Insider Knowledge That Proves Why Burning Man Is The Most Intense Festival On Earth

The central spectacle of the Burning Man festival comes on the last evening. That’s when that year’s temple is burnt to the ground amid a massive final gathering of the Burners. A new unique temple is built and burnt every year and one of the most poignant customs of the event involves depositing what are known as memories in the temple. The item in question might be a keepsake, a photo or simply a handwritten note. 

The cash and plastic economy is frowned on by the folks who inhabit the city in the desert, so you’ll find little use for your wallet or pocket book. Instead people give things to each other, although it’s not always a one-way transaction. While it’s entirely voluntary if someone gifts you something — drinks, food, or handmade jewelry — you can offer a suitable item in return.

The Black Rock Desert is a dry place. Very dry. The mean annual rainfall is below 7 inches and it’s hot on the playa, as the Burning Man site is called. That means you’ll need to bring your own drinking water and to be conscious of the very real danger of dehydration. The Burning Man website recommends that Burners need to bring at least 1.5 gallons of water per person per day.

Burning Man is held in the dry wastes of a desert, so the fact that there’s a lot of dust around comes as no surprise. Intense dust storms are far from unusual and so experienced Burners go armed with a range of protective gear. Think goggles, face masks, bandanas and anything else that can protect against billowing clouds of fine dust. 

Burning Man is said to have been started when the late Larry Harvey made a phone call to his buddy Jerry James back in 1986. Both of them were living in San Francisco at the time and according to the Burning Man website Harvey said, “Let’s... let’s burn a man, Jerry.” So they built an effigy of a man and burnt it on San Francisco’s Baker Beach on the Summer Solstice.

Attending Burning Man can be a perfect opportunity for Burners to take on a new persona. That process is facilitated by one of the festival’s traditions: playa names. Taking a different name is one way Burners can become new people. Some get their name given to them, others adopt one themselves. Examples quoted on the Burning Man website include HoneyBee, Hooty, Headwound, and Sexy Bacon. 

The huge settlement that appears in the desert each year for a single week around Labor Day is called Black Rock City. Its population of some 80,000 actually makes it one of the biggest settlements in the whole of Nevada. According to figures from the World Population Review website, Black Rock City would rank tenth in the state by population size, ahead of Carson City.

Burning Man actually has its own unique vocabulary. Those who attend the event are Burners, and the site of the festival is the playa, Spanish for beach. Then there are Art Cars — and Art Bikes — which Mixmag tells us were described by Larry Harvey as “sublimely beautiful works of art floating across the Playa like a Miro painting.” A final example is “the default world” — that’s basically everything outside of the playa. 

The Burning Man website has a stark warning about weather conditions. “Weather on the playa,” it says, “is often violent and unpredictable.” And it goes on to catalog what you can expect, adding, “Dust storms, high winds, freezing temperatures, rain, we get it all out there.” The temperature contrasts can be especially shocking, with daytimes seeing the mercury sometimes soaring into the 100s, while nights can be freezing. 

As far as possible, the Burning Man organizers want Burners to leave the playa exactly as they found it. That’s where MOOP comes in, shorthand for Matter Out of Place.” MOOP means anything that is not naturally occurring in the Black Rock Desert, and all MOOP must be removed at the end of the festival. MOOP can be anything from abandoned tents to cigarette butts and discarded plastic bottles.

As we’ve mentioned, the first Burning Man went up in flames on a San Francisco beach in 1986. In that first year, the effigy was built from wood rescued from a scrapyard and the statue was just 8 feet tall. It was drenched in gasoline and put to the torch. Nowadays, the statue stands 40 feet tall and some 80,000 Burners whoop and holler as it blazes. 

The standard form of greeting at Burning Man is not the traditional handshake. Instead Burners mostly prefer a wholehearted hug. In a blog on the Burning Man website Leon, a.k.a. Big Urb, explains that, “I saw hugs, many wonderful hugs. The handshake stems from an old practice of making sure the person you’re meeting doesn’t have a weapon in his hand; the hug is given because you care. I like the hug better!”

Getting hitched in Las Vegas is a venerable American tradition spiced with a hint of sin. But why not go a step further and get wed about 400 miles north at Black Rock City? As the Burning Man website points out, there are plenty of wedding officiants among the Burners at the festival, and they’re said to be easy enough to track down. 

