fourth burn. Yeah.

Never really looked back. I, [00:28:00] I love the burns.

Stevan: That's, that's an amazing adventure.

So what, what did he, what did your husband call it? Burning What?

Rainbow Anj: Burning pockets. Burning pockets.

No. 'cause he just figured that it was like really expensive and, you know, all the stuff you'd seen at Burning Man, it was big and grand. You know, it looked all really expensive. Yeah, it was probably very, probably right.

Mm-hmm. But yeah, so it evolved from there. The next year we, we were theme camp again. Um, we were called the Rainbow Chill Camp. One of these Sydney burners came to the second one and gone. I don't know about your name. Like the, the name is sort of like different to your vibe. We talked about it for a little bit and came back the next year as Ec Hill.

Um, from the next year we were theme camp coordinators, because after being so close to the effigy, um, and then the second, second time, we didn't actually really have an effigy. 'cause it was a site move on the day that the burn opened. So. We, we'd already, um, made a lot of friends with the first [00:29:00] sound camp that we had, the wonky Queenslander that Jeff's involved with.

And so we became theme camp coordinators because location, location is really important. And, um, from that point forward, we always tried to position ourselves next to the Sound Camp. 'cause we were fighting like an evening fireside chill chat on camp the good. So I've been. 'cause I was there right in the beginning.

I tend to know a lot of the community because, you know, they, they've all come in and I was already there. So lots of my friends have.

Stevan: And what's it like watching it evolve?

Rainbow Anj: It's been fascinating. Watching it evolve, you know, how it's, um, you know, and it grew, grew, grew like organically, you know, like we were limited to 10%.

Um, grew, grew, grew, grew. But there was a lot of burnout. Like it became evidence in about 2019 that there was already signs of burnout, you know, then the pandemic hit and then 2021 burned everybody out.

Chau: Yeah. [00:30:00] So for me, my origin story of, uh, entering the burn world, I grew up in a place called, uh, west End in Brisbane, Queensland, uh, which has sort of historically been a hub for both counterculture and the creative industry.

And about 10 years ago, as part of the crew who ran some week night parties, and we ran these parties because. I suppose there's a so concept of the third place. A third place is something that's school nor home or work place where people can meet and, you know, discuss ideas, form relationships, and I suppose increasingly, uh.

My concern that these third places have become commodified. Uh, this is before I sort of knew about burning or its, its, its principles of big commodification where, you know, you can't go into a bar without the, of buying a drink. You can't go into a restaurant without buy food, so on. And so, so we wanted to create these parties as a way for people to [00:31:00] go to a place that wasn't their homeschool or work and just be and meet, um, and not necessarily need to spend money.

And for one of these Monday night parties, the I was running sound for all these parties and the organizer, uh, booked this DJ Collective and the music collective rocked up between these two houses. And it was the walk Queenslander and this art car couldn't fit between the two houses that the backyard of the event in.

And so what they did was just took out a saw and then sort off part of, part of the art car. And so it fit in the driveway between these two houses. And I thought.

And so

metal fabrication, shared 3D, printing, sewing, um, so on and so forth. And [00:32:00] I'm there one night and the walk between and the crew rolls in and that's actually where they build and maintain their art car. And so got chatting to them because I knew them at that point. Uh, and then went off with them to, uh, one of their first fundraisers and joined the camp for, um, for 2017.

I've been, uh, part of the camp ever since.

Stevan: What's behind the name of, of Wonky? The Wonky Queenslander.

Chau: The Won Queenslander. When you talk about Ideal, it's measured cut once the Wonky Queensland is named because we measured once.

So it's probably the least structurally integral part you've ever seen. It's the, it's, it's a miniature Queenslander built on top of a dual caravan base,

Stevan: and it's turned into a sound camp. So what kind of genre of music do you guys play?

Chau: Um, open tour genres is the official, is the official line. Uh, there, there are some genres that have never been played at the wonky.

Uh, I'll let you guess which ones those are. Um, but [00:33:00] the idea is that the sound camp plays music that is accessible to, to all demographics of bonus. Uh, it's something that people can come to that is high energy, fun and not too scary. Uh, I suppose is, is how we could describe our, our sound profile.

Stevan: Now, Chau, you also got recently got involved in the, the committee as well.

Tell us about your experience there.

Chau: Yeah, so I, I've been part of running sound camps for the part of a decade now, and while it's something I have a lot of experience in, it's something I find a lot of joy in, you know, producing music, uh, performing music and allowing a platform for local artists to, to kind of thrive both in the commercial scene and, and in burn scene when Modifyre was, um, starting to rebuild.

Its, its core organization, uh, was approached by our, our, uh, Manet and after, uh, I wanted to, to step in and with some of them [00:34:00] all high level event production, uh, side of things, which is something that I have little experience in, in that sort of high level event production. So, uh, so yeah, just, just join, join the committee, um, because I wanted to see, um, a Queensland regional come back as much as I think everyone else has.

So, yeah, I joined, joined just, um, at the AGM this year and, uh, yeah, I've been going stronger with it.

Stevan: And the organization that runs Modifyre is called Burn Arts Incorporated. Let's talk a little bit about history of, of how that was formed, maybe bit of background as well.

