| Burning Man | |
|---|---|
Burning of a wooden effigy |
|
| Location(s) | Black Rock Desert, Nevada, U.S. |
| Website | burningman.com |
Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event starts on the Monday before the American Labor Day holiday, and ends on the holiday itself. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening. The event is described by many participants as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance.[1][2][3][4]
Burning Man is organized by Black Rock City, LLC. In 2010, 51,515 people attended Burning Man.[5] 2011 attendance was capped at 50,000 participants and the event sold out[6] on July 24. In April 2011, Larry Harvey announced that the Org had begun the process of transitioning management of the festival over to a new non-profit called the "Burningman Project".
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The annual event now known as Burning Man began as a bonfire ritual on the summer solstice in 1986 when Larry Harvey, Jerry James, and a few friends met on Baker Beach in San Francisco[7] and burned a 9-foot (2.7-meter) wooden man as well as a smaller wooden dog. Harvey has described his inspiration for burning these effigies as a spontaneous act of "radical self-expression".[8]
The event did have earlier roots, though. Sculptor Mary Grauberger, a friend of Harvey's girlfriend Janet Lohr, held solstice bonfire gatherings on Baker Beach for several years prior to 1986, some of which Harvey attended. When Grauberger stopped organizing it, Harvey "picked up the torch and ran with it,"[8] so to speak. He and Jerry James built an 8-foot (2.4-meter) wooden effigy for 1986, which was much smaller and more crudely made than the neon-lit figure featured in the current ritual. In 1987, the effigy grew to almost 15 feet (4.6 meters) tall, and by 1988, it had grown to around 40 feet (12 meters).
Harvey swears that he did not see the movie The Wicker Man until many years later, so it played no part in his inspiration. Accordingly, rather than allow the name "Wicker Man" to become the name of the ritual, he started using the name "Burning Man".[9]
In 1990, a separate event was planned by Kevin Evans and John Law on the remote and largely unknown dry lake known as Black Rock Desert, about 110 miles north of Reno.[10] Evans conceived it as a dadaist temporary autonomous zone with sculpture to be burned and situationist performance art. He asked John Law, who also had experience on the dry lake and was a defining founder of Cacophony Society, to take on central organizing functions. In the Cacophony Society's newsletter, it was announced as Zone Trip #4, A Bad Day at Black Rock (inspired by the movie of that name).
Meanwhile, the beach burn was interrupted by the park police for not having a permit. After striking a deal to raise the Man but not to burn it, event organizers disassembled the effigy and returned it to the vacant lot where it had been built. Shortly thereafter, the legs and torso of the Man were chain-sawed and the pieces removed when the lot was unexpectedly leased as a parking lot. The effigy was reconstructed, led by Dan Miller, Harvey's then-housemate of many years, just in time to take it to Zone Trip #4.[11]
Michael Mikel, another active Cacophonist, realized that a group unfamiliar with the environment of the dry lake would be helped by knowledgeable persons to ensure they did not get lost in the deep dry lake and risk dehydration and death. He took the name Danger Ranger and created the Black Rock Rangers.
Thus the seed of Black Rock City was germinated, organized by Law and Mikel, based on Evans' idea, along with Harvey and James' symbolic man. Since John Law worked in the sign business, he prepared custom neon tubes for the Man in 1991 so it could be seen as a beacon at night. The community grew by word of mouth alone. It consisted of participants only. There were no paid or scheduled performers or artists, no separation between art-space and living-space, no rules other than "Don't interfere with anyone else's immediate experience" and "no guns in central camp".
1991 was the first year that the event had a legal permit with the BLM (the Bureau of Land Management).[12] 1996 was the first year a formal partnership was created to own the name. 1996 was also the last year that the event was held in the middle of the Black Rock Desert and had no fence around it. Serious accidents occurring with motorized vehicles that year and pressure from county law enforcement compelled the organizers to limit driving and to create a grid of roads for all subsequent events. Rod Garrett is credited with the concentric design that continues to be used today.[13]
1997 marked another major pivotal year for the event since moving from the beach. By 1996, the land-speed-record-holding open playa had hit a critical mass with 8,000 attendees and was deemed too dangerous to continue in the same way with unrestricted driving. To implement a ban on driving and re-create the event as a pedestrian/bicycle/art car-only event, it was decided to move to private gated property. Fly Ranch with the adjoining Hualapai mini dry lake-bed just east of the Black Rock desert was chosen. This brought Burning Man into the jurisdiction of Washoe County permitting, also circumventing issues with Pershing county and the BLM.[14] To comply with the new permit requirements and to manage the increased liability load, the organizers formed Black Rock City, LLC (a limited liability company).
