This week's name, ticking clocks and melting things.
Hello, Reso-nauts, spacetime drifters, and people who definitely meant to buy their ticket last week,
Let's not bury the lede under a pile of whimsy this time. Well, a small pile. A tasteful mound. But the point is this: September 1 is coming, and it is carrying a few things you need to know. Nothing relative about it.
Tickets: Still Real, Still Available, Still Closing September 1
We said it before. We'll say it again, because rumor travels faster than a theme camp rumor about a rumor, and this one keeps resurfacing like a stubborn dust bunny:
Tickets are on sale until September 1. Not September 2. Not "whenever the stars align." September 1. The Buy button works. It has always worked. It will continue to work right up until the portal closes and we all have a good, sad look at each other.
So if you've been sitting on the fence, now is the moment to hop off it, ideally into the warm embrace of a ticket purchase. Do not let the drama mill convince you that you missed out. Do not show up at the gate with a hopeful expression and no ticket, because we have heard that story before, and its ending is dust and disappointment.
September 1. That's the date. After that, the door closes, the light goes off, and the only thing relative will be your distance from the party.
Theme Camps: It's Not Too Late, and the Great Philosopher Nike Has Spoken
Somewhere out there is a person reading this who has been quietly nursing a theme camp idea since, oh, March. A 2 a.m. grilled-cheese emporium. A conversation pit orbiting a motorized couch. A shrine to the humble lowland streaked tenrec. You've been telling yourself it's too late, the window closed, you'll do it next year.
Nonsense. It's not too late. Theme camp applications close September 1, same as everything else, which means the window is, right now, still open. The light is on. We are practically waving you inside.
To those of you hesitating, we offer the immortal wisdom of the great philosopher Nike, who once said, and we quote, "Just do it." Profound. Concise. Largely unbothered by your spreadsheet of excuses.
Will it be chaotic? Yes. Will you build it with duct tape, determination, and a friend who owes you a favor? Probably. Will it be the thing someone stumbles into at 2 a.m. and talks about for the rest of the year? Absolutely.
Measure your space, include everything (the bull, the bus, the mysterious crates), submit before September 1, and let future-you thank present-you for not sitting this one out. Just do it.
Art Grants: Being Allocated, and It Is Not Too Late
Yes, you read that correctly. Art grant money is being allocated right now, and the pool has not been drained. It's still there, glistening, waiting for your wild, improbable, magnificent idea to come claim it.
If you have a project, a vision, a thing you've sketched on a napkin that deserves to exist in physical form out in a Kansas field, apply. Grants are there specifically to support radical expression, materials included, so the "but I can't afford the supplies" objection is now officially retired.
Don't wait until the moment feels perfect. The moment is already moving. Money is literally being allocated as you read this, and it would very much like to go to your art. Just do it. (Nike again. He's on a roll today.)
Ice: A Humble Request, Delivered With a Cold, Cold Heart (of Gold)
Here's a thing a lot of first-timers don't fully appreciate until they're four hours into a Kansas September afternoon: ice is not a luxury. Ice is infrastructure. Ice is what stands between you and a very warm, very sad situation involving lukewarm beverages and questionable potato salad.
So here's the ask, and we're asking nicely because the ice team is one of the most appreciated crews on site and they'd rather be handing out bags than explaining that the pre-order window closed:
If possible, please purchase your ice when you buy your ticket. Pre-purchased ice. Bags you know are yours, waiting for you at the scheduled pickup times, handled by organized humans who have gamely volunteered to be "associated with one of the most appreciated resources on site."
Buying ice ahead means:
Your cooler stays cold, which is its entire job
The ice team can plan, order, and distribute without improvisational chaos
You don't have to perform a mid-event ice run that ends in a shrug
Think of it as a love letter to your future self. Your future self is very sweaty and very grateful.
Volunteers: The Need Has Not Evaporated (Unlike Your Ice)
We need people. Still. The need did not magically fill itself while you were reading this sentence. It does not work that way, and frankly if it did, we would have stopped asking by now.
Four hours. One meal. Infinite bragging rights. That's the deal, and it is an unbeatable one. The departments are many and varied: Gate (first face, sacred clipboard), Greeters (radiate welcome), Doozers (build all the things), Parking (navigate Space and Time), HQ (the nerve center), Temple, Kitchen, Effigy, Rangers, First Aid, Ice, Earth Guardians, FAST, SandKats, Perimeter, Placement, Resto, the list goes on, and all of it runs on humans just like you.