Rainbow Anj: Yeah. So, um, burn Arts Inc is a not-for-profit that was inaugurated in 2016.

Yeah, no. 15 or 16 by our finding member, um, CC or Carol Ew, together with a number of other people. Um, it's always had much the same structure that with the, you know, the, the legal requirements are that you have, uh, chair, a treasurer, a secretary, and then some, [00:35:00] um, you know, just ordinary members. Typically at, at one stage it did actually get up to 10 people.

That was found to be a little bit too many people. So now we try to keep it to like six or seven people. Um, that's a manageable numbers, number of people. Um, not so difficult to, you know, find a meeting time. Um, I was more or less burnt out from the burn side. Morris decided I wasn't really going to, whilst I might attend, I wasn't really going to be part of the organizing anymore.

But, uh, my dear friend, Mané, well I was approached to be chair and I'd gone, hell no. She was approached to be chair and she'd gone, well, I'm busy with my PhD. My PhD is nearly finished. When my PhD is finished, I'm going to want something else. So let me go and see if I can round up some, um, some people to do this with me.

And so I got roped in that way. And so, uh, uh, some of the, uh, you know, half of the committee are her personal friends that. If we weren't gonna do it, she wasn't gonna [00:36:00] do it. And none of us really wanted to see it die. And so, yeah, so I've been on the committee since last year and treasurer from this year.

But like, my, my background, my professional background gives me the skills to, you know, look after governance, the treasury, uh, that sort of thing. You know, it's stuff that I do every day.

Stevan: Yeah. I think the love and the passion that we have for the community, yeah. We don't want to see things, uh, kind of, uh, become irrelevant and, and die off.

So, yeah. I love how people are stepping up and, and we do need more people to do that as well, to keep it going, so, yeah.

Rainbow Anj: Yeah, so simplifyre was ran, run basically by the committee and then, you know, people just volunteering. We didn't really have a fixed structure in the past. We used to have two, you know, so we've always had the management committee is what is the, the term is for it.

And then we used to have a EBT event production team, which was quite a structured, um. Group. Um, we definitely looking to put [00:37:00] that structure back in place. There has been some discussion around changing the name of it, and I believe that the name will change. We don't really know what the name will be yet, but we've got a lot of people following on from simplify.

There's a lot of people going, Hey, I wanna get involved. Hey, uh, can I do this? Oh, can I do that? I'd be interested in doing that. So in the next couple of months, we need to get that position, that structure in place so that there's a place for people to meet. You know, there's a structure there. People can pick a role and we can go back to, um, similar size events to what we were holding before, you know, with people in, you know, in doing fundraisers, having grants, um, actively, you know, working with the theme camps to increase the numbers to try.

I've always been a believer that the best burns are where most of the participants belong to theme camps as opposed to, you know, um. You know, camping on their own. I think that it builds a lot more community by, and community and, um, [00:38:00] participation are definitely enhanced if every already see the theme camp.

Stevan: Yeah. So you're having that whole contribution model taking place with the community, you know, building the community sort of thing.

Rainbow Anj: Yeah. Yeah. So we've gotta build the community, but we also need people to build the events. Um, that's where burnout comes, is when it's the same few doing it all the time. So, you know, to have a structure where there are roles in there and people can try out new things or they can use their existing skills, there can be mentored.

So there's like room for personal growth.

Stevan: So the, the community, the modifyre community, how would you describe it? Um, you guys with the effigy, you guys are unique in that you burn bugs and insects and I love that.

Rainbow Anj: And we like a big effigy like, uh, part of our tradition is that the effigy is big enough to have a bar inside.

Okay. And then Friday night we have a party,

Stevan: a DJ booth and a bar in Fiji.

Rainbow Anj: Yeah, a DJ booth and a bar and place for the participants [00:39:00] to gather around and have fun. And that's what happens on the Friday. And then on the Saturday night, we burn it. It certainly wasn't big enough and it was, uh, it was basically solid wood this time, so there was no space for anything inside it.

Stevan: And the previous sites that you guys have, have used,

Rainbow Anj: um, so the first, the first Modifyre was a natural bridge, which is, uh, um, a community down, you know, not that far from the Queensland New South Wales border. There are problems with the, um, neighbors around that community, so it doesn't really, it wasn't something that we could use moving forward.

We were gonna hold the 2016 event. There. There was quite a bit of rain, but also there were problems with the neighbors. And so on the Friday there was a site change to a campground called Lake Moura, which is out west about an hour west. There we had sound curfew, so, you know, from midnight we weren't allowed to make much noise.

And from 2:00 AM. We, [00:40:00] we could only sit around the, the fire and whisper. So that, that was also not suitable. We then went out to Inglewood, um, way so four hours west of Brisbane into the State Forest. You know, there we could make, we were about 10 kilometers out of the town of Inglewood. We could make a lot of noise out there.

Um, the community were quite, you know, the, the local towns community were quite engaged with us. They did come out to the site, but there were. Some aboriginal people that actually wanted to go back onto that land. And so the lease expired two years ago now, and there was no talk of renewing the lease. And also it, this, I'm not really sure why we went out that way because you know, we went four hours out of town, but there wasn't anything, anything particularly special about that space.

