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I did the Clean Vibes post show volunteering for Bonnaroo 2010. When I signed up for the volunteering, the description stated that the work would be stooping and picking up trash and consolidating trash piles. I was given information concerning what to wear, where to check in, etc. I was also told that free showers were provided for volunteers.
When I showed up at the volunteer campsites, I checked in and was given a half sheet of paper that basically was copied straight from the previous information I received. There was no information given concerning where the showers were. We were all given one day to rest before the work started the next day. Pretty standard stuff, until we actually started the work the following day.
We were all split up into colored teams at check in. My team was split in two and sent to either sorting recycling or composting. This was no where in the job description. We were given cotton gloves and told to rip open bags of recycling and empty them onto a huge pile of recycling. These "recycling" bags were filled with vomit, human feces, bottles of urine, broken glass, rotting food, etc. I saw multiple people get cut during the job. At points, we were thigh deep in the recycling heap. We were given no protection for our faces or eyes. It was impossible to avoid having foul smelling liquid (sometimes it wasn't even liquid) splash into my face and eyes and mouth, not to mention every other exposed part of my body. Also, the cotton gloves just soaked it all in.
We were provided with cold water and a lunch consisting of a wrap, a piece of fruit, a bag of chips, a small piece of cake, and more water. The lunch was pretty good.
We were let off 15 minutes after the shift was supposed to end. When my friend and I finally got back to our camp, we had to search for the free showers, because no information had been given to us from any Clean Vibes staff members about the location or hours of operation of the free showers. When we got there, the showers had been turned off. COMPLETELY TURNED OFF. My friend and I drove around trying to find a Clean Vibes staff member to get some help. Finally, we were directed to showers being used by the paid staff. Only about 15 or 20 people, if that, received showers before they CLOSED THEM. So basically, 500 people covered in feces, urine, sweat, and many many many other disgusting things were denied showers. Has Clean Vibes heard of a little something called staph infection?
On the second day, I begged to be transferred to another team. This was another ordeal. Our team leader basically gave us the run around, saying that were some of the lucky ones and that composting and sorting bags of puke was something we signed up for. Finally, after much distress and begging, my friend and I were transferred to field sweeping, which actually was stooping and picking up trash as well as consolidating bags. This volunteer work was infinitely better.
Clean Vibes post show volunteering was a nightmare. I cannot even imagine those poor volunteers who were sent to composting. Imagine composting 5 days of rotten maggoty meat waste made by 100,000 people. And then mix that in with human waste. And then imagine doing it in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, with no kind of face protection or respirators. And then imagine being denied a shower after that and having to sleep in that filth and get up the next day and do it again.
The bottom line is Clean Vibes post show volunteering does not give a flying flip about their volunteers. The experience really saddened me. I was completely prepared to get out there, get dirty, and do some good for the earth. However, getting sprayed all day with foul rotting waste and biohazards and then being denied a shower is inhumane, and I was not prepared to subject myself to that for a cheap ride to Bonnaroo. I will never do Clean Vibes volunteering again. I value my health too much.
This is as accurate a description of the Clean Vibes post show volunteer experience as I could type out. I hope this helps others out there who are considering doing the post show volunteering. DO NOT DO IT if you do not want to risk working in a big pile of hazardous materials for 20 hours over 2 days. If you're thinking it's not that bad, think again.
As for other volunteer experiences, I talked to a friend who did pre-show volunteering and was treated similarly. At one point, his group of volunteers was forgotten for the night and were left out there to sleep in their own trash bags for a few hours. Finally, a van came and they were told that those responsible for picking them up just forgot about them.
Post by coldfrontin on Jun 17, 2010 18:00:52 GMT -5
i know some people who did the composting thing. they said it was awful (smell/diapers/etc) but set a new record and finished it all early. they got sent over to recycling to finish their shift and found something that they said made it extra worth it. from what i gather, you probably shouldn't have asked to transfer; i think a lot of people left the recycling team happy.
