Burning Man

Burning Man is a week-long large-scale desert event focused on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance" held annually in the western United States. The event's name comes from its ceremony on the penultimate night of the event: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred to as the Man, the Saturday evening before Labor Day. Since 1990, the event has been at Black Rock City in northwestern Nevada, a temporary city erected in the Black Rock Desert about 100 miles (160 km) north-northeast of Reno. According to Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey in 2004, the event is guided by ten stated principles: radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy.
Burning Man features no headliners or scheduled performers; participants create all the art, activities, and events. Artwork includes experimental and interactive sculptures, buildings, performances, and art cars, among other media. These contributions are inspired by a theme chosen annually by the Burning Man Project. The event has been called "countercultural revelry" and described by its organizers as an "excuse to party in the desert". However, NPR said of Burning Man in 2019, "Once considered an underground gathering for bohemians and free spirits of all stripes, Burning Man has since evolved into a destination for social media influencers, celebrities and the Silicon Valley elite."
Burning Man originated on June 22, 1986, on Baker Beach in San Francisco as a small function organized by Larry Harvey and Jerry James, the builders of the first Man. It has since been held annually, spanning the nine days leading up to and including Labor Day. Over the event's history, attendance has generally increased. In 2019, 78,850 people participated.
Burning Man is organized by the Burning Man Project, a nonprofit organization that, in 2013, succeeded Black Rock City LLC, a for-profit limited liability company. Black Rock City LLC was formed in 1999 to represent the event's organizers and is now considered a subsidiary of the nonprofit organization. The Burning Man Project endorses multiple smaller regional events guided by the Burning Man principles in the United States and internationally.
The film Stalker by Tarkovsky heavily influenced the Cacophony Society, which began in 1986 in the San Francisco Bay Area and which organized "Zone Trips" for participants.
The first burning of a wooden, symbolic man at Black Rock Desert, Nevada, occurred on "Zone Trip Number 4" in 1990. This occasion evolved into an enormous annual festival of arts, music, and culture called Burning Man.
Burning Man began as a bonfire ritual on the summer solstice. Sculptor Mary Grauberger, a friend of Larry Harvey's girlfriend, Janet Lohr, held solstice bonfire gatherings on Baker Beach for several years before 1986, some of which Harvey attended. When Grauberger stopped organizing it, Harvey "picked up the torch", with Grauberger's permission, and ran with it. He and Jerry James built the first wooden effigy on June 21, 1986, cobbled together using scrap wood, to be torched that evening. On June 22, Harvey, James, and a few friends met on Baker Beach in San Francisco and burned an 8-foot-tall (2.4 m) wooden man and a smaller wooden dog. Harvey later described his inspiration for burning these effigies as a spontaneous act of "radical self-expression". In 1987, the Man grew to 15 feet (5 m) tall, and by 1988, it had grown to 30 feet (9 m).
By 1988, Harvey formally named the summer solstice ritual "Burning Man" by titling flyers for the happening as such. This was done to ward off references to "wicker man", the reputed Celtic pagan practice of burning live sacrifices in human-shaped wicker cages. Harvey has said that he had not seen the 1973 cult film The Wicker Man until many years after and that it did not inspire the action.
In 1990, a separate event was planned by Kevin Evans and John Law on the remote and largely unknown playa, known as the Black Rock Desert, about 110 miles (180 km) north of Reno, Nevada. Evans conceived it as a dadaist temporary autonomous zone with sculptures 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 the Cacophony Society, to take on central organizing functions of the events. In the Cacophony Society's newsletter, it was announced as Zone Trip No. 4, A Bad Day at Black Rock (inspired by the 1955 film of the same name).
Meanwhile, the solstice burn at Baker Beach 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 it 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 were removed when the space was unexpectedly leased as a parking lot. The Man was reconstructed, led by Dan Miller, Harvey's then-housemate of many years, just in time to take it to Zone Trip No. 4.
Michael Mikel, another active Cacophonist, realized that participants unfamiliar with the environment of the dry lake would benefit from knowledgeable persons helping 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 to assist them. Thus, Black Rock City began as a fellowship organized by Law and Mikel, based on Evans's and Grauberger's ideas and Harvey's and James's symbolic man. Drawing on experience in the sign business and with light sculpture, Law prepared custom neon tubes for the Man starting in 1991 so it could be seen as a beacon to aid navigation at night long before there were any planned roads.
