Handy Round-Up of Preparation Tools

Preparation: It doesn’t have to be like this. Photo by Steven Fritz.

As we hurtle headlong on the downslope towards Burning Man 2012 (woot!), here’s our round-up of some of the helpful tools available to smooth your preparation process:

  • Mandatory reading for ALL Burning Man participants, the completely-redesigned Survival Guide looks seamlessly great on your laptop, tablet or smart phone, and there’s also a downloadable PDF of it for offline reading.
  • Need a ride to Burning Man? Got an open spot in your car? Hook up on the official Burning Man Rideshare Board. Want an alternative to that? Check out the Burning Man Rides board.
  • Looking for your friends on playa? Map your camp location, and find their camps with Burner Map. They started this thing last year, and it’s a pretty awesome tool. (Warning to Facebookophobes: you need a Facebook account to use it.)
  • Are you planning to caravan to the playa, or just want to have a little fun on the way there? Check out Waze route tracking software, and you can see where other folks are on the road.
  • The folks at Asana help companies plan and organize complex projects, and they’ve made a custom version of their software just for Burning Man. The Chillage camp has used it for years, and it’s been invaluable to them, and now it’s their gift to the community! Manage playa checklists, track and coordinate your individual and collaborative to-dos, conduct discussions, and more … it’s custom software for stress-free playa preparation.
  • Find collaborators, a stage to perform on, an art project to help with on the Spark system, or on the eplaya.
  • Find out what’s going on day-to-day by perusing the Playa Events Calendar, and add your event or activity to the list.
  • Of course, we have our 2012 theme camp listing, to which we’ve added a handy search function to find the camp you’re looking for … sweet.

Now go forth and get ready … and may your preparation be smooth like butta!

About the author: Will Chase

Will Chase

Will Chase is Burning Man's former Minister of Propaganda, working on global communications strategy. He was the editor-in-chief for the Jackrabbit Speaks newsletter and the Burning Man Journal, and content manager for Burning Man’s web properties. He also oversaw the ePlaya BBS and Burning Man’s social media presence. Will first attended Burning Man in 2001. He volunteered as the Operations Manager for the ARTery (Black Rock City’s art HQ) and was on the Burning Man Art Council from 2003-2008. He was Web Team Project Manager and Webmaster from 2004 until he transitioned to the Communications Department in 2009.

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