Community Meeting Transcript — Event Dates Call

Daniel T: All right. It's five past. Thank you everybody for joining. Um, and, uh, as mentioned, the theme of this call is to give people space to, uh, ex- uh, share what they want, what they think needs to be heard about the event dates vote. Um, only one person, um, signed up for a slot, so they'll get to speak first for however long they want. Um, and then it can be an open Q&A or statement, uh, podium for others. Um, and then at the end of that, um, I will also share, um, uh, the results of the survey as it is now. Um, I'll give you a spoiler right now that there have been 905 votes so far. Um, and, uh, I'll sort of screen share an overview of the votes, and then the, the survey will stay open until tomorrow. Um, and we will, um, publish the full results that you can analyze yourself, uh, in whatever way you want, uh, on the website, so you can do your own analysis. Um, and we'll do that probably on Saturday. Um, as a kind of overview of where we are in the process, we've gathered a bunch of data. We've talked to some burns. I'll also give a quick update. I got through to Burning Nest, so I have an update from that. Um, and we're gathering as much information as we can. Um, and this call is also part of the information gathering, and, um, at some point in the next, um, few days, like, like by early next week or like some, by sometime next week, we will open the formal, uh, asociado vote on, uh, the Humans app, where asociados can vote with a ranked voting system that I'll explain shortly. Um, and they'll be able to rank the, the dates in order of preference. And then there is an algorithm that will figure out which is the winning date. But then that will still not be quite the final decision, and that vote will close on the 17th of September. But that will not be quite the final decision for the simple reason that, uh, we might still get some dates knocked out by INAGA, which is the bird nesting agency, and they might tell us that we're not allowed to do at a certain date because of bird nesting schedules. Um, and if so, the algorithm is able to, like, remove a, a date and then recalculate who's the winner. Um, does this make sense to anybody-- uh, to everybody? Do you have any questions before I go into, uh, I guess the first thing would be the explanation of that voting algorithm, which there's a lovely interactive presentation now on the website for this. I'll take us through it and, uh, it's worth explaining it also in the video so that people can watch an explanation because it is... Um, so when I first thought, like, "Let's do ranked voting," I thought, "Oh, that's a simple thing." Turns out there's about like, you know, 15 different ways of doing ranked voting, of calculating who wins, and so on. And- Had some, uh, did some research about this and then f-found that, okay, the best one is probably this algorithm that I'm about to explain. Um, and, um, importantly, what it does well, and the reason why we've picked it, is that it, um, like, uh, it's able to deal quite well with when there's a cluster of votes that are split between a few options and then more votes on one of the, uh, like, uh, concentrate on, on one option. But then the cluster would have more weight, and basically it figures out how to deal with, like, how to avoid split votes ending up penalizing the, the, the, the dates that are more popular. Um, I'll take you now through a quick explanation unless somebody interrupts me, um, [chuckles] by asking some kind of question. Uh, let's see. On this tab. So you can find this, um, on the event dates page, which we'll continue to improve over the next few days. And thank you, Celine, for all the improvements that have been made there. Um, and here there's a link of how the ranking method works, and at the top there's a kind of, um, little presentation type thing that helps explain how it works. And the essence is basically, if you imagine there's a, a kind of head-to-head comparison of every single, um, uh, uh, pairing, and the one that wins is the one, the one that beats every other week in a head-to-head vote. Um, and there's two matters to look at. One is how do you do-- actually do that? And what happens is if there isn't a single week that beats all the others, and those are the two s-- Well, it's not like this is a special case. What if no week beats all the oth- uh, any, all the others? And just we're gonna have a quick look at how, how this head-to-head comparison works with the ranked ballot. So if you imagine the ranking, so you'll get a, a number of weeks, uh, to vote on. Uh, you can choose to rank several of them the same, uh, number. You can choose not to rank some of them. You'll also be able to mark some as dis-- uh, as, uh, uh, rejected, which will put it even below unranked. Um, but basically it gives it a kind of ranking of the dates. Like this would be one, two, three, then equal on this, this, uh, like these two would be equal on the same, uh, rank. And then, um... No, sorry. Th- so one, two, three, then four, and then these two would be equal, and then the last two would be equal on the bottom rank. And, uh, so you can have equal ranks, um, and you don't have to rank everything, because if you don't rank something, it's just last. Then what it does is if these were all the, um, uh, all the v- uh, all the, the, the votes for those four weeks, if only, what, um, f- uh, 11 voters have voted, it will then look at, say, week four of, uh, 4 of October and week 20 of September, and in each of the ballots compare them and look at which one wins more of the ballots. And in this case, 20th of September wins more of the ballots than, uh, uh, October 4th. So 20th of September would win on, uh, on, on this particular one. Um, then basically, by the ideal scenario, which is plausible, which happens quite often, is that one of the weeks wins against all of the others. It ends up being, like, ranked above the others more often than any of the others. Um, the interesting scenario that can happen is if there isn't one that wins, uh, against all the others because of the kind of rock, paper, scissors kind of situation, where this week beats this week, this week beats this week, and this week beats this week. And this is, uh, the technical term's a Condorcet cycle, I think. And then there's a way to break that, um, that stalemate, which is that, um, it looks at whichever is the weakest victory, takes that out, and then runs the, the, the calculation as if that victory wasn't there, and then it figures out that th- the, this one is the winner. This is interactive, so you can figure out what happens when you, like, remove different weeks and so on. Um, so you can play around with this little walkthrough thing on the page. I'm not gonna do that now on the call, uh, unless, uh, somebody demands it. But what it does mean, this, this system, is that, um, if a week is removed, you could end up with a situation where there's, um, uh, like the, a, a, a different week is removed than the one that was previously winning, and then the winner changes. Like, for example, in this case, if we remove 11th of October... No, if we remove 11th of October, it's still 6th of September that wins. But if we... Where were we going? If we remove 27th of September, that means that these lines disappear, and that means that now it looks like 11th of October wins against 6th of September. So that can be a slightly counterintuitive feature of this method of counting the votes. Um, I think as long as we all agree that this is the system that we're running, and we run it consistently, and we don't change it afterwards, I think it's, it's fine. But I wanted to be clear about this so that there isn't a kind of like, "Oh, why did it change afterwards?" So this is explained. Um, yeah, and this is just a summary. So if I go back to here. Does anyone have any questions about this before moving on to people sharing their opinions about the vote?

Pablo V: I just have a comment that this is very similar to what we did for the board vote. Uh, the only difference is there's a different methodology, but they're very, very similar, unless you're a statistician.

Daniel T: The board vote, you mean the board elections?

Pablo V: The board elections, and we will likely do future board elections with something like this, uh, because you get more insights.

Daniel T: Yeah. There were fewer options in the board, [chuckles] in the board elections, which probably made it a little, a little bit simpler. But, um, yeah. Thank you. Anyone else? Does anyone else use this system of voting? Honestly, I don't know. That wasn't part of my research. Um, it, it's called Til-Til-Tinderman? Uh, Tideman, Tideman. So if you just ask Google, "Does anybody else use Tideman voting?" You'll probably find, uh, but yeah. Okay, we used RV for board elections. Like Tideman is better when there's gonna be a bunch of similar choices that could split a vote, um, so that you avoid having a situation where let's say there's, you know, four dates in February and one date in January, and the date in January gets a bit more votes because a lot of people want January, but actually February has more dates overall, and it would a-avoid the situation where January wins because just the votes are, votes are a bit more split across, uh, February. [chuckles] Yes, Condorcet winner criterion. We're getting very technical in the chat. I think, I think almost everyone in, uh, uh, who's, who's on this call is some kind of nerd. Uh, I say this with, with love and, uh, [chuckles] as one of us. Um, okay. So it doesn't look like there's more questions about this. So, um, I guess the f-next step, um, unless somebody has another agenda item they wanna quickly squeeze in first, would be to hear from Concor- Condor, who's, uh, the only person who signed up to give a talk about dates, um, what he wants to share. And to be clear, this will be minuted and s-like summarized some kind of way, and we'll try and make it part of the info pack in some way. Um, but Condor, um, I think you have the... Oh, Alan signed up as well. Okay. Olivia didn't tell me. So I mean, it's 20:16 now. We have an hour and 15 minutes. You have up to like 35 minutes or so to talk about the dates, Condor. [laughs]

Condor: [laughs]

Daniel T: Maybe.