In its early years, the community grew by word of mouth alone, and all were considered (and generally not invited until they could be expected to be) participants in their contribution to the cacophonous situationist vibe. There were no paid or scheduled performers or artists, no separation between art and life nor 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 marked the first year that the event had a legal permit through the BLM (the Bureau of Land Management). It was also the year that art model and fire dancer (and later Burning Man's first art director) Crimson Rose attended the event. 1992 saw the birth of a smaller, intensive, nearby event named "Desert Siteworks", conceived and directed by William Binzen and co-produced (in 1993 and '94) with Judy West. There were about 20 participants the first year, and approximately 100 in the second and third year. The annual, several weeks-long event, was held over summer Solstice at various fertile hot springs surrounding the desert. Participants built art and participated in self-directed performances.
Some key organizers of Burning Man were also part of Desert Siteworks (Law, Mikel) and Binzen was a friend of Harvey. Hence, the two events saw much cross-pollination of ideas and participants. The Desert Siteworks project ran for three years (1992–1994). 1996 was the first year a formal partnership was created to own the name "Burning Man" and was also the last year the event was held in the middle of the Black Rock Desert with no fence around it.
Before the event opened to the public in 1996, a worker named Michael Furey was killed in a motorcycle crash while riding from Gerlach, Nevada, to the Burning Man camp in the Black Rock Desert. Harvey insisted that the death had not occurred at Burning Man, since the gates were not yet open. Another couple were run over in their tent by an art car driving to the "rave camp", which was at that time distant from the main camp. After the 1996 event, Law broke with Burning Man and publicly said the event should not continue.
1997 marked another major pivotal year for the event. It had to be moved because the permit for Black Rock was denied for the 1997 event. A team conducting land speed trials had a conflicting permit that took precedence. Fly Ranch, with the smaller adjoining Hualapai dry lakebed, just west of the Black Rock desert, was chosen as the alternate location. This moved Burning Man from Pershing County/federal BLM land into the jurisdiction of Washoe County, which brought a protracted list of permit requirements.
In 1999 to comply with the new requirements and manage the increased liability load, Harvey and five organizers formed Black Rock City LLC with the assistance of "Biz Babe" Dana Harrison. The LLC founders consisted of Larry Harvey (chief philosophy officer), Harley K. DuBois (chief transition officer), Marian Goodell (CEO), Crimson Rose (art transition officer), Will Roger Peterson (Nevada relations director), and Michael Mikel (historian and archivist).
Will Roger Peterson and Flynn Mauthe created the Black Rock City Department of Public Works (DPW) to build the "city" grid layout (a requirement so that emergency vehicles could be directed to an "address"), designed by Rod Garrett, an architect. Garrett continued as the city designer until his death in 2011, at age 76. He is also credited with the design of all of the Man bases from 2001 through 2012, the center camp café and first camp. 1998 saw a return to the Black Rock desert, although not to the deep playa, along with a temporary perimeter fence. The event has remained there since.
As the population of Black Rock City grew, the BLM added more restrictions, and changes were made in how people were invited to the event, notably the addition of publicized online ticket sales to all comers; further rules were established concerning its survival. Some critics of the later phase of the event cite these rules as impinging on the original freedoms and principles, diminishing the scope of the experience unacceptably, while many newer attendees find the increased level of activity more than balances out the changes:
Another notable restriction to attendees is the 9.2-mile- (14.8 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. 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 event.
One visitor who was accidentally burned at the 2005 event unsuccessfully sued Black Rock City LLC in San Francisco County Superior Court. On June 30, 2009, the California Court of Appeal for the First District upheld the trial court's grant of summary judgment to Black Rock City LLC on the basis that people who deliberately walk toward The Man after it is ignited assume the risk of getting burned by such a hazardous object.
In December 2013, following negotiations between founders, Black Rock City LLC was made a subsidiary of a new nonprofit entity known as the Burning Man Project.
On September 3, 2017, a 41-year-old man, Aaron Joel Mitchell, fought his way past a safety cordon of volunteers and firefighters and threw himself into the flames of the Man. Mitchell died the next day due to cardiac arrest, bodily shock, and third-degree burns to 97% of his body. His death was ruled a suicide.
On April 10, 2020, the Burning Man Project announced that Burning Man was canceled for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, making 2020 the first year Burning Man did not happen since its inception. They then decided to offer ticket refunds despite the tickets being sold explicitly as non-refundable.
On September 7, 2020, an estimated 1,000 Burners celebrated on San Francisco's Ocean Beach. San Francisco Mayor London Breed tweeted about the event, "This was reckless and selfish. You aren't celebrating, but are putting people's lives and our progress at risk. No one is immune from spreading the virus." Several thousand also showed up in the Black Rock desert for an unofficial event and some described it as a return to the "old days".
