Burning Man
Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred to as the Man, that occurs on the penultimate night of Burning Man, which is the Saturday evening before Labor Day. The event has been located since 1991 at Black Rock City in northwestern Nevada, a temporary city erected in the Black Rock Desert about north-northeast of Reno. As outlined by Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey  in 2004, the event is guided by ten principles: radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy. The event 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 in the event. In 2021, the unofficial event had an  estimated 20,000 attendees. NPR said about Burning Man, "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." At Burning Man, the participants design and build all the art, activities, and events. Artwork at Burning Man includes experimental and interactive sculptures, buildings, performances and art cars, among other media. These contributions are inspired by a theme that is chosen annually by the Burning Man Project. An anonymous attendee once elaborated that "Burning Man is about 'why not' overwhelming 'why . Participation is a key precept for the community, so there is much controversy in the community over the problem of non-participatory influencers and elite at the event. Burning Man is organized by the Burning Man Project, a non-profit 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 non-profit organization. The Burning Man Project endorses multiple smaller regional events guided by the Burning Man principles, both in the United States  and internationally. The organization provides the essential infrastructure of Black Rock City and works year-round to bring Burning Man culture to the world through programs such as Burners Without Borders, Black Rock Solar, and Global Arts Grants. History. 1980s. 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 prior to 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 the afternoon of June 21, 1986, cobbled together using scrap wood, to be torched later that evening. On June 22, 1986 Larry Harvey, Jerry James, and a few friends met on Baker Beach in San Francisco and burned an tall wooden man as well as 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 tall, and by 1988, it had grown to . By 1988, Larry Harvey formally named the summer solstice ritual "Burning  Man", by titling flyers for the happening as such; to ward off references such as "wicker man", referring to the practice of burning live sacrifices in wicker cages. Harvey has stated that he had not seen the 1973 cult film" The Wicker Man" until many years after and that it did not inspire the action. 1990 to 1996. In 1990, a separate event was planned by Kevin Evans and John Law on the remote and largely unknown dry lake or "playa" known as Black Rock Desert, about 110 miles north of Reno, Nevada. 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 No. 4, A Bad Day at Black Rock (inspired by the 1955 film of the same 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 Man 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 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 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 Black Rock City began as a fellowship, organized by Law and Mikel, based on Evans' and Grauberger's ideas, along with Harvey and James' symbolic man. Drawing on experience in the sign business and with light sculpture, John 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, all were considered (and  generally not invited until they could be expected to be) participants under 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). 1991 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 (about 20 participants the first year; about 100 in years two and three) near-by event named Desert Siteworks", conceived and directed by William Binzen and co-produced (in 1993 and '94) with Judy West. 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 (John Law, Michael Mikel) and William Binzen was a friend of Larry 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 that 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 "rave camp", which was at that time distant from the main camp. After the 1996 event, co-founder and partner John Law broke with Burning Man and publicly said the event should not continue. 1997 to 2013. 1997 marked another major pivotal year for the event. The location had to be moved because the permit for Black Rock was denied for the 1997 event. After all, a team conducting land speed trials had  a conflicting permit that took precedence. Fly Ranch, with the smaller adjoining Hualapai dry lake-bed, 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. To comply with the new requirements and to manage the increased liability load, the organizers formed Black Rock City LLC, with the assistance of "Biz Babe" Dana Harrison. Will Roger Peterson and Flynn Mauthe created the 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. Rod continued as the city designer until his death, in 2011, at the age of 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, and more restrictions were added by the  BLM, 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 the imposition of 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 week of 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 towards The Man after it is ignited assume the risk of getting burned by such an hazardous object. 2013 to 2019. In December 2013, Black Rock City LLC was made a subsidiary of a new non-profit entity known as the Burning Man Project, though this was a controversial move among the founders. 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 98% of his body. While a reputable member of the DPW claims this was the result of a dare to run through the flames, his death was ruled a suicide. 2020 to 2021. 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 would 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 stated 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. The unofficial event was larger than 2020 with an estimated 20,000 attending. It was loosely coordinated by a variety of groups 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. Event timeline. 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 and growing taller each of the next three years, the height of the titular Man remained at 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 tall figure standing directly on the ground with no base. From 2015 to 2019 the Man returned to in height. Principles. 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 that are 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 a universal criterion of the general culture of the multifaceted movement. They are: The descriptions in quotes are the actual text: Radical inclusion. "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 stated in the annually updated event "survival guide", and purchase a $475 ticket to get in. Gifting. "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, participants at the Burning Man event in the Black Rock Desert 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 "favours" with each other. While this was  originally supported by the Burning Man organization, this is now largely discouraged. Instead, burners are encouraged to give gifts to one another unconditionally. Decommodification. "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 attendees of the Burning Man event in the Black Rock Desert. Cash can be used for a select few charity, fuel, and sanitation vendors as follows: Radical self-reliance . "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 are, like art cars, decorated in imaginative ways by volunteers. Radical self-expression. "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." Participants at the Burning Man event in the Black Rock Desert 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. Communal effort. "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." Participants at the Burning Man event in the Black Rock Desert are encouraged to work with and help fellow participants. Civic responsibility. "We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavour to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws." Leave no trace. "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 endeavour, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better  state than when we found them." Participation. "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. Immediacy. "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. 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. Timeline. Source: Art. 