So, last year (KB 17), the biggest criticism from the Census was "Too fucking loud!!!". Also, at Welfare we had lots of cases related to the issue, many people were in physical and emotional distress due to the constant noise without the possibility to have a break from it.

I think we as a community have to learn from this and do better for the well-being of the participants. Some Burns have "Quiet-times" of no music for a few hours, usually around the morning. Who hasn't been to a Burn and remember can't sleeping at 6AM because someone is playing "the set of his life" in full volume with only dust as his crowd :-)

I believe the first decision should be yes/no, and then the second decision should be what times, in case of a yes. I have very strong feelings towards 'yes', mainly due to the wide feedback we got last year. It is highly important in my view to include also those who cannot bear loud music at all times, and also to remember that this is a Burn event and people love expressing themselves through music, dancing. We need to do the best we can to reach a balanced ground here where no "side" feels lacks of consideration.

There are all kind of factors and issues here. I believe Site Planning worked hard to make the situation better compared to last year (size of the site def helps). Sounds camps should make their voice heard about this, and also a voice from The Mothership should contribute (Wonderers/Welfare). Ear plugs should be mentioned in the survival guide, and also Welfare can offer those mega head/earphones of construction site to help you really feel some silence if you are very distressed.

After personally speaking to some people, the best solution I can think of that takes everyone into consideration is to let everyone (or perhaps only in the loud zone?) enjoy the sunrise for music - remember, we have a very early sunrise - and then have 4 to 5 hours of silence, something like 6 to 11 or 7 to 12 or something like that, the decision is flexible of course.

So, let's kick if off, and maybe mention in your comment if you are writing as a participant or as a lead, or perhaps both and mentioning 'where are you coming from'.

I like this proposal of having a specific time when no music is played, and your suggestions of 6 or 7 until 11 or 12 seem good to me. (I just checked and sunrise will be around 4:35 am).

[I might be a bit biased since personally at festivals/burns I usually stay awake until about 5 or 6 am then go to sleep, so that kind of schedule would work perfectly for me]

7am-11am quiet hores (no music), 11am-3pm low volue

One possibility would be to have different stages be loud at different times. Something like no restrictions until 6 am, then from 6 am to 8 am only one stage playing (alternating on different days), 8 am to 12 noon no music.

Only having one stage would also kind of bring the energy into a more concentrated area instead of spreading it out when there aren't as many people out and about.

i like this idea we need one sunrise stage

Yes please. It's healthy for the community 12pm to 6pm low-mid volume only - - - - - > 6pm FUN BEGINS :))) That is 12 hours of loud fun out of 24. Pretty decent I'd say (and I'm a raver ;)) (Alina of SüßKiez)

7-11 no music, 11-15 lowered volume

Hahaha, it seems like everyone wants quiet time during the day, which I am not opposed to at all. Since I like having a good night sleep, I would love some quiet time during the night (too) :-D.
With the last Kiezburn I feel like the volume of the main stage was the main problem. That´s why I really like the idea of the main stage(s) closing from e.g. 3am until 9am and for only small (every night differing) sound camps being allowed to play music at a reasonable volume. That way people that want to party can still find a dance floor and people that want to sleep can do so. This idea only makes sense though, when the main stage(s) are located in the middle of the Burn, like last time. In case the main stage(s) are located on the rim or even outside, it might be better the other way around: Main stage(s) open all night (at a reasonable volume from e.g. 3am-9am) and no sound camps playing music at all during that time.

I like the idea of having a quite time. 6 to 11 seems good to me. Maybe just play really quite music then to chill out.

I would like to make 2 observations:
1. the site is 6 times bigger than last year with many hills & valleys
2. we took sound really into consideration this year during the site planning, with sound travelling east, you can check what this means for your Kiez and camping here: http://bit.ly/2rj5SIx (check out the layer "sound zones")

I would like to make the following proposal:
1. Sound camps are obliged to put base dampers behind their speakers so that sound leakage is limited. @randy or @bandit can tell more about this. Randy already posted this link in loomio that he made: http://bit.ly/2rjbTFX
2. Quiet hours should be different for the 3 different zones: (1) quiet area (2) semi-loud area & wash area (3) loud area
3. Sound areas should be clearly communicated during greeting to ppl and clear on the maps in the booklet, so ppl can make informed choices about where to put up their tent

==> how these quiet hours are then defined, I don't know... Maybe some concrete dB would be helpful + we would need a measuring device for that then?

Oh, any my role: help site & power & kieze planning

Just a small comment on "3 different quiet hours for 3 different zones" - this will be very difficult to enforce, and will mean Wonderers (Rangers) will have to run back and forth to chase people and tell them to put it a bit down, explain etc... It's not fun to have your shift turning into a bad-cup mission. It sounds complicated to me.