You know, it had a lot of black mud on the, you know, on the land it was flown to, um, prone to flooding. But most sites here in [00:41:00] Queensland do have the potential to flood. Including the one that we just used. So, um, we were offered a community member, um, actually offered modifies some land out Tara Way, which is most probably, um, northwest of also four hours northwest of Brisbane.

It's quite arid out that way and it's a little bit politically polarized out that way. That land, we were sold to dream and, um, it turned out to be not, it would've been problematic for us because there were a thousand tires buried or exposed on the land, which meant that we couldn't actually burn an effigy on that land.

And as burners, you know, that's what we wanna do to have a site. The o the only option was there was this little, you couldn't even call it a dam. It was more like a pond that you could build a raft and burn a very small stock structure on that raft. But having grown up in Johannesburg or South Africa and what they do with burning [00:42:00] tires, sort of like, it was very off-putting to me, I've, I, I found it to be the whole concept to be very dangerous.

And it was around that time when the committee changed and so we, we didn't take up the option to use that land. And now we've, we've found a site where we were, it's suitable for a couple of years, years. There are other sites where if we signed a multi-year, um, agreement, we, we could use some of the festival sites.

They're two, um, not in a, like quite close to where that one is that we could use and there's possibly others around as well.

Stevan: Yeah. Has it always been the thought of. Of, of, of having it as a, as a winter burn, or did you guys also think like we can do it in, say, in a different month where it's more appropriate with, with a a, a state holiday involved as well?

Rainbow Anj: Um, part of the problem there is our, um, fire restrictions. You know, as soon as we get into summer, fire restrictions could get turned on at any point in time. They're not, um, like [00:43:00] seasonal. It's not as though there are fire bans that start at this time that, but as soon as there's any fires, we get fire bans.

So summertime is not really seen as being feasible and also because of the heat, you know, the, I think it's most of the community's preference to actually be cold rather than hot. This, this time we were looking at anytime from about May through to mid-September, but then we were starting sort of like starting to get closer to other events.

Like there's quite a lot of large festivals that are now, you know, from the middle of September through until, you know, January. There, there are significant events that are on at that time, and so, you know, they come to get shorter and shorter.

Stevan: Is, is there a, a, uh, public holiday in Queensland around those dates?

Rainbow Anj: Um, no, no. Like we could move out to, uh, we get, uh, eDay, but that's like typically a Wednesday. So that's for the royal show or the show day, but that's [00:44:00] generally it's a different day for different, um, locations or localities. Yeah. And our public holidays are different, so we don't actually get too many at that time of the year.

The time of the year when it's suitable, we don't really get, and so we've never backed onto public holidays.

Stevan: Yeah. Burning at a, at a, at the ideal date is, um, it's, it's, it's always been a, an issue I guess. Um, a lot of considerations because we want, we want, uh, it's like we want families there as well. We want kids, so it has to be like a school holiday and, and, and a public holiday would be great, a national one, probably even better.

Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's a tricky thing. Um,

Rainbow Anj: yeah, it's, it's always been tricky because we were also, we had a large number of people coming from New South Wales, so you'd have to pick the week where Queensland School holidays and their school holidays merged. But then we had a, quite a bit, uh, quite a number of people in our community that end of financial year was actually a problem for them.

So there's no [00:45:00] ideal time.

Stevan: And what are your thoughts about winter burns most people? So there was a recent survey saying that it was, it was a 70 30 ratio. People prefer, well, not, or people don't prefer, 70% said they don't prefer winter burns. Um, the others are just, uh, they don't really care. Doesn't really affect them.

But yeah, most people don't like the cold weather.

Rainbow Anj: I dunno. I did, um, I've done Africa Burn twice, and the second one I did, you know, the days were in the forties and that was, you know, nighttime was great. Um, but the days were, were hectic and yeah, burning Man was also pretty warm. Um, my preference is definitely

for a colder burn.

Chau: I think from a perspective of participant safety, colder weather has always been safer when you consider that, you know, like said, fires riskier smaller, but also it's riskier for people to you to, to meet and gather and [00:46:00] it's hotter. But I can understand why people prefer warm weather. It's more comfortable, you know, your, your wardrobe options increase dramatically when it's warmer.

But also, you know, when it's cold you always warmly if it's hot. I personally don't mind the cold. Uh, I personally love being around the pile. It's cold. So those two married quite well to me. Uh, I think the only way we could feasibly hold a burn in Queensland where a lot of people are to the weather is if we had that didn't, and I know that's been discussion that New South Wales community has covered when they were considering the dates for the New Sea.

And I dunno if I have a complete answer to that, but at least for the foreseeable future, Queensland Racial will be held some sometime around the time.

Stevan: Okay. Let's move on to the, uh, next segment. Uh, now I've actually designed a little [00:47:00] Modifyre quiz. I went through the history of the mo, uh, of the Modifyre, and I've got a few questions here for the quiz.

Let's start with, um, with the jogging our memories here. Let's, let's go for, so the, the first question is, what was the theme of Modifyre in 2021? Do you guys remember that 2021 Mud, also known as Mud Fire, but do you know the actual theme of the, of the burn that year?