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, however, 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 (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, 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. Section::::"No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man". 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. 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 in turn 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. 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) 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. Theme camps. Electronic music. 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 having been 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, designated 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, including Armin van Buuren, Carl Cox, Markus Schulz, Paul Oakenfold, François Kevorkian and Freq Nasty among others. In recent years, concerns began to surface among attendees that a growing number of "mainstream" electronic dance music acts (such as Skrillex and Diplo's Jack Ü in 2014) 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 sound trucks featuring live DJs. Black Rock City. 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. The remainder of the city including theme camps, villages, art installations and individual camping are all created by participants. City planning. 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 at the very 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 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. See Transportation section below. Center Camp. Center Camp is located 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 entire city and contains the Center Camp  Cafe, Camp Arctica and a number of other city institutions. Villages and theme camps. Villages and theme camps are located along the innermost streets of Black Rock City, often offering entertainment or services to participants. 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. Volunteers. The Burning Man event is heavily dependent on a large number of volunteers. Safety, policing and regulations. 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 between  participants. 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, 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 engines available  in addition to a Hazardous material/Rescue truck and quick response vehicle for medical emergencies. In from February 2013 first made public on August 29, 2015, it was revealed that in August 2010, the FBI 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 officers to the event, with  no adverse threats or reactions. Black Rock City design evolution. 1986–1991. 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 Garret, 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 would not work for much longer, as attendance was reaching into the hundreds, and such a large gathering  would require some planning. 1992–1995. The Bureau of Land Management took notice of the event, and required that plans be drawn up to maintain safety. They also 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 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 2 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 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, yet 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. 1996. 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, aptly named Ring Road, was added to provide for a second circle of theme camps. In addition, 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 also camps lining the outside of the No Man's Land cone. The techno ghetto would remain for one last year in 1996, and it wouldn't return. Regardless, the spark of music had ignited, and many other sound camps would follow. 1997. In 1997 Burning Man was relocated. The event moved 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 is the first year of a Ranger-patrolled perimeter, and also the first year of one entry gate. 1998. 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, although 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. 1999–2010. In 1999, for the Wheel of Time theme, the great arc of the city was expanded to the full 240° (⅔ of a circle) that  it is today. The streets were re-numbered to correspond to a clock face, with the Man 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 also marked the year that the concept of a loud side and 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. 2011–present. 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. Transportation. Road access. 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, and all occupants are required to have valid ticket, in order to get in. Vehicles are also 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. Furthermore, 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 out of 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 southernmost mile of the multi-lane Gate Road slowly merge and then turn onto the two-lane Highway 34. Commercial airports. The airport with regular commercial service closest to the event is the Reno-Tahoe International Airport in Reno, Nevada, over two hours' drive away. According to an airport spokesperson, in 2018 an estimated 18,000 burners arrived and departed through Reno's airport  for the event, thereby 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, which is 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 McCarran International Airport, serving Las Vegas, Nevada, are both a respective 8.5 hour drive to Black Rock City. Temporary airstrip. A section of the Playa is used for a non-permanent 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, 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 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 of the surface  each year, information about the airport is subject to change. Shuttles. 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. Other. Participants also share rides and hitchhike although walking or bicycling into the event is not allowed. Section::::"Leave No Trace" policy. 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. 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, [t]he number of items per plot in the City consistently increased over the 2006 to 2009 ... Although the  observed trend was not statistically significant, regression analysis indicated that the predicted trend explained over 97% of the variance in the data. 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 finally determined that they did not dissipate with the annual winter rains and flooding, in 2000, 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 & Sue Weeks) and BLM Winnemucca district director Terry Reid that Burn scars from prior sites (numbering 250) still remained, they were finally 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 inform the public not to burn toxic materials for the protection of the environment and  participants. Even gray 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 or disposed of by roving septic-pumping trucks, which also service RVs. Methods used for evaporating water normally 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. Criticism. Negative effects on the environment. 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 remote location. 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. Burning Man's 2007 theme, "Green Man", received criticism for the artwork "Crude Awakening", a 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. In an attempt to offset some of the event's carbon footprint, 30- and 50- 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. Gentrification. 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 a box of lobsters to the playa 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 stated that permitting the wealthy to attend is still beneficial for 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 being 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 such 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). 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, who said that Burning Man was never a utopia in the first place. Photography restrictions. 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). 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. Regional events. The popularity of Burning Man has encouraged other groups and organizations to hold events similar to Burning Man, 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. In exchange for conforming to these standards, the event is granted permission to officially communicate itself as a Burning Man Regional Event. Also, 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.