New map and quiet/loud zones

added the art plateau

I might be up for take a part in the Site Planing logistic

Sure, we three should have a meeting :) I added you on facebook, Hanna!

Is someone able to draw on the map where the free camping is? Some friends are looking to free camp and are unsure of what that means for them. I cant see on the map any allocated spot

Last time KBORG cut the power Sunday early morning - and we didn´t know about it. What is the ending time? We would love to have power and music also Sunday at day. It also makes the strike easier - but are there any rules/agreements with Freiland/locals/Ordnungsamt? Volume?

hi @all
i will do realize.

@hannamaijahelvi , @joicebiazoto help is greatly appreciated <3 could u send me a message to 017643301709 with the number you will be using on kiez burn? :p then i coordinate this. i am also doing zerzura, so i will be on site from friday on.

@stefanapel are you coming to the kiez picnic on the 1st of may? then you could teach me measurement there. else i will come to your place as soon, as i find some free time.

@waldo the power will be delivered on thuesday for now, so a soundcheck could be done either on wednesday morning or thuesday, on the invoice there was no specific time just delivery all day, i asked the power company what time they delivered last year and if they can give a indication for this year

@berlinette the generators will be picked up on monday, if i understand it right we pay our power by running hours, i asked for the price per running hour and than we as a community have to decide if it will be worth the extra money to run the power on sunday daytime aswell as i recall last year we stopped the power on sunday morning

So, apparently it was not a KBORG power issue - we couldnt even play music with a private generator as @rel didnt allow. So, if we have a seperate generator and we want to play music on sunday (considering to be in the sound regulations and see how the last days with the locals worked out). We don´t see a conflict with the general strike. We have a strike lead in our camp and also our members can help strike the general power. I think this is also a bigger topic about how long the event runs on sunday. @waldo @janthomas

Are we using the same concept as last year with Loud/Semi-loud/Quiet zones ?

Musotopia (also with other camps around) are not in any of those zones, based on last year map.
We will have a decent soundsystem and are having a music program until 2AM. If similar rules apply, being on a semi-loud zone would be good for us.
I guess, it depends on other Kiez around, and also the direction of the speakers.
What do you think ?

Ok thanks Waldo.
I am assuming that the zones have been drawn like this last year as there were no camp in those zones.
This year, there are 3/4 camps that don't belong to any zone. I believe this should be updated.
Who is the repsonsible for updating those zones ? @hannamaijahelvi , @roko ?

Thank you :raised_hands:

There was camp in those zones last year - the idea was that those camps would not be sound camps. I will update the map as soon as I have a second.

Awesome, thanks :)

The map has been updated! Should be good to go!

I needed to add a little more area to the yellow zone to accomodate one more camp/car.

Can we have an updated map link please?? This one re-directs too many times

We had a sound conflict in 2019 that would be good to be handled better in 2020. Here I try to document it to have it ready when 2020 orga gets started.

The two Kieze involved (Saloon, Salon Leobard) are aware in the conflict and know they have to work on it, here is what happened from my view:
- Salon Leobard did intentionally place itself in a "Semi-Loud Zone" to have less sound when sleeping and because Salon Leobard did not intend to play anything louder than chillout atmospheric soundscapes
- Saloon did placed itself about 50m away from Saloon. They were unaware of Salon Leobard popping up in front of them, as Saloon was there last year but Salon Leobard is a new camp.

• The Soundsystem of Saloon was 2 speakers pointed from the Saloon DJ towards their Dancefloor, in the general direction of Salon Leobard. The soundsystem was clearly noticable from 50 meters away.

• The Soundsystem of Salon Leobard was 4 speakers placed around the central stage of the Hammock Reactor, all 4 pointing inward to the center. The soundsystem had perfect and loud sound within the camp but was barely hearable when outside of the inner circle of the camp.

• The sound from Saloon interfered with the sound from Salon Leobard.

• Especially tragic were 2 live concerts of Hang/Steeldrum players, who needed a silent atmosphere. As it was live music recorded with microphones and amplified, Salon Leobard could not "crank it up and play louder than Saloon" because the live music microphones at the stage would pick the speakers up and go into feedback loop (Rückkoppelung). So the first concert was quite a fail, the second hang player tried to improvise his own music and using the sound of Saloon as background noise.

