Art and Theme Camp Placement

Apply for Placement

(Closed for 2023)

Placement Basics

Placement’s first priority is always to help camps and artists find the right space for their awesome projects!

To reserve a specific location at Firefly and have a place on the event map, art projects and Theme Camps must fill out the Placement Application above before Placement Day, then show up on Placement Day. The Placement Application is also essential to connecting your project with other Firefly Cores such as Maps, Sound, LNT, and Fire Safety, before and after the event.

  • Anyone can bring art and camp without Placement, but working with Placement Core is required to reserve any specific location in advance.
  • 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!
  • 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.
  • Some theme camps have a schedule of events, which you can publish in our official listings (“What-Where-When Guide“) if you choose.
  • You must send a representative to the Firefly site on Placement Day.

If you have questions, please email placement@fireflyartscollective.org.

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 site-specific camp infrastructure since every site at Firefly has unique quirks and patches of usable space in the forest. You can’t put a 20 foot dome or a huge fire sculpture just 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 use the limited number of sites that may be more convenient to parking and porta-potties, 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. Please also think about a second choice of land that could work for your project.

Also, future applications for Placement will be held for review 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. 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 Day 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. 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 Day, should any changes or negotiations with other projects arise onsite.

Placement Day

Placement Day is generally held during Work Weekend 2 just weeks before Firefly (come early and volunteer to help prepare the land!).

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!

Before leaving the event site, EVERY Placement Representative MUST check-out at the Placement tent and confirm their location on the draft map.

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 placement@fireflyartscollective.org 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). While planning your project, you can reach out to these cores if you have any questions:

Still have questions? Email us at placement@fireflyartscollective.org.

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