There is a lot of importance to the work of Site Planning etc and there will be a lot of noise most of the time, therefore the difference and significance of putting your tent here, or there. But, I also believe that having COMPLETE quiet times are essential for the well-being and balance of the event and its participants.

I do not disagree with having a complete quiet times time, although I personally disagree with that rule on the Saturday and Sunday morning for the big sound camps, but I guess that can decided during a final decision making process or so,

but that does not influence my point about the 3 different zones, I think. I believe having different zones, will make things easier.
- The quiet zone is quite limited, if someone starts squeeching about loud music, and there is a complaint, then that can be easily dealt with "this is a quiet zone, dont bother the kinderkiez like that" (or so)
- the semi-loud zone: if there are complaints of super loud music at 5am in a semi-loud area, I feel that should help Rangers enforce the peace: "dude, your Kiez is in the semi-loud area, dont be dicking around like that", somethign like that

==> I feel this would give more power to the rangers/wonderers to help ppl with complaints or distress.

to make things even more complicated, the definitions of "quiet", "reduced sound", "loud sound" should be/would need to be well defined (# of decibels?) to make it reasonable to regulate

I would argue that we are dealing with two different aspects of necessary noise-reduction here...
1) lowered volume of surrounding music for not disturbing workshops/sleep:
This is something that can principally be arranged for sure without "quiet hours" by help of clever site planning, speaker adjustment and programming. However, even taking size of the area and Waldo's welcomed efforts into account, I am not sure that it will work out due to the human factor. My argument is similar to Daniel's, I have my doubts wether people will stick to arrangements. However, I regard this point of minor importance anyway.

2) no noise at all for some hours a day in order to keep people's psyche healthy during th eburn.
This is something people often do not consider in such a discussion, cause effects of permanent noise on health work on a subperceptual level. So this is not about "annoyance" but about getting rid of a subperceptual stress factor. There are enough scientific studies which show that continous noise of even mediocre volume (not to speak of steady bass vibrations) for more than 24h is detrimental for health and causes stress and aggression. This is why according laws for night life workers restrict allowed working hours in venues with music. How can I be a self-reliant burner and care for my own health in this respect on Kiezburn without quiet hours? Answer: Only by leaving the area for some hours or sleep somewhere else. Do we want to force self-reliant people visiting our festival to make that choice? That's why I suggest 4 quiet hours a day in the morning, because this is the time when least people want music anyway. In my view such a measure is not taking away self-responsibility from people at all. Instead it is giving it back to them. Because steady bass propagated through the ground cannot be self-reliably stopped, even not by earplugs. It is enforced upon people.

Steffen (Welfare lead)

I added your proposal on #2 to the description on top
Question: when would those 100% quiet hours be? 7am to 11am?

I would suggest 7-11, but one could also go for 6-10 or 5-9 or 8-12. that appears to me a matter of taste.
I might also add that I am an enthusiast for open air festivals with loud bassy music since 20 years. Most open air festivals I know of have recently invented quiet hours for god reasons.

Sunrise is at 4:40 am. So I think even 6 am would be okay as a 1:20 sunrise set would still be fine and it's getting more difficult to sleep in a tent the warmer it gets.

I hope we can build a nice shade over our tents :D

Amen number 2) @stefanapel <3 :) - and I repeat, I am a raver, music and noise lover :P (Alina)

6 to 12 please 😈🙃😍😎

I think quite time between 7-11 is a good idea.
Having said that, I think it would be nice if on the night of the Effigy Burning (or temple), no quite time will be enforced, because it's the wildest night of them all.

How are you guys going to reach a decision on this? Poll the Kieze or general Kiezburn population? Or get inspired by this thread?

you can use one of the decision tools on the right side in the thread to ask ppl about what they think about whatever solution you come up with from the consultation.
* So this could be the absolute queiet time range (through poll or dot vote)
* and then the general concept also needs to be decided and agreed on, maybe through "check" or "proposal"
I would definitely advise against Facebook polling. The best reasons is that the first option usually always wins. Loomio offers a tool that offers a more "equal" polling way.

Thanks, Waldo! I see, that is a good feature... Might the original quiet-thread starter want to do something like this? Given the KB population is well-represented on here? @daniel regev? 🦄

Anybody can start a decision process, so you could too.

@sweetlikecandy I already started a couple of ideas at the bottom of the description of this thread for the proposal.
You can "test" how a proposal would look like in the Kiez Burn testing grounds: https://www.loomio.org/g/US8Cdgub/kiez-burn-testground

We as the "Downtempo Saloon" defined our DJ timeslots from 12pm to 6am now. If the official quiet hour starts at 7 the last set might go a little longer, but I think 6 is actually a good time to take a break.

