Everyone needs a little help sometimes. Maybe you’re looking for your best friend’s camp. Or you’ve got a flat tire and need to find a pump. Or you’re just curious to know what time the Opera starts on Friday night. Fret no more! Head straight for the hub of Black Rock City and you’ll find a helpful crew and a wealth of resources.

Playa Info is located at Center Camp and 1:00, and is open from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm throughout the event. (Unless otherwise posted)

At Playa Info you’ll find:

• Oracles who will help answer questions about theme camp placement, events, and volunteering, enlighten you with their profound wisdom, and help you locate just about anything you need within the vast resources of Black Rock City
• Directory. You can use the Playa Info computers to register yourself and your camp location or to look up your friend’s exact Black Rock City address. Via the online Directory, you can leave messages for friends to let them know where you’re camped and even find and post event schedules, ride shares, and other services. Sorry, no Internet access
• Found items. Lost something and want to find it? Found something and want to lose it? Turn in found items to Playa Info to be reunited with their owners.
• Burning Man Information Radio. Tune in throughout the event for public service announcements, event info, and other news.
• Playa Bulletin Boards. Bulletin Boards are always available for artful posting of events, messages and general information.
• Volunteer Resources. Want to volunteer your time and energy for Black Rock City? Sign up at the Volunteer Resources desk and contribute to your community.

Oracles

Our Oracles are well-versed on any topic relating to Black Rock City or Burning Man events. We offer answers and advice to those seekers who need the most up-to-date info on where to find such things as bike repair stations, theme camps, porta-potties, and medical services. If your quest is of a less practical nature, your esoteric questions will be met with equally esoteric answers. So be prepared for some noble discourse with BRC citizens from around the world.

Directory

The Directory is a computerized, organized listing of theme camps, individual camps, individuals, and their location on the playa. Maybe you’re looking for directions to The Barbie Death Camp and Wine Bistro or you sort of heard about this cool camp that started with a “V”. Stop by and use the Directory to consult the official map of Black Rock City. Our friendly crew can also give you ideas of where to visit next. Or equally important, they can help you register your own camp so the Burning Man community knows where to find you.

The Directory is also the place to leave messages for those friends who you haven’t seen in a year, or that guy or gal you met last night. Let your friends know where you are camped, specify your plans for the night, arrange a rendezvous, or report on your latest adventure.

You can also post messages for Ride Shares on the directory, whether you’re looking for a ride or offering one and need some companionship and gas money for the drive home.

Volunteer Resources

Should you feel the call to participate during the event, Playa Info is also the center for volunteer opportunities in Black Rock City. Just stop by our Volunteer Resources Desk and sign up to help with your community.

Volunteer for Playa Info

Playa Info volunteers wanted! If you enjoy guiding the wayward and enlightening the perplexed, then consider volunteering for Playa Info. For details, check out our Volunteer page or email playainfo@burningman.com.

The Black Rock Rangers are the core infrastructure for the community during the event. Their strength comes from the diversity of backgrounds and experiences; they are communicators, medics, firefighters and concerned citizens. Rangers are the mediators of public safety and providers of information.

The Black Rock Rangers were founded by Danger Ranger in 1992, and are modeled after the Texas Rangers. The key to the organization’s success is that the Rangers are not the “other” guys: they are the participants, and work throughout the city and its perimeters to ensure the collective survival of the community. They respond to the ever-changing environment, and address situations within our community that would otherwise require outside intervention. By encouraging and facilitating communication, the Rangers promote awareness of potential hazards, from sunstroke to tent fires to bad weather.

For more information on this unique organization, visit rangers.burningman.com or email rangers@burningman.com.

To learn more about what sorts of skills and requirements are needed to volunteer as a ranger, visit the Volunteer page.