Condor: Amazing.

Daniel T: Yeah. [chuckles]

Condor: Uh, wow. Thank you. Well, first of all, thanks for the vote mechanism, for nerding out about something that's called Condorcet voting. It's crazy. Um, I'm impressed. Um, but I'm sure it's good. Um, and yeah, my slight disclaimer, I've been at a work conference all day. I'm kind of frazzled, slightly drunk, and I've eaten a lot of, um, fast food. So, but I did make a lot of notes, uh, during the day 'cause I was like, "I need to actually get my shit together what I'm gonna say." So, um, I'm gonna browse through my notes and see if they make sense. Um, but, uh, yeah, I guess like the reason I wanted to say something is I think I maybe have a bit of a kind of niche angle. I, I know there's a lot of arguments about dates. There's a lot of reasons. Um, but maybe there's one that where I feel maybe it's not so intuitive, it's maybe easier to overlook, and I've got a perspective on it because I've been, for the last 10 years, a kind of camp barrio lead in Nowhere and Borderland. Um, before that, I've, I've done the same thing for like 10 years plus in Burning Man as well. So I have a bit of perspective from other Burns, but, um, and Nowhere is my favorite Burn for sure, and I love Nowhere, but Borderland is geographically closer to me, and so I've been going to that for the last, you know, 10 years. And Borderland has been incr- in terms of how easy it is and how, um, facilit- how, how easy it is to grow a project and do things, Borderland is like up and coming. Um, there's... It, it's, has nailed growth for better or for worse. There's a lot, there's a lot of things you can say against it, but, but their growth is good. And I think what we want in Nowhere, I'm gonna say Nowhere instead of Elsewhere the whole way through, um, but what we really want is, I think probably all of us want some kind of growth, either to get to a slightly bigger event where just things work a little bit easier, it's a bit more, um, a bit more appealing, or just to have fresh... Even if we stay the same size, just to have fresh blood and fresh ideas and fresh art, we need to have new people come when the old of us kind of retire. So, um, so I, I'm, I'm gonna pitch an idea based on let's look at the dates based on growth perspective, and my idea I'm gonna pitch you is from the idea of being like a barrio lead or would apply to a big art creator or someone who has a key Burn org role, um, someone who's putting in a lot of work to do something big in a Burn. Um, and my TLDR of the point I'm gonna get to is May, June is the dead center of planning for a lot of other Burns, particularly Borderland, um, because Borderland is a bureaucratic Burn way more so than Nowhere. It's, um, it takes a lot of, it takes a lot of time and effort. There's a lot of free money you can get, which I mentioned, um, which, uh, which I mentioned and scored, and you have to fight for the free money. It takes about four to six weeks of you can get a lot of free money. My camp, we got 8,000 euros of funding, um, for a barrio, and big art projects get money too. Everyone gets money. They have to work for it, and you work for it during April, May. Um, there's also a long, uh, obnoxiously long placement process, which instead of Nowhere taking kind of two days, it takes six weeks, and that's also kind of May, um, April, May. So unlike in most camps, most projects, you have a small core of people who are the doers who are gonna make the camp appear, and they're the ones who kind of take the heavy burden of doing all this stuff. So people are super busy in those months. Um- And even for Burning Man, Burning Man is, like, different. You don't have the same bureaucracy, but you have a lot of hard deadlines, things like event guides, um, and, uh, stuff like that. So, so there's stuff you need to be doing, and it's also, like, the core season for recruitment and refining what you're gonna do and, you know, just planning logistics and whatever. So it's, it's peak planning season. And, you know, I've never been to Kitzburn or Where The Sheep Sleep, but I think probably you, you, you, you kind of land in the same planning season for them. Um, and what that means is I think, like, for people who do, like, a key role, like barrio planners, um, key burn organizers, big art people, you cannot do both, um, together. You can't really... Um, it was difficult a bit before because you would have to essentially plan Nowhere and Borderline at the same time. But to do w- to, to plan one during the peak, like, or to go to Nowhere during the peak planning season of Borderline is, I think, like, undoable for a lot of people. Um, and then what that means is, um, you, you basically... I'm gonna look at my notes. Uh, what that means is that y- I mean, you can really do one, but, you know, the Borderline is 5,000 people. It's got a lot of very cool projects, a lot of great art, a lot of great music, and a lot of people who would want to do something again. Um, like, if you're, like, someone who's made some key, um, part of the burn happen and you planned it in the spring, yeah, people are gonna be like, "Yeah, do you wanna do that again?" Um, sure. If it's in the, if it's in the autumn, I got a few months kind of downtime, and then we can re-plan. Um, and I think also from a, from a kind of barrio, um, organizer perspective, if you have a successful barrio and it's a great hit, um, you spend all your spring planning it, and then when you ex- when y- y- the thing happens in July and you've got, like, 30, 40 people who are like, "This is amazing. Let's do... What's next? What's Decon?" You can easily then, you know, just sell. That's your time for selling, like, second wave of Nowhere tickets, and I think a lot of people would do the kind of... could do that because, because Nowhere is, is not such a bureaucracy heavy burn. Um, you don't... The... I think a lot of camps spend maybe, like, two, three intensive months. You don't need to spend half a year planning stuff. Um, admittedly for, you know, for all around, um, things when it comes to, like, actually planning the burn organization, yeah, more. But, um, so yes, I'm arguing for September, uh, plus Nowhere, yeah. Um, because I think really, like, um, spreading things out is gonna mean that you've got, um, you kind of separate your heavy burn planning season for, um, Borderline, Sheep Sleep, Kitzburn, to an extent Burning Man, and then you have your joyous moment in July, regroup a little bit, and then you've got August, September. You... The, the yearly flow seems to really, for me, make a lot of sense. And if I look at my, my, my camp personally, which is Costume Camp, a third, like, a third of my Borderline camp come from Costume Camp, and there's not the movement the other way. Like, people go from Nowhere to Borderline, and that's partly, yeah, because they don't want 45 degrees. So, you know, there, there's that, but there's a lot of drain from one to the other. But I think spacing them out, they, they could work. But I, I see May as being as bad or worse as, as now, especially for, like, key people. So that would be my pitch. Let's go for... I know there's other factors to consider, but I think if we're thinking growth, um, there's multiple ways we can do growth, and I think the funding thing is big in Borderline. You get a lot of free money. But to give free money to camps, that's, like, a five-year project, whereas this is, like, kick fi- uh, quick fix. So, so that's my kinda pitch. Um, didn't take 35 minutes. Um...

Daniel T: I mean, you can keep going if you want to or, or you can-

Condor: I'm good. I mean, if someone has a question, but yeah, that's kind of-

Daniel T: I, I think if we'd had, like, 20 people signing up to, to speak, then maybe we wouldn't have long questions versus we didn't. Why not? Yeah. Um, but I, I would like, I would like to suggest that questions aren't arguing back and forth, like, you know, questions rather than like... 'Cause otherwise you're gonna be, like, it's not about you present your thing and then people try to attack it or something. It's more like-

Condor: No, it's, it's people want more info. I can-

Daniel T: More related questions

Condor: Yep.

Daniel T: Ideally. Uh, Pablo.