With the success of the driving ban, having no vehicular incidents, 1998 saw a return to the Black Rock desert; along with a temporary perimeter fence. The event has remained there since.
As the population of Black Rock city grew, further rules were established in relation to its survival. Some critics of the event cite the addition of these rules as impinging on the original freedoms, altering the experience unacceptably, while others find the increased level of activity balances out the changes.
Another notable restriction to attendees is the 7-mile-(11 km) long temporary plastic fence that surrounds the event and defines the pentagon of land used by the event on the southern edge of the Black Rock dry lake.[22] This 4-foot (1.2 meter) high barrier is known as the "trash fence" because its initial use was to catch wind-blown debris that might escape from campsites during the event. Since 2002, the area beyond this fence has not been accessible to Burning Man participants during the week of the event. [23]
At 1:25 AM on August 28, 2007, at the exact moment of the Total Lunar Eclipse, Paul Addis, a well known, longtime Burning Man participant and gadfly of BMorg (the Burning Man Organization), who had previously pranked the Man as early as 1997, set the Man on fire four days ahead of schedule.[24] A replacement effigy was built on-site and installed in time to be burned on Saturday as planned. In June 2008, he pled guilty to the felony charge of destruction of property over $5,000 and was sentenced to 1–4 years in prison. Addis is reported to have been granted parole effective February 2010.[25]
In April 2011, Larry Harvey announced that the LLC was beginning a three-year process to transfer ownership and control of the event over to a new non-profit organization called the "Burningman Project". The move towards becoming a non-profit organization was the result of "bitter infighting" between members of the board. At one point it looked like all of the board members were going to hire lawyers. Corporate appraisers were brought in to determine how much the company was worth, which Larry Harvey found "abhorrent" and against all of the values that Burning Man stood for.[26]
An earlier agreement stated that each member of the LLC would only receive "sole compensation for many years of service, a golden parachute of $20,000". But the board members all agreed to an out of court settlement in which each member of the board would receive undisclosed sums.
Marian Goodell, board member and head of communication, addressed concerns about the lack of transparency with this statement: “When you’re in the middle of a storm, if you’re going to explain all of how you got there, and how you’re going to get out, it often sets more panic among the survivors than if you just sail the boat out of the darkness.”[27]
| Year | Height from ground to top of Man | Location | Participants | Ticket price | Theme | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | 8 ft (2.4 m) | Baker Beach, San Francisco | 20 | Free | None | Larry Harvey & Jerry James build & burn wooden man on Baker Beach on the summer solstice, following a ritual bonfire tradition begun by Mary Grauberger |
| 1987 | 20 ft (6.1 m) | Baker Beach | 80 | Free | None | |
| 1988 | 30 ft (9.1 m) | Baker Beach | 150-200 | Free | None | |
| 1989 | 40 ft (12 m) | Baker Beach | 300+ | Free | None | First listing of Burning Man in the San Francisco Cacophony Society newsletter, "Rough Draft" under "sounds like cacophony." |
| 1990 | 40 ft (12 m) | Baker Beach / Black Rock Desert, Nevada | 500 / 120 | Free | None | Figure erected at Baker Beach on Summer Solstice (June 21) but not burned. Man is invited to San Francisco Cacophony Zone Trip #4 on Labor Day weekend in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada. |
| 1991 | 40 ft (12 m) | Black Rock Desert | 250 | None | First year of neon on the man. | |
| 1992 | 40 ft (12 m) | Black Rock Desert | 600 | None | ||
| 1993 | 40 ft (12 m) | Black Rock Desert | 1,000 | None | Theme camps: 1 - "Christmas Camp" | |
| 1994 | 40 ft (12 m) | Black Rock Desert | 2,000 | None | First year of wooden spires and lamplighting | |
| 1995 | 40 ft (12 m) | Black Rock Desert | 4,000 | $35 | None/ (Good and Evil; unofficial) | |
| 1996 | 48 ft (15 m) | Black Rock Desert | 8,000 | $35 | None/ (The Inferno; unofficial) | Theme featuring Dante's Inferno/HELCO. First year the man is elevated on a straw bale pyramid and guns banned in central camp. First fatality in motorcycle collision. 3 people seriously injured in a tent run over by a car.[28] 10 of 16 BLM stipulations violated, putting BM on probationary status for next year. An injury claim drives liability coverage up by a factor of 6. Featured in an article in Wired magazine.[29] Theme camps 130+ |
