Event Details

UPDATE (August 15th): The container is now completely full. We are no longer collecting a waitlist and cannot accept any more gear.

Camp Contact's Container to Burning Man is back open!  We have an additioal trailer going out to the burn and welcome your reservations! Bring your bins on Saturday, August 15th, at GlowHouse.

There are a number of people who have reserved space but not paid for it. If you don't pay by July 15th, your space reservation will be released.

A few of you have reservations for 0 cubic feet. If you were counting on us to ship, we likely have room for a bin or two of space but not much more, please go in and edit your space requirement and pay for it ASAP. We will cancel your order on July 15th.

Container Load In Crew Packing for trip to Burning Man in 2024.  Photograph by Darrell Duane.  This is not what we are using to ship this year, nor is the Burnhim trailer above being used.

Camp Contact is pleased to offer shipping gear from the DMV area to Black Rock City (Burning Man) and back.  We will ship your gear in one of our three trailers that will be going to the burn and back.   Shipping is open to all residents of Black Rock City.   The drop-off & pickup point for the Camp Contact will be GlowHouse, 3110 13th St NW, Washington, DC, on Saturday, August 15th, 2026, from 9 am to 5 pm.

This year, the pickup & drop-off point for your gear at Burning Man will be at Camp Contact. We will update this page when we receive placement.  

CONTAINER RULES -- NO JOKE, NO EXCEPTIONS!
 
TL;DR: Do not pack anything that could delay or compromise the successful delivery of the trailers or anyone's items. All items must be marked with the property owner's Full Name, Phone Number, Location on Playa, and Day of Pickup using the specific Sticker applied to 5 sides of the bin.  Items must be zip-tied & sealed.  When you check in with your bin, we will provide you with stickers and zip ties for your bins.

NO PERISHABLES, CONTRABAND, DRUGS, FLAMMABLES, COMBUSTIBLES, AEROSOLS, LITHIUM BATTERIES, or GAS:

DO NOT PACK drugs, guns, fireworks, illegal contraband, or life forms. Your mistakes will jeopardize the entire container! If we catch you with anything suspicious, we will not ship any of your items!

DO NOT PACK gas, explosives, lithium batteries, or other batteries you can't take on airplanes, pressurized canisters, fuel of any type, candles, or illegal substances of any kind.  This includes batteries for electric bikes.  We may have room for other items such as generators. Check with us.  We can ship batteries separately; simply sign up for space as usual and bring your batteries for shipping at check-in.  The best plan is to use a waterproof container for your battery, as it will be in the back of a pickup truck and may not be protected from rain. We expect to place them in 27-gallon bins.  However, sometimes these bins leak!

We are not responsible for any lost, stolen, or damaged items. We do not carry insurance for items. If someone wants to look into obtaining insurance for the items in this shipment, we welcome your support and will do our best to get insurance, but from what we understand, this is not an easy load to insure.

We reserve the right to open any bin or item to ensure there isn’t anything that could result in containers or vehicles being stopped or risks of damage to any other items.

If your items cause our containers or trucks to be stopped for any reason, or if your items cause any undue damage (beyond normal wear and tear or jostling) to other items, containers, or vehicles, you will be responsible for impacts and costs.   

Please do not connect different items to each other.  It is tempting to attach your long tent poles to your 27-gallon bin, but it makes packing very challenging.  We will have tags to label tent poles, and we will work to pack these items as close to each other as possible.  We need to pack the container as tightly as possible, and this means that different-sized items need to fill open spaces as they occur. 

Clearly label your items with your Playa Name (Real name in parentheses), Phone Number, Camp Name, and Camp Address.  We will have a decoration station at the loading site where you can label your items. You will find tags, markers, zip ties, and stickers to clearly label and secure your bins, bags, tents, and other items.   We will also have "HEAVY" stickers to indicate items that really need to stay on the ground level of packing.  We will not have "Fragile" stickers. Please don't try to send anything fragile, as we can't guarantee it will stay safe.

Example:    Guy Ablaze (Bernie Firestone),  248-434-5508,  Camp Penguin Tuxedo, 6:30 & Delight

Pack your bin ready to have other bins placed on top of it, which means it should be full.    This also means you should not attach anything to your bin.  Chairs, poles, and tents all need to be sent in their own bundle or as separate items.  We provide nice zip tie labeling tags for items that don't get labeled well with magic markers.

Prices:

Each Individual Tent/Sleeping Bag/Camp Chair/Folding Cot or other smaller self-contained item. Does not include Shiftpods or items longer than 3 feet.  Items should be squishable and able to have other things on it.  We will place these items into a bigger squishable color-coded container for easy locating and retrieval. Remember the color of the bin you place it in for each pickup. 

Your reservation is not guaranteed until we receive full payment.  

Click on the link below to see the fees (Sliding scale; please contribute as you can, use the higher price):

• Individual Squishable Items (Tent/Sleeping Bag/Camp Chair/Folding Cot shorter than 3'):    
• Shift Pods, Coleman Instant setup Tents, Cots, and others longer than 3 feet are priced by the foot, rounded up to the next foot longer than the item.

