Kostume Dome 2012
The key to our mission on playa is to costume the masses and help people engage in Burning Man in a new way through the magic of a costume. We do this through a year-round costume solicitation program which contacts members of the costume industry and convinces them to donate their old, unsold and possibly unloved costumes to us. We ship the costumes to Davis, CA where the fine folk at PRED are kind enough to receive the shipments, de-MOOP the costumes and drive them out to playa in a truck. And I say truck, because each year we bring out an entire 24-foot truck of costumes (minus the packaging!) for us to dress people in.
From about noon until about 5:30 each day, Tuesday through Saturday, we open up the Kostume Dome. We have MCs and wranglers on frontage and music playing from our sound system. People line up to come into the dome and get costumed. It is really important that participants understand the dome and take advantage of it appropriately. When a lovely burner enters the dome, they can take whatever they can wear out and it is theirs to keep! We do not give away costumes (think - consumer experience, people grabbing free shit by the armful), we transform people. They emerge from our dome as a new person, with a new way of interacting and experience the playa. They then walk down our runway for an impromptu fashion show while our capable MCs provide juicy commentary. It is a lot of fun, and we love doing it.
Each member of our camp is REQUIRED to put in at least one full shift in the Kostume Dome. A shift can be working as an MC out front or working in the Dome helping people find something that they love and managing the inventory (restocking the dome from the truck, etc).