Last Edit: Jun 17, 2010 18:05:57 GMT -5 by coldfrontin - Back to Top
i know some people who did the composting thing. they said it was awful (smell/diapers/etc) but set a new record and finished it all early. they got sent over to recycling to finish their shift and found something that they said made it worth it. from what i gather, you probably shouldn't have asked to transfer; i think a lot of people left the recycling team happy.
Really... now I am curious... did they happen to alude to what it was they found??
Post by manthaniel on Jun 18, 2010 11:37:59 GMT -5
Oh, wow, I'm sorry to hear about that experience! I was a WET volunteer, and I was actually a trash talker, so I ended up working with but not for Clean Vibes, I guess. But I was only during fest. The worst I had to do was climb into a trash crate for only a few minutes to sort out some cardboard, then sit in the sun for 4 hours pretty much doing nothing (officially, I was making sure the food vendors knew to put the cardboard in the cardboard crate, but they already knew).
I'll keep it in mind never to volunteer directly for Clean Vibes. Sorry about your experience, but on the other hand, thanks for the tip.
That's another wonderful thing about Bonnaroo... I was amazed how many people straight-up said thank you to me while I was standing by the trash cans making sure folks put the right stuff in the right bins. It was really cool!
And also, thanks back at ssroo for what you ended up doing. Sorry that it sucked, but it's great that there are folks volunteering to keep Bonnaroo as friendly to the environment as possible.
I thanked a guy for telling me that my cup really should go in Compostables instead of Recycling. And I had something else that I was unsure about (a napkin maybe?) and was really happy that there was someone there I could ask.
Post by snowflake78 on Jun 18, 2010 13:01:11 GMT -5
I have never felt so sorry for volunteers as I did for the clean vibes people this year. The promoters get cheap labor and don't have to spend any of the money we pay for tickets on sanitation. Then they can't even offer showers to the volunteers? They paid out the a$$ for huge names on the lineup, yet the festival was super dirty this year and the toilet situation was totally disgusting. Give me back some of those cheaper acts and a clean portapotty and I may go back. I myself would rather earn my ticket money during the year but I do feel bad for those who think they are volunteering for a good cause then got the shaft.
Post by indigrainbowlove on Jun 18, 2010 13:02:35 GMT -5
yeah, all the volunteers i met were super sweet. be sure to see if they need or want anything if you feel like helping them out, such as cigs and etc.
maybe if they paid for the really dirty jobs and just reserved basic cleanup and the such for the volunteers. from what it sounds like in this thread, take better care of them, too. i like the concept and my childlike mind is pretending they set it up that way to help promote taking care of the earth instead of saving money. really, though, dont they lose money since tickets are way more than what a wage would be paid for each volunteer's hours? i know a lot of volunteers could only go to roo by volunteering their way through, but i bet a really big number of them would have forked out for tix if that was the only way.
Last Edit: Jun 18, 2010 13:06:40 GMT -5 by coldfrontin - Back to Top
Post by oldtactics on Jun 18, 2010 14:08:27 GMT -5
I was on the pink team for Clean Vibes this year, doing consolidation and sweeping all over the farm - the work itself was tough and strenuous, but I knew that going in - what I wasn't expecting was the absolutely horrific 'leadership' that we experienced... I'm a tough girl and really not someone who complains about very much, but the condescending attitudes and ridiculous demands got to the point that some people were on the verge of quitting and forfeiting their deposits. I know that the leaders are former volunteers who have moved up the ranks, but that doesn't give them the right to treat people like garbage while spending hours driving around, not helping, and changing plans halfway through a project. I've never walked away from something feeling so mistreated and undervalued as I did at the end of my time with Clean Vibes.
Nevermind the fact that multiple people on my team didn't get the vegan meals that they'd ordered due to the fact that our leaders were letting people grab whatever they wanted instead of sticking to the pre-ordered lists.