• 27 Gallon Bins  (Medium to Heavy Duty bins, typically obtained from Costco, Home Depot, Lowes, Ace, etc.  Do not use weak light duty bins that are usually clear or blue)
• 40 Gallon Bins  (Heavy Duty Bins that typically have a latch on them)

Bikes  (all bikes must be put in a bike box, with pedals, handlebars, and seat removed as needed). Electric Bikes can be shipped, and we need to separate your battery and place it in another location in the back of the pickup truck that is towing the trailer.   Bikes must fit in the bike box: 

• Bikes: Includes Bike Box. Pedals must be removed, and handlebars need to be rotated and perhaps removed.  You can leave your bike box in the shipping container during the burn. 
• E-bikes:  includes a larger Bike Box
•  We will ship your battery separately since it can't go on the truck; we have a vehicle going across the country for it.  We may be able to transport generators or other things that are powered by petroleum products. Please contact us at [email protected] for specifics. 

We do have some boxes for bikes: we have boxes that are 30" x 5" x 24" and have larger boxes that are 60" x 10" x 48";  We will have tape to assemble these boxes.

Note that prices are set based on the day you pay, not on the day you reserve your space.  Prices will likely go up as we get closer, to accommodate changes in fuel prices and the possibility of an additional trailer being needed. Please reserve and pay as soon as you can. 

For all other questions, please ask them in our Telegram group if there are questions that others may have. Often, your questions have already been answered because someone else asked the same question, and you just need to scroll back to the relevant topic to find the answer.  For questions that are specific to your case, please reach out to [email protected] with your question if it is unique.

We are accepting reservations for space.  There are three parts to reserve space.

1. Create an account on this website if you don't have one yet. 
2. Reserve space by clicking on the register menu item at the top of the page once you're signed in. You reservation is not guaranteed until you make the payment.
3. Venmo: @CampContact
4. Paypal: @dduane ([email protected])   (Send payment as "FRIENDS" or send extra funds to cover fees.)
5. When you send your payment, please include the invoice number from your space reservation.  For now, you have to do the math; This will most likely change next year.

We prefer the 27-gallon Black and Yellow bins from Costco.  If you're in need of a bin, reach out to [email protected] or at the drop-off point if you don't have one already, we may have some extra bins floating around.  Bins from Lowe's & Home Depot also work.

In order to coordinate access to bins once at Burning Man, we'll be providing nice stickers that indicate the day of the week you want to pick up your bin or gear so that we pack them away in an accessible order.  There will be stickers for Monday of Build Week all the way through Wednesday) of Burn Week. 

3 – Load-in

The loading of the container will take place on Saturday, August 15th.

How it works

Bring your belongings to our loading site. When you arrive, you’ll realize that container load-in is really the start of everyone’s Burn! Please help each other out. Bring sunscreen, & gloves for yourself and your crew. We'll provide beverages and food!  Loading hundreds of bins is hard work and we do this together.

All participants are expected to carry and pack their belongings into our containers. We have limited volunteers and literally tons of stuff to load. We appreciate your help being radically self-reliant. If you are not able to lift your bins, please consider packing less in each bin or arriving with someone to help you both load and unload.

Go to the check-in booth with a screenshot or printout of your payment documentation.  If you still need to Zip Tie or Label your gear, we'll have items to help you with this.  At check-in, you'll receive the stickers to label your items for your day of pickup on Playa. No items can be loaded without the day of pickup stickers. 

4 – Pickup and Drop off on Playa

On-Playa Location

On-Playa Location for pickup at dropoff is across from Camp Contact 6:45 & F.

On-Playa Arrival Date:

Our containers are expected to arrive on Monday, the first day of Build.   If you rely on something to survive, we suggest not packing it on the container. We will consistently update you on the arrival status via the Telegram group and in the Facebook group. Please keep in mind that all of our own personal belongings and much of our camp infrastructure are shipped in the same containers so we’re pretty motivated to get it there on time. 

On-Playa Loading for the return trip back to DC

You must bring your gear back to the container by 6 pm on Monday, September 1st.   We can take stuff back as early as Thursday of Burn Week.  All participants using our service are expected to carry their things all the way into our containers and pack them tightly.  Do not leave your items outside of the trailer unless instructed to. We have limited volunteers and literally tons of belongings to pack. We appreciate your help in being radically self-reliant. If you are not able to carry your bins, please consider packing less in each bin or getting someone to help you both load and unload. All items reloaded on the container must be packed in boxes just as they were. This includes bikes. You can leave your bike boxes on the trailer for storage during the week of the burn.  Items can still be damaged on the return trip.  We would like to emphasize that load in on Playa is tough, especially since your volunteer team has been there for two weeks.  This will be at the end of two hard weeks so don't expect them to do things for you.  We are all tired at the end of the week.  Do your part.

5 – Pickup of gear in DC after the Burn

Tentative dates for pickup of your gear are Saturday & Sunday in September, two weeks after the man burns at the same location.  If you can't get your gear, then please arrange for a friend to get it.  We can't guarantee that any of your items will be kept after that time.  

Our Event Schedule

See the full list of events we offer

Getting There