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Whoa dude, you mean the people running the Dark Skies Arts Festival are, like, a private company? Well, yeah. That's how you, like, get permits and stuff. And pay for Porta Johns and security. And make sure you can do it again.
"We're not in it for profit, but we're not a nonprofit," says Cameron Grant, director of operations for VegasArtists.com LLC, which produces the First Friday afterparty, Spaced Invaders, at the Aruba Hotel. The purpose of the group, says Grant, is to bridge various "subcultures" in the arts and to promote their activities. "We are a portal between the starving artists ... and the commercial and professional world that other people are living in," says Grant.
One way to bring all of those people together is launch a biannual gathering consciously modeled on the celebrated Burning Man festival. Billed as a two-night, three-day "gift society" arts festival and camping trip, Dark Skies sets up its four stages this weekend on a flat outside Primm, offering music, performance, visual art, community and free sandwiches and coffee. The free stuff is the hallmark of the "gift society" aspect of Dark Skies, which will be vending-free.
Grant and Bryan Hawley, the group's director of entertainment, talk avidly of such noble ideals as "radical inclusivity" and "leave no trace," but they make it clear the only way a festival like Dark Skies can work is if its organizers are professional. "It means we'll be safer and better-planned," says Grant, adding that VegasArtists is informally associated with Burning Man and is following its "business model."
And so the festival is marked by an unusual, but somehow reassuring, blend of ethereal new-age ideals and hard-nosed practicality. Once you're inside the roughly quarter-mile-square enclosure, you get to participate in communal sunrise and sunset circles, share artistic experiences and soak in music by locally noted artists such as The Bounders and Sara Patterson on the Area 51 Stage and electronica from the Ninja Pocket Stage. But to get in you have to pay $50 in advance, or $75 at the gate, and you have to bring camping equipment. In other words, you have to show you take the festival's themes seriously. Grant and Hawley particularly want to discourage casual day-trippers who come to hear a band or two, litter the place with beer cans and take off. To ensure only those who intend to play nicely get in, they've hired off-duty park rangers as security.
Those who find this off-putting are probably best put off by it. Grant and Hawley expect people who cherish the idea of communal participation and will be comforted to know that the event will be safe and clean—especially the Porta Johns. And they are probably the sort who appreciate the "Leave no trace" ethic, which means not only no litter but no on-the-ground fires, as that would literally fire the clay lake bed, as in a kiln, says Grant. He figures the festival will attract several hundred—400 would exceed expectations—and lay the groundwork for the next incarnation of Dark Skies in the fall.
"The word is 'sustainability,'" says Hawley. "How do we do it better the next time?"
The ideas and ideals behind the festival, as well as its entertainment lineup, can be found at http://darkskies.vegasartists.com. More important, the highly precise directions to the site, augmented by photos, can be downloaded there. The directions must be followed closely or you might find yourself foundering in sand in the dark.
But in the end, the idea is to prevent just that, figuratively as well as literally. Dark Skies is part of VegasArtists.com's mission to help various artistically minded souls to help each other. "These subcultures are merging," says Grant. "The lines are gray. It's all kind of gelling."