The 2021 event was canceled on April 27, 2021, due to the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite progress on vaccination, organizers said that "uncertainties that need to be resolved are impossible to resolve in the time we have". On May 14, 2021, the Burning Man Project released tickets on their website for online events slated between August 22 and September 7, 2021.
The unofficial event was more extensive than in 2020, with an estimated 20,000 attending. Various groups loosely coordinated it, including Black Rock Plan B and Rogue Burn. The Bureau of Land Management implemented restrictions including no structures other than shade structures and no fires other than campfires. There was a massive illuminated drone display outlining the Man instead of the burning of a Man effigy.
The 2023 Burning Man had rains and subsequent flooding on Labor Day weekend, with a lockdown preventing vehicle movement throughout the site. Organizers arranged for some cellular service and shared a 2023 Wet Playa Survival Guide: "no driving is permitted until the playa surface dries up, with the exception of emergency services… Participants are encouraged to conserve food, water, and fuel, and shelter in a warm, safe space" and told attendees about Burning Man Information Radio (BMIR) 94.5 FM and Gate Information Radio Station (GARS) 95.1. One person died following the flooding, with thousands more stranded.
On August 25, 2024, the first day of the 2024 Burning Man festival, a female participant died. On August 26, it was reported that tickets remained unsold for the festival for the first time since 2011.
An epic dust storm was reported on the final day of the event, snarling departure traffic and causing lines to last more than four hours.
The Burning Man Project is currently engaged in a fundraising campaign that began in October 2024. The campaign aims to collect $20 million. On December 19, 2024, CEO Marian Goodell emailed supporters that the project still requires $14 million to meet its financial goal for the 2025 festival.
The statistics below illustrate the growth in both the scale and scope of Burning Man in terms of location, height of the central Man sculpture, population, ticket price, and several registered camps and art.
After starting at 8 ft (2.4 m) and growing taller each of the next three years, the height of the titular Man remained at 40 ft (12 m) between 1989 and 2013. During those years, changes in the size and form of the base on which the wooden Man stood accounted for the differing heights of the overall structures. In 2014 the construction of the Man changed to a 105 ft (32 m) tall figure standing directly on the ground with no base. From 2015 to 2019 the Man returned to 40 ft (12 m) in height.
The population count is a stipulation of the Special Recreation Permit (SRP) granted to the Burning Man Project, formerly Black Rock City, LLC (BRC), by the BLM, for the event each year. Originally used to calculate fees, it's now used to ensure that the event does not exceed the maximum authorized population as specified in the SRP. Not everyone at the event is included in the population count. Exempted from the count are government personnel and government contractors; however, this has changed over time.
The population count was originally used to calculate fees owed to the BLM. It was not long until the BLM began considering putting a limit on the number of people that would be allowed to attend the event. This became a point of contention as early as 1998 when the BLM proposed a complicated usage formula, effectively limiting the size of the event to that of the previous year.
Starting in 2006, the SRP stipulated that BRC manage "ticket sales in a manner to keep the maximum population of the event from increasing more than 6% above the highest population recorded in a previous year." Fees were based on the daily population counts of Black Rock City at noon. This was the first year where fees were explicitly exempted for BRC staff..
In 2011, the fee structure changed to be based on adjusted gross income and was no longer tied to daily population counts.
The 2012 SRP further defined who was to be counted in population counts. The term "participant" was introduced, as defined in that year's Environmental Assessment (EA), to include "all attendees of the event, including paid participants and volunteers. The population does not include government personnel, Humboldt General Hospital emergency service providers, vendors and contractors." The maximum authorized population now applied to "participants".
In 2014, volunteers were explicitly exempted from the population count and the population cap was further refined to now apply to "paid participants".
In 2019, the definition of "population" changed again, this time to include BRC staff and volunteers, now collectively referred to as "attendees". This coincided with the necessity of a new Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the 2019–2028 SRP application which introduced this change in definition. The Burning Man Project reported a population of 78,850 for that year, an increase of about 8,600 people from the previous year, noting that "everyone" was now being counted in the maximum population count. This roughly correlates with the Burning Man Project's 2019 Form 990 disclosure which states it employs 986 people and has 10,000 volunteers.
In 2022, an additional restriction on the total number of attendees for the entirety of the event was introduced. "The cumulative maximum authorized population for the 2022 event is 87,000 total attendees." The maximum number of attendees on the playa at any one time remained as it was in 2019 at 80,000.
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.
The Burning Man event and its affiliated communities are guided by 10 principles meant to evoke the cultural ethos that has emerged from the event. They were originally written by Larry Harvey in 2004 as guidelines for regional organizing, then later became universal criteria of the general culture of the multifaceted movement. The 10 Principles are:
The descriptions in quotes are the actual text:
"Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community." This was written with a broad stroke for general organizing, meaning anyone is welcome to the Burning Man culture. Prerequisites for the Burning Man event are: participants are expected to provide for their own basic needs, follow the guidelines in the annually updated event "survival guide", and purchase a $475 ticket to get in.
"Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift-giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value." Instead of cash, burners are encouraged to rely on a gift economy, a sort of potlatch. In the earliest days of the event, an underground barter economy also existed, in which burners exchanged "favors" with each other. While this was originally supported by the Burning Man organization, it is now largely discouraged. Instead, burners are encouraged to give one another gifts unconditionally.
"To preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience." No cash transactions are permitted between burners. Cash can be used for a select few charity, fuel, and sanitation vendors as follows:
"Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise, and rely on his or her inner resources." The event's harsh environment and remote location require participants to be responsible for their subsistence. Since the LLC forbids most commerce, participants must be prepared and bring all their own supplies with the exception of the items stated in Decommodification. Public portable toilets are also available throughout the city; some of these are, like art cars, decorated in imaginative ways by volunteers.
"Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient." Burners are encouraged to express themselves in a number of ways through various art forms and projects. The event is clothing-optional and public nudity is common, though not practiced by the majority.
"Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction." Burners are encouraged to work with and help one another.
"We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws."
"Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them."
"Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart." People are encouraged to participate, rather than observe.
"Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience."
The Temple is the secondary major recurring art installation at Burning Man after the Man, and is considered just as important to the event culture. According to the Burning Man Project, "The Temple is a community shared space that is an important part of Black Rock City. It is not a temple in recognition of any religion; it's a neutral, non-denominational spiritual space where everyone can gather to share in the experience of remembering the past, honoring or cursing the present, and pondering the future to come."
The prime function of the Temple is to be a canvas upon which people can leave words and objects behind to be burned, and to serve as "a place of contemplation, a place to rest, a place of reflection, a place of rituals, weddings, reunions, etc". During the event, 400 volunteer Temple Guardians monitor the Temple 24 hours a day. The Temple is burned on the eighth and final night of the festival, following the "Man burn" on the previous night.
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A hallmark of Burning Man is large-scale interactive installation art inspired by the intersection of maker culture, technology, and nature. Many works invite participation through climbing, touch, technological interfaces, or motion. At night much of the artwork is illuminated by fire or LEDs. Creative expression through art is encouraged at Burning Man in many forms. Music, performance art, and guerrilla theatre are art forms commonly presented within the camps and developed areas of the city. Artwork is placed in the open playa beyond the streets of the city. Each year hundreds of works of art, ranging from small to very large-scale, are brought to Black Rock City.
Art on the playa is assisted by a department of the Burning Man Project called the Artery, which helps artists place their art in the desert and ensures lighting to prevent collisions, burn platform to protect the integrity of the dry lake bed and that fire safety requirements are met. Art grants are available to participants 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 (in 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, 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.
In 2018, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., brought art from Burning Man to the nation's capital. The exhibition took over the entire Renwick Gallery building and surrounding neighborhood. The exhibit featured room-sized installations, costumes, and jewelry, while photographs and archival materials from the Nevada Museum of Art trace Burning Man's growth and its bohemian roots.
Large-scale installations form the core of the exhibition. Individual artists and collectives featured in the exhibit include David Best, Candy Chang, Marco Cochrane, Duane Flatmo, Michael Garlington and Natalia Bertotti, Five Ton Crane Arts Collective, FoldHaus Art Collective, Scott Froschauer, HYBYCOZO, (Yelena Filipchuk and Serge Beaulieu), Android Jones, Aaron Taylor Kuffner, Christopher Schardt, Richard Wilks, and Leo Villareal.
In addition, multiple large-scale public Burning Man art installations were exhibited throughout the neighborhood surrounding the museum, for an extension of the show No Spectators: Beyond the Renwick, which included works by Jack Champion, Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson, HYBYCOZO, Laura Kimpton, Kate Raudenbush, and Mischell Riley. All outdoor works had been installed as honorarium artwork at Burning Man in years past, except for the artwork by Hybycozo. This outdoor exhibition was co-produced by a first ever collaboration with the Golden Triangle BID (Business Improvement District in Washington DC), curated by Karyn Miller.
Mutant Vehicles are purpose-built or creatively altered motorized vehicles. The term "Mutant Vehicle" was coined by organizers of the Burning Man event to delineate a type of "Art Car" that was more dramatically modified than simply decorating an existing vehicle.
Burning Man 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 consideration. If a vehicle design meets the "Mutant Vehicle Criteria," the vehicle is invited to the event for a final physical inspection and licensing at the event. Not all designs and proposals are accepted.
