Electromagnetic Field 2016 is just over a week away, so here’s a quick rundown of the important things you need to know:

Tickets

You should have received your ticket by email in the last few days - if you haven’t, you can download it here. We recommend you print your tickets in case you run out of battery, but we can scan them on your phone.

Arriving

The gates will open at 9am on Friday August 5th. Please check our travel advice for where to aim your satellite navigation, and for details about shuttle buses from the train station.

If you are planning to set up a village and need longer to prepare (or are travelling from afar), we may be able to allow you on site sooner. Please email villages@emfcamp.org if this is the case.

If you’d like to plan where you’re camping, our site map is now available.

Leaving

Although our final act will finish around 23:00 on Sunday, the bar will be open until late, so we recommend you stick around overnight. (Although please be careful about drinking too much if you’ll be driving the following day!)

If you’re not helping with teardown, you will need to leave the site by midday 12:00pm on Monday 8th. Please take everything away with you - we have to pay to dispose of everything you leave behind.

What to bring

The list of things to bring to EMF is a little different from your usual camping trip. Take a look at our packing list.

The Most Important Things:

  • The schedule is almost entirely online, so you’ll want to bring something that can view our website (a smartphone is fine).
  • If you want to have power to your tent, bring a 20-30m extension cable!

Volunteering

EMF is entirely organised & run by unpaid volunteers, and we ask everybody who attends to try and contribute a few hours of their time helping out on-site. Anybody who works a three-hour shift will be provided with a hot meal from our new volunteer area!

If you’d like to sign up for the best volunteer shifts in advance, please visit our volunteer system.

Schedule

We’ve just released the initial schedule of talks and workshops - this does not yet include evening events, youth, or village content, and will be subject to some tweaks before the event.

Workshops

If you’re planning on attending a workshop at EMF, check the schedule to see if there’s there’s anything you need to bring (many require a laptop). Some workshops may charge a small fee.

In contrast to previous years, workshops at EMF 2016 will operate on a first-come-first-served basis - simply show up before the workshop and wait. In 2014, the majority of workshops filled up almost immediately once signups opened, so we hope this will be (slightly) fairer, and reduce no-shows. We’ll provide chairs for those who have difficulty standing in a queue.

Lightning Talks

Although the Call for Participation is now closed we have slots available for 10-minute lightning talks. If you’re interested in talking, drop an email to lightning@emfcamp.org, or visit the Green Room once you’re at EMF.

Young Attendees

Nipperbout will be providing full childcare for under 16s between 10:30 and 20:00 each day and there will also be a full programme of youth content to be announced shortly. To make use of the childcare, simply visit the crèche in the family camping area and check your children in.

An adult must be present to supervise and assist children under 10 in the youth workshops in Workshop 3 but please check the descriptions as occasionally adults may be needed to assist older children, depending on the nature of the workshop.

Food & drink

The site will be equipped with food vendors catering for most dietary needs, however many people will choose to cook for themselves or in groups. We will provide some communal barrel barbecues, but feel free to bring any cooking device as long as you don’t scorch the grass - open fires are fine as long as a fire pit or other ground-protection device is used.

We have a bar fully stocked with soft drinks, wine, cider, spirits, and beer from Milton, Redchurch, Hogs Back, Fourpure, Surrey Hills, and Five Points. Not only that, but we have Square Root Soda making drinks on-site!

Paying for things

The bar will accept cards, cash, and contactless, and offers cashback on debit card purchases. Most food vendors & workshops will only accept cash, so we recommend that you bring some with you.

Internet

The EMF site will have a 1 gigabit internet connection, with high-speed WiFi and wired connectivity. For lots more advice and details about the network, see our wiki.

Other things to prepare for

Hack-N-Swap-O-Rama™

On Saturday morning the Hack center will be hosting the very first EMF Hack-N-Swap-O-Rama™, a place to beg, haggle, sell, buy, barter and swap your obsolete technology, abandoned projects, unwanted gimmicks, and surplus acquisitions. Bring a box of junk and take away a different one! Find out more on the event page.

Hebocon

Saturday evening plays host to the first major UK Hebocon, a robot fighting competition for the technically ungifted. Hosted by Tom Scott, anyone can take part - just bring along a crappy robot, or build one on-site! Find out more on the event page.

Anything else?

If our FAQ can’t answer your question please send an email to contact@emfcamp.org.

Code of Conduct

We’d like to remind you that we expect all attendees to adhere to our Code of Conduct. Please read it before the event.

Thanks

Without the support we have received from our amazing sponsors none of this would be possible. We are indebted to Texas Instruments, ST Microelectronics, HCD, Microsoft, UCL Engineering, Nexmo, Spotify, MathWorks, Portcullis, Smart Carbon Control, Yelp, Heart Internet, Wurth Elektronik, RS Components, CodeThink, Twilio, Chef, Improbable, Medical Connections, Just Add Sharks, FlexOptix, and DHTMLX.

See you in the field,

The (exhausted) EMF Team