Chau: Uh, it was around,

Rainbow Anj: it may well have been a theme, but I don't think that any, that we did a lot with the theme given that we were, uh, inundated with mud.

I, I can't actually recall that one.

Chau: So I remember that around that time, the Queensland, we were doing sort of a what Burning Man called, uh, camp Village, where multiple camp together and only, but I remember we were, we kept changing the, of our theme camp, mostly because the won queens was the pro of [00:48:00] sound camp.

And we wanted to not lean on, you know, the, the legacy of the name, but allow ourselves to reinvent ourselves every year. And so I think that year we changed our name to, to be in, to suit the theme and the name. Time square that year. So my educated guess is the event was something to do with time.

Stevan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rainbow Anj: Uh, yeah. The land, the land before time or something.

Stevan: Not quite, almost there. Oh, Mr. Paddock, that time,

Rainbow Anj: the paddock,

that time. Forgot the paddock that time forgot.

Stevan: Yeah. Oral, also known as a Mudifyre. So how much rain did you guys get on the site?

Rainbow Anj: It rained for weeks before it rained during the event. And then on the Friday night when we have that normal traditional party in the effigy, only over the burn there was thunder, lightning, hail.

Mm. At 7:00 PM from 7:00 PM till [00:49:00] 9:00 PM on the Friday. And so then it didn't really rain much after that, but you know, we were already in 20 centimeters of mud.

Chau: Yeah. So the, the water table's always saturated. I think by time get that started. I can't speak to the total rainfall. Event, but I know that on Friday night there was at least 50

Rainbow Anj: and it was just like we, there were, the gates were closed because of the, the mud and the rain.

And so, um, some of my friends, their partners were actually in the local town in Inglewood, which 10 kilomet away. They didn't have a drop of rain. When we got those 150 mils, it was like, it was just over our pad on.

Stevan: Fantastic. Uh, was it more like, um, I guess a collective bonding experience after that?

Rainbow Anj: Absolutely. But so at, at the actual event, it was actually quite interesting to watch, you know, people that had were like OCD about dirt and stuff have to like really wrangle with [00:50:00] themselves because you couldn't do anything about it. And so yes, there was an awful lot of comradery and, you know, team building and stuff like that.

But the cleanup. Everybody was, you know, there wasn't a lot of team building or teamwork during the cleanup 'cause a lot of people just scattered because they had all their own problems. They all were all quite burnt out. They were absolutely over the mud. And so site cleanup was horrendous that year, which then led to further burn out.

Chau: So I can comment on that from the, the theme camp that I led that year. One of the things we learned was that it's possible to fold up a 20 meter by 15 meter top without it touching the ground. And it requires that 20 people to hold the top tot while you fold it by segment. That was a nice thing to learn.

Um, the team, uh, bonded really well and there were elements of burnout from. I from, [00:51:00] from perspective. But what it did do was prepare our entire theme camp when we went in 20 sound. Uh, because rain 23, we just out laughing because it was, you know, the weather was what it was, but it wasn't anywhere near the scope of what the weather was in 2021.

So we had a ball at the big burn. We were laughing. We were so overprepared that, um, yeah, it was, it was the, uh, the preparation curve. We didn't,

Stevan: yeah, the resilience and the of burners and people were just amazing. Next question. Okay, so no place like home was a theme used for modify in what year do you remember this one?

Chau: Okay.

Stevan: No place like home.

Chau: So it wouldn't have been 2020 because we postpone that year. Um, because regulations.

Stevan: I believe the effigy was a, it was a, sorry, a dragonfly

Chau: Uhhuh. [00:52:00] So that 2018, either 17 or 18.

Stevan: Yeah, 2018. Do you remember anything about that, that year, that burn? What's some of the highlights that stood out?

Chau: Uh, you don't need

that.

Rainbow Anj: Uh, the effigy, that was an epic effigy, and there was a lot of, um, pantomime around that. There was, uh, I think that that was the, there, there was a group of people that every Friday when there was this party gonna happen, they used to do, you know, one side of the paddock can be the, the butterflies in the other side of the pallet can be the praying mantis, and they'd sort of like, have a little war, and then they'd lock the, the praying mantis, lock the butterflies at inside the effigy.

Um, but I think that that was the stag beetle. So that must have been No, that was, no, it was the, yeah, it was 18 when they did that.

Chau: Um, 18 was a highlight for me because 17 was my first firm, uh, which was the year that I to lead center camp and also co-lead camp. Which I didn't [00:53:00] realize was more of the capacity of your average burner.

And so I went into 2018 with the affection that I would do a role that was with my, within my capacity. And so I, I remember really enjoying 2018 could balance, uh, my role of gifting organizational skills, but also having a great time integrating community, making friends and partying.

Stevan: Okay. So you, you mentioned 2017 as your first burn.

What was the theme that year? Do you remember?

Chau: I do not remember.

Stevan: Do you remember the effigy? It was another, the word time was also featured in the theme.

Chau: No, you've stumped me. You've stumped me, Steven. I have no idea.

Stevan: It's once upon a time that that was a theme used. And the effigy was a grasshopper. Is that correct?

Rainbow Anj: I thought it was a stag horn bee tool. Dunno. Could have been.