Burning Man is a freewheeling festival with a generous side-helping of anarchy, but even so there are a few formalities. Burners who arrive in a car or RV will have their vehicles searched, and the scrutiny is thorough. A vehicle pass is required and all passengers will be asked to show their tickets. Forbidden items include firearms, hand-held lasers, stowaways, and confetti.

The Burning Man website is unequivocal on the subject of bikes. It declares, “Having a bicycle at Burning Man is crucial, if not essential, to your overall enjoyment and experience within Black Rock City.” It goes on to advise against bringing expensive machines as “the desert will reduce a valuable bike to a rust bucket posthaste.” On a brighter note, Burners really go to town when it comes to imaginatively gorgeous bicycle décor.

Burning Man might be all about expressing yourself with joyful abandon, but the liberty sure comes at a price. In 2022 a standard ticket cost $575 with a vehicle pass priced at $140. Once you figure in other costs such as transport, camping equipment and food, you very easily get into substantial four-figure sums. So if you plan to go to a future Burning Man, best start saving now!

It’s true that the festival follows a strict leave-no-trace philosophy. But it’s just not possible to have a crowd of 80,000 camping in the Black Rock Desert for a week without environmental consequences. Some of the more visible harm to the landscape comes from the damage to the desert’s fine-powder surface caused by fires, which leave a baked clay-like residue.

When Burners have to answer a call of nature, there are strict rules in place. Going to the bathroom outdoors on the playa is completely forbidden. Not only is it illegal, but it hardly needs saying that it could constitute a serious, and extremely unpleasant, health hazard. There are public facilities installed around Black Rock City, so there is really no excuse for bad behavior.  

The alternative philosophies that underpin Burning Man mean that ostentatious displays of luxury and wealth are seriously unacceptable. In the past, luxury camps have been set up within Black Rock City offering gourmet foods and lavish accommodation. Organizers have barred some of those in recent years as being counter to the Burning Man ethos. If you’re looking for a five-star holiday, best go somewhere else!

After the sun goes down, the playa is lit up like the brightest of fairgrounds. There are campfires, strings of multicolored LEDs, and bicycles bedecked with multiple lights. Even people on foot will have lights built into their elaborate costumes, as well as handheld flashlights. In fact, failure to be illuminated is regarded with displeasure and unlit people are disparagingly referred to as “darkwads.”

Burning Man is all about community but it’s also a chance for people to express their unique identity, perhaps in ways that they wouldn’t in everyday life. One great way to do that is with a costume. Nobody shows up in the clothes they wear for the nine-to-five grind. The only limits as to what people wear — or don’t wear — are set by their imaginations. 

It’s worth knowing that cell-phone signals at Burning Man are poor and intermittent at best. Some might consider that bad news, but most Burners relish the break from everyday life. So unless you can afford a pricey satellite phone, forget about calling home. Think of it as a chance to leave the strains and stresses of real life behind while you enjoy time away in the desert wilderness. 

Initially there were just a dozen or so at the very first Burning Man event in San Francisco in 1986. The party consisted of no more than friends of founders Harvey and James. But as the effigy burned, curious onlookers attracted by the blaze swelled the crowd to about 35. Today Burning Man organizers expect attendances of around 80,000.

Burning Man has been held at its Black Rock Desert site since 1991. Yet as we’ve mentioned, it was actually founded in 1986 and the very first Burning Man took place on the sands of San Francisco’s Baker Beach. Still, the Golden Gate Park police clamped down on that venue in 1990 so the event moved about 270 miles inland to the Black Rock Desert.

If it’s your first year at Black Rock City, there’s an essential initiation ceremony. Writing for the Smithsonian American Art Museum website in 2018, Geoffrey Cohrs remembered his experience of being a Burning Man newbie. “Then came the ritual that all first-timers must complete: it was time that I embraced the dust,” Cohrs recalled. “It involved lying down on the ground, rolling back and forth until I was covered, and then making a dust angel.”

Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey was the author of the Ten Principles. The Burning Man website explains, “They were crafted not as a dictate of how people should be and act, but as a reflection of the community’s ethos and culture as it had organically developed.” The principles include headers such as radical self-reliance, gifting, leaving no trace, and radical self-expression. 