The event organizers, and the DMV, have set the bar high 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 and not invited.
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, the DMV would consider it an "Art Car," but it would not be sufficiently altered to meet the Mutant Vehicle Criteria.
There were over six hundred approved Mutant Vehicles at the event in 2010.
Bicycles and tricycles are 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, also known as el wire) to create intricate patterns over the frame of the bike. Every night during Burning Man, thousands of people on their bikes and art cars, illuminated sculptures and stages create a unique visual effect.
Camps focusing on electronic music, often played by live DJs, began to appear in 1992, an influence of the rave culture of the San Francisco area. Terbo Ted was identified as the first ever DJ in Burning Man history, opening with a Jean Michel Jarre song played off a vinyl record. DJs typically occupied an area on the outskirts of the Playa nicknamed the "Techno Ghetto". In later years, certain spokes of the main camp were designated for "sound camps", with limits on volume and speaker positioning, angled away from the center of Black Rock City.
To work around the rules, mutant vehicles with live DJs and large sound systems began to appear as well. A number of major electronic music camps have been well-known returnees at Burning Man, including Opulent Temple and Robot Heart. Major producers and DJs representing various eras and genres have performed at Burning Man, however DJ events or "lineups" are discouraged from being publicized in the spirit of decommodification and immediacy.
In recent years, concerns began to surface among attendees that a growing number of "mainstream" electronic dance music acts had begun to appear. In 2015, organizers established a new area known as the "Deep Playa Music Zone" (or DMZ), to serve as a new host for art cars featuring live DJs.
Black Rock City, often abbreviated to BRC, is 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. 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 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 at the center. Radial streets, sometimes called Avenues, extend from the Man to the outermost circle. The outlines of these streets are visible on aerial photographs. The "missing" third of the circle, along with the open interior, is used for art installations.
The innermost street is named the Esplanade. 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. 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." 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 (see below: § Transportation).
Center Camp is along the midline 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 city and contains the Center Camp Cafe, and a number of other city operations such as camps supporting public radio (BMIR 94.5 FM), Earth Guardians, Recycling Camp, Ranger Outposts, BLM and ESD (Emergency Response), and Arctica (ice).
Villages and theme camps are along the innermost streets of Black Rock City, often offering entertainment or gifts to participants.
Theme camps are a collective of anywhere between several, to several hundred participants, representing theirselves under a unique value offering. To qualify as a "theme camp", and therefore be granted placement in BRC, you must apply through official Burning Man placement channels, and remain in good standing to be placed for future years.
Furthermore, "Villages" exist in Black Rock City and are collections of theme camps which share common values, and coordinate resources between their "village" of individual theme camps.
Theme camps and villages, as well as "open campers" who are free to camp outside of Placement boundaries, form to create an atmosphere in Black Rock City that they have collectively envisioned. As Burning Man grows it attracts an ever 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.
Black Rock City is patrolled by various local and state law enforcement agencies as well as the Bureau of Land Management Rangers. The local police issue $1,500 fines for drug use and serving alcohol to minors. Burning Man also has its own in-house group of volunteers, the Black Rock Rangers, who act as informal mediators when disputes arise.
Firefighting, emergency medical services (EMS), mental health, and communications support is provided by the volunteer Black Rock City Emergency Services Department (ESD). Three "MASH"-like stations are set up in the city: station 3, 6, and 9. Station 6 is staffed by physicians and nurses working with a contracted state licensed ALS Medical provider. 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 Hazardous material/Rescue truck and quick response vehicle for medical emergencies.
In documents from February 2013 first made public in August 2015, it was revealed that in August 2010, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had sent a memo to its field offices in Nevada stating that it would patrol Burning Man to "aid in the prevention of terrorist activities and intelligence collection". Although a threat assessment performed by the FBI determined that drug usage and crowd control were the only major threats to Burning Man, the Bureau still sent an unspecified number of undercover agents to the event, with "no adverse threats or reactions".
From the very beginning on Baker Beach, to 1991 when Burning Man was set into its desert home, there was no real organizational structure to the city. According to Rod Garrett, designer of Black Rock City, "The original form of the camp was a circle. This was not particularly planned, but formed instinctively from the traditional campfire circle and the urge to 'circle the wagons' against the nearly boundless space." This didn't work much longer, as attendance was reaching into the hundreds, and such a large gathering required some planning.
The Bureau of Land Management took notice of the event, and required that plans be drawn up to maintain safety. They required the Burn to be registered as an official event. In response, four cardinal roads were added emanating from center camp. The Man was located 100 yd (91 m) west of Center camp, due to the camp being oriented with the path of the sun across the sky, as opposed to north-to-south. The center circle from the birth of the event was maintained.