Chau: I think this, uh, highlights that we should have on the modified website. A photo book, photo [00:54:00] album, yeah. Of every year's Epie because yeah, ev every, every burn that's been built, sorry, every that's been built has been so beautiful, especially given the, the size of the built crew.

Yeah. Pound for pound. It's, it's been an amazing series of, so it'd be nice to have that on, on website actually, so people have a look through the, the history book.

Rainbow Anj: Yeah. I think it's a good idea.

Stevan: Well, I was impressed by the effigy in 2019, but that was the year that I went, uh, it was the Beatle uh, do you remember the theme for that year?

Rainbow Anj: Oh year That was something about marriage or, or something like that, or, you know, because I remember we, the fundraiser was a bucks party, but No, I dunno what the theme was.

Stevan: The secret garden.

Rainbow Anj: Oh, of course.

Stevan: I think that was a, a peak Modifyre. I think you, you guys capped it. Um, you sold out and you capped it at 500.

[00:55:00] Um, what was your experience of, of that burn?

Rainbow Anj: That was, that was definitely the best one. That was, we actually had a, we moved site on the actual site that time to an area that was actually better than where we had been before. The effigy and the temple stayed on the same, you know, like where they'd always been, just to minimize scarring.

But we had more space to, you know, to lay the theme camps out. We had, every year we had more and more theme camps, so that would've been the year with the most theme camps. I think we had 19 that year was theme camp coordinator and

yeah, that

was a lot of fun.

Stevan: Chau. Do you anything about that year? Do you remember what, what were your highlights of 2019 Burn?

Chau: I think 2019 Burn was when I think as a theme camp we'd finally had, I suppose, a little more boring that maybe the theme camp coordinators can, uh, appreciate this, all of our spreadsheets. Worked perfectly. So we've had the couple of years of tinkering with, you know, how much information, uh, [00:56:00] we'd need for in terms of, you know, procuring materials, equipment, uh, rostering.

And I remember that year it was such a breeze in terms of setup and packed down because we had kind of fine tuned all of the inner workings of our organization such that everything, everything worked the way we wanted it to work. And when things went sideways, we had contingencies for everything. So I remember it being a year of nothing going wrong for the camp, which was, uh, it's, it's a red tree for, for a theme camp organizer.

Rainbow Anj: Yeah. Um, that was also the year where we did quite a lot of fundraising and I lead the grants committee and that was the year where we had the most grants, you know, five pieces, uh, art and theme camp grants.

Stevan: Yeah. It was also great weather that year. Um. Yes, what I remembered. So it was my first Modifyre and I took a lot out of it.

It was my favorite, one of my favorite burns, I guess. Um, in my favorite experience, what I loved about it was the [00:57:00] heart, the center camp, hang around there most of the time also. Yeah, like you mentioned, the potluck, the kind of community coming together. Is it on a Friday night or a Saturday night? I can't remember.

Um, I love that. It used to be Saturday. Yeah, yeah. Before the burn, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I I, I love that idea. Um, it, you know, it's, it brings people together. It's, it, it takes me back to, you know, as, as a kid, my oxygen background is, you know, the, the, the main highlight of, of the day is the dinner table. It's not just a household rule, you have to be there, but it, it's also where you can, you know, share stories and get to know, you know, um, I, I love hosting dinner parties, and this is one of the main, main reasons is because, you know, you get to know other people more, uh, personally.

Intimately at a dinner table. And that kind of brings the whole feel of that, of that event. I loved it. The other thing was how being capped at 500, I think there [00:58:00] is a threshold if you go above that becomes, I guess more towards a bigger town like a city. So I love that aspect of having that smaller knit community.

Um, also the other highlight was how you guys staged a temple burn. I remember it being haunting but also mesmerizing, impactful, and very silent. Um, it's something that, um, I haven't experienced in my previous other burns. So yeah. Just wanna talk about the, the, the temple. Is that something that has been part of Modifyre?

Rainbow Anj: Yeah, so, right, right. Since the beginning there's always been, you know, some sort of like sun bowls or something really chill and if there always fire twirling it's much more graceful and slow and that, um, so yes, we, we've typically have always had that in the lead up to the temple burn. But yes, our crew, other than I think it was 2018, there was a sound camp [00:59:00] playing music during the effigy.

Um, but other than that it has always been perfectly silent.

Chau: Yeah, I think to allow space for people to experience the range of emotions that they may want to need to a temple, it's important that we have the atmosphere as neutral as possible. And science, uh, for me kind of achieves that. It's also set the bar quite high from like of what could or should be.

And I think a lot of the regionals around Australia have that same. They designed Pepper, you know, um, I was lucky enough to head to Underland, the Victorian and the Victorian, um, their last edition. And in both of them it's always been, uh, complete, the production level extends to, uh, some kind of quiet procession from the tackle crew who they might [01:00:00] do a performance or they might just walk and light the tackle.

And aside from that, there's, you know, and that that doesn't come around, uh, with no communication that, that, that comes from the organization and coordinators is instituting a, you know, to to, to heavily discourage any music playing or other events that might create sound on during the time of,

Stevan: yeah, it felt very ceremonial.

