Burning Flipside
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Burning Flipside (or Flipside) is an annual alternative arts and perfomance festival staged in Dripping Springs, Texas near Austin. Modeled on and loosely associated with Burning Man, Flipside is one of several Regional Burns around the USA.
Burning Flipside was started in 1998 by Burning Man participants from Texas. Lasting five days during the Memorial Day weekend, it is significantly smaller than Burning Man, with about 1350 attendees in 2004 and 1500 in 2005, compared to about 35,000 attendees for Burning Man. Attendees build a temporary city called Pyropolis; most of the structures in this city are destroyed at the end of the event.
Many of the core values of Burning Flipside are borrowed from Burning Man, and the same short, memorable terms are used for them, namely:
- No Spectators. Every attendee is expected to participate in some way for the event, with a performance, art piece, or other form of creative expression.
- Radical Self-Expression. Art and gatherings at the event have few restrictions; most emphasize taboo subjects and dangerous situations.
- Self-reliance. All participants are responsible for their own food, shelter, water, and other necessities at the event.
- No Vending. Flipside is a non-commercial event; sales of any commodity (the one exception being ice) for cash is not allowed and may cause eviction from the event. Instead, a gift economy is used. Giving one gift in exchange for another is considered good form, but any kind of quid-pro-quo is a violation of the gift-economy rules
- Leave No Trace. An extension of the self-reliance principle applied to outdoor living, requiring all participants to respect their environment and clean up everything they bring in.
Art Installations -- Flipside community members bring art to the event for display, including large freestanding works, fire art, and interactive pieces.
Theme camps -- groups of participants who build a structure or area for public entertainment with an underlying theme. (Example: Casineaux Camp - A camp with a Casino Theme with real gambling style games, but the only win is the donation, of which the goal is only to have fun and enjoy the moment in the name of art.)
Performances -- Flipside has a number of performance spaces that are used by musicians, theatre groups, DJs, pageants, and interactive performances.
Flipside has some differences from Burning Man. Flipside's location is in a private camp area in the wooded, grassy Texas Hill Country, compared to the flat Black Rock Desert of Burning Man, reducing the stark, otherworldly feeling as well as the possibility of large-scale fire art. The Texas Hill Country features temperate weather, creeks, swimming holes, and tree covered groves that make camping a more pleasant experience than the harsh high Nevada desert. The Flipside event is stricter on the no vending rules; selling anything (including coffee) can get you barred or kicked out of the event. The smaller size of the event creates a sense that you could get to know everyone as part of one temporary community that encompasses all the attendees of the event. Every attendee of Flipside pays to get in regardless of how much time they put in volunteering.