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Burning Flipside (or Flipside) is an annual effigy burn, display of creative arts, and self-expression of performances staged in Central Texas near
Austin Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...
. Modeled on and associated with
Burning Man Burning Man is a week-long large-scale desert event focused on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance" held annually in the Western United States. The event's name comes from its ceremony on the penultimate night of the event: the ...
, Flipside was the first regional Burning Man event. Lasting five days during the
Memorial Day Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. It is observed on the last Monday of May. It i ...
weekend, it is significantly smaller than Burning Man, with 3131 tickets sold in 2022, compared to about 80,000 participants for Burning Man. Participants build a temporary city called Pyropolis; all of the structures in this city are dismantled and removed at the end of the event. The main structure, the "
effigy An effigy is a sculptural representation, often life-size, of a specific person or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certain ...
", is burned the last night, as are many other pieces of art around Flipside.


Organisation

Flipside was initially organized under the auspices of a
limited liability company A limited liability company (LLC) is the United States-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of ...
called Austin Artistic Deconstruction. This entity was wound down and succeeded in 2001 by another LLC, Austin Artistic Reconstruction. This was in turn succeeded by a
501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of ...
nonprofit, Catalyst Collective, in 2023. The legal entity prohibits all commercial use of photographs, video, film or any other medium taken at Burning Flipside without written permission. Therefore, media from Flipside is inherently
non-free content A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, e ...
. This prohibition on commercial use of imagery appeared as early as 1999.


Principles

While Flipside, like all regional burns, adheres to the same principles as Burning Man in spirit, Flipside predates the formulation of Burning Man's 10 Principles and never formally adopted them. Instead, Flipside formulated three principles that are more abstract and cover most of the same ground as Burning Man's ten: * Accountability * Cooperation * Self Expression Despite this difference, Burning Flipside is regarded as a "ten principles event."


Other similarities

''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 A gift economy or gift culture is a system of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. Social norms and customs govern giving a gift in a gift culture; although there ...
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. Participants try to leave the site cleaner than they found it rather than in an identical condition. ''Art Installations''—Flipside community members bring art to the event for display, including large free-standing 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 using donated prizes and fake coins.) ''Performances''—Flipside has a number of performance spaces that are used by musicians, theatre groups, DJs, fire performers, pageants, and interactive performances.


Differences from Burning Man

Similar to Burning Man's Black Rock Rangers, the Pyropolis Rangers mediate disputes and maintain security at the event; they wear a similar
khaki The color khaki (, ) is a light shade of tan (color), tan with a slight yellowish tinge. Khaki has been used by many armies around the world for uniforms and equipment, particularly in arid or desert regions, where it provides camouflage rela ...
uniform, and attempt to be non-intrusive to other participants. Unlike Burning Man, however, the event is not regularly patrolled by law enforcement, although they arrive quickly in the event of an emergency. Flipside has some other differences from Burning Man. Flipside's location is in a private camp area in the wooded, grassy Texas Hill Country, unlike the extremely flat, very dusty dried lake bed in
Black Rock Desert The Black Rock Desert is a semi-arid region (in the Great Basin shrub steppe ecoregion) of lava beds and Dry lake, playa, or alkali flats, situated in the Black Rock Desert–High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area, a silt ...
where Burning Man is held. The Texas Hill Country features creeks, swimming holes, and tree-covered groves that make camping a more comfortable experience than the harsh high
Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...
desert. Flipside is slightly more strict about the vending rule: the only thing sold is ice. The smaller size of the event creates a sense that one could meet everyone, as part of a temporary community that encompasses all the event participants. Almost every participant of Flipside, including the event's organizers, pay to get in regardless of how much time they put in volunteering. The only exceptions Austin Artistic Reconstruction makes are four free tickets: two to the designer of the sticker, and two to the designer of the ticket. Additionally, unlike Burning Man where the central
effigy An effigy is a sculptural representation, often life-size, of a specific person or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certain ...
of a glowing neon man stays essentially unaltered from year to year (with alteration to its base and other design elements), the Flipside effigy changes radically with each event. For example, participants built and burned a 6-armed, cowboy hat-wearing
Hanuman Hanuman (; , ), also known as Maruti, Bajrangabali, and Anjaneya, is a deity in Hinduism, revered as a divine ''vanara'', and a devoted companion of the deity Rama. Central to the ''Ramayana'', Hanuman is celebrated for his unwavering devotio ...
effigy in 2004, a
rocket ship A space vehicle is the combination of a spacecraft and its launch vehicle which carries it into space. The earliest space vehicles were expendable launch systems, using a single or multistage rocket to carry a relatively small spacecraft in pr ...
at the 2005 event, and a
chalice A chalice (from Latin 'cup', taken from the Ancient Greek () 'cup') is a drinking cup raised on a stem with a foot or base. Although it is a technical archaeological term, in modern parlance the word is now used almost exclusively for the ...
at the 2006 event.


Event history

"Burning Man Texas" was held in June 1998 by George Paap. It had 30 attendees, and featured the burning of a straw man built on site. Burning Flipside (named by Melody Byrd in Prost's backyard) began in 1999. From 1998 through 2005, the event was held at Recreation Plantation (), a private campground in neighboring
Dripping Springs, Texas Dripping Springs is a city in Hays County, Texas, United States. The population was 4,650 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Greater Austin metropolitan area. Geography Dripping Springs is in northern Hays County on U.S. Route 290, which l ...
. Having outgrown that space, the event moved to a larger property in 2006, Flat Creek Crossing (). While this location allowed for potential future growth, the land is also more primitive, due to the presence of large cliffs, scorpions, mountain lions, and other hazards, some believe that the land is more dangerous than even the
Black Rock Desert The Black Rock Desert is a semi-arid region (in the Great Basin shrub steppe ecoregion) of lava beds and Dry lake, playa, or alkali flats, situated in the Black Rock Desert–High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area, a silt ...
.
In 2010, the event moved to Apache Pastures near
San Gabriel, Texas San Gabriel is an unincorporated community in Milam County, Texas, United States. According to the Handbook of Texas, it had a population of 100 in 2000. History In 1990 and 2000, the community had a population of 100. In 2010, Burning Flipside ...
and
Rockdale, Texas Rockdale is a city in Milam County, Texas, United States. Its population was 5,323 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is approximately 41 miles west of College Station, Texas, College Station. History As a passing point ...
. The endemic pecan trees offered shade and participant created
trails A trail, also known as a path or track, is an unpaved lane or a small paved road (though it can also be a route along a navigable waterways) generally not intended for usage by motorized vehicles, usually passing through a natural area. Ho ...
provided access to the San Gabriel River, a larger body of water than was present at Flat Creek Crossing.


See also

*
List of regional Burning Man events Burning Man is a week-long large-scale desert event focused on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance" held annually in the Western United States. The event's name comes from its ceremony on the penultimate night of the event: the ...


References


External links

* {{Coord, 30.695257, -97.145147, region:US_type:landmark, display=title Burning Man Festivals in Texas