| 1997 | 50 ft (15 m) | Hualapai Playa | 10,000 | $65 | Fertility: The Living Land | The BM org. forms management structure, the DPW to meet strict permit requirements newly imposed. First year the city has grid streets and driving banned. Washoe County officials impounded gate receipts to ensure payment after the fire and protection fees along with more than 100 new fire and safety conditions are imposed before the event.[30] Registered theme camps: 400+ |
| 1998 | 52 ft (16 m) | Black Rock Desert | 15,000 | $80 – $90 | Nebulous Entity | Burning Man returned to the Black Rock Desert although much closer to Gerlach than before. The "Nebulous Entity" was Harvey's satirical concept of alien beings who thrive on information - who consume it but do not understand it. |
| 1999 | 54 ft (16 m) | Black Rock Desert | 23,000 | $65 – $130 | Wheel of Time | Listed in the AAA's RV guide under "Great Destinations." Registered theme camps: 320 |
| 2000 | 54 ft (16 m) | Black Rock Desert | 25,400 | $200 | The Body | First active law enforcement activity, 60 Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and police arrests and citations. Most are for minor drug charges following surveillance and searches. Registered theme camps: 460 |
| 2001 | 70 ft (21 m) | Black Rock Desert | 25,659 | $200 | Seven Ages | See Seven Ages of Man. Over 100 BLM citations and 5 arrests. Registered theme camps: 466, placed art: 150 |
| 2002 | 80 ft (24 m) | Black Rock Desert | 28,979 | $135–$200 | The Floating World | First year for FAA approved airport. 135 BLM citations and 4 Sheriff citations. Registered theme camps: 487, placed art: 120 |
| 2003 | 79 ft (24 m) | Black Rock Desert | 30,586 | $145–$225 | Beyond Belief | Dogs are banned for the first time. 177 BLM citations, 9 police citations, 10 arrests and 1 fatality.[31] Registered theme camps: 504, placed art: 261 |
| 2004 | 80 ft (24 m) | Black Rock Desert | 35,664 | The Vault of Heaven | 218 BLM citations, some issued from decoy 'art car'. Camps giving away alcohol subjected to state law compliance examinations and 1 arrest. Pershing County Sheriff's office: 27 cases, 4 arrests, 2 citations. Nevada Highway Patrol: 2 DUI arrests, 217 citations, and 246 warnings were issued. Malcolm in the Middle used burning man in one of their episodes. Registered theme camps: 503, placed art: 220 | |
| 2005 | 72 ft (22 m) | Black Rock Desert | 35,567 | $145 – $250 | Psyche - The Conscious, Subconscious & Unconscious | The Man, perched atop a "fun house" maze, can be turned by participants, confusing those at a distance who use it to navigate. Dream related art work. 218 BLM citations, 6 arrests and 1 fatality. Registered theme camps: 485, placed art: 275 |
| 2006 | 72 ft (22 m) | Black Rock Desert | 38,989 | $185 – $280 | Hope and Fear: The Future | The Man goes up and down reflecting a hope/fear meter. Voting stations were set up around the playa, allowing residents to cast a Hopeful or Fearful vote for the future of Man. If the vote was hopeful he would burn with his hands in the air- not- hands down. FYI- they voted hopeful- and his arms were raised till the end. 155 BLM citations and 1 arrest. Pershing County Sheriff's office: 1 citation and 7 arrests. Nevada Highway Patrol: 234 citations, 17 arrests, and 213 warnings. Placed art: 300 |
| 2007 | 65 ft (20 m) | Black Rock Desert | 47,366[32] | $195 – $280 | The Green Man | The Man set on fire around 2:58 AM, August 28, during full Lunar eclipse. A repeat Burning Man prankster, Paul Addis, was arrested and charged with arson,[33] and the Man was rebuilt for regular Saturday burn. Addis pleaded guilty in May 2008 to one felony count of injury to property, was sentenced to up to four years in Nevada state prison, and was ordered to pay $30,000 in restitution.[34] 331 BLM citations. Registered theme camps: 681, placed art: 300 |
| 2008 | 100 ft (30 m) | Black Rock Desert | 49,599[5] | $210 – $295 | American Dream | First year that tickets are not sold at the gate.[35] The size and layout of the city is enlarged to accommodate a larger central playa and a longer Esplanade. Because of excessively high winds and whiteout conditions on Saturday, the burning of the Man was delayed for over an hour and a half and the fire conclave was canceled. Many long time contributors opted out allegedly due to the chosen theme, jailing of dissenter Addis, and the founders' rift. The perimeter of BRC extended to 9 miles. The BLM made 6 arrests and issued 129 citations. Registered theme camps: 746, placed art: 285 |
| 2009 | 66 ft (20 m) | Black Rock Desert | 43,435 | $210 – $360 | Evolution: A Tangled Bank | Tickets sold at the gate once again. As the result of some criticism, the size and layout of the city was returned to roughly the same as the 2007 event. The BLM officials said that as of noon Saturday, 41,059 people were at the festival, and the crowd peaked at 43,435 at noon Friday, a noted decline after years of steady attendance growth, due mainly to the 2008 stock market crash. BLM issued 287 citations and 9 arrests. Registered theme camps: 618, placed art: 215 |