In 1993, the first sound camp was opened. It was known as the Techno Ghetto, and it was located two miles north of Center Camp. It was not a usual theme camp, but was instead a mini hub on its own. There was a small "center camp" with a message board and Port-a-potties. The center was surrounded by a circle of camping area 1,200 ft (370 m) across. Six massive sound systems faced out from the circle. The Techno Ghetto was placed separately to keep the 'rave' out of the main event. As time has progressed, music has become more and more closely tied into the core culture of Burning Man, even spawning a unique genre known as Playa Tech.
With the population growing to 8,000 in 1996, more structure was essential to both appease the Bureau of Land Management and to maintain safety. A ring around Center Camp, named Ring Road, was added to provide for a second circle of theme camps. The eastern section of the circle around Center Camp, in a cone shape, was declared a "No Man's Land", devoid of all art installations and campsites. The goal was to provide a picturesque view from Center Camp of the Man in the distance. In addition to the camps circling the center, there were camps lining the outside of the No Man's Land cone.
The techno ghetto had its last year in 1996. Regardless, the spark of music had ignited, and other sound camps followed.
In 1997 Burning Man was relocated off of the Playa to the Hualapai Flat, due to political problems with Washoe County. Black Rock City truly became a city in 1997, with formal, labeled streets, zoning, and registration for vehicles and theme camps. Rod Garret was brought on board as the lead designer of Black Rock City from then on. In his design, Center Camp remained the starting point, with two angular arms reaching out on either side to form a shallow "V" shape around the Man. These main arms consisted of six annular roads, and two outlying plazas. 1997 was the first year of a Ranger-patrolled perimeter, and the first year of one entry gate.
Burning Man returned to the playa in 1998, and the basis of the modern layout was implemented. The idea was to "recreate some of the intimacy of our original camping circle, but on a much larger civic scale". Rod Garret's design smoothed out the angular "V" from 1997 and implemented the arc. In 1998, it stretched less than half-way around the circle. The radial streets were numbered North 1–20 and South 1–20, instead of the modern clock face system of names such as 11:30 or 5:15. There were four large plazas, each occupied by a major theme camp.
In 1999, for the Wheel of Time theme, the great arc of the city was expanded to the full 240° (2⁄3 of a circle) that it is today. The streets were renumbered to correspond to a clock face. The Man was in the center, Center Camp at 6:00, and streets every 30 minutes (15°) 2:00 through 10:00.
2000 saw the introduction of the Temple as a fixture on the playa, and it has grown to be easily as important as the Man. It was placed at 12:00 out in the deep playa in the open third of the circle. 2000 introduced the concept of a loud side. A quiet side was replaced by the rule that large scale sound camps would be placed at the 10:00 and 2:00 edges, facing out into the deep playa.
Extra annular streets have been added, as need has increased.
In 2011, extra radial streets were added, from G street out, to make outer-city navigation easier. These streets were added at intervals of fifteen minutes.
Highway 34 provides access to the main entrance to Black Rock City. The highway connects to Highway 447 north of Gerlach, which then runs south to Highway 427 in Wadsworth near Interstate 80.
Vehicles then proceed from the Highway 34 entrance north to the main gate via Gate Road, a desert dirt road with a speed limit of 10 mph. All vehicles driving into the city must have the appropriate vehicle pass. All occupants are required to have valid tickets in order to get in. Vehicles are searched for any items that are prohibited in the city. For those who have their tickets held at Will Call, the booths are located between the Highway 34 entrance and the main gate.
All tickets and vehicle passes must be bought in advance. They are not directly sold outside the gate or at the Will Call booths. Unless they have a valid early arrival pass for the pre-event set up, any vehicle who arrives before the gate opens is turned away and told to go back to Reno, and not to wait along the side of the road on either Highways 34 or 447, which would be a safety hazard, nor stay in Gerlach, and overcrowd the small town.
When the Burning Man ends, and the mass exodus from Black Rock City begins, a road traffic control procedure called "Pulsing" is used to direct vehicles out of the city. At regular intervals, usually an hour during the peak periods, all vehicles are "pulsed" forward all at once for about a mile along Gate Road. This allows vehicles to stop and turn off their engines, while those at the southernmost mile of the multi-lane Gate Road slowly merge and then turn onto the two-lane Highway 34.
The airport with regular commercial service closest to the event is the Reno–Tahoe International Airport in Reno, Nevada, over two hours' drive away. In 2018 an estimated 18,000 burners arrived and departed through Reno's airport for the event, giving the airport an $11 million boost. Inside the airport that year, a Burning Man-specific information table was created and placed near the baggage claim area.