Pablo V: Uh, yeah, thanks, Hunter. I, I really agree. I share this vision of, uh, helping Nowhere, um, grow, like, structurally and thinking what it takes to get there. Uh, you made the point on key people being more available, but how do you think about, how do you think about the fact that at the beginning of the summer some people might have more energy or have more budget that they haven't spent versus later in the year? Are you thinking this more thinking of the Borderline community or is it, like, a general thought that overall you think everybody would have more, like, a second wind later? Or are you making more the point for key people in Borderline? Because-

Condor: That's, that's a really-

Pablo V: ... there's different, uh, economic, uh, status and everything, right? When we look at-

Condor: That's a really good point. Yeah

Pablo V: ... as a community.

Condor: Um, yeah, that's a really good question. Um, and I think actually now I'm gonna come with my stereotypes, but I think a lot of maybe because Nowhere is, like, Spain based, there is a lot of, like, price sensitivity. So people, you know, a lot of people, like, in Barcelona are sensitive. Like, how much is it gonna cost? Can I afford to buy a ticket? That kind of thing. Whereas, um, whereas a lot of Borderline people, which, you know, Borderline you have people going from primarily maybe... There's a lot of people from, like, Scandin- I mean, primarily Scandinavia, Germany, middle Europe. But you have a lot of people there who, who are the, the average person who's maybe coming from, I don't know, like, Germany, uh, Netherlands, um, Sweden or so on, are people who... Borderline's also, like, kind of a cheap burn to go to, 'cause it's so subsidized it's not that expensive. And so for a lot of people, um, your typical Scandinavian might think like, "Well, you know, that was great. Didn't cost me that much money, um, just driven there. But, um, can I afford to buy a ticket to, um, nowhere as well?" And also you gotta think from, like, the perspective of, like, the, the kind of Northern European, your Brit, your Scandinavian, your German. Yes, the summer's getting longer, but by the time you get to September, you know, in Scandinavia the summer's kind of over. And if people get the opportunity of, like, do I wanna go to, like, a nice summer, nice and hot but not too crazy hot in Spain? Can I afford it? Sure. You know, you got a big market that you could sell tickets to. Um, so the opportunity I think there is, is, is huge because, you know, you ask the average person in Oslo, Stockholm, "Do you wanna go to a really, something as good as Borderline but it's gonna be nice and hot, not too hot? It's gonna be Barcelona off-season." They're like, "Fuck yeah. For sure. No problem."

Daniel T: Any other questions? If not, I mean, you can always ask questions again later if something comes up, but maybe we can give-

Condor: Yeah

Daniel T: ... the floor to Ellen-

Condor: Yeah

Daniel T: ... to speak.

Condor: Or ping me on, ping me on Discord.

Daniel T: Yeah. All right. Ellen, over to you.

Ellen K (Dr Plantes): Sure. Um, I have a paper. I have a paper with a few people who've asked me, uh, to, to be a spokesperson who didn't feel comfortable speaking in the call, so I'll just take their points and move them forward. I can't necessarily answer questions 'cause they're not my points, but I'll still read them for the community. Um, I've had one person who wanted to share that they thought June was better because it has been raining before June, but it hasn't been raining before in September. So if the fire season was gonna go in one direction, it's gonna go later in the season rather than earlier. Uh, I haven't checked, but that was a point that was conveyed. Uh, I've had another person who spoke quite a bit about worries about moving dates and moving sites at the same time. Um, so what happens then if we're sort of 500 or 1,000 people, and have we thought about kind of how we manage the fact that by changing site and by changing dates at the same time, like, we might end up with a very small event? So I think that's more of a question to the community and how we might want to deal with that. Um, and I've had a third person share that what would be most important, uh, really to make the decision is considering what, um, what makes it possible for the people who make it happen. So this is again about the kind of key people. What makes it possible for the people who build the thing, uh, and that that really should have some extra weight when we consider the events. And I know the poll has been kind of, there's some way to look at the poll from people who are in humans and people who are not in humans, and maybe there's some way to weight those. But the opinions expressed was that that is really what should have the higher weight, 'cause those are the people who really need to make it happen. But that's kind of the three succinct points I've been asked to share.

Daniel T: Do you have something you want to share yourself as well?

Ellen K (Dr Plantes): Yeah, I do. Um, from my perspective, uh, go for September rather than go for May. I think it's the safer bet. A lot of things happen in May. Um, some of those are European school holidays, and that might make it easier to get people involved. Uh, so there's, there's pros and cons, right? But I do think a kind of later burn in many ways is an easier to organize burn. Uh, elsewhere isn't like a crème brûlée. A crème brûlée takes one week to build. Maybe two, and then after three weeks you're done. Like, that is not what it is that we do. [laughs] I mean on site. Olivia is getting upset, but on site it, it doesn't take that long. But, like, this is a whole process. It takes a long time. And I think we need to, from my perspective, we really need to consider the entirety of that time. Um, and we need to make sure that there's, like, no part of this build that ends up being in a moment where we just get evacuated and it's, it's a real pain. So I would vote for later. That's my two cents.

Daniel T: Thank you. Uh, it looks like Paul has a question.

Paul: Yeah. Don't wanna complicate, uh, things but, um, when there will be, um, location or if, or, or, um, that is, that is bo- uh, purchased, so the land is, is from the community, that might change the, the time for the buildup. Uh, so it's easier to go in and out, uh, when you leave some facilities there and maybe even, I don't know whether it's possible, but you could also leave some art, uh, work at the location. So it's like a, it's like a f- faster buildup, a faster leave. Um, maybe other, you know, like, you know, there, there, there, there, there are many advantages, um, owning the land. Um, shorter buildup time. So it's, it's not, it's not that much in the way from, you know, from a Borderline, uh, festival i- i- i- if you own the land.

Daniel T: It-- I'm, I'm not sure if that's a question or if that's just something you want to share. It feels like a share, which is okay also.

Paul: It feels like a share, yeah.

Daniel T: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.

Daniel T: [laughs] So you don't have to answer, Ellen. [laughs] Um, th-thank you, uh, Paul. Does anybody... I mean, we can move into sort of more, um, organic sharing if people want to share that we haven't ha- added there. Like, okay, Celine, let's go for that. Uh, let me unmute you.

Céline S: Yep. Maybe just a short comment because you both brought it up, right? Um, so the event has to happen, and it happens through the people that actually do the Build, right? So I fully agree with that, and I just suggest that we jointly look at the data as well, right? Because we have gathered the data there. I think you pointed it out as well, Ellen. But, um, I think it's important to compare if it is actually a factor for people, right? So if we have less people that would be there for Build but also for Strike, actually. So that's why we gathered the data, and I think w-we can validate it, um, with the data that, um, I think Danieli will show the sneak peek still today, right? So-

Daniel T: Yeah. So-

Céline S: ... it will be probably interesting.

Daniel T: Yeah. Once we're done with all the, the, the, um... with no longer questions, like with the, the, the discussion, um-

Céline S: Mm-hmm

Daniel T: ... as a kind of, uh, last, last thing, I will share the, the current results. And then of... as I said, the full results will be shared, uh, like as a JSON file. People can download it. They can put it in their AI assistant, get it analyzed in whatever way they want, uh, to get whatever, uh, extract whatever insights they want to extract from them.

Céline S: Mm-hmm. Yeah, makes sense. But I think that will help us with answering that question, right?

Daniel T: Mm-hmm.

Céline S: Yep.

Daniel T: Yeah, ab-absolutely. And I think it's, uh, like I kind of feel like, um, pointing out that the people who are voting, like the general assembly, which is, uh, just over 100 people at this point, are, you know, leads and coordinators and so on of the events. They are the core people who make the event happen. Um, uh, not all of them, but like they're, they're, they're leads, coordinators, barrier leads, and so on. Um, and so these, these are the people who ultimately are most involved. Like we've selected the criteria for Asociados based on who's most core to making the event happen. So hopefully these are the people who are making that decision. And yeah, I mean, it's a decision where there's no, there's no good answer. Every single, uh, change and non-change is gonna cause some problem. Staying at the same date causes a problem. Moving to any other date, like some people are not gonna be happy with whatever choice we make, which is kind of why we just need to make the choice together and have a method that we agree with, uh, we agree to use together. Uh, question from Joseph. Um, I think that, I guess that's a... Well, I mean, I guess that's a question for one of the people who spoke to you, Ellen, but I'm not sure if you can answer on their behalf.

