AfterBurn report: MicroBurn 2023

Written by John Woods (Co Director and Site Liaison)

Name of event – MicroBurn
Event website address – microburn.org
The first year this event took place – 2014
Start date of this year’s event – 14th September 2023
Duration of this year’s event (in days) – 5 days
Type of event – Campout
Number of years at the current location – 9
State or Province event takes place in – Powys
Country event takes place in – Wales

Name of event entity – (legal entity or individual(s) who hold the bank account and sign the
contracts) MicroBurn
Type of entity (Non-Profit, LLC, S-Corp, Individual, Other) – Limited by Guarantee company

ATTENDEES & TICKETS

Total attendees this year – 178
Minors (under 18 years of age) in attendance for any part of the event – No
Ticket tiers offered – Full Price, Low Income and Childrens
Directed tickets offered – Yes for Leads and Directors

PARTICIPATION

Number of team leads on the event production team – 40
Approximate number of production volunteers – 150
Total estimated volunteer hours – 1731
Number of theme camps – 7
Number of art projects – 13
Estimated number of performing artists – 20
Total number of mutant vehicles – 0
Total number of burns – Two (Temple and Effigy burns)
Total Number of Scheduled Events – 45

GRANTS AND FINANCIAL REPORT

How funds raised from the event were used to benefit the community  – Art Grants
Gross ticket sales for this year – £14,917
Total cash art grants and décor spend – £386
Total number of art grants given this year – 8
Link to publicly posted fully detailed 2023 MicroBurn financial report – here
          
ADDITIONAL ITEMS THAT ARE HELPFUL/INTERESTING TO
INCLUDE

I do not have an exact percentage but I know there was a good number of virgin burners and
also veteran burners who had never attended Microburn before providing a really good mix
of Participants.

Microburn has always welcomed humans into our community from all walks of life and we
believe in a radically inclusive community. This year in particular our consent team, led by
CK, have been working hard to share knowledge on consent and provide safe places for
consent discussions with the Consent Cafe.

Environmental sustainability is an important part of our future. We encourage car sharing
and use of public transportation for Microburn. We have a fantastic LNT team who did an
amazing job at recycling too.

What are the top three challenges your event faces?
We deliberately keep the event down to about 175 participants to create a true community
experience at the event. This leads to tickets selling out within minutes and leaves a lot of
people frustrated as our demand far out ways our supply. This also leads to a small pool of
people to source volunteers from meaning some shifts are difficult to fill and some people
have to do more than their fair share. The weather can be a bit of a challenge at times. This
year in particular we had lots of rain which meant people did not move about as much.
Workshops and events were not as well attended as they might otherwise have been.
However, on the flip side lots of people reported how nice it was to spend more time with
camp mates and get to know people better and share resources.