About the Camp
Sidequest Sideshow is a New York-based Burning Man camp built by veteran burners who wanted to do things differently. We showed up to Black Rock City for the first time as SQS in 2025, set up shop at 6:45 & B, and immediately started causing problems (the fun kind).
We're a crew of artists, builders, cooks, and professional clowns (not literally, but also kind of literally). We build interactive experiences for the playa, throw ridiculous events, and run a frontage that makes strangers stop, stare, and occasionally get hooked on a fishing line.
We built a dock on our frontage and cast lines into the playa. Passersby get reeled in, goofiness ensues, and everyone walks away smiling (or confused, which is basically the same thing out there). It's our signature move.
Face painting. An MC. Two clowns enter the ring, each trying to knock the other's nose off in the silliest way possible. The crowd goes wild. The noses go flying. First rule of clown fight club: TELL EVERYONE.
Our circus tent is the kind of place that pulls people in at night. Real couches, real rugs (dusty, but real), twinkle lights, and a vibe that turns strangers into friends and friends into clowns. Swing by, sit down, stay a while.
Show up big for build, and your week is lighter. We keep effort fair so nobody burns out before the burn.
Everyone has a voice, everyone pitches in. No one person carries the camp on their back.
Clown noses, fishing rods, circus tents. We take fun seriously (and everything else, not so much).
Radical self-reliance, communal effort, gifting, participation. It's all baked in.
Picture this: it's 2am, the desert is doing its thing, and you're sinking into a dusty-but-somehow-comfortable couch under a circus tent strung with lights. Someone hands you a drink. A clown fish stares at you from a banner overhead. You came here as a stranger twenty minutes ago and now you're planning a sideshow act with three people whose playa names you'll never remember.
That's the vibe. We're not a sound camp, we're not a party camp. We're the weird, warm, funny camp where people wander in because something looks interesting and leave hours later because they forgot to leave. We make art, we cook dinner together, and we put on the kind of events that only make sense when you're covered in playa dust and wearing a red nose.
We didn't do portos last year. People voted them down as an expense, and honestly it was fine. There were clean ones nearby and no major sound camps in the area, so it worked out.
Dues were $750 last year. We try to keep costs reasonable while still covering everything you need, especially if you're coming from the east coast.