San Francisco International Airport, nearly six hours away by car, is the nearest airport with a high volume of international service. Other prominent airports, albeit with less international passenger traffic and more domestic services, are Sacramento International Airport, a 4.5-hour drive from Black Rock City, as well as other Bay Area airports such as Oakland International Airport and San Jose International Airport.
Salt Lake City International Airport, serving Salt Lake City, Utah, and Harry Reid International Airport, serving Las Vegas, Nevada, are both an 8.5-hour drive to Black Rock City.
A section of the Playa is used for a temporary airport, which is set up before each event and completely erased afterward. It serves both general aviation and charter flights. Pilots began camping there about 1995. Once compelled to add structure, in 1999, it was established in a form acceptable to the BLM through the efforts of Tiger Tiger (Lissa Shoun) and LLC board member Mr. Klean (Will Roger). In 2009, it was recognized by the FAA as a private airport and designated 88NV. 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 6:00 am to 7:30 pm PDT each day during the event. The runway is simply a compacted strip of playa, and is not lighted. Because of the unique air traffic and safety issues associated with the airport, pilots are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with published information and procedures provided by, for example, AOPA. Because of the changes in the surface of the playa each year, information about the airport is subject to change.
There are prepaid shuttles originating in Reno and San Francisco that move participants to and from the event. During the event there was also a paid shuttle between the event and the nearby towns of Gerlach and Empire, but this has been discontinued. Exiting and reentering the event requires an additional fee, and is highly discouraged.
Participants share rides and hitchhike, although walking or bicycling into the event is not allowed.
Burning Man takes place in the middle of a large playa. While not inhabited by humans itself, the area around the playa is home to many animals and plants. Supporters of Burning Man point out that participants are encouraged to leave no trace (LNT) of their visit to Black Rock City (BRC) and to not 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.
While fire is a primary component of many art exhibits and events, materials must be burned on a burn platform. From 1990 through 1999, burning was allowed to take place directly on the surface of the playa, but this left burn scars (fired pinkish clay-like playa surface). When it was determined in 2000 that the burn scars do not dissipate with the annual winter rains and flooding, the organization declared that fires had to be elevated from the playa surface for its protection.
When it was discovered by two of the founders of the Friends of Black Rock / High Rock (Garth Elliott and Sue Weeks) and BLM Winnemucca district director Terry Reid that burn scars from prior sites (numbering 250) still remained, they were eradicated in 2000 by the DPW clean up crew headed by Dan Miller.
On the last day of the event, public shared burn areas are prepared for participants to use. It is an ongoing educational process each year to encourage participants to protect the environment and other participants by not burning toxic materials.
Even gray water is not to be dumped on the playa. Used shower water must be captured and either evaporated off or collected and carried home with participants or disposed of by roving septic-pumping trucks, which also service RVs. Methods used for evaporating water often include a plastic sheet with a wood frame.
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.
In spite of the festival's clean up policies, Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen has stated that each festival "typically leaves a fair amount of detritus littered across the desert". He said that the leftover trash, including abandoned vehicles, was particularly heavy after the 2023 event.
In 2023, Burning Man filed a lawsuit against exploration of geothermal energy, a renewable green energy source, in the Nevada desert. Subsequently, county commissioners rescinded a permit for the geothermal energy exploration, putting the project indefinitely on halt and potentially scuttling it all together. The Burning Man organization celebrated the move.
Black Rock Solar: In 2008, Black Rock Solar was established to extend the Burning Man ethos of environmental responsibility beyond the festival. The organization provides solar power installations and training to underserved communities, aiming to promote clean energy and economic development. This initiative aligns with the festival’s values of Leave No Trace, which encourages participants to minimize their environmental impact.
Fly Ranch Acquisition: In 2016, the Burning Man Project acquired Fly Ranch, a 3,800-acre property near the festival site. Fly Ranch serves as a space for year-round experiments in sustainable living and art installations, furthering the community’s environmental goals. The acquisition reflects Burning Man's shift towards creating lasting impacts beyond the annual event
Burning Man's carbon 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 location. In 2010, The Sierra Club 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.
Burning Man's 2007 theme, "Green Man," received criticism for the artwork Crude Awakening, a 99-foot (30 m) oil derrick that consumed 900 U.S. gallons (3,400 L) of jet fuel and 2,000 U.S. gallons (7,600 L) of liquid propane to blast a mushroom cloud 300 feet (91 m) high into the sky.
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. The Burn Clean Project is a volunteer organization that has helped replace the use of fossil fuel with biodiesel. In 2023 a group of climate activists blockaded the road into Black Rock city.