Ellen K (Dr Plantes): Yeah. So I wasn't maybe very clear. I think the concern is that changing the site means a lot of new logistics, uh, for the team. It means a lot of figuring things out. And I think the concern was like how do we deal with if we're, if we're doing both at the same time. We're, we're creating a bunch of new logistics and a bunch of new infrastructure, and we're also moving away from a date that we know has kind of worked in the past. What does that mean for us? Does that create a risk for us to make a really big loss, for example, in that, um, we have a bunch of people who can't come because it's outside of school holidays, and we've also made a bunch of new investments in infrastructure? So I think that's where that concern was coming from.

Daniel T: Cool. Olivier?

Olivier (Ankhor): Hey. Um, so this is gonna be, might be a little bit long, but it's my thesis that we cannot change site next year if we change the date. So it's gonna be, it's adding up to the point that Ellen just said. Um, once we decide the date this year, we'll have a brand new date. I'm not talking about like one week different from the current date. We don't know, and nobody can say with precision how many people can we get. If we do the Nowhere Elsewhere in September or if we do it in May, I take two example, I don't have the data yet. But if we take those date, we know that we won't have any of the teacher, the people who have the school holidays. But we don't know how many people we will get in extra. So that's a given. Next step, if we wanna have like a Elsewhere Nowhere, similar Nowhere, similar Elsewhere, we need to have at least 2,000 people. And I speaking for like a financial point of view. Unless we wanna pay like 500 or 1000 euro ticket, we cannot have a Nowhere with like less than 2,000 people. Maybe 2,000.5 would be amazing if we can lower the cost, but that's a range. Like we want 2,000, 2,500 people, uh, buying ticket. If they don't come, that's a problem with... but we need the money. So when I say that, uh, I'm gonna go back to the goal of changing site, changing that date and all the things. Uh, we are trying to avoid the event being canceled during the event, during Build event and Strike timer. And this is gonna be painful to say, and I don't wanna be harsh on the people who've done like a shitload of work on, uh, the current site project and the El Citio project, but I think we may want to explore other region than Aragon. 'Cause Aragon, we mostly know the data and like the weather data. We know it's gonna be a shit show in the summer. But if next year we do, for example, uh, Elsewhere in September and we only have 1,000 people, the question now become do we wanna stay in Aragon and have it in September and have only like half of Nowhere? Or do we wanna move somewhere else in another region? And I don't have a solution in the site yet, that's why I feel bad about saying that. But do we want to move somewhere where the weather will be better, where it's less likely to burn? 'Cause if we buy a site, we buy it for at least five to 10 Nowheres, my expectation. And this is just to reach breakeven. I'm not even saying, like, financial rentability. So my point is, we decide the date this year, we try any site in Aragon next year, like '27, but then the buying of the land will depend on new, new dates being validated by having enough people buying a ticket. I'm done.

Daniel T: I can s-

Olivier (Ankhor): And again, that's not something that I wanna say, uh, to be harsh for the people who've done like two hour-- two years of work on that.

Daniel T: I can see Pablo has, uh, his hand up, uh, very predictably. Pablo, would you like to say something?

Pablo V: Um, yes. So no project is free of risks, and with the new site project, this is a big risk that we consider. There are ways to de-risk it, and we can talk about it in some place, but I think we need to decouple these two decisions, and the way to do it is maximizing optionality. There are things that we haven't shared widely that we could consider. For example, renting the new site with a rent-to-buy option that triggers right after the event. So then we could all look at it at 30 days after and then trigger that option that would de-risk what you're saying. You're only talking about one risk. There's many others. For example, changing region means we have different politicians who might not love us and many other things. But, uh, we are aligned on what you're saying of owning for 10 years plus is our horizon. Um, and I welcome this kind of criticism and concerns in the working group because we are thinking about them. So I think we should just decouple this and keep in mind that, you know, uh, there's a big risk on changing the date, and that's maybe not, not because of the site. It's that they're kind of, uh, connected. So yeah, we, we should keep that in mind.

Daniel T: Olivier, you can carry on speaking if you want.

Olivier (Ankhor): So to be sure I understood, there is no decision of buying this new site before '27 edition and, like, having it, like, one or two months later. Is that correct?

Pablo V: We have not decided, and because I don't want to go in deep into detail, but the stream of decisions comes, we've asked for a permit. We would like to do a trial event. Either we do the trial event and we're convinced, or if people like you or if this concern becomes more pronounced, we could rent the new site and then buy it after. Uh, so that would de-risk what you're saying, in my opinion. And I see Pepe is here. Pepe's one of the people working on this. I don't know who else is here, but we, we are thinking of these kind of things.

Daniel T: Cool. Um, A-Axel, if you want to comment out loud, you can do or, or you-- Like, so Axel made a comment in the channel as-- in the chat as well about the issue being the location.

Axel: Uh, if it's possible, uh, I have exactly the same conclusion that I think I, I don't want to, to, uh, be harsh on the people who worked really hard for this, but I have exactly the same feeling that the issue is not the date, it's the location where everything is extremely inflammable. And, uh, I think we have to consider moving to a much cooler area because I think it's the only sustainable solution for having an event not canceled for the next 10 years. It's hard to, to... Because there is a engagement bias in this, but, uh, I think Olivier is actually right.

Daniel T: Yeah. Thank you. Um, Vi- uh, Vishal makes the comment that, "I doubt anywhere in Spain will be free from wildfire risk in July." Um, from my light research, it also seemed like basically so long as it's in a sort of arid region of Spain in July, it's gonna be-- it's gonna have wildfire risk, and any arid region is gonna have wildfire risk, basically. And the only way to avoid that is to do, like as I mentioned in the chat, Soloscura, where apparently they were not being canceled whilst other festivals were being canceled, canceled, but they basically had their event in a swamp, like in the delta of a river, and it was full of mosquitoes. It was wet. It was a very, very different experience from, uh, from, uh, Nowhere or elsewhere. Um, so I'm, I'm, like, I'm not sure if we can find a place like that in Spain that's actually different. Uh, but maybe, uh, yeah, a beach burn. It started on a beach, right? [chuckles] First Burning Man was on a beach, I think.

Pablo V: I guess the decision, the decision tree for that would be we need a site for 2027. Right now, we know the permits, the authorities, and everything for Monegros. We have two sites. If we will want to move out of the region for 2027, we should be scouting now because the permits take forever, and I don't know if we're even on time.

Daniel T: I, I actually-

Pablo V: Like, we would need to start-

Daniel T: I don't think it would be realistic to try and find a, a, a completely different region for '27. Like-

Pablo V: Yeah

Daniel T: ... th-this is Spain. [chuckles] Like, the, the bureaucracy moves slowly, the relationships move slowly. This is, like, small town Spain, probably We do have a, a bank of, like, two decades of good relationship with the local government, which is why we didn't get canceled this year despite the law saying that we should have. Because the mayor was, like, backing us, the Comarca was backing us. They were all saying, like, "No," like, "It's fine. These guys are responsible." They're like, you know, "They can be trusted. It's better not to evacuate them," and so on. But there were, like, three occasions when we should have been evacuated from the site, uh, by law. Um, and, and we had the local government on our side there. [notification sound] That, that is also an asset. Uh, Jokin or Jokin? Jokin?

Condor: Yeah, Jokin.

Daniel T: Jokin. Okay.

Jokin: Yeah, no, I just, uh, want to address, like, the thing that I put in the chat that is, uh, how... What is the timeline to move the event earlier? Because to move later is no problem, but to move earlier in the year, it's, it make everything more, uh, in a hurry, more what?