The situation was impossible to improve during the burn as both camps had their lineup fixed. Both camps tried to change their soundsystem, turn it up/down, etc... after multiple attempts, both Saloon and Salon Leobard gave up, knowing that this is something we have to get better next year by better planning beforehand. Thanks to Jan from Saloon for his cooperative approach!

Suggestions I heard from Salon Leobard camp members (some of them are conflicting/some work in addition, I list them all to have more input for brainstorming):

• A semi-quiet zone should also be semi-quiet during the day and it should be possible to play live music there and be able to hear it. All camps in semi-loud zones should only play music up to a level that is needed for within the camp boundaries and not make art/workshops impossible in neighbouring camps. Sound camps must not be placed within Semi-Quiet zones.

• All camps: Point all your speaker systems to the dancefloor/stage, use 4 speakers and surround the dancefloor/stage, to focus your audio power and not spill over to other camps

• All Camps: Point all speaker systems towards "the art plateau/hill". There is already a cacophony there from Zerzura and Underworld, so more systems adding to the cacophony won't matter

• Place all soundcamps around the hill/art plateau and let them point their speakers towards the hill

• Have inter-camp communications about live music acts that need silence from surrounding camps ("we have a hang at Friday 16:00-18:00, can you turn off your soundsystem during that time?")

I know not everyone agrees, but I think its good to have this out in the discussion: I see no reason why we need loud amplified music until 6am everywhere.

I personally do not see any purpose or need to have many soundsystems running all night, but I rather prefer a setting where there is a handful of selected sound systems who do a great work and are placed in a way that lets everyone else go sleeping.

That said, what underworld did was fantastic: great art, a great bar, a great soundsystem, a cosy atmosphere, in a location that did contain their sound excellently and only minimal spill of sound happened. For them, playing 11am-6am is fine!

In opposition, here is a typical situation I hate: "1 DJ and 5 frantic dancers at 6am, all on ketamine, gathering around one boombastic sound system to keep those 6 partying but 300 people from sleeping". This is not art, nor self-expression, but something selfish (you induce a good trip for yourself) but that works against communal spirit.

I propose to change the sound rules to only allow loud music until 06am for a few selected soundcamps where it can be guaranteed that they provide a good environment for it and don't fuck with everyone's sleep.

I personally am a fan of art pieces that play with your senses: Coffee wonderland and their rabbit hole. Bee hive. Spießer's Gartenzwerg. Monkey's gate. The deli. The decoration and bar at Underworld. Pirate Camp and Pink Peark. Zerzura. Saloon. Monkeys. Lemon Camp with their ritual. ... . This is art I want to see more! As artist myself, I prefer to be able to sleep a few hours to not kill myself and my crew during build during daytime.

It needs dozens of people and months of preperation to generate such great art that can inspire a whole festival --- this is what I want to see more!

From personal experience, I know that "normal" people who may sometimes contribute to such artwork are put off and dislike our Burns because of the tons of drugs&loud music all night long. Drugs & Loud music induces a trance only in the person doing both. It does not help anyone "outside" of this elusive circle.

There is no right / wrong in this discussion and the positions are myriad, and I am both dancing all night long at Underworld and at the same time wanting to sleep later on.

I also believe that "you can camp in freecamping" is not an answer. Camps where the artists sleep & live next to their artwork carry a good atmopshere. It's easier to build such camps, it's easier to "guard" your laptops and soundsystems against weirdo's at night if you sleep next to your artwork.

So if anyone thinks about "hey, maybe we should chnage the sound policy and allow less loud stuff and restrict times", maybe this contribution by me helps.

I totally agree with leobard. We all talk about get consent before fuck somebody. Who is asking before spilling the landscape with noise? That is a real downer and does not comply with civic responsibility. I will not return to Kiezburn if that issue does not get addressed!

