Camping With Us
We're a tightly knit crew of kinksters who are serious about having fun.
Dear Future Crew,
We work hard, we play hard (or wet, as the case may be), and we put on a hell of a camp.
We are extremely low drama and take fierce pride in our ethos. The reason we get to have mad-house fun is because of discipline and dedication.
If you’re interested in joining us, please take a few minutes to read this whole (heh) page, it'll give you some idea of what’s involved in camping with us.
🖤 - Suspended Animation
Who Are We?
Our focus on the playa is having a great time while accomplishing amazing things. We look for people who are like us:
Easygoing even under difficult circumstances.
Highly capable and reliable.
Fun to be around.
Hard-working.
Low drama.
In order to maintain the intimate nature of our camp, we limit membership to 35 people. Most of our crew are kinky, but that isn’t a requirement for joining us. Many of our crew are from the Seattle area, although we have people who come from as far away as Germany.
Camp Policies
Suspended Animation isn’t for everyone. Before joining us, please be aware of some of our key camp policies, and think hard about whether they’re right for you. We invite you to read all of our camp policies, taking particular note of the following:
Suspended Animation is run as a benevolent dictatorship by Scout. In practice, we lean toward a highly informal, devolved style of management. Nonetheless, we don’t operate by consensus, and we don’t spend much time processing.
We are not a sober camp, but neither are we a party camp. We absolutely prohibit intoxicating substances during all of our public events, and expect that any substance use within camp will be discrete and moderate. In particular:
Substances are never the focus of any activities in camp. Passing around a bottle of whiskey is OK; having a kegger is not.
Members and guests should never be visibly impaired when at camp.
We’re a sex-positive diverse camp. If you aren’t completely comfortable being around a wide variety of gender, sexual, and relationship diversities, you don’t belong with us. (or, likely, anywhere else at Burning Man).
Please read the full Camp Policies here.
Camp Dues
The cost of camping with us changes year to year and camp dues are approximately $500/person.
We don’t want to turn anyone away because of cost, so we have a few options to make camp more affordable. Just ask.
What gifts do your dues help support?
Breakfast every day, water for drinking and showering, and electrolytes for hydration.
Ice service for your cooler - we bring each other ice and then invoice campers after the burn.
Options for transporting your bike and all your gear from Seattle to BRC and back.
Access to all our camp amenities: showers, a well-stocked kitchen, limited power grid, swank lounge, shade, and more.
Early entry passes to the event (skip the gate line!)
You get to be part of one of the coolest camps on playa.
Commitment
We’re a hard-working camp, and we expect everyone to carry their own weight. By joining us, you commit to:
Come to camp meetings whenever possible.
Join a team and help out with preparing us for playa. This should be less than 10 hours of work.
Be available for all of Crunch Weekend, when we do almost all of our pre-playa prep. We will likely only use 1 day, but you should block out the whole weekend.
Help out with truck load and unload.
Work 3 event shifts on the playa (typically 2 - 3.5 hours each).
Work 1 housekeeping shift on the playa (fetching ice, de-MOOPing, etc.)
Work 1 breakfast shift on playa (eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns, oh my!)
Arrive early on playa, no later than Friday, to help build the camp.
Attend the entire burn with us.
Stay after the burn, usually until Tuesday morning, to tear down the camp.
Transportation
We coordinate travel to BRC, but we don’t provide it—you’re on your own for getting yourself to and from BRC.
Most of our crew travel from Seattle to BRC over two days. You may be tempted to do the whole thing in one day, but please don’t. The trip is long and dangerous, and nobody is capable of safely doing it in one day. We’re deadly serious about this: one of our crew suffers from serious permanent medical problems caused by a severe crash on the road to BRC. We generally spend the night in Alturas, CA on the way down and in Bend, OR on the way home.
Because of the very real chance that you may get separated and stranded on the desert in transit, you should travel with enough food, water, and shelter to survive a day or two without resupply.
The Suspended Animation Department of Transportation (SADOT) offers options to transport your gear from Seattle and back. As a general rule, it’s best to send most of your gear on the truck and carpool to BRC. Four people plus survival gear can fit in a good sized car, and you’ll save money, carbon, and camp space by carpooling. Plus, twice as many people means twice as many shenanigans.
What YOU Bring
Burning Man's principle of radical self-reliance applies to Suspended Animation. We provide extensive infrastructure and support, but you are responsible for your own burn.
You need to obtain your own ticket to the event.
We often get direct tickets for our members before the main ticket sales, but we can’t guarantee that we’ll get enough for the whole crew. Ticket availability varies from year to year and crew members rarely have trouble getting tickets.
You are responsible for all your equipment, including tent, bike, and personal gear.
We have a residential shade structure that protects our tents from sun, wind, and nosy people—each person gets a 10’ x 10’ plot for their tent. You need to bring your own tent.
You are responsible for your own lunch, snacks, and dinner.
SA officially provides breakfast every morning. We encourage you to bring extra meals in case unforeseeable weather events keep us on playa longer than we planned.
Many of our crew bring significant partners to Black Rock City. Partners—whether play partners, sexual partners, or other relationship partners—are a big part of our culture, and we welcome all crew members partners and their interest in camping with us.
That was a long page, but I read it!
I wanna go! What now?
I wanna go! What now?
It probably won’t surprise you to know that we have a pretty rigorous screening process for new members. We put a lot of effort into assembling a high-functioning crew, and we’re very thoughtful about who we invite to join our crew. With that said, we’re always looking for good people.
To get started, just drop us a line.
After some introductory email, we’ll arrange for you to talk with Scout to let you ask questions about SA, and to get a sense of whether we'll be a good match. If you’re interested, we’d love to talk with you!