Placement Basics
You must fill out and submit this form if you want to reserve space for your Theme Camp or Art placement at Firefly. The Placement form is also an essential step to connecting your project with other Firefly Cores such as Maps, Sound, LNT, and Fire Safety as appropriate, before and after the event.
Placement applications are due by midnight, June 14 2023.
If you have questions, please email placement@fireflyartscollective.org
Placement Afternoon will take place on Sunday, June 18, 2023
In order to reserve a specific location at Firefly and have a place on the event map, art projects, and Theme Camps must go through the Placement application process.
Anyone can bring art and camp without Placement, but working with Placement Core is required to reserve any specific location in advance.
Note that public art within Theme Camps does not require a separate Placement Application. However, in order to be included on the Event Map, a separate Placement Application for your in-camp art is definitely encouraged!
Also, Firefly Art Grant recipients are NOT automatically entered for placement; similarly, art that hasn’t received an Art Grant can absolutely be placed at Firefly.
To apply for Placement, please read all the info below. Then fill out the Placement Application Form.
After that, you will send a representative to the Firefly site on Placement Sunday (Work Weekend 2 – come early and volunteer to help prepare the land!)
Placement’s first priority is always to help camps and artists find the right space for their awesome projects! Here is what you need to know about this year’s Placement process and policies:
Returning Camps and Art
Returning Theme Camps and Art have traditionally been granted first choice of spaces they’ve occupied at the previous Firefly. This policy has helped ensure that established Theme Camps can identify as part of a neighborhood, and sometimes invest in camp infrastructure that may be very site-specific since every site at Firefly has unique quirks and patches of usable space in the forest. You can’t just put a 20 foot dome or a huge fire sculpture anywhere in these woods!
While the event and community have grown and changed quite a bit throughout its history, high Theme Camp return rates to established camp sites have provided relatively few openings for newer participants to utilize the limited number of sites that may be more convenient to parking and portapotties, or more centrally located, or more spacious with level ground. Placement Core is committed to helping preserve Firefly community traditions, while also finding ways to provide fair site opportunities on the land to all who want to express their creativity without having to carry all their gear far up the Path of No Return!
Maybe supply and demand for different kinds of sites will just balance out nicely with everyone’s needs. Your thoughtful responses to the Placement Application can help Placement Core help everyone to find a space they want.
Placement Core will make every effort to accommodate your request for return placement to a previous spot, but it is not guaranteed in advance. Please also think about a second choice of land that could alternately work for your project.
Also, if your Theme Camp or Art is cited by LNT Core for leaving MOOP, or by Sound Core for repeated violations of Sound Core instructions, or by a Safety core for critical safety violations, future applications for Placement WILL be held for review. You can be denied placement and your space given to another project next year. It is your responsibility to know and follow those policies if you want to continue being placed in the same location in the future!
Conflict Mediation
Placement Afternoon is largely a participant-run process. It tends to be very friendly and non-adversarial, and some really great solutions have arisen between neighbors by collaborating during Placement. If a conflict over a space or boundary does arise, please try to resolve in a respectful way between yourselves, or even enlist a neighbor to help give some perspective. If that doesn’t help, Placement Core volunteers onsite will be happy to help mediate if you come to us. But if a resolution cannot be reached, Placement Core will make final placement decisions according to the best interests of Firefly.
Your Placement representative should be prepared to make a decision on your team’s behalf about the final location of your project at Placement Afternoon, should any changes or negotiations with other projects arise onsite.
Placement Day and Placement Sign-out
We are doing Placement Day a little differently this year. There will be 3 separate sessions:
- 11am–1:30pm (for most returning placements)
- 1:30pm–4pm (for new placements only)
- and 4pm–6pm (for unresolved and late placements that may arise).
Your Placement Representative will be notified in advance by email to confirm their assigned session time for placement. It will also be posted at the Placement tent on Sunday morning. We will endeavor to stick to this schedule as closely as possible, and inform representatives of any last-minute adjustments to the schedule.”
Surveying tape and name plates will be handed out during Check-In at the beginning of each of these sessions at the Placement tent, adjacent to the Work Weekend tent (to the right of the well and entrance to the woods).
Hopefully this will allow placement representatives to plan their day better, reduce waiting time, and enable more volunteers to assist with Work Weekend tasks that are ongoing that day!
EVERY Placement Representative MUST check in at the Placement tent prior to leaving the event site, to confirm their location on the draft map, and check-out with Placement.
You must sign up for the Work Weekend if you intend to be there for the full weekend.
If for some reason your placement representative cannot attend Placement Afternoon on June 18, please email Placement at the address at the bottom of this page to make alternate arrangements for placing and marking off your space.
Marking Tape Removal
Please remove all marking tape around your space by the 2nd day of the event. We encourage projects to upcycle the streamer-like tape as art, or save it for camp reuse next year.
Contact Info
Placement works closely with the Sound, Fire, LNT, Art and Work Weekend Cores, as well as other projects like Camp Leader Training. Contact information provided on these forms will be shared with them. Additionally, contact information may be shared with leads from other registered art and theme camps to help facilitate placement activities (such as putting neighboring projects in touch with each other) And, while planning your project, you can reach out to these cores if you have any questions:
- Fire Core— fire@fireflyartscollective.org Please read the Fire Policies. Note that any fiery objects, other than camp stoves, must be approved by the Fire Core. There is a real risk of forest fires in this area, please pursue fire and fuel related projects with caution. Your camp can bring above-ground fire bowls but it cannot dig new fire pits. Remember that fuel is MOOP too, and take precautions against even small spills and splashes.
- Sound Core— sound@fireflyartscollective.org
- LNT— lnt@fireflyartscollective.org
- Work Weekend— workweekend@fireflyartscollective.org
Still have questions? Email us at placement@fireflyartscollective.org.