Asking people to describe Burning Man nets you as many answers as there are stars in the sky: “Freedom of choice”; “Community”; “Life-changing” or simply “Summer camp”…And so on and so forth
The reality is that there’s no way to adequately describe Burning Man in a few hundred words.
At its heart, Burning Man is a weeklong event in a remote Nevada desert, where about 70,000 people congregate. They build elaborate camps, an airport, a medical centre dance stages and massive sculptures. A week later, it all disappears, only to be built again next year.
Participants generally need tickets, which costs between $400- 1,000, more if you want to bring in a car. Burning Man organizers, who run the camp around 10 principles, require that everyone be selfsufficient. In fact, the only things you can buy here on the playa are ice and coffee. The ice is to keep food fresh, and the coffee helps spur community in the centre camp area. Proceeds get donated to local schools.
Organizers also lay out the camp’s curving streets, commission artwork to be installed in the desert past the encampment, and ensure there’s enough portapotties to meet everyone’s needs. (You’re responsible for water and toilet paper, however.)
Local law enforcement and federal rangers patrol the city, although Burning Man’s volunteer Black Rock Rangers generally keep the peace, help participants meet their community obligations and ensure nothing gets too out of hand.
Parties with free food or drinks might start at 10 a.m. or 10 p.m. People have electronic dance music parties but it’s not like anyone tells them what time they can start. There’s an orgy dome and free massages and shamans doing reiki.
Burning Man’s 2016 art theme is “Da Vinci’s Workshop”, inspired by the Italian Renaissance of the middle fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries
Away from the camp, artists have dreamed up amazing things, from fire-breathing dragons to contemplative temples. Someone this year built a giant gramophone, and another group hauled the fuselage of a retired 747 jumbo jet out into the desert, which is known as the playa.
The event itself tries hard to be egalitarian, but some obvious facts stand out: 80 percent of participants are white, 40 percent are from California and nearly 60 percent of the people here live in households earning more than $100,000 annually.
Burning Man’s 2016 art theme is “Da Vinci’s Workshop”, inspired by the Italian Renaissance of the middle fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, when an historic convergence of inspired artistry, technical innovation and enlightened patronage launched Europe out of medievalism and into modernity.
All that money means people can afford to give away food and drink. Some camps host open bars each day, while others give away waffles or grilled cheese or cold-brewed iced coffee. Participants adopt playa names and generally wear elaborate costumes, in part to block the ever-present dust. Other people wear nothing at all, or go around “shirt cocking,” which is when a man wears a shirt but no pants. There’s lots of bare flesh on display, and the community self-enforces against outright ogling or exploitative photography. Reporters even have to agree to Burning Man’s strict control on copyright, and get no special treatment.
In short, the whole idea is to create a community where pretty much anything goes, without judgement or recrimination or guilt.