Midwest Burners

”Belle Époque: A Community Garden”

Thursday September 22nd – Sunday September 25th, 2022

18745 IA-70 Conesville, IA 52739

Venue Contact: Steve “Possum” Tomfield
Email: craggingmonkey58@gmail.com

HearthsO’Phyre 2022 was a complete sell-out! We capped adult tickets at 550 and every one of them sold. With 54 child tickets sold the grand total came to 604 tickets.

The current event venue has plenty of room to grow into. The venue hosts other events with 10k attendees so we have a great spot to host our event. In order to continue to grow the size of the event we will need to work harder at getting all the volunteer shifts filled.

2022 Theme – Belle Epoque: A Community Garden

“During the before times when we pretended all was well and everything was equitable we were broken; we are broken. Today we start anew, with new ideas, fresh practices, verdant seeds and actual nourishment. We must burn down the status quo, discard the known and broken and start from scratch with the hands of every single person turning the soil. Lean in
to being uncomfortable Embrace and encourage radical inclusion, seek out people who aren’t like you and remove barriers to participation in the community (outside and before the event as well as during) Focus on community and the input of everyone Build something new and better with optimism, innovation and art of all kinds”

Belle epoque: after the Renaissance Optimism, regional peace, economic prosperity, technological, cultural and scientific innovation, flourishing arts of all kinds ~Tiny, Effigy Lead

Improvements from 2021

• We made more use of the venue’s infrastructure. We used an outdoor covered structure as center camp to host a number of events and art projects
• Previous investment in storage totes made setup easier to manage
• The Red-light district area created an adult-themed zone where participants could radically-express themselves.
• Additional golf-carts allowed more departments to operate more efficiently
• Additional port-o-potties were added, as well as a cleaning on Friday morning
• We had an AMAZING addition of a digital newsletter thanks to a couple of superstars:
• Moonshine & Sheppard. Included in this media are descriptions of all of our art grant recipients, our theme camps, details on the new red light district, and so much more.
• Check out the HearthsO’Phyre Weekly here

Incorporations for 2023

• The Red-light district is planning on continuing as it was a great success this year. We will continue to work together to create an event that everyone can express themselves while also respecting other segments of the population
• We plan on tracking volunteers better to make several improvements. Allow leads to quickly and easily see when/who should be showing up for shifts, potential benefits to volunteers (first-chance at ticket sales, etc)
• Improve overall communication between event coordinators and department leads both before and during the event

Wishlist

• A large generator: for lighting up the effigy perimeter
• Tap lights: for lights in the portos
• Megaphones for conclave and town criers
• Heater and Travel cooler for (Sanctuary, Medic, or Conclave/Effigy?)
• Lamp lights for street signs
• More red lights, high visibility vests, and 2 water sprayers for Effigy

Volunteering

One of the highlights of HoP 2022 was the fact that we had a majority of our department leads from 2021 decide to continue for the 2022 burn. Having an experienced team already put in place to lead our volunteers definitely helped the 2022 burn feel like a success. The only departments that we needed to recruit new leads for this season were Gate, DPW, Signage, & Volunteer Coordinator. We had people readily step up to the plate to fill these rolls. We are proud!

Our new Volunteer Coordinator had a respectable goal to track volunteers via a sign up binder located at center camp this year. Before shifts, volunteers were to report there and sign in. Not everyone was aware of the new process & so things were not quite as accurate as we would have hoped. We would like to be able to offer directed sale tickets to previous year’s volunteers by fine tuning this process in the coming season.

An area that we still have challenges with is getting the sign-up sheets fuller sooner. Some of the leads were great in being vocal about recruiting people for their departments. Others were quiet. We’d like to encourage more lead involvement in active recruiting before the event. While we were able to get enough volunteers to host the burn, this is an area that
could use attention & improvement.

Overall, volunteer turnout for 2022 was good. We had quite a few people sign up for shifts once they arrived, and having the spot at center camp to find open shifts was useful for that purpose. As always, we will continue to strive for even more participation from our community.

At our leads AfterBurn meeting, we are happy to report that the VAST majority of all the 2022 leads stated that they plan on continuing in their roles for 2023! At least one of our Event Coordinators are continuing on, with two leaving, and two undecided at this point. We have three volunteers interested in taking on an Event Coordinator role for 2023 as well. We are confident that next year’s leadership will be strong and are excited to see what they do in their roles.

Covid Policy for 2022

Covid Policy for HoP 2022 was to have all ticket holders take a rapid test at gate before entry. We posted our policy on social media & sent mass emails out to the ticket list as well. We had a plethora of extra tests donated by arriving participants for those who forgot to bring their own. We unfortunately had a couple of people who tested positive & were denied entry, but otherwise, it went very well. Our medic lead gifted the remainder of the tests to community members during exodus and encouraged them to test when they got home so that we could track any illness after the burn. We are happy to report that we have received no reports of any post-event Covid from attending HearthsO’Phyre. While we’re hopeful that
we won’t need a Covid policy for 2023, if one is needed, we will more than likely continue with this current model.

2022 Financial Summary

While we had a substantial increase in expenditures for 2022’s event – including three additional carts, doubling our amount of porta potties, and a fairly hefty budget for the effigy, we still came out well in the green when all was said and done. We increased the ticket price to $65 in 2022 and kept the ticket cap at 550. Total art grant donations came up to $670.

A link to the reconciled budget for HearthsO’Phyre 2022 burn