Um, it's, I guess the, the connection that you. With the temple and the ceremony, it felt like a closing ceremony. So it was quite a, uh, I guess, impactful feeling for me for, for that experience. I loved it.

Rainbow Anj: Yeah. Um, I, I've never really sat right until the, like we used to leave when the temple fell because, um, my husband and I used to make Sunda roast.

Um, the biggest one that we actually did was at Modifyre actually that was, uh, 80, 80 [01:01:00] people slow cook lab. So I've never really seen the temple like right to the end because I've always been off going and making the gravy or whatever still needed to be done.

Stevan: Okay. Let's get to the last question of the quiz.

Now, you guys didn't have a burn in 2020. You had a cyber burn. Uh, the question is in what years was Modifyre also not on what years did you guys take

Rainbow Anj: 22, 20, 22 and 23. And last year and 24.

Stevan: Yeah. Three years. And how, how was that break? Um, you guys, it's, it's given you a bit more insight, a bit more clarity, I guess, um, for having that break.

Rainbow Anj: Um, it's a complete change of the guard, so more or less, all the people that were there in 21 are not there anymore, you know? Yes. Chad and I are still there, and yeah, the, you know, some of us were part of the community, but the, the people that were on the management committee are not anymore. And event, you [01:02:00] know, event producers, the event lead and a lot of the, um, DPW are not part of the burn community anymore, or hopefully they'll come back at some stage.

But yeah, we've had a mass, it just sort of like dissolved and so it's like just reigniting and rebuilding them.

Chau: Yeah. I think when you have a, when you burn like 20, 21, that's so, uh, difficult. And you know, we. As burn as we expect, burn to be difficult in, in a way. But I think when it gets to that level of hardship that, uh, it makes question why you're doing it in the first place.

It takes time to rebuild that trust in the community. Not necessarily trust in the community, but trust that that burn can be something that you can go to, to experience something that you can't otherwise experience. And I think that this year, er is the first step to achieving that. We've had a lot of positive feedback from both people who are there, but people who were, who attended that to be a management role that came [01:03:00] along, um, and relieved themselves of all sort of organizational duties, uh, this year and just came along to just enjoy the Stack book.

And we received a lot of positive feedback from them. So I, I expect that we'll see some of the Old guard return from that. John.

Stevan: Yeah. I'm very grateful that you guys put on the simplify event, much like how when Seed was canceled, the Embers event was on. So we need these spaces. To pop up so we can, you know, um, grow the community.

Okay. Um, let's take another break and we'll be right back after. Okay. Welcome back. Okay, let's, let's get into the Brisbane burner community. You guys also host burning pubs and MIF Modifyres. Explain about what that is. Modifyre and, uh, burning Pub in Brisbane.

Rainbow Anj: Okay, so Burning Pub is typically organized by our regional Burning Man contact Shepa.

Um, [01:04:00] and so there that's more to draw new burners in. We, as the committee do try to go to those, but it's not actually run by us.

Okay.

And yes, we get, do get quite a bit of interest. We do get, um, in the past we've got quite a, you know, active members of the EPT have come from meeting at those burning pubs, and there's generally about three or four of those a year, sometimes more, sometimes less.

Um, and they, you know, burning Pub, it generally is in a pub, although the next one is likely to actually be a daytime picnic, which will be a nice change. Um, the minis themselves have taken various different forms. Those minis are typically for. Theme camp and art, art grants. Um, we've had them at people's houses.

We tend generally time try to take the year's theme and switch it around a little bit, but, you know, theme them. And if I had to match the, the event theme and they've taken, yeah, there's, there's been ones in [01:05:00] private homes which have worked quite well. Um, but we've also had them in like, um, you know, bars, clubs, that sort of thing.

In one of the, um, one of the burner, well a few of the burners actually have this, um, sound studio and that's quite a good place for us to hold them. And yeah, we do silent auction, you know, and then there's drinks, food, drinks and different, depending on what the theme is.

Chau: Yeah. So minifyre sort of fulfills a few key, key things in our community.

It's a way for the community in an environment outside the itself. Um, and it's also a way for the governing organization to raise funds, um, like the art grants. So that the different departments of the org sustain themselves year over year.

Stevan: Yeah. So now you've had a successful simplify event. Um, what other things are you looking for in terms of community engagement?

Regular community engagement?

Rainbow Anj: Um, yeah, th there's talk of doing, you know, the next thing from our side of it [01:06:00] would be a, and then most probably would be two Minifyres before the next burn. Yeah. Uh, item de compression party.

We should most probably have got onto it by now. And yeah, everybody was all a bit busy.

We've done it. We've had a after burn like meeting. I dunno, there's talk of decompression, but then nobody's available to run it. So, yeah. Dunno.

Chau: I think a decompression is, it's ideal.

To be a do. And this time of year, uh, previous mentioned that, uh, in Brisbane there are a lot of other events that are on that product team, are involved in other projects, um, outside of the burn, uh, world. So, um, there's not much capacity to go around in terms of creating a decompression party as far as that might be.

Yeah. But I think looking forward to events that similar to similar [01:07:00] mini fulfill that space of engage the community outside of the context of itself, I think a good direction to take would be to organize, um, social meetups that don't necessarily take place in a pub or a place that serves alcohol. Uh, I think it's important if we, the families not wanna around alcohol, that we provide a space where we.

