Problems with the community fire

[Spanish_Peacock]

Lord Dragonspyre- Excellent job! Hats off to you sir!

My editing, not trying to be a grammer nazi or anything-

and commiserate with other like-minded individuals in a communal atmosphere.

"Commiserate" means to sympathize and show pity for.
Suggestions:
Socialize
Share the magic
Drink/get laid(my bad)
Recharge

There are people who scavenge what they want from other campsites during the day...

Scavenging is not the correct word, the correct word is "stealing."
I've never been accused of being a boy scout but I and most people I know have some really old fashion ideas about honor and that sort of thing.
We share food and drink freely so when I see hear about thieves I become pretty pissed.

Had to think of:(sorry!)

"You keep using that word...I do not think it means what you think it means"

The problem is not the drum jam.

Brigadoon started the jam "back in the day" when the family camp was the entire camp.
We  moved it away from our camp because of the amount of trash we had to pick up every night and because when there was a problem, we had to deal with it.
There were a few problems here and there, even back then, but they were pretty rare.
These years fewer and fewer of us go to the main drum jam and we stay for shorter periods.
We usually jam with our neighbors, "Valhalla" though the camps are merging into "Brigahalla/Valadoon"
Even so problems wander in out of the dark and we don't camp to stand sentry duty, we go out there for enjoyment.
Private compounds defeat the feeling of community that for me is part of the magic.
It's like a small town that pops up full of dear friends that you only see for a few days a year.
(Hence "Brigadoon")

The problem is the non-rennies, not the drum circle.
If we seem elitist, that's fine.
There is a whole world of mundania out there for them.
This bit of the world is all mine, this bit of the world is all yours.
I will keep the flame burning for the benefit of my fellow travelers.
I'll take a drink with any of you.
I'll invite visitors to join our happy little world.
But they have to play nice or they are not welcome.

[Fenster]

The reason the undesirable crowd comes out is because it's cheap (or free) and there is little to no police or security.  They can camp in the State forest just as cheap but they have rules and enforce them.  So they need to up the price and/or increase security.  If the price goes up to $10? a person to camp they could afford more security.  Or require tickets to camp and those who are camp cooks and such could easily borrow an extra ticket to get in.   

Has anyone thought about calling out TABC to raid the campgrounds?  In high school they used to get tipped off to many of our parties and were more than glad to crash in.

[LadyTrinn]

TABC has made occasional visits...I personally know of someone that was busted last season for selling mead. TABC isn't interested in underage drinkers as far as I can tell, they are more interested in busting people selling liquor without a license.

[Spanish_Peacock]

A TABC raid would also generate negative publicity.
In fact, raids have happened in the past, though on the inside.(Anyone remember Wayne's world behind the showers?)

You could say we want to solve problems not stir up shiner bock because  "nobody wins a shitstorm."

Playtron camp is also like the minor leagues for TRF, it's where a lot of fresh talent comes from.
Folks get the bug, then they really really get the bug, then they get a job inside.
I don't think anybody wants to see camping go by the wayside.

[Spanish_Peacock]

Not everyone is going to be 100% satisfied with the petition or how it's delivered but the important thing is that it gets done and the sooner the better!

Also, I have to confess, I like techno music, though probably not right next door.

I also like watching movies out at camp.
Someone used to show "Conan the Barbarian" and would even bring a movie-style popcorn maker.
Other camps would bring chairs and everyone would recite the lines like it was the rocky horror picture show.
Good times.

There was a camp the last couple of years showing "Firefly/Serenity" and "Highlander."
Technology can be fun!

[Tanyor]

Peacock I love electronic more than most. I can hear a song a usually name the dj or the producer. I prefer it over most other genres. But respect should be considered of others. It's a law in most counties.
But not all night and also fights ensuing and having things stolen or broken.
I don't mind music all night but not when I can feel my tent shaking because of the bass.
I hope I will be out that weekend the petition is being past around.


After alot of thought. A simple solution. Move the camping guard post to one main entrance further back into camping between A21 and B21. Fencing off camping section from parking lot With a tall fence. And also adding a gate that is on near A1 to attend faire with a guard post. And charge fifteen or, but not to exceed thirty dollars per carload. Or five to ten dollars per person but also including a family discount for groups over four with children for a one time fee of twenty dollars.

The raise in fee's would be for TRF benift and also to cover the cost of the new fence and for the relocation and new entry guard posts. and possibility more security.

No checking tickets. As some don't go to faire because of clan cooking duties.

I'm sure most of the shiny happy people are not paying the fee at all. If they do I'm sure it will be smaller groups.