Some of these roles are genuinely under-loved and would very much enjoy your company. Every shift is a co-author credit in the thing we're all building. Sign up, and then, this is the important part, drag a friend into signing up too. Peer pressure, but make it community.
All the links live in the Get Involved section on the website. You know the one. The same website. Click. Sign. Done.
Obligatory Weird Animal Fact
The wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) spends the winter literally frozen solid. Its heart stops. Its blood stops. Up to 65% of the water in its body turns to ice. By any reasonable definition, it is dead for months at a time. And then, come spring, it thaws, its heart restarts, and it hops off to find a date like nothing happened.
The Reso connection: A creature so committed to showing up that it refuses to let a little thing like being completely frozen stop it. If a wood frog can thaw itself out and make it to spring, you can buy your ticket, throw together a last-minute theme camp, apply for an art grant, grab some ice, and sign up for a shift before September 1.
Also: it's the closest thing in nature to a pre-purchased ice bag that never melts, which we find deeply reassuring.
The Cheat Sheet
Thing | What You Need To Know |
Tickets | On sale until September 1. Still available. Stop panicking. |
Theme Camps | Not too late but getting there, iclude everything. Just do it. |
Art Grants | Being allocated now. Still not too late to apply. Amaze us. |
Ice | Please pre-purchase with your ticket, if you can. Your future self thanks you. |
Volunteers | Four hours. One meal. Sign up. Pretty please with sugar on top. |
Vehicle Passes | $10 per vehicle. Every dollar funds art. |
The Portos: Now With Names (Because We've Clearly Lost All Impulse Control)
The streets have names. The parking lots have names. The theme camps are Clusters and Nebulas. It would be wrong, dare we say, inhospitable, to leave the portos as anonymous plastic monoliths. So we're naming them. All of them. Because everything is relative, including, apparently, the dignity of a portable toilet.
E = mc² — Everyone must crap too. Einstein's most misunderstood equation, finally given its truest meaning.
The Gravitational Poo — What goes down, stays down. Newton would be proud, and your digestive system is relieved.
The MultiTURDverse — Every possible outcome exists in here. Most of them involve a vape and a sigh of resignation.
The PEErallel POOniverse — A neighboring reality where the door, inexplicably, is always locked. Wait — no, it's occupied. Same thing.
Relativity Restroom — Time moves differently in here. A two-minute visit is six songs long. The line outside is a living experiment in time dilation.
TURDis — Bigger on the inside. [Ada] Don't ask how. Just accept that it is, and that the physics are none of our concern.
The Dark Matter Depository — We cannot observe what happens within, only measure its profound effect on the community at large.
Shit Happens 🤷♂️ Here — The most honest sign on the entire site. No false advertising, no mystery, just truth, and a small shrug.
Relativity Clean — A name that is both an aspiration and a moving target. It's clean relative to... well, let's not finish that sentence.
The TURDimension — One more dimension than you were prepared for. Mind your step.
Radical Self-Relief — A principle we've lived by all along, finally honored with its own dedicated facility.
So when someone asks "hey, which one's free?" you can now respond, with total confidence, "The PEErallel POOniverse just opened up, but I'd try Radical Self-Relief — it's never let anyone down."
One Final Nudge
September 1 doesn't care about your busy schedule or your waiting-for-payday strategy. It is coming whether you're ready or not, carrying tickets, theme camp apps, art grant applications, ice orders, and a volunteer roster that would very much like your name on it.
The only question is whether you'll be part of making this beautiful, dusty, ridiculous thing happen, or watching from a comfortable, regrettable distance.
So, to recap, in the immortal words of the great philosopher Nike: Just do it. Buy the ticket. Throw the camp. Apply for the grant. Add the ice. Grab a shift. Then go make something strange and wonderful.
We'll see you in the field.
With love, relativity, a suspicious amount of glitter, and a cooler that stays cold because you planned ahead,
The Reso Teamec@wichitaburners.org
This Edition: Ticking Clocks and Melting ThingsOfficial-ish Newsletter of Reso 2026: Everything is RelativeSeptember 17–20 | Near Hutchinson, KansasNext week's name: something entirely different, probably involving ice packs.
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