YOUtopia Leads
YOUtopia is completely volunteer-led and volunteer run and joining the Leads Team is a great way to give back to the San Diego Burning Man community, develop new skills, and make a difference at the event you love to attend.
Lead Applications are Now Closed!
Check out the following are descriptions to learn what our leads do to ensure a successful and safe event for you.
City Planning - Co-Lead
* City Planning and Art Curation are essentially one team with clearly defined roles.
Skills: Working knowledge of Google docs, spreadsheets, applications. Computer generated mapping ability, AutoCad knowledge extremely valuable. Good email and writing skills, knowledge of the layout of event site, ability to think on the fly, maintain diplomacy, and team management.
Purpose: City Planning is responsible for placing all of the camps and art at the event. While they aren’t responsible for what you bring they will let you know where to stick it. Taking everyone’s needs into consideration is important but they are mostly responsible for making sure the “city” makes sense – from sound to bars to food to art – a well designed city helps create flow and, if done right, should mostly go unnoticed.
Pre-event:
- Filtering camp applications, answering emails, determining needs and desires of camps.
- Must work collaboratively with other departments, Art Curation, Admin and Hub leads.
- Will need to attend every Art Grant meeting (4), safety trainings, several site visits, monthly leads meetings and other Hub related meetings.
- Closer to the event spending many hours in a short period to actually place everything on the map and get the map ready for printing – mapping days can take 6-10 hours.
On-Site:
- Monday
- Arrive on mountain in AM & get personal campsite ready
- Tuesday
- Meet volunteers early AM to start marking the location for everything on the map
- Place any large camps that may arrive.
- Wednesday
- Finish marking and double check the layout
- Help get portos placed
- Lots of placement of incoming early arrival camps/art.
- Thursday
- Place camps and participants
- Help keep roads clear
- Put out whatever fires come your way.
- Friday – more of the same.
- Saturday – the one potential day off but only if shifts are covered by a small volunteer crew.
- Sunday
- Help get people off the mountain
- Whatever needs to be done for the event
- Return anything borrowed from others/dispensary
- Volunteer party.
- Monday
- Help moop the grounds
- Make notes of problems
- Pack up and go home
Post-Event:
- Help unload trucks at CoLab and any sorting or cleaning that needs to be done for YOUtopia.
- Write an afterburn report within two weeks for your department.
- Answer any emails about concerns or complaints from participants.
- Wrap up all of the docs and transfer ownership over to SDCAP.
Theme Camp Liaison - Lead
Serves as an information conduit for registered theme camps, working with the community and the placement department to ensure that everyone remains up to date on the details regarding event and camp guidelines, timelines and assisting with opportunities for possible camp recruiting and fundraising events.
Perimeter - Co-lead
Work with our existing perimeter co-lead to assemble, schedule, and manage of a team of perimeter volunteers! Perimeter truly ensures the safety of our participants and success of our event. Perimeter works closely with Rangers, Security, and the Safety hub lead to ensure no potential trespassers enter the event and also that no YOUtopia participants accidentally leave the venue area.
Volunteer Coordinator - Co-lead (On-Site)
Assists with managing the pool of floater volunteers during the event! Works with the small volunteer coordinator team to help make YOUtopia a success. Without our volunteers, we would be lost and unable to truly function.
On-site Sales - Two Co-leads
Ice is the only thing sold inside the event.
Pre-event:
- Monthly all-lead meetings and whatever internal meetings are needed.
- Administrative tasks: Set up daily inventory/sales tracking sheets; schedule and manage a small ice sales volunteer team.
- Recruit volunteers as needed and train new volunteers on-site.
- Establish and maintain contract with ice vendor.
On-site:
- Manage regular daytime ice sales near production area.
- Oversee ice deliveries to camps each early afternoon.
- Manage volunteers and attendance.
- Close out and settle sales each EOD.
Post-event:
- Attend wrap up meetings
- Ensure end-of-event ice inventory is taken care of according to contract agreement.
- Contribute to afterburn report and make recommendations for next year!
Fire Arts Safety (FAST) - Lead
FAST ensures the safety of all fire artists participating in consideration of the surrounding land. Prior to the event, FAST is responsible for registering all performers, keeping them up to date on safety codes, and acting as their point of contact. They will also work with City Planning on performance areas. On-site, they will need to inspect and approve all equipment and work with volunteers to ensure there is a sober, attentive adult at every performance.