[ScoutColt]

The reason the undesirable crowd comes out is because it's cheap (or free) and there is little to no police or security.  They can camp in the State forest just as cheap but they have rules and enforce them.  So they need to up the price and/or increase security.  If the price goes up to $10? a person to camp they could afford more security.  Or require tickets to camp and those who are camp cooks and such could easily borrow an extra ticket to get in.   

Has anyone thought about calling out TABC to raid the campgrounds?  In high school they used to get tipped off to many of our parties and were more than glad to crash in.

As a guy who used to hang out with the raver crowd and come to faire... (we were polite ravers... we basically all became rennies) the reason we came had nothing to do with money. The atmosphere is awesome. Firebreathing, drums, lots of lights and places to stumble and explore. Honestly most ravers have more money than your average rennie most likely (they dont buy garb and camping equipment)... they only spend money on drugs etc, and most of your parties in town are cheaper than gate fees or are free (think of the gas to get here). We aren't gonna get rid of them with money. Psh. I know people who save all year just to come to faire and camp JUST because it's like a giant party where they can trip, roll, drink, and frolic.... they'll just save more.

And getting TABC out there will hurt rennies more than it will help. They go after purveyors more than underage. Especially since they can't cart of 75 underage drinkers but they can cart off 10 local "mixers and brewers", and put a serious dent in loki, meade and other fine libations.

The problem is... charge 10 a head... ok. thats a good chunk of change to provide more security... then how much money do they lose when all of the raver types stop coming due to heightened security? Does it equal out?

lets say 1,000 people camp... only 100 are ravers (all made up numbers by the way. someone would hafta plug real numbers to test my logic in all honesty).
10 bucks a head = 10,000 bucks.
We're gonna say on "average" there are two people to each car, so normally they only make 5,000 bucks
"security" usually comes for around 20 minimum an hour, usually more. So lets say 5 new security guards a weekend working 7-7. 36 hours per person friday thru sunday. 180 hours x 20 bucks roughly comes out to 3,000 bucks.
Take out the 100 ravers (because eventually they would all stop coming due to lack of being able to party) and take out probably about 50 or so regular rennies because beefed up security means people WILL get busted for their extracuriculars AND their donations...
Take another 50 out because they usually managed to share costs with people and now don't feel comfortable with losing 10 bucks every weekend (we all know so many rennies come to faire whether they can afford it or not, but they scrape by... sometimes 10 bucks is the difference on making a weekend or not)
Now the gate pulls in 850 campers 8,500 bucks and spends 3,000, only making a total of 5,000, which nets them a gain over how it works now of 0 bucks.
However, you then look at the fact that 100 (minus those who couldnt afford here and there) of those people went into faire, and even some of the ravers did, and your now missing those 150 people that might bring friends and provide advertisement, and you'll also have people complaining about faire...

Yeah... it'll be better for us at the cost of more money, but even if they made a net gain of several thousand, the bad PR, and the lack of "surefire money" (rennies are bound to spend money every weekend they go in)... it wouldnt be worth it to them.

TRF's image is not worth our ten dollars a head. Because their image and their lack of any bad word is worth tens of thousands of dollars that we don't have, or we woulda bought land nearby TRF by now that only rennies could camp on. (always an option 3 ;-) )

Allowing us access to camp is a great way for TRF to make money. Maintaining us at the level people are currently wanting... is a step the other direction from a monetary standpoint, and at the end of the day... sadly... TRF is a business venture.

I still say do the petition, and I'll gladly sign the sucker depending on a few key points... but the money and ALL the outcomes of this decision need to be taken into account.

How many of your friends would go to jail or get kicked out if security did a full sweep of the campgrounds and actually did their job well? I'm just not about this whole sacrifice a few to save us all mindset. And I don't think it's intentional or anything, but people are looking only about the pros of their solutions... there are some serious negatives too.

All I ask is whoever decides to write up this petition, think about what you might be doing to your other fellow rennies just so you can punish ravers and help your group, as a wholes, predicament.

I'd like to see other ways to solve this that involve us (because at the end of the day we can only trust us to do whats right for us), and legal means... I wish I had some more ideas, but it's not an easy topic. Good luck folks!

[Lord Duelist]

"security" usually comes for around 20 minimum an hour, usually more. So lets say 5 new security guards a weekend working 7-7. 36 hours per person friday thru sunday. 180 hours x 20 bucks roughly comes out to 3,000 bucks.

If you use this number in calculations later, it needs to be more accurate. I get $3600 for 180 hours and $20/hour.

Now the gate pulls in 850 campers 8,500 bucks and spends 3,000, only making a total of 5,000, which nets them a gain over how it works now of 0 bucks.

It would actually be a net loss of $100 since the $3000 should actually be $3600.

Now consider this: only four guards, would add up to 144 hours and $2880, and there would be a net profit of somewhere around $620, assuming the other estimates are good. If four more guards don't help enough, I doubt adding one more will solve the problems.