This is super unfortunate for Leobard. I really feel for them and I did hear this from a couple of people.
This was the first year as a decentralised org so together we're bound to make mistakes. There were also alot of roles not filled or people stepping up to do too many roles and as a result not truly fulfilling what was required of the role... or maybe this just wasnt addressed/thought of through lack of support.
@klauskobald Maybe one way that the issue can be addressed is that you (or someone who was affected by this) be kieze placement lead for next year? That way we can assure that camps agendas, sound limits and purposes are fulfilled and this doesnt happen again?
There was a massive thread on it here to openly discuss this prior to the event also. I can see leobard and saloon discussed this: https://talk.kiezburn.org/d/PwbV1q5o/kieze-placement

My 50-100 cents to this very valuable discussion:

a) Our Welfare team is also not too happy with its placement close to Underworld, since we cannot provide people 24/7 with the calm space the might need when being under distress (especially in the Sa/Sun night). So we certainly strive for a different placement in 2020, possibly in the area of Saloon Leobard / Saloon, somewhere close to the gate, where we expect to have only a semi-loud zone.
b) An obvious solution to have a semi-loud zone there is to place all loud sound Kieze (apart from Underworld) "beyond the mesa" (on the southern part of the area only). With clever speaker placement, 3 different floors should be possible there without producing cacophonia
c) @klauskobald I was kinda semi-sound lead in Kiezburn 2018 and have found to be all camp people to be very cooperative.

One of our (Salon Leobard) members went to Saloon to kindly ask them to lower the volume a little bit half an hour before the hand pan concert. The answer was (paraphrasing) “Ist mir egal.” So clearly there is some room for improvement.

Thank you for your input! It is super valuable to get this feedback right after the event so to take these learnings to the next year. Sound will be a major focus based on input from event participators and neighbors outside of kiez burn.

Please continue to give feedback here so we can, in the year to come, review processes and methods in how to deal with this crucial topic.

Currently there is a discussion about the sound concept for 2021.
If anyone wants to join in, here is the link:

https://talk.kiezburn.org/d/XWu9B5kT/sound-concept-guidelines

made a separate thread: https://talk.kiezburn.org/d/3eCJs6kF/monitoring-sound-levels so to loop in the responsible ppl.

I guess the only disagreement then is whether or not "villager's complaints should be guiding our policy concerning sound kiez placement"... I don't like it, but I think that it should, or at least be a significant factor in it, because again there's no event to discuss if we can't get a permit.

We do need to consider that the majority of sound complaints from neighbors came from the South (Hohenbüssow) this year.

Okay, interesting.. I was occasionally using their sound to trigger my visuals since the levels were so high at the Salon Leobard camp.

not wanting to give a lecture in acoustics here, but @waldo what you need to understand is that current legal restrictions on sound levels are very much behind of what science already knows about true anoyance effects of sound. To give a simple example: deep pumping bass vibrations from 4/4 techno bass drum only felt but not heard can be psychologically very annoying and its not even measured by the devices. So again, legal restrictions and true annoyance are two different things and its up to us how to deal with that fact.

Also not sure if villager's complaints should be guiding our policy concerning sound kiez placement. In 2018, I did the sound measurements directly in Hohenbüssow and it was all well in legal range, nevertheless the inhabitants still complained. I think this is rather a question of the social milieu of inhabitants (Hohenbüssow is middle class families who moved out to the countryside, while the other villages are mostly inhabited by lower class peasants) I tend to think this is two very different topics. Of course it is worth considering adjusting policy not only to legal standards but also to "neighbours convenience", to keep up a level of friendship in the area. A third and still different topic is sound levels that burners are exposed to when dancing on the floor. This was the most critical in 2018 of all three topics.

Yep, another DJ also did use a very rough uncooperative tone and arguments that were contrary to Kiezburn principles when I asked to turn down the sound on Thursday or Wednesday for another live act we had at Salon Leobard (pm me for details, but in general, it does not matter).

This is why I rather spoke with Jan from Saloon. Jan is cooperative, solution driven, friendly, and takes responsiblity in the Kiezburn Shifts.

After talking with Jan, he did use his authority over Saloon repeatedly to turn down the volume of the DJs. They also turned the angle of the speakers of their soundsystem on Friday to support the handpan concert, but that helped nothing.

So: Jan rocks! DJs are weird.

I thought about taking over sound lead/placement for next year, but do not know my plans for that time yet. As a sound engineer I know a lot of acoustics and had to deal with authorities in vienna for the vienna burning ball. The question is, how cooperative people of sound camps are, when it comes to restrict them on how to setup speaker systems and sound limits.

@roko probably not coming to the picnic, but I messaged you instead.

Sound bleed to the surrounding communities and sound bleed to the other camps/kieze are two obviously related, but significantly different topics that need to be addressed.

The sound camps have to be cooperative (and they generally were this year), otherwise they risk the future of the event.