| 2010 | 100 ft (30 m) | Black Rock Desert | 51,454[36] | $210 – $360 | Metropolis: The Life Of Cities | Attendance over 50,000 mark, for first time. The gate opened early, at 6pm Sunday, for first time. Coincided with the inaugural Black Rock City Film Festival. BLM issued 293 citations and 8 arrests. Registered theme camps: 700, placed art: 275 |
| 2011 | 104 ft (32 m) | Black Rock Desert | 53,963[37] | $210 – $360 | Rites of Passage | According to Black Rock LLC, 27,000 tickets (all discounted tiers) were sold by midday the day following the opening of ticket sales.[38] For the first time in Burning Man history, tickets sold out before the event on July 24, 2011.[38] |
| 2012 | ? | Black Rock Desert | ? | $240 – $420 | Fertility 2.0 | Due to the sellout of the event in 2011, the BMOrg opts to evolve to a "lottery" system of ticket sales. Minimum number of available tickets for sale highest ever at 56,500. |
Note: The man itself has remained close to 40 feet (12 meters) tall since 1989. Changes in the height and structure of the base account for the differing heights of the overall structures.
The statistics above are to illustrate the growth of the Burning Man event.[39]
The event has gone through several changes, including growing from a small handful of people to over 49,500 people attending the event in 2008. The scale of the event has increased enormously, and Black Rock City, LLC has become more structured since its creation in 1997.
Burning Man 2006 was covered extensively for television for the first time by subscription television channel Current TV which handed out cameras to participants and broadcast daily updates via satellite from the dry lake. "TV Free Burning Man" also provided TV viewers an hour-long live feed of The Burn and was shown without commercial sponsorship. TV Free returned in 2007 and 2008; the 2007 coverage was nominated for a news Emmy Award[40]
Black Rock City is not considered a Census-designated place according to the United States Census Bureau. If it were, the year 2000 event attendance would have placed it between Carson City and Pahrump, making it the 7th largest city in the state of Nevada at the time. Since then, Paradise, Sunrise Manor, and Spring Valley (all suburbs of Las Vegas) experienced proportionally larger population growths than the rest of the state, pushing Black Rock City to the 10th largest city in Nevada according to 2004 census estimates (still between Carson City and Pahrump)[41]
Because of the variety of goals fostered by participatory attendees, known as "Burners," Burning Man does not have a single focus. Features of the event are subject to the participants and include community, artwork, absurdity, decommodification and revelry. Participation is encouraged.[42][43]
The Burning Man event is governed by 10 principles, which are radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy.[44]
Art on the dry lake is assisted by the Artery, which helps artists place their art in the desert and ensures lighting (to prevent accidental collisions), burn-platform (to protect the integrity of the dry lake bed), and fire-safety requirements are met.[56]
Since 1995, a different theme has been created, ostensibly by Larry Harvey, for each year's event. For 2006, the theme was Hope and Fear,[57] and for 2007, it was The Green Man.[58][59] The 2011 theme was "Rites of Passage".[60] It determines to some extent the design of the Man (although his design and construction, while evolutionary, has remained relatively unchanged) and especially the structure on which he stands (an Observatory for "Vault of Heaven," a Lighthouse for "The Floating World"). These themes also greatly affect the designs that participants employ in their artworks, costumes, camps and vehicles.[61]
Burning Man primarily features outsider art and visionary art, though a great variety of art forms appear during the event. Creative expression through the arts and interactive art are encouraged at Burning Man. Numerous Theme Camps, registered and placed by the LLC, are created as event and residence centers by sizable sub-communities of participants and use extensive design and artistic elements to engage the greater community and meet the LLC's interactivity requirements. Music, performance and guerrilla street theatre are art forms commonly presented within the camps and developed areas of the city. Adjacent to the city, the dry lake bed of Lake Lahontan serves as a tabula rasa for hundreds of isolated artworks, ranging from small to very large-scale art installations, often sculptures with kinetic, electronic and fire elements.