We ended up driving off-site and paying for showers because, as mentioned above, there weren't any available to us. I luckily didn't have any bodily fluids on me but spending a day elbow-deep in garbage juice and then going back to a campsite is definitely not an ideal way to prep for the next day's work.
I'll be sending a letter with constructive criticism, but I can say for certain now that Clean Vibes won't be getting my help at any other events. I'm sad about it because I legitimately enjoyed helping to clean up the farm, but the abuse and disrespect isn't something that I'm interested in experiencing ever again. Fail.
Post by thebigbuddha on Jun 18, 2010 15:04:37 GMT -5
I had my complaints about the volunteering situation but they were very minimal. I was also a Trash Talker, during-fest, and got there Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday night I stood in line for 3+ hours to get my stuff, only to turn around to a non-existent line afterward. Partly my fault perhaps, but I had nothing else to do at that point and just wanted to get it out of the way so I could go back to my tent and drink a little until I crashed. So in that way it seemed incredibly disorganized.
At the same time there were a lot of positive things to come out of volunteering. There was the free ticket of course (considering my deposit gets put back on my card soon). All of the volunteers I talked to or became friends with were as cool as the general Bonnaroo populace. I got to spend time at new places, even though I had to sacrifice some great music. I spent all night at the solar stage Friday night and saw a lot of cool acts. Maybe the best thing was the gratitude. So many people said thank you and genuinely meant it. No one gave me any Leno for telling them where to toss things.
I'm going to try to go as a regular festival-goer for the 10th anniversary next year. As the kids say, it is going to be sick. However, I'm glad I had this experience this year.
I have been doing Bonnaroo/Clean Vibes during show cleanup for years and I loved every minute of it, but this was my first post show cleanup, and I will never do it again. I picked up a nice looking backpack someone had left behind, and it turned out it had been used as a portable toilet and leaked all over my shoes. I was one of the fortunate ones who did get a shower, they had 6 stalls available for 500 volunteers, and there was no hot water, add to that the cold water that came out felt artificially cold, like refrigerated to below 50 degrees. They also turned off the water filters at exactly noon on Monday, so the water we did have available to us (which was not located at our campground, but instead a mile and a half away at the medical compound) smelled and tasted like rotten eggs. We worked our first ten hour shift with absolutely no shade available whatsoever, we were not allowed to take a break for the first time until 12:30, over four hours into our shift. At times our team leaders drove off in their gator cart and disappeared for a half hour or more, presumably to get high, without any notice leaving us sitting in a field holding full trash bags. We were forced to pick up during a lightning storm with absolutely no shelter available to us, we had to take up against a metal fence to keep the rain from spraying us sideways. There are regulations in place about how you can treat your employees, perhaps those regulations do not apply to volunteers, but several of us will be contacting OSHA and other regulatory agencies regarding the manner in which we were treated, and I urge all Clean Vibes post show volunteers who felt mistreated to do the same. To all people who think we got what we signed up for I understand we were working for a free ticket, as I have done so for years, but there is a basic level of decency that all human beings should be given that this years volunteers were denied, in my countless times volunteering for festivals I have never felt so mistreated. Add all this to the fact that for the first time ever, Clean Vibes charged us a non-refundable 35 dollar processing fee and a 5 dollar delivery charge for our tickets, and I now realize I paid 40 dollars for the privilege of being mistreated and taken advantage of.
Post by manthaniel on Jun 18, 2010 16:04:16 GMT -5
Just so you know, delysid, as far as I know the shower water was never filtered. At least not in the volunteer campground. It always smelled like eggs, but it was totally better than nothing. I never went into one of the "real" showers, though.
For the record, those of you who are complaining volunteered through Clean Vibes, right? I volunteered through WET, and I had a much more pleasant experience as a trash talker, working with Clean Vibes instead of for them. I even had to dig through a dumpster once, but only for less than a half hour, so it wasn't that bad..