Yes, though given our testing throughout the festival, Saloon seemed to contribute relatively little to the sound that could be heard from Hohenbüssow.

We heard about a neighbor moving to the cellar to avoid the noice...so not sure about the above statement

as I said above @cjyetman I absolutely agree with that :-)

Agreed, these are related but different problems/goals... but unfortunately if the neighbors complain regardless of whether we are within legal limits and the Ordungsamt says we have to reduce the sound anyway, then if we don't resolve that issue somehow, there might not be an event in future years to worry about the internal issues.

@cjyetman absolutely agreed. Still I think that moving all the sound kieze southwards will be without alternative, since only then 3/4 of the area can have a quiet sleep if the music continues through the night. If we then also want to adress "Hohenbüssow" the trick will be regulating their noise levels even far below what is legally allowed.

@stefanapel I think what we learned from dealing with the police, neighbors, and the ordnungsamt this year is that acoustics, science, and legal sound limits are irrelevant... if people complain, we have to deal with it. I'm not saying that's right or just, it just is what it is.

OK, agree to disagree on that one. :) Since, when we also want effective acoustic separation for our sleeping burners (following arguments from @leobard), we have to consider available camp space on both sides of the mesa as boundary conditions that we simply cannot change. While turning down volume will always be possible... well, I guess that will be an interesting discussion next year ;-)

two bits of clarification...

1. I'm not suggesting dealing with the sound bleed to the neighboring communities while ignoring the internal sound issues, just saying they both need to be addressed and taken into consideration jointly because the decisions about one will impact the other.

2. Many of the sound complaints came in just after 22h... so this is not about annoying techno-heads playing music until 6h.

@quentinfeugere and @hannamaijahelvi

Valid question but at this stage, I do not know what we can change still about the map. I am now making the sound guidelines preparation + This map would also be shared with the rangers so that checks can be made and camps can be called out not to make any sound.

This seems to indeed mean that Musotopia cannot make any music, nor can any camps that are not in this sound zone. We have no experience with placing sound places in the areas that are not indicated, but for sure, if there would be camps that want to make sound in those areas, the sound map needs to be updated and this needs to be discussed.

Yes... speaking to the right people is critical

but if we spend the money to run the generators, that could be a vote, although I don't think that is an issue, we can spend that money to run them, since the event only ends the sunday during the day. But last year the power rangers did not want to strike all the cables too late, which is, I believe, why they striked it earlier.

Great! So is @hannamaijahelvi !
Happy to sit down with you to discuss a handover? Contact me: 017645716134 (whatsapp) or facebook me: waldo vanderhaeghen :)

That’s the direction the Saloon speakers were pointing to, right?

last year we made the decision to cut the full-site power early Sunday because it saved KBORG about 1000 euros. If we used under a certain number of hours on the big generators there was a major discount. We ran the generators to within a few minutes of the limit. About 4 hours before the power was cut we sent rangers to every camp to let them know of the decision.

Interesting, I had no idea... Seems like it is then merely a matter of agreeing beforehand on the rules.

Oh, a power cut, that sounds awful! ;)
I believe we are allowed to play music during the Sunday as well, but gonna try to loop Jan-Thomas in this coversation.

I can help with measuring on site again this year. Easy peasy ;)

I can probably also join this operation, if it will take place on Wednesday or Thursday.

@berlinette @waldo the auflagen from Ordnungsamt mean that during the night (i.e. after 10pm) and all day on Sundays we're not supposed to exceed 45db at any neighbor's place.... which means a truck driving past on the street is louder, i.e. it's ridciculous and technically we can't do anything during the night or on Sunday.

This is why Freiland have been approaching this strategically loosely and never had any issues during the event - but took care of dropping notes into local letterboxes before the event, inviting the locals, pointing all systems towards the east where it's the furthest distance to any village, and to drive around to check the sound level. While not quite executing it at the same level as Freiland, we took essentially the same approach last year and it worked out fine... So I assume we could approach it similar this year. I suppose this creates another set of tasks to reflect on the realities platform - I'll add it over there.

So I think the decision if we want to waive the quiet time on Sunday is also entirely up to us - Freiland are running 24/7 on their 2 days and it also worked so far. So I'd suggest we agree something now, but check back in with them after their event and possibly adjust approach. WDYT?

okido, gonna send them a facebook message

Thank you for your work - and let´s set up a vote/proposal when you got the numbers. In general its a good information for all the camps to know how long the power will be available.