Artwork is generally viewed as a gift that the artist makes to the community, although art grants are available to participants from the LLC via a system of curation and oversight, with application deadlines early in the year. Grants are intended to help artists produce work beyond the scope of their own means, and are generally intended to cover only a portion of the costs associated with creation of the pieces, usually requiring considerable reliance on an artist's community resources. Aggregate funding for all grants varies depending on the number and quality of the submissions (usually well over 100) but amounts to several percent (on the order of $500,000 in recent years) of the gross receipts from ticket sales. In 2006, 29 pieces were funded.
Various standards regarding the nature of the artworks eligible for grants are set by the Art Department of the LLC, but compliance with the theme and interactivity are important considerations. This funding has fostered artistic communities, most notably in the Bay Area of California, the region that has historically provided a majority of the event's participants. There are active and successful outreach efforts to enlarge the regional scope of the event and the grant program. Among these is the Black Rock Arts Foundation (BRAF).
While BRAF does not fund any installations for the event itself, it relies on the donations from the LLC for a significant portion of its funding, and does facilitate presentation of work created for the event in outside venues as well as offering its own grants for artworks that typify interactivity and other principles and traditions the event.
Mutant Vehicles, often motorized, are purpose-built or creatively altered cars and trucks. Participants who wish to bring motorized mutant vehicles must submit their designs in advance to the event's own DMV or "Department of Mutant Vehicles” for approval and for physical inspection at the time of the event. Not all designs and proposals are accepted. The event organizers, and in turn the DMV, have set the bar higher for what it deems an acceptable MV each year, in effect capping the number of Mutant Vehicles. This is in response to constraints imposed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which grants permits to hold the event on federal property, and to participants who want to maintain a pedestrian-friendly environment. Vehicles that are minimally altered, and/or whose primary function is to transport participants, are discouraged or rejected. One of the criteria the DMV employs to determine whether an application for a proposed Mutant Vehicle is approved is "can you recognize the base vehicle". For example, if a 1967 VW van covered with glitter, dolls' heads and old cooking utensils can still be recognized as a VW van, it is considered to be "decorated not mutated" and is less likely to be approved. This criterion led to the exclusion of some "Art Cars", which historically have been a staple of the event. There were over six hundred approved Mutant Vehicles at the event in 2010.
Bicycles and tricycles are extremely popular for getting around on the dry lake. Mountain bikes are generally preferred over road bikes for riding on the dried silt, which is normally hard but becomes loose with traffic. Participants often decorate their bikes to make them unique. Since lighting on the bikes is critically important for safety at night, many participants incorporate the lighting into their decorations, using electroluminescent wire (a thin, flexible tube that glows with a neon-like effect when energized with electricity) to create intricate patterns over the frame of the bike. Every night during the festival, thousands of bikes and art cars drive around, creating a visual display similar to Las Vegas at night, except that the lights are mobile.