So that might be a picnic a day popup bring around. So that's, that's always great place to start. So yes, somewhere outdoors in nature, in Brisbane. Brisbane has no shortage of that. We can't necessarily a lot of planning outside of, you know, um, our social media events and

Stevan: or any fundraisers planned ahead.

Rainbow Anj: Um, we haven't actually planned them yet, but [01:08:00] yes, they will be planned. Our typical EPT structure does actually have a department for fundraising, and that's the fires, but we don't really have that structure in place. So it's like, get the structure in place, find the people that are really passionate about doing it, and yeah.

Do I, I think it's quite possible that we see one this year.

Chau: Yeah. I think if the, if any the listeners are interested in taking part in organizing a mini fire or coming along, then. Letter this year or early next year. Uh, just look out for an email or a social media post and, um, if can get involved.

Everyone's welcome.

Rainbow Anj: It's just a very busy time for other events, like non burn events, um, at this time, you know, from now through to the end of the year. You know, it's, it's pretty busy. But yes, it's definitely the way forward if we wanna encourage theme camps and art on the paddock.

Stevan: Okay. Let's move on to the topic of the, the idea of having a national or a [01:09:00] generational burn event.

Uh, you, Jeff, you, can we talk about how you are mentioning about the structure of, well, the separation of seed now moving to like a more like a New South Wales based, focused, and now there's, there's, uh, there's talks of, of having some kind of a, a national kind of burn to bring people together from all.

All states of Australia.

Chau: Yeah, so I think it's important to recognize the impact of SEED when it started. So the founders of SEED brought a culture that up until that point was very inaccessible to Australia, given the big, the states. There wasn't a version of that, uh, in Australia that was widely recognized.

And so seed by being the first recognized burn in Australia, became the DEO National. And it's um, obviously grown since then. And since Seeds inception, that culture of Burning [01:10:00] Man has manifested itself in s across Australia. And so I think we're up to six regionals now, if not more. We can count quickly.

So we got blazing Swan Wa, but Modifyre in Queensland. We have, uh, seed in Wales, third degree New South Wales. And patch running the att that

Rainbow Anj: Yeah. But then there's also, there's third degree. Is that a, is that a Uh, I think it is a regional and then also is the Canberra one and also regional, in which case I think there's seven.

Chau: Yeah. And so,

Stevan: so we've pretty much covered every state except for South Australia and probably Northern Territory. But there is a Tasmanian burn as well.

Chau: Yeah. Yeah. And so the, so now that the Chlor Australia, I suppose the, the next question is that, you know, is burning seed, the DEO National, if you look at, you know, the national [01:11:00] being the biggest, well, it's the biggest is swan.

It, the culture is flourish over there. I spent a good two months. Last year, and it felt like every weekend there was a fundraiser, project, organization. The, the, yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's the busiest scene, uh, in Australia, I think currently. But if we look at what, uh, a national could look like, you know, had these different regional burns seated in Australia who kind of grown independently.

There may crossover participants who go to each, each regional, but by and large, I would say that the participants for would only go to their local. And so what does a national burn have within Australia's burning culture? And what would that look like? I think to do that, there would need to be an organizational framework [01:12:00] that brings together the experience of, and wisdom of the, each governing committee of their respective regionals to put together a vote, whether that's.

Burning seed, something else entirely. Uh, but I think I would like to see one, and I think that now that we have enough here, we could start to think about a national burn that could, at least in scope, uh, something that is internationally commend.

Rainbow Anj: Yeah, I, I fully support the idea of a national burn. I think that there is enough going on for us to do that, and I think it's a great opportunity for the burns to cross and share culture.

And there you may find that the best of some burns are, you know, become more widespread. You know, the, the concept of a temple burn of that a temple burn is a si uh, uh, a quiet thing that does have a little bit of ceremony. [01:13:00] Um, you know, in the lead up to it, you know, that sort of thing could be become national.

Um, more like australianized over time. I think that the sharing that would happen would be great. And you could get the best out. Yeah, you could build the best out of the best burn out of all the best bits of the other ones.

Chau: Um, and thinking about it, uh, in terms of everyone's capacity, you know, historically burns are volunteer, run, uh, burns, run by volunteer run organizations.

Um, there are very few instances, at least in Australia where re for their services. And so if we were to think about how a national firm would look, uh, I think we would need to consider the capacities of each regional in terms of what they could lend to a national burn while also keeping.

Because I don't think anyone wants to sees. Um, and I think the timeline of that would, [01:14:00] would, um, probably be a

next year.

Stevan: Yeah. Some people have caught on to the idea of having something like a generational burn where every four years or something like that, or, or, or, or something significant that brings people together.

Chau: Your idea of Yeah. A generational burn being something that's not every year, uh, I think would be more sustainable.

You know, every year. Sometimes for some people is, is almost too often, you know, if you think about a lot of working, Australians may not have the, the, um, resources to take a, a measure. You know, time off work for, for a major event every year, or their major event every year may just be their, their their regional.

