Apogaea

Infobox burn event
event_name = Apogaea
first_year = 2004
location_city = Lake George
location_state = Colorado
location_country = United States
event_month = June
recent_year = 2008
recent_month_start = June
recent_month_end = June
recent_day_start = 5
recent_day_end = 8
recent_participants = 660
website = [http://www.apogaea.com/ www.apogaea.com]

Apogaea (meaning "far from Earth") is an annual collaborative outdoor arts and music festival, held in late spring (June 5-8, in 2008) near Lake George, Colorado as a Colorado regional counterpart for the Burning Man event. At an elevation of 9,500 ft., Apogaea ("Apo") establishes a temporary autonomous zone where radical self-expression, inclusiveness, self-defence against the walking dead, and self-reliance are the hallmarks of its participants.

Like the Burning Man event, Apogaea includes art, DJ-music, live music, camps, and theme camps. Apogaea has a Creative Grants program that provides financial assistance for artists wanting to create visual art, performances or events, workshops, art vehicles, or theme camps for Apogaea; this grant cycle generally begins in January. In past years, nearly 50% of Apogaea's operating budget was given out as creative grants. Theme camps at Apogaea have included the cowboy-themed Dome on the Range, the hillbilly-themed Smokin' Bones BBQ and Blues, the Green Screen Project, and the cat-themed Purrfectly Pink Pussie Palace. Like many Burning Man-inspired events, fire art plays a large part, and includes performance art (fire dancing) as well as stationary art that incorporates propane or wood fires. Apogaea has generally had a central "effigy" that burns on the Saturday night of the event. However, all fire at Apogaea is subject to local or regional fire bans in dry or dangerous conditions; Apogaea 2006 was under such a ban and had limited propane fire art and no effigy burn. Effigies at Apogaea have included:

2004: no effigy
2005: Buddha
2006: Phoenix (not burned due to fire ban)
2007: Phoenix
2008: Giant Squid

Apogaea is organized and run by an unpaid Board of Directors and a wider circle of volunteer leads in areas such as Art, Safety, Operations, Communications, Administration, Zombie Containment, Outreach, and Volunteers.

As of 2008, Apogaea runs from Thursday noon to dusk Sunday. Ticket prices in 2008 were $25 for scholarship tickets, $50 for pre-sale tickets (online and at ticket outlets in Colorado), and $60 at the gate. Apogaea is an all-ages event, though minors must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian, and those under 21 are given a different color wristband. There are generally no free tickets given out (e.g., for volunteers, artists, or musicians), based on the philosophy that everyone attending is expected to contribute something to the event--whether it's their volunteer work, their participation, their camp, art, costumes, performance, or creativity--and Apogaea is not in a position to judge or value the merits of one person's contribution, creativity, or time over another's.

Apogaea is generally held the first weekend in June, in an attempt to hold the event late enough in the spring that it's not freezing at night that high in the mountains, yet early enough to avoid dry-season fire bans or restrictions.

History

From 2001-2003, a summer festival known as Geodesika took place in the mountains of Colorado. This was not an official Burning Man-sanctioned festival, but nevertheless held to Burning Man's philosophy and tenets, and many attendees were also Burning Man attendees. After disagreement between Geodesika's founder and other festival organizers about how the festival should be run, the latter created a group to start a new, official Burning Man regional festival, named Apogaea.

The first order of business for the new festival was to find a place to hold it. The location of Geodesika, Lake Wellington, was unsuitable as neighbors were disturbed by the all-night loud music. Besides isolation, distance from the Front Range of Colorado, suitability for camping for hundreds of people, cost, the number of nearby cemeteries, terrain, and altitude/nighttime temperatures were considerations in finding a place to hold Apogaea.

Another Colorado festival, Dreamtime, had private land near Paonia, Colorado, on which they'd been holding a festival, and offered the land to Apogaea. It was decided to run a joint festival in 2004, "Apogaea in Dreamtime." While successful, differences in philosophies led the organizers of both festivals to agree that a joint festival would not work in the long term.

Apogaea then found a landowner with space near Lake George, Colorado, who had hosted other festivals. The forested space, known as the Happy Ass Ranch, was eminently suitable for Apogaea, and since 2005, the festival has been held there.

External links

* [http://apogaea.com Official site]
* [http://flickr.com/groups/apogaea/pool/ Flickr Pool]