History of the Outside Services (OSS) Program
The mission of the OSS program is “to support the communal effort, culture, and long term sustainability of Black Rock City by regulating access to the event for qualifying service providers supporting art projects, theme camps, and participants.”
The OSS program was started in 2012 to help theme camps and art projects receive access to and share resources and be able to build in a timely fashion. Without a program and alternate site access, service providers had difficulty making deliveries and providing on-site services (such as installing, maintaining, and servicing power grids). Event personnel were also being pulled away from their intended roles to manage deliveries or troubleshoot service provider arrivals and direct them to their clients. By 2024, more than 500 camps and art projects used the OSS program. They ranged from very large camps to very small camps, and included theme camps, mutant vehicle camps, and artist support camps.
In the run-up to the 2020 event, which was subsequently canceled, we decided to disallow delivered housing through the OSS program. This decision was made mainly for cultural reasons but ultimately did not have the impact we had hoped.
Reinstating Delivered Housing in 2025
After three years of no delivered housing, we’re taking another look at the decision. Banning housing did not result in what we had hoped for and instead made things more difficult for everyone, even if they were “doing it right,” culturally speaking.
When we removed delivered housing from the OSS program, we hoped to see a reduction in “RV walls” along city streets and fewer convenience-style camps. While it did contribute to some degree to a reduction, we don’t believe it directly impacted those numbers all that much. Instead, it made it harder for everyone, including participants “doing it right”. That includes people who fly into the region from other parts of the country and/or other countries and people who don’t have the experience and/or the equipment needed to bring their housing to the event safely.