Beginning in 2010, a series of short films selected from around the world screened as part of the Black Rock City International Film Festival, whose name was shortened to Black Rock Film Festival in 2011.[62] 29 films were selected for the inaugural 2010 festival, which spanned four evenings. Ten films were selected to screen on the climactic evening of the burning of the Man, opening with Susan's Big Day, directed by Jeffrey Uhlmann, and closing with I'm Keith Hernandez, directed by Rob Perri.[63]
In addition to the burning of the Man, the burning of a Temple has become an activity at the event. David Best's temple projects were ritually burned from 2000 to 2004.[64]
In 2005, Best stepped aside to allow for another artist, Mark Grieve, to build his own interpretation of a Temple.[65] Grieve's temples were seen in both 2005 and 2006. However, in 2007 David Best took over the temple building duties for one last time. The 2007 Temple was named "The Temple of Forgiveness." Best has stated that it is time to hand the Temple over to the community, and in 2008 the "Basura Sagrada" Temple was a collaboration of Shrine and Tucker Teutsch 3.0, built with the extensive help of their friends and the greater Burning Man community.[66] In 2009, the "Fire of Fires" Temple for Burning Man was built in Austin, Texas.[67] In 2010, the Temple of Flux was designed and orchestrated by artists Rebecca Anders, Jess Hobbs and Peter (pk.) Kimelman who formed the Flux Foundation. This group was notable for drawing from a broad section of the Burning Man community, including the large-scale sound camps and other existing BM art groups. The Flux Foundation has since continued to make large-scale public art outside of Burning Man.[68] The Temple of Flux broke from tradition and was highly abstract in nature, appearing as a series of landforms with canyon and cave-like spaces.[69] The tradition of participants inscribing on the surfaces of the piece has continued though all of the iterations and are usually of a highly personal nature. The 2011 Temple was the first Temple built in Reno, Nevada. The International Arts Megacrew, helmed by Chris "Kiwi" Hankins, Diarmaid "Irish" Horkan and Ian "Beave" Beaverstock returned to a more traditional style. The Temple of Transition[70] took the form of a 120-foot tiered, hexagonal central tower, surrounded by five 58-foot tiered, hexagonal towers. The towers were vaulted and lofty, cut with a profusion of gothic style arches.
Black Rock City, often abbreviated to BRC, is the name of the temporary city created by Burning Man participants. Much of the layout and general city infrastructure is constructed by Department of Public Works (DPW) volunteers who often reside in Black Rock City for several weeks before and after the event.[71][72] The remainder of the city including theme camps, villages, art installations and individual camping are all created by participants.
The developed part of the city is currently arranged as a series of concentric streets in an arc composing, since 1999, two-thirds of a 1.5-mile (2.4-km) diameter circle with the Man Sculpture and his supporting complex at the very center ( in 2007). Radial streets, sometimes called Avenues, extend from the Man to the outermost circle. The outlines of these streets are visible on aerial photographs.
The innermost street is named the Esplanade, and the remaining streets are given names to coincide with the overall theme of the burn, and ordered in ways such as alphabetical order or stem to stern, to make them easier to recall. For example, in 1999, for the "Wheel of Time" theme, and again in 2004 for "The Vault of Heaven" theme, the streets were named after the planets of the solar system. The radial streets are usually given a clock designation, for example, 6:00 or 6:15, in which the Man is at the center of the clock face and 12:00 is in the middle of the third of the arc lacking streets (usually at a bearing of 60° true from the Man). These avenues have been identified in other ways, notably in 2002, in accordance with "The Floating World" theme, as the degrees of a compass, for example 175 degrees, and in 2003 as part of the Beyond Belief theme as adjectives ("Rational, Absurd") that caused every intersection with a concentric street (named after concepts of belief such as "Authority, Creed") to form a phrase such as "Absurd Authority" or "Rational Creed". However, these proved unpopular with participants due to difficulty in navigating the city without the familiar clock layout.
The Black Rock City Airport is constructed adjacent to the city, typically on its southern side. The airport serves a variety of aviation traffic, including private airplanes, helicopters, hot air balloons, ultralights, gliders, and skydivers.[73]
Center Camp is located along the mid line of Black Rock City, facing the Man at the 6:00 position on the Esplanade. This area serves as a central meeting place for the entire city as well as contains the Center Camp Cafe, Camp Arctica and a number of other city institutions.
Villages and theme camps are located along the innermost streets of Black Rock City, often offering entertainment or services to participants.[74]
Theme camps are usually a collective of people representing themselves under a single identity. Villages are usually a collection of smaller theme camps which have banded together in order to share resources and vie for better placement.
Theme camps and villages often form to create an atmosphere in Black Rock City that their group envisioned. As Burning Man grows every year it attracts an even more diverse crowd. Subcultures form around theme camps at Black Rock City similar to what can be found in other cities.