Daniel T: So, so we've checked that with, um, uh, Daniela, who's our, uh, production deity. Um, and, um, she feels like, uh, any of the dates that are in the survey would be possible to adapt to at this point. Uh, the earliest that we've put in the survey was th- the week of 39th of May. Um, so obviously if we do go for 39th of May, that's like, you know, a couple of months earlier than, uh, our usual date, and we need to start, like, you know, a couple of months earlier. This year we started late, and we still managed to do it. We have a lot more infrastructure in place this, uh, this year. If we had clarity that we tr- we're going for May at this point, um, [chuckles] and, um, uh, we like, you know, uh, in, in the next month or two, we had this clarity and then we started getting ready for that, that date, we could probably manage to make, uh, May. Um, we didn't put April in the dates mostly because it's usually very rainy in Spain. And yeah, there's a lot less risk of a fire, but then we'll basically it's a swamp everywhere. Um, [chuckles] maybe we should have, but we didn't want to overwhelm people with, like, 50 dates.

Pablo V: Um, if it's useful, I see a few questions about the new site. So where we are is we filed a permit request for a bunch of different dates. We will get an answer either this month or from now until December. We don't know when. Only when we got the permit, we can decide if we do a trial event or the real event. So right now we've done everything we could. We are waiting. Um, if we decide a date that's an event date, we can decide to go to the current site or to the new site. Um, both are options. And if we rent, I think nothing's lost by renting the new site, so that could be, like, the, the way to de-risk everything we're saying. I don't think realistically we can find a new site. I mean, if we find a new site for... We would just have to reset so many things, the transport, the contacts. It would be more a production question if we can move region.

Daniel T: Yeah, and I, I feel it's worth reiterating because it's easily lost in the noise that, um, the... Like, even after we do this, um, this, uh, this vote, there is still also the, um, uh, INAGA, uh, thing. We need to find out from the, the birds people, um, which I picture the bird person from Rick and Morty. But anyway, we need to find out from the bird people, uh, whether we're allowed to have an event on the dates that we've picked. Uh, and in... And that's, that could be a different answer for each, uh, site, so there'll be that as well. So it's... It, it might be more complicated than, uh, just, "Okay, we voted for this date. Let's do it." We might have to wait a little bit longer after that to get confirmation, and then depending on which site, it might actually be a different answer. That's, that's possible. Um, but the point of doing this vote now, even though we don't have the bird information, is because we don't know when we're gonna get the bird information. It might take three months from now. And, you know, as people have raised, um, if we start, if we... Like, if we start trying to figure out when we wanna have the event in December, that's gonna make earlier in the year almost impossible. Um, so it's important to have the information about what the community's preferences are now, so we can move quickly once we have the INAGA information. But we will need the INAGA information to actually confirm the date. Does anyone else want to say anything on this completely uncontroversial topic? [chuckles] I've not kept up with the chat. Is there something that we need to address in the chat? [notification sound] Ah, Condor, go for it.

Condor: Just a question about the birds. Can we assume that... I mean, birds kind of nest in spring. Is it reasonable to assume that the bird risk is higher in spring than in, than in September? Or are there things about, like, I don't know, like young b- two-month-old birds or something, three-month-old birds? Do we have any just, like, rough idea?

Daniel T: Yeah. So if you go [notification sound] to the bird nesting page on, uh, which I'll link now, um, uh, my AI did a lot of, like, deep detailed research there. Um, and yes, September would be better from a bird perspective. And all of, um, uh, like May to July, to late July, uh, w- all of, um, uh, May to early July, uh, is potentially problematic. But based on the research that I did there, it seemed that even, um, uh, early July should not have been permitted, uh, because there are, uh, like birds nesting. And basically what happens, they, they do their nest- nests in, like, early spring, but then they raise their chicks there. And if the site is disturbed, then they might abandon the nest. And, uh, birds are not good at changing their habits, so they just keep coming back to the same place and then abandoning their chicks and then, like, birds die.

Condor: Mm-hmm.

Daniel T: And I think that's very much not a leave no trace event if we, uh, like, kill a bunch of birds in the process. So-

Condor: Yeah. But it sounds like with the Ennaga thing, it sounds unlikely that s- it sounds like September will be the safer bet. So-

Daniel T: Uh, that, that is true.

Condor: I'm campaigning for September, so, you know, go September.

Daniel T: I hear you. [chuckles]

Condor: Growth birds.

Daniel T: We hear you. Ellen, do you wanna add something?

Ellen K (Dr Plantes): Yeah. Just since the chat won't be in the recording online, I think it's important to raise that there's several people in the chat who say they very much care about this being Europe's only desert burn, and that the location and the desert is actually part of the spirit. And this seems to be important for a whole bunch of people, so I just want to make sure we capture that.

Daniel T: Yeah. Uh, by the way, usually the chat transcript is on the meeting notes page, um, but not always. The ways of Google are mysterious. Sometimes it sends me the transcript with the chats, uh, with the, like, the meeting transcript with the chat transcript. Sometimes it sends it to me without. I have yet to figure out on what basis it decides to record the chat transcript or not. Um, it's completely unclear to me. But [chuckles] um, yeah, Olivia, many of your puns have been recorded for posterity. Uh, although the-- at least the chat is not, uh, not translated in multiple languages, I think, unlike the, the minutes. Does anyone else want to add something? [notification sound] Yeah. Pablo.

Pablo V: Can we look at the dates and then we talk about it?

Daniel T: Do you wanna look at the, the results, you mean?

Pablo V: Yes.

Daniel T: [chuckles] Okay, fine.

Pablo V: [chuckles]

Daniel T: Um, unless somebody else wants to say something first. No? No. Okay. Um, well, Desert Burn will not... So Humberto says Desert Burn will be a cold burn in September. Um, it's not that cold in September, and I'm gonna share, uh, just as a reminder that... So on the event dates page, there is, um... Let me see. So share this tab. Like, as you can see here, like, September is still 30 degrees d- during the day. Like, you know, and it gets to, like, 17, 16 at night. On very cold nights, it might be 12 degrees, which has happened in July, like 10 years ago or something at, uh, at Nowhere. So it's what used to be July temperatures at Nowhere, uh, in September, uh, at this point. So it's not that super cold. But we want the result, so let me load up the results. [lip smack] So there's 910 responses as of now. 23% of the people invited responded. We're gonna look at it both as combined, anonymous, and identified unique. Um, again, we will publish all this, uh, more, um, uh, like, uh, the, the full data on, on Saturday, uh, after the, the survey closes. What is quite visible from the vote is that there's two peaks. One is around early June, and one is around September. So I've personally not found this information super useful, although it is quite useful when doing AI analysis 'cause it's all linked together. But, um, what I see is that there's a peak here at 63%. That is the top, uh, selected date for seventh to 13th of June. Um, and there's another, like, there's another peak here at 13 to 19 of September, which is on the combined vote tied with, uh, 31st of May. Um, and yeah, basically those are the two bumps around there. What is also clear is there's, uh, like, uh, not, like the-- There is... I would say there is a, an acceptance of the fact that this, these dates might not be viable. Like, more than 50% of respondents, um, said they would not come, uh, if the event was held on those dates. Now, uh, as I've said on other calls, there are ways that we could have structured the, the survey better, and we will learn. And when we need to do it again next year, maybe, uh, we will try and do it better. Uh, but still there's useful information in this. And another interesting thing worth noting is that, um, there's a divergence between the unique votes and the anonymous votes. So if you look at the unique votes, um, June is the clear winner there. Um, so those are people who have a Humans account and who are logged into the Humans account when they answered. Um, and um, the, um, uh, like the, the September date is 10% lower than the, the June date. Uh, but if we look at the anonymous votes, the result is slightly different, and the June is 58% whilst the September is 60%. So when-- Like for people who are not, um, that were not logged in when they answered and who may not be unique, so there's a slight-slightly more doubt, like people can vote multiple times anonymously. They tend, they tended to prefer September, which I'm sure Condo will be happy to hear that there's, uh, a support for that. But for people who were logged in, there's a slight... Like what-- No, there's um, yeah, there's, uh, 10% more for June than for, for September. But this was before Condo's, uh, speech there, so he might have changed everybody's mind. Um, and this is, you know, why we're doing this process and taking the time to gather all this information because, yeah, like, you know- We need to think about this carefully, and we need to, um, like make the best choice we can under the circumstances. Um, I'm gonna move back to the combined vote here and leave this on screen. Um, again, it might change by-- uh, there's 910 responses now. It might change by, uh, by the time we close the, the survey. Um, it's-- uh, what else to add to this? Um, there's also com- like I s- I will, I'll just scroll down just quickly, but there's lots of comments, uh, here, and AI is able to analyze who made what comment and under what, uh, like what they voted and so on, and kind of cross-correlate it, which is really, really helpful. Um, uh, and the comments will be made available. I'll do a round of getting the, getting some AI to make sure there's no personally identifly-- uh, identifiable information in the comments, and then they will be released so people can do their cross-analysis of whatever they want with whatever tools they have available. Um, yeah, does anybody have anything they wanna say looking at this? Or just give you some time to absorb. Maybe I should shut up. [chuckles] Go for it, Alan.