Maybe we need to differentiate. I think there should definitely be a quiet time for the larger sound systems. But if someone plays music in a kiez on something like a regular small bluetooth speaker while preparing breakfast or at least on a similar volume that does not really harm other camps that would still be okay for me (if the Kiez is fine with it)

Hey @bandit , thanks for starting the proposal, seems like I was a day late :-)
I wanted to start a proposal offering this:
1) Quiet times all around the Playa 6-11 AM (small bluetooth speaker while eating breakfast doesn't count, the idea is to allow people all around the Burn to sleep and get a break from loud music)
2) No restriction on Saturday night - Burn night
3) Semi-loud zones (map available to view) should be considerate with how loud they are in terms of volume, hours and which days. Would be great to have soundcamps from this zone not busting loud music every day until 6AM. In case of ongoing complaints, Wonderers (Rangers) will step in and ask to lower the volume.

I don't want to delete Bandit's proposal but maybe this one is more complete...? Would love to see a vote on this

you can start a competing proposal I believe?

hey daniel, I totally like your proposal, but I really think 4 hours (6-10) would suffice. Still I would also vote for it in the current form.

Thx - I went for 11 as some people want 10 and some 12... Don't think it's THAT critical also

Were can also put "quiet" meaning under a certain amount of decibels? we could easily get decibel reader apps, and make this part of site leads job to check in and make sure the sound is a nice cruisey volume... I mean I wouldn't mind doing this

That could be relevant for point number 3, I believe. The current proposal suggests 100% quiet times for the morning, while your offer sounds relevant for point number 3 - making sure the semi-loud zones stay (until 6AM, prior to quiet times) just semi loud and not mega loud :-)

To Bandit: In theory this is a nice idea. In practice, there are two very significant problems (though I will try to give some pragmatic solutions from my job background, which is an institute for audio communication research)
a) you need to measure noise at the point of the listener, not at the source. Which location would that be in case of Kiezburn? We would have to decide on a point of reference, e.g. Kinder Kiez
b) the microphones built in smartphones differ that much, that measurements even between different iphone generations are not at all comparable, differences up to 12db will arise. So each site lead would have to calibrate her phone with the measurements of her precursor before.

So there are possible solutions (trying to be constructive here), but it makes things rather complicated and not necessarily fair (e.g. if you live in a Kiez closer to the source than Kinderkiez you have bad luck). I would therefore recommend to rather rely on common sense of site leads instead of believing in pseudo-objective / pseudo-fair measurements.
Still, I appreciate the idea!

my phone app works quite good and actually these are good enough and in now way there is a deviation of 12 db!

a proper decibel meter is not that expensive... we could buy one and have the site lead carry it around

i agree. they cost under 100€ and are far more accurate than mobile phone microphones. Kiez leads can use their own phones for their points of relative reference

It would work to have multiple measurement points. First would be property lines of the affected neighbors. Run each sound system to suitably loud levels and record each measurement so we dont have to run people around the villages more than we have to. From there we can pick a point around the sound systems, lets say 10m from the speaker grill. Based on the village readings, we dial back the volume to absolute allowed maximum levels. Finally, measure at affected kiez positions and adjust sound system levels downward as necessary with respect to time of day.

there is no way your app is accurate at higher volume levels should the relatively small mic element in your phone clip due to more intense lower frequency content. Phone apps should be restricted to lower volume points of relative reference

It seems nice to be dance till 630. 630-11h Quiet == a middle ground of 4.5 hours :) Then low-level 11-14/15h.

We would like to have no sound after 11pm but we also would like to do some morning music, morning glory.
It feels very restrictive if we have do adopt with no-sleep at night till longer after sunrise and then no noice till noon. This might fit into a ravers dayplan.
I like the idea to have different areas especially if the playground is big.

I am in favor of throttling back volume to nothing from 6 to 11, but also feel levels should be in reference to who is affected by them. the topography and particular kiez neighbors will impact the agreeable levels and so one kiez might not be as much as a nuisance as another at the same volume level.

However, I am also in favor of responsible operation. Input levels on the mixers should be at 0 dB, not clipping, and there is no justification for playing to an empty dancefloor with the volume at full capacity. There are 700 total participants and quite a few dancefloors. Playing louder is not going to magically fill all of them up. If individual djs cannot understand that, they shouldnt play or should be instructed to stop playing and if a kiez cannot control their djs, they should lose their power.

I've been babysitting djs for 18 years and have zero tolerance at this point, lol

Hello Randy!
Sounds good to measure a lot. Could you please tell me, what are the requirements during the night from the government and the times during lunch time. I know there are some restrictions in Germany depending on local issues. Can you mention which times they talk about? Not only dB please.Thank you, because this might then be helpful when to stop music and for how long.

Thank you Randy for the info. It means we have to focus on these legal things!