One inescapable fact is the Burning Man is a massive party with loud music, uninhibited dancing, and a certain amount of inebriation. Getting smashed on occasion may be harmless for some, but for those that have chosen the path of sobriety that’s far from true. Still, there are support facilities in Black Rock City for those who’re on the wagon, including non-denominational sobriety meetings.

Although it’s centered around fire — the clue is in the name — Burning Man is not just a free-for-all when it comes to blazes. While anyone can have a campfire as long as it’s kept safe, those with ambitions to use fire in artworks face strict regulation. Burners who want to use fire as art must have their work inspected and they’re not allowed to go ahead until a Burn License has been issued. 

Arriving at the desert playa where Black Rock City is located, the first thing you’ll notice is just how flat the ground is. The reason for that is the ancient history of the location. Up until about 15,000 years ago, this part of what is now Nevada was covered by a huge water feature, Lake Lahontan. Burning Man is set on what was once the bottom of that lake. 

According to the Burning Man website more than 10,000 volunteers help to make a success of the festival each year. There are those who offer their services throughout the year to make the event happen, while others limit themselves to working only during the festival itself. But if you thought volunteering might be a likely route to a free ticket to Burning Man, think again. Apparently it’s “incredibly rare” for volunteers to get a freebie.

Obviously one of the attractions of Burning Man is that it’s a time and a place where people can really let their hair down and forget their everyday inhibitions. But that doesn’t mean that they’re keen on being photographed while they do so. As the festival’s Photographer’s Guide puts it, “Burning Man’s number-one rule of etiquette for photography is ‘Ask first’ — you should get permission before taking somebody’s photo.”

It has to be said that Burning Man’s reputation as an entirely alternative event aloof from the world of wealth and celebrity has been somewhat tarnished over the years. As a 2019 NPR article put it, “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.”

Pop over to Reno during the Burning Man event because there’s something very special — and tasty — to be found there. We’re talking about the Icecycle Creamery, which puts on a range of specially created flavors during Burning Man. There’s Black Rock Rum Raisin, Strawberry Margarita Sorbet, and Burning Breakfast. That last one might not appeal to all — it’s bacon and bourbon flavor.

Art and artists play an absolutely key role in the Burning Man phenomenon. The fantastical creations decorating Black Rock City have to be seen to be believed. And it’s not just about sensation and shock — there’s art in Black Rock City that’s recognized as outstanding. So much so, that the venerable Smithsonian now holds pieces from the festival in its collection. 

Despite Burning Man’s “leave no trace” doctrine, some environmental damage is nigh-on unavoidable. The Sierra Club has criticized the festival for the tons of plastic bottles used there. And talking to newspaper USA Today in 2015 Citizens’ Climate Lobby, director Mark Reynolds said, “Is it bad for the environment? Yes, of course it is.” So it sounds like Burners need to do better when it comes to environmental issues.

Attending Burning Man could be an excuse for spending a week slobbing out and over-indulging in the desert. That might be true for some Burners, but others take an entirely different attitude. For those that want to keep in trim there’s a range of activities available including roller skating, power yoga classes, and even pole dancing. Plus you can cycle around the playa to your heart’s content. 

Go back to the time before the dinosaurs roamed the Earth and much of western America did not exist at all, including Nevada. Over many millions of years, geological processes and volcanic activity formed islands. Eventually, deposits of black limestone formed the foundations of the Black Rock Desert. Then, after a very long wait, Burning Man appeared. 

Timothy Leary, recognized as a principal psychedelic culture guru of the 1960s, died in 1996. Some of his ashes were blasted into space. But a portion was preserved by his great friend Susan Sarandon. Then in 2015 she decided that Leary’s last remains should be laid to rest in Black Rock City. So Leary’s ashes were deposited in a church that was burnt to the ground at the festival’s conclusion. 

Burners expect to have a wild time at Black Rock City, although most of them probably don’t bargain for some unpleasantly close encounters with dangerous wildlife. But there are plenty of critters out there in the desert. The Friends of Black Rock website lists a variety of animals you might want to avoid, such as coyotes, rattlesnakes, scorpions, and even mountain lions. 

The Black Rock City 2022 page on the Burning Man website leaves no doubt about canines. It says, “Due to the numerous issues surrounding dogs at Burning Man, the organization has decided not to allow them at the event.” So no pooches, please. In any case, as the website points out, the fireworks, abrasive dust, and “crazy costumed people” are all factors dogs are unlikely to enjoy.