The Burning Man event is heavily dependent on a large number of volunteers.[75]
Black Rock City is patrolled by various local and state law enforcement agencies as well as the Bureau of Land Management Rangers. Burning Man also has its own in-house group of volunteers, the Black Rock Rangers, who act as informal mediators when disputes arise between participants and law enforcement.
Firefighting, emergency medical services (EMS), mental health, and communications support is provided by the volunteer Black Rock City Emergency Services Department (ESD). Three "M*A*S*H"-like stations are set up in the city: station 3, 6 and 9. Station 6 is staffed by physicians and nurses working with REMSA, the Reno based ambulance provider, while Stations 3 and 9 are staffed by Black Rock City ESD personnel. While Station 3 and 9 provide emergency services and Basic Life Support, the volunteers are generally doctors, nurses, EMTs/paramedics, and firefighters. Both station 3 and 9 have a small fire engine available in addition to a smaller four-wheel drive fire suppression unit and Quick response vehicle for medical emergencies.
The airport with regular commercial service closest to the event is the Reno-Tahoe International Airport in Reno, Nevada, approximately a 3-hour drive. An airport spokesperson said in 2009 that 15,000 burners arrive to the event via the airport annually, making it the second-busiest time for them. In 2008 and 2009, an information desk for burners was organized in Reno airport.
San Francisco, seven hours away by car, is the nearest airport with a high volume of international service.
A section of the Playa is used for a non-permanent airport, which is set up before each event and completely erased afterward.[76] Pilots began camping there about 1995, and once compelled to add structure, it was established in a form acceptable to the BLM in 1999 through the efforts of Tiger Tiger (Lissa Shoun) and LLC board member Mr. Klean (Will Roger). In 2009 it was officially recognized by the FAA and designated 88NV. Though it receives logistical support from BMOrg and operates an event gate and box office for them, it is technically an independent entity (theme camp). It is found on the Klamath Falls Sectional, using a CTAF of 122.9 MHz. Black Rock Unicom and the airport are operational on that frequency from 6:00am to 7:30pm PDT each day during the event. The runway is simply a compacted strip of playa, and is not lighted.[77] Because of the unique air traffic and safety issues associated with the airport, pilots are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with the published information and procedures at the official airport website portofentry.org. Because of the changes of the surface each year information about the airport is subject to change.[78]
There are prepaid shuttles, originating in Reno and San Francisco, that move participants to and from the event. During the event there is also a paid shuttle between the event and the nearby towns of Gerlach and Empire. Exiting and reentering the event requires an additional fee, and is highly discouraged.
Participants also share rides and hitchhike.
Burning Man takes place in the middle of a large playa and while not inhabited by humans itself, the area around the playa is home to many animals and plants.[79]
Supporters of Burning Man point out that participants are encouraged to leave no trace (LNT) of their visit to Black Rock City (BRC) and not to contaminate the area with litter, commonly known as MOOP (Matter Out Of Place). Despite the BLM and LLC's insistence on the practice of LNT, the amount of residual trash at the site has increased over the years.[80]
While fire is a primary component of many art exhibits and events, materials must be burned on a burn platform.[18] At one time, burning was allowed to take place directly on the ground of the playa, but this practice allowed burn scars to form and was discontinued. Burn scars left from 1996 (numbering 250) were finally eradicated in 2000 due to pressure from BLM Winnemucca district director Terry Reid, who was alerted to scars remaining by two of the founders of the Friends of Black Rock / High Rock (Garth Elliott & Sue Weeks). Some believe burn scars (fired clay-like playa surface) could take thousands of years to weather away. On the last day, public shared burn areas are prepared for participants to use. While Burning Man does provide instructions on how to build a Burn Platform and what not to burn, there are concerns on whether some participants do not follow these instructions to the detriment of the environment and the participants.[81][82]
Even water is not to be dumped on the playa, and used shower water must be captured and either evaporated off, or collected and carried home with each participant. Methods used for evaporating water normally include a plastic sheet with a wood frame. The playa dust often blows into these catch basins and some participants end up with a muddy mess to take home. Careful design of small scale evaporating ponds has become an engineering competition, to see what works best.
