Patrick Interview Questions 

1. What are some misconceptions people have about Burning man/west coast gatherings and what is it truly like as someone who works there? 

Um I think one of the big misconceptions is that it is all earthy hippies that want to do drugs and have sex when in reality it’s a lot of normal people that work normal jobs and also people think it’s a music festival but it’san art festival people go out there to go see cool art, it’s a lot of fun. 

2. In what ways do you think people value holisticness/wellness in the party scene there, or if they do at all? 

I think welnness and party scene two of the most prevelant things out there, there’s so much of the culture out there is “harm reduction” and making sure everyone is healthy as in wearing sunscreen and staying hydrated and that’s something people will talk about and there are jobs dedicated to that. There are resources for people who have a hard time. Pretty much everyone that goes out there is putting a lot of value into 1 the party scene and 2 the resources for the wellbeing… those two things are the forefront of everything out there. 

3. How does the atmosphere of Burning Man differ from the places we’ve gone to here and what major, striking differences did you notice? 

I think that one of the biggest differences is out there there is a lot more intention in being connected as a whole, as a group of people overall while here when we go out you might meet some people but it’s not an overallconnection as a big group. I think people both at burign man and people going out in the city both those people want to have that feeling of being apart of something bigger but i think there’s more opportunity to feel that at burning man compared to the local club scene in NYC. Part of something bigger like people doing the same thing 

4. What drug do you think had the Bay area in a chokehold while you lived there and how? 

Probably shrooms, everyone wants to do shrooms out there. They have a church where you can go buy them or any pop up or 4/20 there’s always going to be some guy selling it in jars—theyre everywhere there. 

5. Take me through a day in your life as a burning man worker 

Okay, as someone who has stayed in a tent more often than not out there you get woken up right around 9/10 am because that’s when the sun comes up and you can only stay in your tent for so long because then you’ll just start getting cooked. You can sleep as long as you can but only until the sun starts cooking you. Most of the time my work started a little after lunch time, we would usually go we would wake up go to the commissary and eat lunch and then we would get in our truck and drive out to the main gate and set up for our day of work ad that mainly consisted of getting our scanners. We would wait for the busses to start coming and every time a bus comes well i don’t want to go too into detail because it’s kind of stupid but we’d go out to the gate and wed work for 6 hours scanning in the shuttle busses and then wed head back to camp after the last bus comes and then we’d probably go the commissary and get dinner and after dinner wed usually group up and figure out who’s going to go out and stuff, let’s all get together and go out and do something and depending on the day it could be anything someone in the group migth know a party hapening, or wander around, or go look at the different art in the playa. Every day you wake up, eat, work, eat again, and go out all night you can never really know what happens. 

6. What do you think are some major differences between the different party scenes in the west coast vs east coast– be more specific* 

In my personal opinion, I feel like the biggest difference is that i feel like the nightlife culture on the east coast feels, well I feel like any nightlife scene feels like a popularity contest, but it feels more like a popularity contest here than anywhere else. Being young and living in NYC the whole thing is nightlife and its competitive, San Francisco isn’t known for its nightlife it has more of a relaxed feel to it.