Day 0. Arrived after some traffic, got my tent set up and immediately dived into some volunteering on directing campervans around safely. Pro tip for the smaller tents: survival blankets will even out the temp (more on this later)

The whole of #emfcamp is run by volunteers from start to finish: build, org, run, talks, phone lines to elder gods, installations, infrastructure, all of it. If you volunteered you are an awesome person.

A quick bit of tape for who I was and I was set for the weekend

Day 0 #emfcamp
A month of rain falling one day before a festival makes for interesting logistics (shout out to all those building up during this for being amazing). Fortunately EMF attendees seem to be prepared for quite literally anything...

During my shift I overheard part of a conversation that made me smile:
"This is basically all the people who'd rebuild after an apocalypse. EMF would be the best survivor camp."

Hard not to agree when you walk past things like this!

Day 0 #emfcamp
After food from the vendors (more later there 👀) a quick trip via the shop netted me a patch and pin with the amazing artwork for this year. My nerd battle jacket will wear these with pride.

The @robotarms is always a highlight of EMF and the spread was amazing again.

To the person on their first shift who served us right as Cloudwater ran out but he person who wanted it had left their lights on so wasn't there: you did good, hope the rest of your shift was less confusing!

Day 0 #emfcamp
As night descends the lasers and lights begin. If you've never read a NOTAM for EMF you should, aircraft being warned about a laundry list of laser, lights and fire feels delightfully unusual.

Not all roads lead to Rome but giant sky lasers always lead to Null Sector. However that's a trip for the next day while the finishing touches are applied.

We'll just have to survive with the music playing giant tesla coil for a bit, oh no...

We reach the morning of #emfcamp day 1!
A fine view from my tent, grabbing a coffee and helping ensure that we're being very, very safe when driving any form of vehicle.

Shout out to the Leeds Hackspace crew for letting me camp with them again this EMF, it was as always a lovely group of people.

Spoiler: the sun literally did not stop shining from this point forwards and it was glorious.

Day 1 #emfcamp - opening ceremony!

Everyone headed on down to Stage A to see @jonty officially open things up (I can only apologise for my amateur photography here).

I believe the stat for talks/workshops was 12 days straight of content and that's just the 'official' stuff. It's literally impossible to "do all of EMF" and to me that's what makes it magical.

I said it earlier but I really loved the Stage A layout and I think this shows why. Look at all these people ready to do cool things!

Day 1 #emfcamp (repost, all hail train signal)
Went for a wander before getting into the talks - did you know EMF has both a DECT and copper phone network? ( @CuTEL )

I was FORG this year as someone nabbed FROG, but I did enjoy the racoon noise and RAT FACTS phone extensions. Last time I had 7253 play the "new emergency service" jingle from IT crowd, it's such a fun thing to exist.

The noticeboard was already filling with cool things happening around the campsite and event!

Day 1 #emfcamp
The first talk I saw was an incredibly cool link up with Boulby lab, and yes I was apparently the first to clock a certain red rabbit appearing in shot. Due to the camera I thought it was a small one but quickly learned it was **significantly bigger**.

Live link to an underground facility studying radiation and space and all manner of interesting stuff was absolutely *amazing* though. Like absolutely fantastic, so good work to all involved in making it happen!