The Facts:
“Burningman” is a weeklong art and music festival held annually in Nevada’s Black Rock Dessert. For 1 week of the year it is the 5th largest city in Nevada. This year there were over 47,000 participants strong, and it’s been growing exponentially for over 20 years.
Incredible art is displayed and alive in almost every inch of this 7 square mile event. At the end of the week, every thing that was brought in for the event is either packed up, or burnt down leaving no trace that this festival ever happened in this pristine dessert en-
$250 dollars gets you in, and being mean or hostile is the greatest sin.
Any exchange of goods or services is done on an en­tirely “gifting” basis with no expectation of something in return, although trade is also allowed.
The music is thunderous and constant and coming at you from every corner in every genre but dominated by several techno beats that might drive you mad if you don’t have earplugs to sleep.
vironment.
Yes, amazing art an­nually burned to the ground, including the centerpiece of the event, a giant 70 foot high wooden and neon sculpture of a man, that is set ablaze on the last Saturday in an amazing spectacle of fireworks and pyrotechnics.
Every year incredible
world-class artists descend on this event taking advan­tage of the HUGE space available and create mam­moth art installations, many of which are larger than most buildings. Only to burn them down mere days after their completion in an awe-inspiring display of radical self-expression.
During the day temperatures can reach over 120 de­grees, by night they may drop below 50. You are as challenged by the elements as you are by your neigh­bors particular artistic vision.
You will find no cell phone signal, but possibly dis­cover poorly functioning Wi-Fi for the few that can’t pull themselves away from their laptops for a week.
It is part circus, part camping, and part waking dream where you are just as likely to discover your inner Zen as bump into a long lost friend.
There is no money allowed, no advertising either. It is a child friendly event that only bans: dogs, guns, and feathers (because of the litter).
Groups of people organize together to form “Theme Camps”. This can be as simple as 2 cars of friends who park next to each other placing a plastic flamingo and an abstract painting in their ‘front yard’ to become the “Pink Plastic Abstract” camp. This is primarily done for fun and the expression of personality, but also serves the functional purpose of the “camp marker” so they and their friends might identify their car from the many thousands of others. Like tying a ribbon to your car’s antenna so you can find it in a crowded park­ing lot, but much more fun. Some other theme camps are significantly larger becoming a mini community of dozens or even hundreds. All unified under one com­mon banner such as “Disorient”, “Automatic Subcon­scious”, “The Karma Chickens” or “The Barbie Death Camp” which decorates it’s front yard with a collec­tion of thousands upon thousands of Barbie dolls. All of which have been burnt, decapitated, shredded, or in some other way tortured in a thumbing of the nose at the modern day values of what beauty is or is not.
The largest of these Theme Camps are located on the
continued on pg. 64