I do not think this should be up for a vote, this is not a democracy. The amazing power rangers (@rel, @johannes,...) will kinda need to see how they can squeeze it in and be able to pull it off, or there are other volunteers from the sound camps that could help out etc.

@berlinette i'm not sure how this decision will best be made - all of sunday we have the 45db restriction which is very tight, so i would say that if we can establish a sound level that meets that requirement it should be fine - biggest difficulty with it is that how much sound arrives at which neighbors house is super-dependant on the wind, so the measurements we take e.g. on Wednesday might not be valid for a different weather situation on Sunday.... Meaning there is always some risk which we need to manage and find a good balance for. Let's find out how long power is even available which might put an additional restriction in place also ;-)

@janthomas this means as long as there are no one complaints and we are kind of in the sound regulations, we can play sunday? @svendudink do you know until what time we have power on sunday? we are planning our workshop- and music programm at the moment.

Thank you, Hanna-Maija! Following the update :)

Maybe a little site planning meeting? 🙂

Using private generators would have been no issue. However you had already broken both of your private generators during build (potentially due to overloading them). I didn't allow playing music during strike on the loaned KBORG generator to try to ensure that you wouldn't break that one as well, since it was the last working generator on site.

The event is officially (with Ordnungsamt) ending 6pm on Sunday. I suppose it's normal at burn events that while some people start packing down and leaving there is still stuff happening in other camps. So to me @berlinette's suggestion seems fair and fitting. Only question that should be clarified is whether there is also a quiet time on Sunday morning so this is 100% clear to everyone to prevent unnecessary stress on the day.... but not sure how this should be decided - do a poll?

crucially as well: we are still looking for someone to monitor the sound levels during setup so that we indeed have the lowest possible decibles as possible. We have something for that in realities, but unfortuntaly that is now down.

@waldo @janthomas We have in storage devices to measure sound levels, and last year Steffen from Welfare with the help of Joice (can someone invite them to the discussion? I'm failing to do so) volunteered to do a thorough soundcheck + going to the nearby villages to check the sound levels. This was amazing. It requires cooperation from sound-camps, ideally there is 1 person who knows what is agreed during soundcheck and is responsible to communicate it to all DJs (can also mark the bar level on the mixer and communicate not to exceed it).

Regarding Sunday - mo memory tells me that Power team (@relativity, @johannes, @zach) wanted to finish power strike ASAP so they could be ready with all the cables for pickup and not needing to stay on site super late or another day. If it helps the strike situation for Power team, I believe music for strike on the Sunday can be played with a small speaker connected to a device or something similar to what we had in burning camel, oder...? But yeah, anyway communication (and following it ;) ) is always good.

Haha, this comes just in time @waldo @janthomas @danielregev : On Monday, Kai and me did the welfare inventory in my private cellar and guess what: we found the two sound measurement devices. So they are at my place and not in storage, just to let you know.
To give some further info: What you need for the measurement it is basically 3 or maybe 2 people: 1 person on site with a working mobile phone who can be ordered to each sound camp in order to increase or decrease volume of each P.A.. Then 1 Person driving a car to the different villages having a good offline map app on the smartphone (e.g. maps.me) that shows them spots with houses most close to the venue. And finally 1 person with basic knowledge in acoustics performing the measurements which take about 10 minutes at each of the approximately 5 spots (this person would need to know the limit values of decibels that were negotiated with the ordnungsamt). So this takes about 1-2 hours, should be done late afternoon of wednesday or thursday (at a time where no neighbor gets anoyed by a loudness check) . Generally, I could offer to do the measurement again this year, but unfortunately, I will not be on site before Thursday midnightish and this is probably too late. However, I could offer to give somebody who fetches the two devices from my place a crash course in performing the measurements and I could mark the measurements spots we identified last year in a map app on the person's smartphone.

Rocca and Karl are 2 sound guys (Rocca does sound for Zerzura) who volunteered yesterday to help with the measuring of the loudness around the site. Would be good to communicate the sound rules of last year from randy. These are the sound rules of last year: https://loomio-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/files/000/139/828/original/kiezburnsoundprotocol.pdf (they are pretty cool :D )

@svendudink when will the generators be live for the sound check to be able to take place? I think they got delivered last year Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. Any idea about this year?