Scientists have noted "scars" on the playa, the dry lake bed the festival takes place upon, especially during rainy years. The playa hosts fairy shrimp, water fleas and tadpole shrimp eggs which hatch only after rain and which may be harmed by mechanical damage to the playa during the event. Burning Man also increases wind erosion, which changes the way that the playa absorbs rain in the future.
Burning Man has attracted a number of billionaires and celebrities, many of them from Silicon Valley and Hollywood. It has become a networking event for them, with Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk once stating that Burning Man "is Silicon Valley."
These billionaires have paid for more luxurious camps to be set up in recent years. Derisively nicknamed "plug-n-play" or "turnkey" camps, they in general consist of lavish RVs and luxury restroom trailers that are driven into the city and connected together to form de facto gated areas. These billionaires then fly in to the airport on private planes, are driven to their camps, served by hired help, nicknamed "sherpas", and sleep in air-conditioned beds. One venture capitalist billionaire threw a $16,500-per-head party at his camp. In 2017, Google employees shipped in a box of lobsters for a meal.
Despite allowing the rich to participate in Burning Man per the "radical inclusion" principle, many traditional attendees have spoken out against their exclusive practices. Larry Harvey wrote that they also conflict with the "radical self-reliance" and other principles, but has also said that permitting the wealthy to attend is beneficial to Burning Man. Vandalism that occurred at the White Ocean sound camp in 2016 was said to have been a "revolution" against these attendees, describing them as a "parasite class" or "rich parasites".
Meanwhile, the regular admission price has increased over the years. In addition, Nevada lawmakers have modified the state's entertainment and sales tax code to include nonprofit organizations like Burning Man that sell more than 15,000 tickets. As a result, an individual ticket, including taxes, cost $424 in 2016. Even tickets sold under Burning Man's low-income program are subject to these taxes. Including transportation, food, camp fees, clothing and costumes, and gifts, CNBC estimated in 2016 that the total cost of attending could range from $1,300 up to $20,000. In 2017, Money magazine estimated an average total cost of $2,348 to attend.
According to the racial makeup of Burning Man attendees in 2014, 87% of them identified themselves as White, 6% as Hispanic / Latino, 6% as Asian, 2% as Native American, and 1% as Black (figures rounded). (Nevada's population, per the 2022 census, is 51% White, 29% Hispanic, 11% Asian, 2% Native, 11% Black). When interviewed by The Guardian about these figures, Harvey replied, "I don't think Black folks like to camp as much as White folks... . We're not going to set racial quotas.... This has never been, imagined by us, as a utopian society."
While there has been criticism that Burning Man has "jumped the shark," this proposition was criticized by cultural anthropologist Graham St John in 2020, who said that Burning Man was never a utopia in the first place.
Some conservative commentators have criticized Burning Man as sinful and hedonistic. For example, Ben Shapiro writes that Burning Man's ten principles are a "paganistic morality" which cover for hedonistic acts of sex and drug use. He holds the event as an example of "countercultural garbage that eats at the roots of fundamental societal institutions" in America. Similarly, James Goll and Lou Engle write that Burning Man "exalts Satan, mocks God, and demeans Christianity" because of its nudity, open sexuality, and neo-paganism.
The terms of the Burning Man ticket require that participants wishing to use photo and video-recording equipment share a joint copyright of their images of Black Rock City with Burning Man and forbid them from using their images for commercial purposes. This has been criticized by many, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The amount of casual nudity at the event has significantly decreased over the years, due to the rise of ubiquitous cell phone cameras and the ability to easily upload photos to the Internet.
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."
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.
Burning Man's popularity has encouraged other groups and organizations to hold similar events, some of which serve as an epilogue for participants.
Burners have created smaller regional events modeled on Burning Man, such as Burning Flipside in Texas; Apogaea in Colorado; Playa del Fuego in Delaware; Firefly in New England; Kiwiburn in New Zealand; Blazing Swan in Australia; Transformus in West Virginia; AfrikaBurn in South Africa; NoWhere near Zaragoza in Spain; Midburn in Israel; and many others.
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 the 10 principles and certain standards outlined by the Burning Man organization and to be accompanied by a "Burning Man Regional Contact," a volunteer with an official relationship to the Burning Man Project via a legal Letter of Agreement. The Netherlands was the first country outside the United States to have an event officially associated with Burning Man named Where the Sheep Sleep since 2016.
In exchange for conforming to these standards, the event is granted permission to officially communicate itself as a Burning Man Regional Event. The regional event organizers are enabled to exchange best practices with each other on a global level via online platforms and in-person conferences, which are partly sponsored by the Burning Man Project.