The GlamCocks Camp Guide
2013: CARGO CULT
2012 was our first year as a placed Theme Camp on playa, but 2013 was the year we really made our mark. We were placed prominently on 7:30 Plaza, giving us frontage space to throw huge parties. Our membership expanded to 80 GlamCocks, including almost a dozen “Cockaroos” from Australia. The Roost was expanded one more time, and a new structure was introduced: The MoreCockIn Tent, a large communal shaded area for our meetings, hangouts, and napping at night and day. Having already impressed us with the GlamCocks sign the previous year, our cockerel Marc blew us away with his gorgeous tent decorations, and an elaborate CockShrine to carry sacred objects.
GlamCocks Present…
For 2013 we upped our game for the parties. As in the years before, each region came up with a party theme, but now we had great media talents to promote them with with teaser videos and posters.
We made the parties more interactive with a themed photo booth for each party, and we threw our first day party, allowing the camp to take Thursday night off to watch some of the major artwork being burned.
The parties also featured entertainment, including gymnastics and fire spinning by GoldenCock John, a performance by Courtney Act, and a dance by GothamCocks Jason, Aaron and Matt.
The parties were massively attended, lighting up the whole plaza and attracting larger crowds than ever before. Hundreds of delightful photos were taken in the GlamCam photo booth.
But 2013 was also a challenging year. We had grown huge as a camp, and some people suggested that we might have become too big too quickly. Where we had been maintaining a strong family vibe in previous years, this year some people felt it was difficult to get to know other camp mates.
The end of this burn also marked the end of a powerful symbol in our camp: the Roost, our home since the very first year, was taken down and burned. The retirement of the Roost and uncertainty about what would come next, the missed connections felt in camp because of it’s size, and a challenging camp break down and MOOP sweep at the end, all left many veteran GlamCocks thinking about taking a year off from the burn.
But none of us knew then that 2014 would be our best year yet...
