Who’s in charge during the Work Weekends
Contact us by email: workweekend@fireflyartscollective.org. On site, the Work Weekend Coordinators can usually be found around the Work Weekend HQ/Kitchen tent, by the Well near the entrance to the woods.
Signing up to Attend
You must sign up ahead of time to attend a Work Weekend. Check the Work Weekends main page for sign-up details and link.
Even if you haven’t gotten your ticket yet or aren’t planning to attend the festival, you can still come to Work Weekends to volunteer!
General Policies
If you have any questions about scheduling, what to bring, or the best way to do things, ask a Work Weekend Coordinator! If you’re not sure whether you can—or should—do something, please talk to a Work Weekend Coordinator (or Event lead or Infrastructure Cluster lead) first.
- Work Weekend hours are 6:00 PM Friday until 6:00 PM Sunday.
- No pets are allowed at Work Weekends, except service animals.
- Coffee, tea, and snacks are provided in the morning, and lunch is served on Saturday and Sunday.
- A pizza dinner is ordered from a local restaurant on Saturday night (you should have your own food for Friday dinnertime).
- Camping overnight is encouraged! The campfire is a great way to get to know other Fireflies, and you can get an early start on work the next day.
- Camp in the woods, not out in the field.
- Park in the Upper Parking lot (there will be signs pointing your way).
- If you have gear which requires driving up the fire/access road and into the woods, check with leads on-site before bringing your vehicle up. Do not drive up the fire/access road while it is raining.
- THOU SHALT NOT drive into the field. The lower field tends to be moist and squishy. Getting vehicles out of the mud takes time and resources away from other projects and creates ruts in the field which will then have to be repaired.
Leaving Personal Equipment On-Site
Participants are generally not allowed to leave personal equipment (tents, camping gear, etc.) on-site between Work Weekends.
Theme Camp Infrastructure and Art
Placement of Theme Camps and Art normally occurs during Work Weekend #2. Refer to the Placement page for more information.
During Work Weekend #3 (after Placement has already occurred) camps that plan to bring a lot of infrastructure or large art pieces to the event which take a long time to set up may begin to bring materials up to the land and staging them in order to get a head start on setting up. Please confirm your intent to bring camp infrastructure or art during Work Weekend #3 by contacting the Work Weekend leads.
Leave No Trace / Environmental Impact Reduction
As this is a Leave No Trace event – you are responsible for packing up all of the personal belongings, food, drinks etc. that you brought with you out of the woods at the end of the work weekend, as well as any refuse you generated during your stay.
In an effort to reduce our impact on the land, and in order to be respectful of the the landowners’ wishes:
- Do not bring a leaf-blower into the woods. Raking is appropriate in areas around fires, burn barrels, and fire spinning circles to prevent fires from spreading. Do not rake paths and camping spots completely bare, as that 1) disturbs habitats unnecessarily, and 2) will create slick mud pits when it rains – leaf litter does a little bit to help prevent paths and camping spots from becoming outright mud puddles, provides valuable nutrients to the soil and is important for many woodland critters.
- Do not bring a weed whacker into the woods to cut down ferns or other vegetation. Folks may place their tent over them – they will bounce back after the event. Shredding them with a weed whacker or tearing them out of the ground results in less and less of them sprouting each year, changing the habitat and look of the forest.
- Do not cut or damage saplings. Whatever is standing vertical and alive is to remain so. You can move sticks, branches, and chopped up wood out of your way in order to make room for your camp infrastructure or to outline paths. If you spot a tree or branch dangling menacingly over your camp, bring this to a Work Weekend lead’s or to DPW lead’s attention.
- Do not terraform your campsite. If whatever you are planning on doing requires shovels or mattocks, do not do it.
And a final, but also super important note:
- Do not do any terraforming that may redirect rainwater into main paths. Drainways have been specifically shaped along the main vehicle accessible paths in order to allow rainwater to cross these paths without causing much damage, or to flow away from the paths altogether. Modifying these drainways or redirecting rainwater in other ways may compromise paths and make traversal much more difficult and less safe for everyone, especially in the event of emergency or if the entire site needs to be evacuated expediently due to extreme weather.