I'm thinking about starting a separate WET thread, but I wanted to clarify that y'all are direct Clean Vibes volunteers. Am I right on that one?
Post by myxomatosis on Jun 18, 2010 21:30:51 GMT -5
^ You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
My clean vibes experience this year was both a better experience than last in a lot of ways and a worse experience in a lot of ways. The team that was unlucky enough to do the compost/recycling did indeed walk away quite happy however. I too am intending on writing them a relatively lengthy email this year though as the same things were just as much of or more of a problem again this year.
Post by myscatterheart on Jun 18, 2010 22:09:44 GMT -5
PROPS FOR HOMEBOY BRAYDON for making Clean Vibes this year bearable. Clean Vibes, unfortunately is hit or miss. It depends on the people who are "leading" you. Whether they are decent people or not is a crap shoot. My first year sucked, as we had a biznatch at the helm. This year, we managed to get another smurf "leader", but those "below" him were really awesome, mellow people who cared about what they were doing. There was indeed a huge lack of communication and knowledge about showers, etc. Showers were so far most of us DROVE once word got out where they were. As for the composting - I do believe that great care needs to be taken with the way those "chosen" for composting need to be suited up. Human waste and severely rotting food really calls for better protection for these people. It's quacked up to throw them in there in shorts, it really is. Those who have not seen this heap of trash have no idea the magnitude of the situation. That team did indeed walk away with some GREAT Leno. However, the lack of protection is inexcusable. CV has a lot they need to suss out. They generally are very not-in-the-know when it comes to helping out the volunteers with information type stuff. They also need to look more into who's at the helm. Volunteers do not want to work efficiently for assholes' yelling rude things at them through a megaphone. There are certain people that deserve to be in much higher positions, and would really bring a more positive experience to all those that participated, and imo, would really boost CV's rep.
This was my first Clean Vibes experience (I was on the pink team also). While the shower situation did suck (I walked the 1 1/2 miles to the backstage showers on Mon night, did baby wipes Tues, & headed home for my own tub Wed.), & some of the leaders were a little full of themselves (I suspect their "holiness" grew as their position w/in the company rose), I had a really great experience & will be doing it again. I came close to telling my team leader, Molly, to kiss my 40 yo ass & learn to speak to people with respect, but she was mostly sweet, though full of herself. When we started to see the cloud to ground lightning I asked what the procedure was to get us to safety when the storm moved in. She laughed it off & said I didn't need to worry about lightning & I was like, uh, honey, you CANNOT have people out in the field when that's going on. She was still smirking when her supervisor came on & told her to get us to safety...then it was my turn to smirk. My overall supervisor was a really cool guy though, and when we cleared a field and turned around to see it all pristine, well it gave me chills & made me proud. I will have some constructive criticism for them, but I look forward to repeating the experience. I met some great people & the behavior of some of the "trust fund" hippies on my team (a minority, but a pain in the butt) was a great teaching example for my 20yo son & his friend. I'm sorry for those who had a bad experience...the composting sounds rough.
mphsvoodoo, I agree that Doug (?) was awesome, I wish I'd spent more time working with him over the course of the two days because he was always really supportive and non-condescending. Glad to hear that you had a good experience overall!
Just to clarify we did get showers when I did during show cleanup, and they were plentiful and warm. And when I said the water tasted like rotten eggs, I was speaking of the drinking water, not the shower water.
I did not choose to do recycling/composting. I was assigned to a team and not told what the team would be doing until the morning we met and walked over to the recycling area. In fact, the Clean Vibes description of the volunteer work made no mention whatsoever that volunteers would be doing composting or recycling sorting at all.
It has been two weeks since cleanup and I am still waiting for my deposit back. So for future reference don't sign up for Clean Vibes unless you truly don't need your money back for a few weeks, because if you are like me and are depending on it in order to pay your rent on say, oh day after tomorrow, good freakin' luck buddy.
