Whether you're an emerging artist or a seasoned creator, Figment's ALPHA Festival invites you to bring a project to explore and innovate in our supportive community!
Boasting the comfort and nostalgic charm of an adult sleep-away camp (with insulated cabins, indoor plumbing, hot showers, and meal plans for purchase)—ALPHA is a BYO festival offering the time, space, and focus to build, experiment, iterate, and launch your latest creations.
ALPHA was launched by FIGMENT in 2013 to foster a supportive environment for interactive and participatory art, and to provide our artists a place to try, fail, collaborate, improve, refine, and launch their best new projects. For over a decade, FIGMENT and our friends at Camp Ramblewood have been helping ALPHAnauts of all ages, visions, skill-levels, and disciplines find a way to achieve the unexpected.
JOIN US!
ALPHA proudly follows the 11 Principles of FIGMENT (based on the 10 Principles of Burning Man).
When: April 24-27, 2025
Where: Camp Ramblewood, 2564 Silver Road, Darlington, MD 21034. Click here for directions.
How:
- Tickets: All participants require a ticket for entry. More about ticket tiers and pricing HERE.
- Camping & Cabins: All ticketed admission includes bed assignment in (newly-renovated) communal camp cabin. Or, you are welcome to camp in a tent anywhere on the Camp Ramblewood property (but we recommend near your assigned cabin so that you can the showers and bathrooms in your assigned cabin).
- Meal Plans: Meal plans are available for purchase on our ticketing page. Please note that our meal plan offering for 2025 will include 6 meals: Thursday Dinner, Friday Brunch, Friday Dinner, Saturday Brunch, Saturday Dinner, and Sunday Brunch. Though there will be communal meals offered with this meal plan, ALPHA encourage attendees are welcome to bring and prepare their own food if meal plan costs are a concern. Want to organize, team up with others, or feed people as part of an Alpha project?
- Participation: Every ALPHA attendee is expected to bring an interactive or participatory project to share with the community. What’s an ALPHA project and where can I see some examples?
- Location: Camp Ramblewood is a 200-acre private resort with lakes, hiking trails, a barn, pavillion, dance hall, meeting rooms, as well as private and communal cabins and meeting rooms. (Note the swimming pool at Camp Ramblewood will not yet be open for ALPHA’s April Festival).
- Curation: ALPHA’s volunteer curatorial and production team does our best to accommodate a diverse range of interactive and participatory projects (indoor, outdoor, powered, etc.) and to build a comprehensive programming schedule to enable as much participation and engagement as possible—and to that end, the ALPHA team will provide a "What When Where" programming guide ahead of the event. However, due to the experimental nature of ALPHA, not all art and programming happens when, where, or how described. Daily announcements and a white board are provided for last minute scheduling changes—enjoy the whims and magic of what happens or does not happen at ALPHA.
- Logistics: Need help getting your large art project to ALPHA from NYC and back? We can help. Email the ALPHA team at [email protected].
- Artist Financial Support: $20 of every ticket sale is used to support ALPHA artists; we use a token system that allows participants to directly support artists of their choice (each gifted token can be redeemed for cash which helps artists–you!–offset your costs. It’s fun and earning a community token is an honor and a thank you for your hard work!
- Effigy: Participants enjoy a community fire project culminating in a shared burn event on Saturday night. We are currently looking for our 2025 Burn Team and Effigy Design! Please email us at [email protected] if you’d like to design and build the 2025 ALPHA effigy or volunteer with the effigy crew!
Tickets: HERE
