Previously unseen images of Burning Man's Shipwreck Tiki Lounge 2010

Here's a few more photos of Shipwreck Tiki Lounge, some have been taken down, others added.

Shipwreck Tiki Lounge is now celebrating it's fifth year as a Burning Man theme camp.

If you haven't made it out to Burning Man yet that's too bad as it looks like I'll be shrinking the camp size by about 2/3 next year.

Sure could use some of you tiki freaks out there to help me keep tiki alive at Burning Man. What's not to like? You have a blast while making and showing off tiki art to 50,000 people! How many people walked through your last tiki art show?

More pix can be found on http://www.shipwrecktikilounge.com and on http://www.facebook.com/shipwrecktikilounge and please "like" us if you want to receive regular updates.

Enjoy! tikitom

1st pic shows the entire camp frontage all lit up at night. All of the background lighting (except the black lights and fake fire pots) consists of yellow and red light bulbs. These seem to be the only colors that look "tiki" without looking "christmasy". Camp frontage is 150 ft of Esplanade space. To the novice that's considered front row center at Burning Man. Camp is transported to Burning Man in a packed 45 ft shipping container. It is an entire tiki village set up and torn down in two weeks and gone without a trace.

Second pic shows more detail of the front of the camp. Note fake palm trees and large black light paintings. I can take no credit for the black light images, all were downloaded from Google images and I used a projector to trace them out on plywood frames.

Close up of the Military Bar tent at night. Note Bamboo stage inside tent. Lighting within the bamboo base of the stage is designed to kind of sparkle like an old jukebox. (Just Christmas lights behind the bamboo) Numerous tikis are all handmade from paper mache then covered with fiberglass. This minimizes weight and facilitates repairs (just about everything gets broken out there). Large shiny thing is a cover for the sound system speaker (obviously needs to be redesigned).

A night shot of our mobile tiki bar built upon a golf cart frame. Note booze bottles filled with colored water and lit by up led lights from underneath.

View of the front of the lounge in daytime. Nobody is around as we're probably sleeping one off. Tikis in front are made of palm wood by a guy named Tiki Joe of Chico Ca. (who passed into tiki history somtime around 2000). Note fiberglass suffering bastard on right.

Another angled shot of camp frontage in daytime showing the positioning of our tiki mobile.

Our art centerpiece called the "shipwreck". It was once a mobile vehicle at Burning Man but being so huge was too much work and way too dangerous. Shipwreck is a 1961 30 ft Okamata rescued sinking in the Alameda estuary in 2007.

Second picture of Shipwreck(circa 2008). The shipwreck rests on a modified flatbed trailer. Trailer had to be totally altered to lower the boats center of gravity. Boat is held in place by a cradle of welded arms hidden behind fiberglass rocks. Note fold down wings to add room to the back bar area. Was quite a day at the marina lowering boat onto completed trailer. Sometimes these old wooden hulls collapse when lifted out of the water by the crane. Then we had to worry if the trailer would immediately jacknife when we placed the boat upon it. We had only best guessed where the center of weight would be. Turned out we were right on target, tongue weight was minimal.

Third picture of Shipwreck at Burning Man now no longer a mobile art car. 2009.

Picture of salvaged Chris Craft controls. Just thought it would look cool sitting around camp. Christmas lights sparkle behind the bamboo at night giving it that jukebox effect. Note fiberglass Tiki Bob in background (was once our mixed drink dispenser).

In order to keep the look of the camp totally within the theme we had cover up everthing including our 45 ft transport container. Seen here disguised with parachute, then added a little flotsam and jet sum and the google tiki images in black light (blown up to 8 ft by 8 ft size). Looked great at night!

Day picture of bamboo stage and stripper pole within bar tent. (Probably going to be elimnated next year as I'm tired of dealing with Burning Man's prima donna DJ's and bands.)

Rare photo of the original tow vehicle for Shipwreck was used only once in 2007, a tikified Cadillac! Tiki heads on hood actually spouted fake fire. We drove it once to the local gas station in Oakland and were a big hit! In 2007 we ran overbudget building the Shipwreck and couldn't really afford a vehicle to tow it around Burning Man. Then this old Cadillac fell in our lap for $500! With some tiger fabric and bamboo trim it tiki'd out nicely and had great air conditioning for the desert!

Back to the camp in 2010 . This is the bar we built to go inside the military tent. Some natural cut planks with a couple portholes and ships lights all set upon 2 oak barrels. Sets up and tears down in seconds. Real simple but real cool looking. Note brass prop behind bar.

Second picture of bar shown here under construction during huge sandstorm.

Mobile tiki bar in the day. Range was pretty good unless we cranked up its big sound system which is hidden up in roof.

One of our many banners. This one is tikitom's fantasy of himself based on a menu design from trader Vic's.

The camp plan as submitted to Burning Man. It came out better than we imagined!

Did you know Shipwreck Tiki Lounge has it's own tiki mug by Crazy Al commemorating the 2010 event? Available by emailing us through http://www.facebook.com/shipwrecktikilounge or our website http://www.shipwrecktikilounge.com All profits help to support tiki at Burning Man.

[ Edited by: tikitikitom 2011-01-30 06:57 ]

[ Edited by: tikitikitom 2011-01-30 09:44 ]

[ Edited by: tikitikitom 2011-01-30 17:46 ]

[ Edited by: tikitikitom 2011-02-02 21:13 ]

Very nice!!!!! It's been a few years since I could afford to go to the Man and your lounge make me homesick.

Really amazing place.
All of them are designed by yourself???

On 2010-12-26 19:09, tikitikitom wrote:
Mobile tiki bar in the day. Range was pretty good unless we cranked up its big sound system.

I love this pic, what a great shot! Great job on this and the whole camp!

On 2011-01-16 18:10, Polly wrote:
Really amazing place.
All of them are designed by yourself???

Burning Man is supposed to be a community thing so many people had their hands in this. I should admit straight off I beg borrow or steal images from anywhere I can find them and hope the tiki gods forgive me as I sure don't make any money on this. As far as volunteers go I have to give credit for many of the fiberglass tikis (most of which are not pictured here) to a girl who in the real world works in high tech named Geri. When she originally volunteered I had her gluing sand on the Shipwreck's beach with the rest of the low skilled volunteers. Then I found out she had 3 art Degrees so I told her "make me a tiki". I soon got pretty jealous as her tikis turned out better than mine and I'd been screwing around with it for 15 years! However I always retain control of overall creative direction and a veto power to rein in anyone who strays too far from "Book of Tiki" principles. That being said 90% of the camp came from my ideas. Like I said before I sure could use some more of you tiki freaks out there to keep this thing going!

[ Edited by: tikitikitom 2011-01-18 17:04 ]

On 2011-01-17 10:54, tikitikitom wrote:
Like I said before I sure could use some more of you tiki freaks out there to keep this thing going!

I would help if we knew what part of the world you're in. :wink:

On 2011-01-17 11:05, 4WDtiki wrote:

On 2011-01-17 10:54, tikitikitom wrote:
Like I said before I sure could use some more of you tiki freaks out there to keep this thing going!

I would help if we knew what part of the world you're in. :wink:

We have a warehouse full of tiki in oakland Cal which all are welcome to see. Read your tribute to Tiki Kate. It was quite moving...I'm sorry I missed the chance to share a mai tai with such a great tiki centalite. tikitom

Thanks, Tom. I have the link because Kate was a friend of mine and lots of people here, and I want her to not be forgotten, but to be clear, I did not create the website, Humuhumu did.

Oakland? If you were more local, I'd get in on helping with future props!