Post by myscatterheart on Jun 29, 2010 11:22:45 GMT -5
Email them. They'll have it straight to you. Last year, same happened to me, didn't get it until I emailed them. Made the mistake of waiting two weeks. This year, it was back to me in the allocated time.
Post by SouthGA_Festival Machine on Jun 29, 2010 16:38:55 GMT -5
I only paid a $25 registration fee, which I got back earlier than the deadline. I was on the Blue Team, so I guess I got lucky. We consolidated and swept in the campgrounds, until the last couple of days, when we moved into the What Stage field and Centeroo. I got the food I ordered for the first two days.
I wound up staying five more days and got paid cash the first day, a check the second, than cash the last three days. I got to follow a group of camp-mates who'd been there already to to the showers. We drove there, and the lights were off but the water was on, but it was still daylight, so no big problem. Then I took my next shower at the Clean Vibes Staff showers. The last two nights, Sunday and Monday, I stayed in a room with a couple of others at the Microtel.
After the first two days, we ate in the Bearly Edible Catering Tent near camp, next to the CV trailers. We got 3 meals a day there and it was great food. I think I gained a couple of pounds this year at Roo as a result, when I usually lose a few, even when I don't volunteer. I think Bearly Edible shut down Sunday after breakfast and we were fed Subway for lunch that day and the next. Sunday night, we all went out to a Mexican Restaurant in Manchester and were bought dinner and a couple of drinks (for those who were old enough ).
The work was hard and it was really hot, but we didn't have to deal with anything too bad out there, as far as I saw. And I think everyone probably averaged a dollar or two a day in change and occasional bills, not to mention a few nice groundscores. The worst thing I had to deal with were the 1000s of butts and occasional broken glass. I think we all agreed that the staff camping was the worst. There was more glass there and more trash on the ground per square foot, than in the GA camping.
I had no real problems with any CV staff or other volunteers. My experience was positive enough that I'm going to All Good next week to do it again, with this trip financed by the money I made the last five days at Roo with CV. The worst thing that I had to deal with was my tennis shoes getting wet from the rain and not having any more "closed toed shoes" to work in. My feet got in pretty bad shape because of this and are still healing. I'll have a pair of waterproof boots with me at AG, and plenty of clean socks to keep that from happening again. And because of the fact that I stuck with the job until the end and did a good job, according to the CV staff, I don't even have to pay a deposit this time, just a $20 registration fee.
Looking back on the whole two week experience, most of my best memories are from Bonnaroo camp, starting with Wed. nite at Walmart, the seven hour ordeal getting in, setting up camp, hanging out with four friends for the next four days, and then moving my camp to Clean Vibes Volunteer Camp on Monday, after saying good-bye to my friends, for what turned out to be an eight day adventure of work, hanging out, and making new friends. I got to see most of the farm, including Super VIP, the inside of The Arch, Centeroo after the wall and tents were gone, etc. Everybody should try volunteering at least once. If you're scared of Clean Vibes, start with W.E.T. That worked out well for me. Now I've got two different companies to volunteer with, covering most of the fests I go to. I'm not sure what I'll do next year for Roo, CV or WET, but I know I'll be volunteering with one or the other, and I'll be back with WET for Blackwater in August, and Bear Creek in November. I need to look into the volunteer situation for Voodoo, which I'm about to do now. ;D
Post by ChrisIronsArt on Jun 29, 2010 17:27:39 GMT -5
One girl that was a friend of a friend in our group was volunteering during the fest but quit after day one and camped with us the rest of the weekend. Not sure what she was doing but she quit because they were trying to make her do things she didnt sign up for.
any better clues?
I think Bearly Edible shut down Sunday after breakfast and we were fed Subway for lunch that day and the next. Sunday night, we all went out to a Mexican Restaurant in Manchester and were bought dinner and a couple of drinks (for those who were old enough 