The Center Camp Café rises each year as one of the biggest and brightest stars in the Vault of Heaven that is Black Rock City. The Café offers an acre of art in the cool shade, hot and cold drinks, and some of the finest entertainment available. This beautifully decorated structure is the largest intergalactic convergence at Burning Man. A favorite stop for every participant, parade, mutant vehicle, marching band, and green alien, a visit to the Café is a great initiation to the event as a participant or a volunteer.

Located in Center Camp, the Café is the largest temporary freestanding tensile shade structure in the world. With almost an acre of shade, a full-service coffee shop, two stages, and interactive art installations, the Café is one exhibit you won’t want to miss. The fabulously lighted, entertainment-filled structure is a required stop on every evening stroll through the city.

Café coffee cosmonauts are guaranteed to serve up friendly smiles as well as blazing hot and heavenly cool refreshments, including coffee, chai, lemonade and important electrolyte replenishment.

The Café is a venue that bursts with a universe of art and entertainment. A musical stage features participants playing world and instrumental music during the day with thematic performances in the evening. A spoken word stage features poetry readings, comedy, and theatrical productions.

You can view more Café photos of previous years’ structure, coffee shop, art installations, performances and personalities in the Image Gallery.

The Café is the single largest volunteer community on the playa. The construction, coffee shop, performance events, clean up, art, decor and lighting of this amazing space rely on the devoted efforts from hundreds of volunteers. Take a look at the Café volunteer opportunities to find out how you can participate before, during, or after the event and get involved in this diverse community. If you already know what you want to do, go straight to the Volunteer Questionnaire.

The Café always needs contributions of materials and otherworldly offerings. Look at our wish list to resurrect items that might otherwise end up in a dumpster. Or if you have some relic that we haven’t thought of, contact cafe@burningman.org. We love donations!!

GREETERS HAVE MORE FUN!

The greeters are the face of the event and form a newcomer’s first impression of Black Rock City. Their mission is to orient and educate arriving citizens while spreading wit, whimsy and infectious enthusiasm to carloads of people.

Greeters explain the “Don’t let it hit the ground!” principle, clarify the concept of Community, and answer all questions in offbeat yet helpful (or endearingly hostile) ways. Enlightening new and returning participants alike is a vital role.

If you are interested in volunteering to be a greeter, click here to find out what we need.

What’s more precious than gold in the desert? Ice, of course!

Arctica and the Ice Caps are the only source for ice in Black Rock City. Arctica and the Ice Caps have what it takes to keep your food, beverages, and heads cool during the long hot desert days, as well as putting an icy tinkle in your evening cocktails. Expanded to the 3 o’clock portal (Ice Cubed) and 9 o’clock portal (Ice-9) and our original spot in Center Camp, we offer ice to Burning Man participants from 9am to 6pm Monday through Sunday of the event, and from 9am until Noon on Labor Day.

Pre-event, ice is available at two locations. Center Camp Arctica: Thursday through Sunday from noon to 6 pm. Ice 9 (9:00 & G): Saturday and Sunday pre-event from noon to 6 pm.

If you’re up for staying cool during the day, while working toward a good cause, check out Arctica’s volunteering opportunities.

Media Mecca is Black Rock City’s press room. At the Mecca, members of the media can find out what’s going on, recharge batteries and file stories. We can point you in the direction of participants from your region, connect you with artists and take you on a tour of the major art installations. We will not baby you, coddle you, suggest story ideas or drive you around on a golf cart.

Media Mecca, in Center Camp, is open daily from 10 a.m. (ish) to 5 p.m (ish).

When you arrive, tell the greeters you’re looking for Media Mecca. We’re conveniently located in Center Camp. We’ll get your oriented, give you a cold beverage (if you’re nice to us) and provide a place to hang out when the temperature tops 100 degrees.

Please note: If you are a member of the press, you must visit the Press & Media section and register in advance of the event. Reporters, photographers and video crews who do not connect with us prior to the event will be taken into the desert, staked to the ground and left to fry in the sun.

If you are interested in wearing the coveted silver cowboy hat for the Media Team, check out our volunteer page.