Overview
Houpla is Houston’s largest Burning Man theme camp. Our camp specializes in introducing new burners to the playa and regional burns each year. We also place careful emphasis on introducing new burners to burner culture, particularly the Burning Man Ten Principles. We’re always interested in meeting new people and helping them have an excellent first burn. That said, veteran burners are also always most welcome.
Activities
Besides Burning Man, we also attend several regional burns and camping events each year. Our 2019 event schedule includes:
- HAC’s Presidents’ Day Campout (Sam Houston National Forest) in February
- Electric Daisy Carnival (Las Vegas) in May
- Burning Man (Black Rock Desert in Nevada) in August
- Myschievia (Dallas regional burn) in October
(See below for more specific info on our 2019 Burning Man efforts.)
Art Projects and Camp Interactivity
Each year we spent time in the spring and summer working on art projects and gifts to provide to our fellow burners. Past projects include:
- An annually rebuilt Art Car
- A hoopla carnival game with 3D-printed and laser-cut necklaces
- A stickhorse equestrian course, complete with jumps and homemade stickhorses
- A large, hand-painted photo wall/cutout
- Lovely-made breakfast tacos provided daily on playa
Making Burning Man More Accessible
We support one of the Houston-area Burning Man regional communities called Burning Man Houston. The community’s website contains a full Burning Man guide for folks going for the first time.
We also help also folks get sometimes hard-to-find tickets to Burning Man and regional events, host a variety of new-burner-type activities, publish packing lists for key gear, and make sure critical community infrastructure needed for new burners stays in place, particularly the Houston Burning Man Community Truck which transports gear to and from the playa.
Get Involved
We welcome new folks, both virgin and veteran burners! If you’d like to learn more about camping with us, please join our Houpla group on Facebook and our broader Burning Man Houston group on Facebook, attend one of the HAC Weekly Happy Hours, and/or reach out to the experienced Burning Man Houston Ambassadors.
Burning Man 2019 Information
This is year 3 (wow!) for Houpla, and we’re tentatively leaving the population cap for the camp unchanged at 50, with a continued emphasis as a camp on welcoming Burning Man virgins. We’re still figuring out our interactivity, with a lot of great ideas on the table.
Infrastructure-wise, this year’s emphasis is on taking our great and highly-functional setup and beautifying it. Offerings will include:
- Very large flat-panel shade structure (8′ ceiling)
- Open kitchen, fully stocked with cooking equipment
- Gifted hot meal each evening (and depending on our camp interactivity potentially breakfast tacos each morning)
- As much fresh water as you can drink (drink more water please!)
- Shower with privacy screen
- Private porto-potty (now with improved lock!)
- Generator access for charging your electrical devices
- Camp cooler and ice runs
- Large common area with lighting, couch, coffee table, and rug
- Camp music and sound system (new!)
- Access to Hell Station for gasoline purchases
- Access to our camp Art Car
- Priority access to putting your gear on our Houston Burning Man Community Truck (for an additional charge)
You can lock in your spot with us by reaching out and letting us know you’d like to camp with us. Provided there’s a fit, the next step is paying you camp dues and deposit of $299. $50 of this amount represents a deposit which will be returned to you provided help with camp setup/teardown and chores (more to come on this). Dues are non-refundable. So, please only pay once you are sure you have a Burning Man ticket and are sure you want to go this year.