Something else to think about: how much goodwill is TRF losing over this? Word gets out, and they could well get people back that have either quit camping or have quit coming to TRF altogether.

[Macintyre]

I would be more agressive with the wording.  LIke the word scavenging, i would say stealing.  I would say that poeple there are being inconsiderate jerks and infrindging on others rights to go out and have nice enjoyable time.  just like the when people are talking at the movie theatres, when they talk, they are asked to leave.  The same type or rule should apply to the camp grounds, if you're overbearingly unruly, displaying socially unacceptable behavior, and or being a complete degenerate ( as was a majority of the people at the bon fire ) you gotta go.

[brier patch charlie]

Or, bing in people that were thinking about camping, but wouldn't because of said people! 

[brier patch charlie]

Well, it probably won't matter, King George as altimers and when roles over and dies, his kid's will sell of the place, and it will become a new housing sub division.  And TRF will only be a memory.

[RenRobin]

You have a problem with ravers camping nearby, great, so everyone needs to get together and arrange to park ALL vehicles in a block pattern around a specific designated area where ALL clan and faire friendly groups will set up. Now you have a large buffer of vehicles between us and the raveer crowd. THEN, they can't come into our camps and do what they want.

We currently do this around our camp area, more so to keep safe our people sleeping in tents, from being ran over in the middle of the night by those crazies getting stuck in the sand or many cases the mud after a rain.  We also put up caution tape in those areas between cars, so they do not try to drive thru it at night as well.

Love the water balloon idea too.

[ADraeger]

The reason the undesirable crowd comes out is because it's cheap (or free) and there is little to no police or security.  They can camp in the State forest just as cheap but they have rules and enforce them.  So they need to up the price and/or increase security.  If the price goes up to $10? a person to camp they could afford more security.  Or require tickets to camp and those who are camp cooks and such could easily borrow an extra ticket to get in.   

Has anyone thought about calling out TABC to raid the campgrounds?  In high school they used to get tipped off to many of our parties and were more than glad to crash in.

As a guy who used to hang out with the raver crowd and come to faire... (we were polite ravers... we basically all became rennies) the reason we came had nothing to do with money. The atmosphere is awesome. Firebreathing, drums, lots of lights and places to stumble and explore. Honestly most ravers have more money than your average rennie most likely (they dont buy garb and camping equipment)... they only spend money on drugs etc, and most of your parties in town are cheaper than gate fees or are free (think of the gas to get here). We aren't gonna get rid of them with money. Psh. I know people who save all year just to come to faire and camp JUST because it's like a giant party where they can trip, roll, drink, and frolic.... they'll just save more.

And getting TABC out there will hurt rennies more than it will help. They go after purveyors more than underage. Especially since they can't cart of 75 underage drinkers but they can cart off 10 local "mixers and brewers", and put a serious dent in loki, meade and other fine libations.

The problem is... charge 10 a head... ok. thats a good chunk of change to provide more security... then how much money do they lose when all of the raver types stop coming due to heightened security? Does it equal out?

lets say 1,000 people camp... only 100 are ravers (all made up numbers by the way. someone would hafta plug real numbers to test my logic in all honesty).
10 bucks a head = 10,000 bucks.
We're gonna say on "average" there are two people to each car, so normally they only make 5,000 bucks
"security" usually comes for around 20 minimum an hour, usually more. So lets say 5 new security guards a weekend working 7-7. 36 hours per person friday thru sunday. 180 hours x 20 bucks roughly comes out to 3,000 bucks.
Take out the 100 ravers (because eventually they would all stop coming due to lack of being able to party) and take out probably about 50 or so regular rennies because beefed up security means people WILL get busted for their extracuriculars AND their donations...
Take another 50 out because they usually managed to share costs with people and now don't feel comfortable with losing 10 bucks every weekend (we all know so many rennies come to faire whether they can afford it or not, but they scrape by... sometimes 10 bucks is the difference on making a weekend or not)
Now the gate pulls in 850 campers 8,500 bucks and spends 3,000, only making a total of 5,000, which nets them a gain over how it works now of 0 bucks.
However, you then look at the fact that 100 (minus those who couldnt afford here and there) of those people went into faire, and even some of the ravers did, and your now missing those 150 people that might bring friends and provide advertisement, and you'll also have people complaining about faire...

Yeah... it'll be better for us at the cost of more money, but even if they made a net gain of several thousand, the bad PR, and the lack of "surefire money" (rennies are bound to spend money every weekend they go in)... it wouldnt be worth it to them.

TRF's image is not worth our ten dollars a head. Because their image and their lack of any bad word is worth tens of thousands of dollars that we don't have, or we woulda bought land nearby TRF by now that only rennies could camp on. (always an option 3 ;-) )

Allowing us access to camp is a great way for TRF to make money. Maintaining us at the level people are currently wanting... is a step the other direction from a monetary standpoint, and at the end of the day... sadly... TRF is a business venture.