The Bureau of Land Management, which maintains the desert, has very strict requirements for the event. These stipulations include trash cleanup, removal of burn scars, dust abatement, and capture of fluid drippings from participant vehicles. For four weeks after the event has ended, the Black Rock City Department of Public Works (BRC – DPW) Playa Restoration Crew remains in the desert, cleaning up after the temporary city in an effort to make sure that no evidence of the event remains.[83]
Burning Man's carbon dioxide footprint is primarily from transportation to the remote area. The CoolingMan organization has estimated that the 2006 Burning Man was responsible for the generation of 27,000 tons of carbon dioxide, with 87% being from transportation to and from the remote location.[84] The Sierra Club has criticized Burning Man for the "hundreds of thousands" of plastic water bottles that end up in landfills, as well as ostentatious displays of flames and explosions.[85]
In 2007 Burning Man's "Green Man" theme received criticism for Crude Awakening, the 99-foot oil derrick that consumed 900 gallons of jet fuel and 2,000 gallons of liquid propane to blast a mushroom cloud 300 feet high into the sky.[86]
In an attempt to offset some of the event's carbon footprint, 30- and 50-kilowatt solar arrays were constructed in 2007 as permanent artifacts, providing an estimated annual carbon offset of 559 tons.[59]
The terms of the Burning Man ticket require that participants wishing to use video-recording equipment (including, in practice, most digital cameras) sign over copyright in their images to Black Rock City, and forbid them from using their images for anything other than personal and private use. This has been criticized by many, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation.[87][88]
A Burning Man spokeswoman replied that the policies are not new, were written by a former head of the EFF, were used when suing to block pornographic videos and ultimately arose from participant concerns: "We’re proud that Black Rock City (a private event held on public land) is widely acknowledged as a bastion of creative freedom. [B]ut that protection [of participants' freedoms] does necessitate the acceptance of some general terms of engagement when it comes to cameras... EFF seems to think that anyone attending any event somehow has an absolute right to take photographs, and then to do whatever they want with those images without any effective restriction or manner of enforcement. While we believe that such rights do make sense for any of us taking pictures in purely public spaces, this is not true in the private space of Burning Man — if it were it would mean that Burning Man couldn’t protect participant privacy or prevent commercialization of imagery."[89]
The Burning Man organization has since worked with the EFF and with Creative Commons and other parties, and has revised and clarified the photography policies.[90]
The popularity of Burning Man has encouraged other groups and organizations to hold events similar to Burning Man.
In recent years, burners wishing to experience Burning Man more frequently than once per year, without the need for travel to Nevada, or otherwise free from the specific restrictions of the Black Rock City event, have banded together to create local regional events such as SOAK [2] in Oregon; Critical Massive near Seattle; InterFuse in Missouri; Lakes of Fire in Michigan; Element 11 in Utah, Xara Dulzura and Fuego de los Muertos in San Diego; Apogaea in Colorado; Playa del Fuego in Delaware; Firefly in New England; Burning Flipside in Texas; AuraMan in Indiana; Recompression near Vancouver, British Columbia; Kiwiburn in New Zealand; Burning Seed in Australia; Rebirth in Hawaii; "Source"[3] in Maui; Transformus in North Carolina; Alchemy in Georgia; Saguaro Man in Arizona; Freezer Burn between Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta, Canada; AfrikaBurn in South Africa and NoWhere near Zaragoza in Spain.
Some of the events are officially affiliated with the Burning Man organization via the Burning Man Regional Network. This official affiliation usually requires the event to conform to certain standards outlined by the Burning Man organization, and to be substantially coordinated by a "Burning Man Regional Contact," a volunteer organizer with an official relationship to the Burning Man Project via a legal Letter of Agreement. In exchange for conforming to these standards, the event is granted permission to officially advertise as a Burning Man Regional Event.
South Park: in "Coon vs. Coon and Friends", Season 14 Episode 13, Cartman and Cthulhu destroy Burning Man all because of Cartman's hatred of hippies.
Malcolm in the Middle: Season 7, Series 130, Malcolm and Reese go to Burning Man. Malcolm meets the love of his life.
Lucy, Daughter of the Devil: Episode 4, "Temptasia". DJ Jesus makes his way to Burning Man, but is tempted by the Devil.
American Dad: "Francine's Flashback", Season 1 Episode 4, Jeff desires to go to Burning Man throughout the episode and eventually attends with Francine, whose memory of the past 20 years was accidentally erased by one of Stan's co-workers at the CIA.