Here are some proposals or ideas. I am assuming that this might be hard to implement for several reasons, but as I am here to learn I am curious about the reasons in particular.

• FOR SOUNDCAMPS: Is there the possibility to build in some flexibility and assume human error, delay and personal preferences in terms of sunrise-dancing? This will also make it easier for site lead to check in with the camps and (possibly remind them that they should turn the music off soon) while still providing "guaranteed" quiet hours for guests.

As an example: Soundcamps are asked to plan for their quiet time to start at 6 am & only plan sets until 6am. But because we all know how shit works, the officially guaranteed quiet times are from 7 to 11 am. This will enable sound camps to make up for a possible delay in their time table and so on. If they actually insist on planning their timetable up until the 7 am curfew they've to deal with possible delays by re-negotiating times with their DJs and suck it. There is no grey zone this way.

• FOR OTHER CAMPS: There should be definitions on what is constituted as noise violating the 'quiet'. How much can we rely on the common sense of the camps here? A good guideline might be to not put any 'sound producing' things in the program at that times (f.e. jam sessions, workshop on wood chopping and chainsaw-cutting, how to cry like a baby workshops, singing lessons, choir gatherings...). Problems may arise with things like 'laughing yoga' as mentioned by Waldo. If the agreement is as stated above, I would indeed say that they can do any kind of other Yoga around quiet times but need to put laughing yoga (as it is bound to be sound producing) to the non-quiet hours.

• FOR CAMPS IN THE SEMI LOUD ZONE: Would it be practical to ask camps to cater to the fact that they're in a semi-loud zone? I don't really think it would be practical to establish different rules for different areas, but I might think it is a good idea to maybe treat complaints about too much noise differently in the semi-loud zone.
  (F.e. a complaint about a massive and strong bass in the semi-loud zone on the edge of the quiet zone at 3 am in the morning is dealt with differently than a complaint about the same thing at a sound camp in a loud area)

Thank you Daniel!

For those interested to follow up on the topic: https://talk.kiezburn.org/d/4Tt6okiK/new-map-and-quiet-loud-zones?fbclid=IwAR1t5F-cwhkJfdwBACGN-pH0DntwZeMRuFQpVb1BN8aXRtgdF8c3XfIZ-QM

Good points @randypence - also some interesting offers beforehand, but a little unfair to put all this burden on Site LEads who ahve 12 hour shifts and TONS of other responsibilities. Are you willing to be Sound Lead for this year and come up with a plan to make all this happen, in cooperation with Site Leads, Kieze Leads and Wonderers?

i'll do it if someone can guarantee 2 car seats from berlin the day before gate opens and sunday to get back. On that last day of build, I can manage the initial sound measurement and train everyone.

I think a big difference to last year was that since there was no explicit outside existential threat and therefore protocol, it was easy for sonic abuse. This year , it is quite simple, if we are too loud, we won't be able to come back, so that should be a bigger motivator for a given kiez to not be jerks. Given that not pissing off the neighboring villages ensures the event survival, policing the sound should be as much of a priority for leads and Wonderers as anything else.

I totally agree with you - and this is without mentioning everything from the opening post regarding feedback from KB participants last year. I remind everyone, that was the biggest "negative" feedback we got. But actually, Randy's argument is even stronger... There was a complain from neighbors during Burning Pig (one small Soundsystem in the UnderWorld valley), so yeah, for 5 days, if we mess it up, we won't be able to come back, thus losing this paradise location. This should be top priority, together with trying to compromise everyone's wishes.

@randypence I am checking for you regarding 2 seats on Tuesday, but would be great if you can also reach out to people, or in the FB group, here or what ever. I know a lot of people from SussKiez are coming on Tuesday, maybe try there? Coming back on Sunday will not be a problem at all, I am sure about it.
I would really love to see you taking responsibility on this matter, according to this community decision here, alongside Wonderers and and Site Leads. I am also happy to help in creating the protocols in advance. Midburn has quite interesting approach as well with a lot of inspection and protocols regarding this, it's in Hebrew so I'll translate once we actually start the process.

a complaint at burning pig? that is not good. can someone list exact amps and speakers used?

Nachtruhezeit for residential areas is between 22 and 6

I don't think Freiland qualifies as residential area

no, but the neighboring villages do. legally, all we have to do is satisfy their needs and concerns. There might also be a legal obligation not to deafen everyone on site, but there is no way we will hit such levels without attracting pitchforks and burning torches first

I thought that was in reference to our proposed quiet hours on-site, though I see how it's also related to our potential impact on the villages off-site.

It shouldn't take a full hour (6am-7am) for the Site Lead to cut the power if a sound camp refuses to comply with the 6am beginning of quiet hours ;-)

also, sunrise in Alt Tellin on June 23rd is 4:36am