So I definitely that a national burn in, in any kind of form would be better served if it was, uh, less than once a year. And did you have any more thoughts on Yeah. Sort of of national burn. What, [01:15:00] what it would mean to you or what it would mean to the Brisbane community?

Rainbow Anj: Um,

yeah, it's generational thing. We talk,

Chau: uh, it says you're off mute, but I can't hear your audio.

Rainbow Anj: Okay.

Stevan: We can't hear your audio.

Rainbow Anj: Oh, okay. Yep, yep. Um, last year we actually spoke a lot about the generational burn concept at the, uh, management committee level. And it was very well received. Um, in conversations that I've had in the community whilst not trying to really, um, give away or, you know, prompt what it might be.

It, it's, it's something that's actually very exciting to everybody because you can, you know, it could be bigger because it's collective, it could be not bigger, but just more polished than what a natural regional, um, could be. And we also see it as a great learning opportunity. 'cause some of, you know, like.

Blaze is a, a very successful burn. [01:16:00] You know, they have great community engagement. You know, we, we, we wish we had that level of community engagement, but it's, it's a case of like, you know, like learning from them, seeing what it is that they do, you know, having a look at, well, how could we fit that in here?

And so I think that all the burns would, would benefit from it, but us specifically and, you know, in the areas of like burnout and how do we mitigate that? How do we structure ourselves in such a way that we don't have, you know, all get burnt out again and the thing fades out completely or almost fades out again.

'cause it's, it's a bit sad when, you know, when you look around and you go, we used to have burns of like 500 people, you know, and here we are doing a camp out.

Chau: High level. Um, I was lucky enough to be invited to forum this year, which a, the organizers[01:17:00]

members of the burn in Australia to, to meet once a year in an in-person setting and sort of share their experiences of, of, of running burns. What, what goes on behind the scenes, what might not be pretty, and to kind of share and just shouts and ideas of, of each other, um, and sort of gain an insight that any individual wouldn't necessarily get from just gonna their own.

And I was really inspired by what I learned there and. I kind of like it to, uh, me historically being a theme camp organizer. When I go Towan and I see how theme camp runs in there, I bring those learning back to my theme camp or when I went to Underland last year and how some of their like compliance policies there.

Um, I would wanna bring that back to back [01:18:00] to, to, to the Queensland burn. And I think that that sort of environment where cross cultural information exchange can happen is really important. And so I think something that a national burn could provide is that same platform or cross conflict exchange that within the context of say, ranges or medical staff or any kind of critical departmental role within a burn, if people who are experienced from their regional burns came together.

There would be that place where we could all share our ideas and experiences and then bring those shared ideas back to improve each of our regional, each our spective. So I think it's a, it's an important thing to consider where there's this opportunity for us to all other in person setting.

Stevan: Yeah.

Thanks very much for presenting. Um, for what, uh, at Bonzo for your presentation chow. [01:19:00] Um, it got people thinking. It got people talking, so thanks for putting those seeds in our heads. You know, it's usually, it's the case of know, uh, like the cliched, uh, sporting phrase, you know, take it one game at a time.

It's how we sort of like see our burns as well is taking it one year at a time. So it was great for that, that we had something to look forward to, the forward projections, something to strive for, aspirations. Um, that's what I loved about your presentation and, and your ideas.

Chau: Yeah. Thanks Steve. I think I'll, um, I'll, I'll be happy to bring together a team, uh, possibly early next year to talk in depth about presentation this year.

And, um, uh, and, and so we get, get again on the podcast. Uh, about's come. Thank you.

Stevan: Okay, let's, let's, uh, let's finish this off by giving up, uh, some shout outs. Um, some of the people that, you know, helped to build a community in [01:20:00] Queensland. Any, any, any other shout outs? Any other people that you wanna mention?

Chau: Yeah, I think, um, a, a lot of credit used to be given to Sherpa who, um, aside from being one of the founders of, uh, burning seed and being so instrumental in bringing that culture to Australia has long held the torture, being Queensland's, uh, regional contact or regional contact rather, and continuing to integrate new burners into community.

Holding events, uh, every month or so, uh, in Brisbane and just keeping that, that, uh, that, that social side of, of, of our community.

Rainbow Anj: Yeah. Um, one of our founding members, um, CC, um, does still does, uh, a lot for the community. You know, AGMs her place. She took on a lot of roles at the recent simplifyre and she's just generally always trying to hold it all together and make it successful.

Stevan: Well shout out to Dan Cakes as well. Um, I met him personally in [01:21:00] the 2019 Modifyre and also Mané, uh, she couldn't be with us tonight, but, um, shout out to her for stepping up and taking on the role as chair.

Rainbow Anj: Yep. Yep. Otherwise we wouldn't have, we wouldn't have had a simplifyre if she hadn't have, uh, eaten brave and bold, uh, and taken it on here.

Chau: Absolutely. Go Mané.

Stevan: Alright, fantastic. Thanks guys for coming on the show and to talk to give us, uh, uh, some information about the burn scene in Brisbane and simplify event. Hoping to see you guys soon at a paddock. Uh, you, you'll definitely be at Underland, so can't wait to see you guys in person then. Yeah, thanks.

Thank you. Alright. Thank you for listening.

Transcripts transcribed by Descript AI