Ellen K (Dr Plantes): Can we do a reminder of the steps? So now we've done this survey, and the survey results are being published, and then there's gonna be a next vote. I'm not the best person to do this, but could we do a reminder of the next steps and how this decision will be made?

Daniel T: Yeah. So on, uh... So f-first of all, the survey will close tomorrow. Uh, on Saturday, we'll publish the full results of the survey. On Monday, um, possibly some of it asynchronously, the board will vote, um, on each of the dates. We'll try to collect, uh, votes from all the board members so you can see which dates the board thinks are good dates to, to, to go for. Um, and also select which of the however many dates we decide to include in the general assembly vote, uh, are gonna be in that vote. We still haven't quite decided whether it's gonna be five or seven, and whether it's gonna be five plus the current date, or seven plus the current date, or seven including the current date. So the exact number of dates is still up for grabs. Uh, and if you have opinions about this, uh, you can share them also in this call. Um, and, um, then, um, within, uh, a few days of that, we should be opening the, the asynchronous vote to all Associados. This will be a vote. You will receive an email from humans. Uh, you'll have your own link. Um, and this will be a vote that will record that you voted, but not link your vote to your user account. And also, it will not be possible once the vote is open for it to be edited. It will not be possible for even admins to look at the, the results. It will be a sealed vote. Um, and nobody will be able to tell what the results are until the vote finishes, which will be on the 17th, uh, of September, the announced date. And at that point, we will find out what the result is. We'll publish, like everybody can see the full result. Um, that will include the ranked voting algorithm and what, what date is currently the winner based on the, um, uh, the ranked voting algorithm. Um, I hadn't decided yet, but I feel maybe it would be helpful to say, uh, to, to, um, calculate the winner if certain dates are removed, just so we have some kind of analysis of how it changes if certain dates are removed, even though we don't know yet if they're removed. Um, but that would be basi-basically be the information published, uh, likely... I mean, give us a couple of days after the 17th [chuckles] of September to actually, you know, format this to be more, um, uh, user-friendly. But we'll publish, we'll, I guess, update a page or publish a page on the website and send that out on Telegram and WhatsApp and Discord. Um, and then in terms of the actual date decision, as I said, we need to wait for INAGA permission to know for sure that a date is actually selected. But it will give you the best information that you can have to try and plan ahead. Uh, for example, let's say that the, the, the vote completely rejects moving the, the event earlier and everybody votes for, uh, September, like, and votes for 13th of September, 6th of September, 20th of September, 27th of September, and nobody wants the earlier in the, earlier in the year, then, um, you know, even if you don't know exactly, uh, whether the permit is, is, is allowed, that would be useful planning information. Um, unfortunately, my experience of reality is that usually, you know, as they say, battles happen at the corner of four different maps, and so probably the universe will provide us with the least helpful information possible for planning. But, you know, we're doing what we can [chuckles] to get the information as early as possible. Does that answer your question? [chuckles] I guess it raises more questions for other people. But Alan, you asked a question. Are you thumbs up? Good? Yeah. Okay. Uh, Joseph.

Joseph: Yeah. You said it will, it will take time to know if the, uh, date, uh, if we get the allowance for the date. But, um, do we know if this will be before or are we expecting this to be before December?

Daniel T: Uh, we're very much hoping for it to be before December. We're also doing what we can to try and gather information, uh, from unofficial sources. Like, um-

Joseph: Okay

Daniel T: ... Peter K. knows somebody who is a bird specialist who works, like, in environment and stuff in the region, and is trying to get information about how they make the decisions, uh, from that person. So we're trying our best to, like, predict the decision, and Daniela is gonna do her best to chase that decision, use local contacts, and so on. But it is a government agency in Spain. Um- And, and, you know-

Joseph: [laughs]

Daniel T: ... we, we've made the request in August, in the middle of the summer holidays. They typically take up to three months to answer. You know, it's-- we're, we're doing our best with that, and-

Joseph: Mm.

Daniel T: We'll try and, like, tell them, "Hey, we need the answer more quickly," and we'll try-- we'll do our best to get the answer sooner rather than later, basically.

Joseph: It's mainly just because, um, in my company, we have to tell our holiday times quite early. So it's not a big issue to change them afterwards, but it would just save some time to know it when... Yeah.

Daniel T: Yeah.

Joseph: Applying for holiday in January. Yeah.

Daniel T: I, I, I totally appreciate that, and, like, this is why I was pushing for this, this vote to-- like, the board has been pushing for this vote to happen, uh, sooner rather than later because it impacts a lot of people. It impacts the-- like, you know, some of us plan our lives around this, and we need to know as early as we can. Um-

Joseph: Yeah

Daniel T: ... now we can't make the INAGA... Well, we can try to, like, get an answer from INAGA sooner, but at least what we can do is do everything on our side so that once the INAGA answer comes in, we know exactly what's the community desires at that point. So-

Joseph: Perfect

Daniel T: ... 'cause we've already done the ranked voting and so on. So we can move as quickly as we can on our side, and then try and nudge the government to give us an answer.

Joseph: Thank you.

Daniel T: Cool. Condor?

Condor: I was just gonna make a comment. I mean, I guess from the results, like, you know, the spring/autumn thing is maybe 50/50. It's a bit uneven, but one interesting result is that, um, I guess there's a lot of factors, but if people are thinking temperature, then they're, they're going from, like, 45 degrees is way too hot, but they're not like, "Oh, I need 30 degrees. I need early May, end of October." People seem to be like, "Yeah, let's go for hot," still hot because they're kind of-- the votes are for kinda, like, the hot months, you know. Early September, um, early June. So people still like it hot, which is interesting.

Daniel T: Mm.

Condor: Interesting conclusion.

Daniel T: Yeah.

Condor: Thirty-eight degrees hot days, that's fine.

Daniel T: Personally, I, I quite like, uh, hot and, like, I would like-

Condor: I'm okay with that. Yeah.

Daniel T: Yeah. I, I, I, I don't wanna go to Borderland because I don't wanna be cold. [laughs] Like, it sounds amazing, but it's cold. [laughs]

Condor: Oh my God. It's freezing.

Daniel T: Yeah, exactly. And-

Condor: That's why I built a whole camp where-- all big camp where I never have to go outside.

Daniel T: Yeah. I mean, I never went to Nest while I was living in the UK because I was like, "I don't wanna be like, you know, cold rainy burn when I can go to a desert burn that's hot." [laughs] Anyway, over to Vishal.