I still say do the petition, and I'll gladly sign the sucker depending on a few key points... but the money and ALL the outcomes of this decision need to be taken into account.

How many of your friends would go to jail or get kicked out if security did a full sweep of the campgrounds and actually did their job well? I'm just not about this whole sacrifice a few to save us all mindset. And I don't think it's intentional or anything, but people are looking only about the pros of their solutions... there are some serious negatives too.

All I ask is whoever decides to write up this petition, think about what you might be doing to your other fellow rennies just so you can punish ravers and help your group, as a wholes, predicament.

I'd like to see other ways to solve this that involve us (because at the end of the day we can only trust us to do whats right for us), and legal means... I wish I had some more ideas, but it's not an easy topic. Good luck folks!

TRF is indeed a business venture, but in my opinion, they are hurting themselves more financially by not doing anything about this problem. 

I camped out a couple times with a party of approximately 15 (all mundanes) on average.  We didn't know anybody there, and we camped far away from the 'excitement', BUT we still had to deal with idiots from the rave.  We all became so annoyed that we stopped camping, and instead of going full weekends a couple times during the season, we ended up going once (and it was only for a day) b/c the hotel costs were too high for many of us. AND our spending inside the faire was cut short (money as well as time - we drove there and back in the same day) So- they had us for one day at $21.00 per person = $315.00  instead of three or four weekends = $1800 plus $30 dollars (three cars) a weekend for camping. We may be a rare instance.  However, I have a feeling that a lot more mundanes would be willing to camp and go full weekends at a time if they would take care of the ravers.

Initially, they would need to step up security, etc.   After a while, when the crazies discover it's not a good area to have their kind of good time, then TRF could decrease the measures but keep the appearance of them, only really enforcing/picking up on them if it all starts to become a problem again.

[eldatari]

I think the level of danger out at the campgrounds is worse for TRF's image than beefing up security would be.  As the previous post pointed out people have stopped camping because of the current state of the campgrounds.

[Randal]

Circling the wagons sounds like a great idea, but in truth, it will take lots of cars to form a circle large enough to contain all of the tents. How many vehicles will it take to enclose a campsite 50'x50' (2500 square feet, about the size of a nice 4 bedroom home)? Three cars to the side times four sides equals 12 cars. Can you set up 12 campsites in that area, along with a central fire pit? If each tent is 10'x10', that's 100 square feet each, so yeah, it could work. It would be tight, but it could work.

That would prevent someone from driving through the campsite, which was always a big concern of mine, even in the family camping area.

However, the shiny happy people on foot can still wander into your camp. The only way to prevent that is to patrol your campsite and be prepared to use reasonable force to remove undesirables.

There's the catch. What's reasonable? Any police officer will tell you that that depends on the situation. A happy drunk may just need pointed in the right direction and a pat on the back. A belligerent "A-hole" may need a shot of pepper spray, or a taser, and a set of plastic restraints to prevent him from causing any more problems. You've all seen COPS, or shows like it. Every case is different.

The problem becomes one of escalation. Just how far are you willing to carry things? After the event 5 years ago, we know that some people are willing to escalate things to fatal levels. Common sense doesn't even enter into the equation with someone like that. 

Go ahead and start throwing water balloons. I guarantee that they will throw rocks right back, hitting innocent people in the process. Things will escalate. Rennies will break out staffs and maces, the shiny happy people will break out tire irons and bottles. Rennies will escalate to swords and knives, and out comes a pistol. BANG! End of camping. FOREVER.

At the very least, we're talking riot. Police cars, helicopters, and camera crews. Again, end of camping.

Scarborough has a "Friends of Faire" program. You buy your membership, and it entitles you to a closer parking spot, free water, and discounts on certain other items. I suggest proposing a "Friends of TRF" program. An annual membership that gives you a hang tag/window sticker that entitles you to park on rows 2-5, gets you four tickets and a small discount on more, and entitles you to camp. Non-Friends pay $25(or more) per head per night to camp and get one DATED tag for their car. The price needs to be high enough to encourage people to go look for a party elsewhere. The annual membership will need to be high enough to keep them from just buying one of those. The key to making this work is that after fireworks, any car left on the grounds without a hang tag/sticker gets towed. No questions, no exceptions.

Yes, some of you will forget your tag, and get your car towed. Showing your "Friends of TRF" membership should allow you one "get out of jail free". Everybody else pays $200 to get their car back.

Enforcement will be handled by Security and the tow truck drivers. No danger of escalation between Rennies and Shiny Happy People. Once a few cars get towed, word will get out that this party has become way too expensive to crash.

Randal