Vishal: Hi, guys. Uh, great work all the team for doing this. Just two points. Um, one, I can't see very clearly, but I'm looking at the event build and barrio build votes. They seem to cluster on the same points. Um, is that right? Because I guess they're the people who'll be building rather than just attending. And I guess that links to my second point, which is right now, at least on the humans app, it says there's only 108 asociados, and I'm guessing most of them have probably voted with either event or barrio build or strike. So it kind of feels like we already know what the dates are going-- it's going to be between these four dates, right? Um, my one concern is that if we look at the cannot comes, again, this might be a survey issue. There's a-- the highest apart from the actual date seems to cluster around there as well. So [laughs] it seems everything seems to cluster around four weeks.

Daniel T: Yeah. I mean, so, like, my sense is that, like, basically cannot come is basically the opposite of the first column, 'cause if you can't come to the event, then you're not gonna click on this one, which is kind of the, the reverse there. And I have-- my observation was that, yes, it, it does seem to follow the same curve, uh, with like, you know, a bump around September, a bump around, uh, June. Um, so in a way, yes, maybe it already gives us an answer, but then again, we don't-- like, this is just a survey. It's not the full information. There is information coming in this call. Um, people might change their mind based on this, uh, this call's information, or there might be more information that helps them change their mind. And-

Vishal: And I guess just one other thing, the early May date, at least I'm biased in the way that I go to Nest, uh, and the rain is nice occasionally, is, um, you said that you had an update from someone at Burning Nest. Uh-

Daniel T: Ah, yes

Vishal: ... and I don't know if it was about the dates or swapping or something like that, because that might solve that problem.

Daniel T: Yeah. So they cannot swap. Um, the-- they, they had a board meeting yesterday. Uh, they appreciate the reason why we need to change the dates. They understand that. They, um, they're tied to the site permit that they have. Um, the, um, uh, so, like, their date is, uh, ends on the Monday, 31st of May. Uh, if we were to do 7th to 13th of June, there would definitely be an impact on both Burning Nest and Nowhere. There's a lot of camp leads that, like, would normally go to both events, and they might have to make a choice. Um, so yeah, it's, uh, there is an impact there if we choose that date. Um, and they cannot move. It's not-- They, they will not swap, uh, because they c- they cannot. Um, so it was not, it was not an option, effectively. But they were understanding that, yeah, like, we need to move because otherwise we'll get canceled mid-event, and well, we make the decision we need to make, and then we'll all deal with the impact, and we're all trying to, you know, not... There was no sense of like, you know, this is a, a hostile move or anything. It was just like, yeah, we're trying to solve a problem here. Uh, Pablo?

Pablo V: Yep. So I would like to offer something that's not the Freshers data because I didn't re-download, but just the kind of insights that we can pull-

Daniel T: Do you want to show-

Joseph: ... from the data that you'll be-- yeah, you'll be able to export. So this is only 770. This is done with Claude, and I can show the prompt. Basically, I copied the survey, and I say, I said, "Give me insights." And basically, with the runoff, um-

Pablo V: You can see much more visually where these divergence comes and where the people who are logged in and anonymous differ. So when they're very close together, that means that they agree, and they differ more in certain dates. So this is interesting because some of them get more controversial, for example, here, and they-- you can visualize that pulling in two directions. Um, but what you-- what I found interesting in this one, and you'll all be able to see it, basically the current window is rejected, um, by the method of knocking off. Um, [clears throat] wh-when you look at how do you weight differently? Because next thing that comes is, okay, how much is a builder worth or a person who does strike or a person logged in or not? And when you play with the sensitivity of that, um, you can see who is the winner based... Like if you put a two X weight or without weighting or without a build bonus or logged in only or anonymous. What's interesting is, is anon-- Like in this case, maybe the data changed. In this case, September would win for anonymous, but builders, strike, volunteers, and others seem to agree on the June one. Um, again, this might b-have changed, but what I found interesting as well, first in the comments, there was a preference that heat is part of the magic. The people who love heat, they said they could still make June, even though they have more of a preference for July. So you can see the heat lovers want to keep the hottest, but they're all flexible. So most of them would say that they would move somewhere else. So this is the kind of finer detail that we could add a bit of insight, uh, to later. You can see the worries for the cold, the survey design that Jack and a few others are pointing here. And I was also worried about the school people. Um, basically, this is a very inflexible group if you look at it. So in July, they would have an eighty percent, but when you look at the two others before and after, they drop to twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-three. So it's a big drop. It's the biggest drop, I think. So when you quantify them, and again, in this survey, maybe they didn't reply, but, um, this is the block we lose, the school people. So there's only three point five percent at the time I took the data. Um, so the question is, if we have a quantitative argument-- But first, are they the same people who help us build and strike? Do they have the same value in that sense to the event? If not, are we gaining more than we lose when we lose this block? Uh, that's the quantitative argument that we all have friends who are teachers and, I mean, it becomes a bit harder. But yeah, I encourage whoever looks into this data to kind of slice and look for insights like this because that's where it gets interesting. Uh, obviously, we can put the right dates for Nest, for Kids Friend, maybe list who's flexible. But that's a bit of a preview, and I guess whoever-- Maybe we can post the raw data anonymized to Discord, and maybe people can share their different ways of looking at it. Mm, but this is the work we need to do before it goes to vote.

Daniel T: Thank you, Pablo. Yeah, we will be preparing. And also, like, it's worth noting that, uh, we'll be sharing the data. We'll be preparing-

Pablo V: [clears throat]

Daniel T: ...um, this kind of analysis. Um, this is our analysis, our opinion of the data. You can take the data, analyze it yourself, and come up with different conclusions. And if you want to share those, um, we will, you know, share them as well. Um, we're not trying to tell you how to interpret the data. We're just collecting the data and, and presenting that to you. Obviously, we'll offer our interpretation, um, but that doesn't mean you have to, you know, uh, uh, agree with that interpretation. You have access to the raw data, so you can do it yourself as well. Um, AI is amazing at doing this kind of stuff these days, as, uh, Pablo just demonstrated. Um, it can extract a lot of insights that aren't-- Like even from sitting there and reading all the comments that people have written, which I did, [chuckles] it's still, still very, uh, very hard to extract these kind of patterns. But AI is very, very good at extracting patterns. Are there any showstoppers? Um, I don't believe so. Just the, the, the, the birds. Um, there's-- Basically, it's the, it's the, the permits. That's the, the, the question. And there is actually a sort of submarine showstopper on the current dates, which... Like we haven't really discussed this with the, the local government or the mayor and so on. Would they actually give us a permit for the first week of July? Um, like this year, there was the excuse that the law had just passed in March. It was a new law. I think the local government were also surprised that this was the, the case, that the event should be canceled, and that's why they were on our side. If we did this-- If we applied for the same week again next year, they might be like, "Well, no, you guys are crazy. We're not gonna give you a permit there because it's just gonna be canceled. It's gonna be a headache for us. Please apply for a different week." Um, I don't know if they would do that. Maybe we could cajole them into allowing it, but, like, there could also be a permit issue with the current week. Um, and so that's a, a risk that applies to every, uh, every, every, um, possible week is the permit selection. Um, otherwise, I mean, Pablo, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think there's any showstoppers that we've identified as a board. Like, I voted I would come on every single date [chuckles] because I will. But...

Pablo V: Same. Um, no, production-wise, yeah, there's some considerations that equipment might be harder during crop-- like harvest season, but there's nothing we can't work around.

Daniel T: Mm. I think like one of the days that we're not offering is later in July. I think if we're trying to do it in the same, same dates as the Modegros Festival, um, that might be difficult because they end up booking all the toilet providers, I think, in the region. And as we know, toilets are an essential part of the experience of, uh, of Elsewhere. We all love them so much. Wouldn't be the same without the toilets. [laughs] Um, Olivier is asking if you can go down to the events clashes. Pablo. [notification sound]

Pablo V: Sorry. I didn't hear that question.

Daniel T: Can you scroll down to the events clashes? Olivier is asking in the chat.

Pablo V: Events clashes. Well, this is not up to date. I did it a few days ago, but events clashes are here. Actually, you know what? I'm gonna close this URL. Uh, just know that it's not up to date.

Daniel T: Mm.

Pablo V: Outdated. That's for inspo. Okay, posted to Discord to the event dates. Also posting it here. Um, this is quickly prompted, so it's from, for example, we know them, we know that it's mid-June. It's 13 to 17, something like that. Um-

Daniel T: Yeah. The biggest problem with September is, is, uh, is, uh, Bu- uh, Burning Man itself.

Pablo V: True.

Daniel T: Uh, which is-

Pablo V: Yeah, Burning Man would not be happy if we're in the same dates. [laughs]

Daniel T: Yeah. That would be the worst argument about, uh, early September. Like first week of September-

Pablo V: Yeah

Daniel T: ... is the week of Burning Man, right?

Pablo V: Yeah.

Daniel T: I mean, they're having Burning Man then.

Pablo V: Another one after.

Daniel T: Oh, no? Hmm.

Pablo V: But the builders, you know. I don't know how many builders we have are going to Burning Man.

Daniel T: I don't know. [notification sound] Condor.

Condor: I would just say like anecdotally, I don't know what the rest of you feel, but if I look at like the sort of Scandinavian burn community, who's going to Burning Man anymore? Like in between Oslo and Stockholm, there's like, there are a few niche groups of people who are really rich. Like they go there and they spend like, uh, they s- they're spending like tens of thousands of euros, and they don't go to other burn stuff. And there, there's a little bit of overlap, but I feel it's like way less just because of the, the, the price means you get a different demographic. But I don't know what the rest of you feel. I don't think we have any like big camps who are doing like both Nowhere Elsewhere and Burning Man. I mean, a lot less than, a lot less than Borderline and Keats and the other European burns where there's bigger overlap.

Pablo V: Yeah, I feel like we split a long time ago, and we-- I feel like we've just become a kind of almost independent community. [notification sound]

Daniel T: Benoit.

Benoit: I will say it's not almost. I feel like it, it's not even that we're an independent community. I feel like we have taken the spirit of the burn and that lives, and we are doing it our own way. I don't see any essential connection to Burning Man anymore, as many as people-

Daniel T: Mm.

Benoit: Like, some people like it, that's fine. But I don't think there is a connection there. We are our own thing, and we should keep the spirit of the European burn alive, I think.

Condor: The-- We are what Burning Man was when I first went in '99, 'cause then it was like three to four thousand people during the week, and it was organic, and it was fun, and, uh, yeah, it's very similar to what we have now.

Daniel T: There was, um, uh, we went to, some of us to the ELS, the European Leadership Summit, organized by Burning Man back a few months ago. And one of the things that struck me was that they were like, like their message was, "Oh, we really want you to like, and we're really hoping to help you like, you know, uh, be this thing and stuff." And I was like, "We, we, we are. You've already succeeded." [laughs] Like, you know?

Condor: Mm-hmm.

Daniel T: This is already like... I think, I think there is a maybe a sense in Burning Man organization that like Burning Man, the existence of Burning Man itself is essential to the existence of, say, Elsewhere or Borderlands. I think even if Burning Man, that didn't happen Elsewhere and Borderlands and so on would continue happening and maybe even get bigger because there'd be loads of people who just go there.

Condor: Yeah.

Daniel T: So.

Benoit: It's, it's a p- it's a pet peeve of mine, American burns coming-- American burners coming to European burns and then trying to say how, "Oh, this burn should be more like Burning Man in this way, and Nowhere should be 20,000 people and da, da, da." And I'm like, "No, this is our thing. Go back home." And I'm saying this as an American.

Condor: Yeah.

Daniel T: Ellen, I don't think a direct phone line would help with immediacy. Like, you know, people have been complaining that there's too much phones already on Playa.

Ellen K (Dr Plantes): A real phone, Daniel, like a pickup red dial-up phone-

Daniel T: Like a red-

Ellen K (Dr Plantes): ... that rings, [laughs] and then you pick it up and someone is doing Burning Man on the other side of the Atlantic. It would be amazing. This is the artwork I'm gonna propose we do this week. It's gonna be great.

Daniel T: That is a really g- if we do it the same week as Burning Man, that is a really cool art project. [laughs]

Ellen K (Dr Plantes): Cool job. [laughs]

Daniel T: Uh.

Pablo V: It's halfway done because the part of Burning Man is already there.

Daniel T: It's what's already there?

Peter K: The payphone in Burning Man. You actually can call it. There's an, an, a phone number that you can call and rings a, a phone booth in Burning Man.

Daniel T: Not surprised.

Condor: Yeah, you wanna call a Larry Harvey AI model and ask him directly, "What do you think?" If that can be done, put together like all the millions of messages from like, uh, the Burn forums.

Daniel T: Um, okay. I mean, we're approaching the end of the hour and a half. Uh, I think it's been a really helpful discussion. I know it's been helpful for me. Um, thank you very much, uh, everybody for your input. Um, uh, thanks especially to the people who signed up to, uh, say something, Condor and Ellen, um, and, and to everybody else who provided input. Um, if you have any last comments before we sign off, feel free to share them. Otherwise, as I said, the results will be published on Saturday, and we're gonna continue to be as transparent as possible about this. And, uh, if you have any questions, as always, on the Discord, on Telegram, on WhatsApp, like just ping us. Uh, myself, Olivier, and Celine are the sort of like point people, uh, uh, on this, on this project. Um, uh, thank you so much for Celine and Olivier, and Peter K., who's not here as well, for helping like gather data and n- information and stuff to try and make, help make this happen. Um, [lip smacks] and yeah, I mean-

Peter K: Actually, I'm here. Hi.

Daniel T: Oh, yeah, you are here. Oh, cool. Excellent. Um, yeah, so like, uh, I wanna reiterate again, like, you know, we're, we're, we're doing our best to make a complicated decision, and it is the, the kind of adult decision where like, you know, there's just every choice has a downside. There isn't like, you know, one choice that's like, "Oh, that's the right choice." It's just there's, there's some choices that are probably not good and some choices that are okay, but all of the choices will piss off somebody. So we're just gonna have to accept that no choice we make is gonna be perfect and do the best choice we can with all the informa- yeah, there's trade-offs. There, there's no, no choice is gonna, uh, make everybody happy, and we'll try and make the maximum number of people happy, make sure the event doesn't get canceled, make sure, uh, it has an opportunity to grow and, you know, all these kind of factors, which I really have very high trust that the people who are, uh, have, have signed up to be Asociados, um, will take all these factors into consideration and make the best informed vote they can. Uh, by the way, if you do qualify, if you know somebody who does qualify to be an Asociado, please tell them to apply to like, uh, they will be approved, uh, if they apply before the vote. Um, [lip smacks] as a reminder, you need to just have been a lead or a coordinator in elsewhere or, uh, another burn in the region, uh, and it can be a barrio, barrio lead as well. Um, obviously, if you're in a barrio of 30 people where 20 people have, uh, the lead title, then maybe not all of them can be, uh, Asociados. But, uh, generally, if people like, people who have contributed a lot, uh, to elsewhere over the years qualify. Also, if you've been active in helping plan elsewhere for the last, uh, for, for three months outside of the event, that also counts even if you haven't, uh, had a lead role inside the event. So that's all published on the website. If you know somebody who should be an Asociado, please tell them to apply and, uh, they can help determine this as well. Cool. Thank you very much, everybody. Have a lovely evening and, uh, see you around in June, September, or long before. Bye.

Condor: Bye-bye.

Céline S: Bye, everyone.

Condor: Thanks. Bye.

Céline S: Have a good evening. [mouse clicking]