Burning Man

Burning Man is a one-week annual festival with international draw, held on the week prior to and including Labor Day weekend. Its current location is on the playa of the Black Rock Desert[?] in Nevada, 120 miles north of Reno. The temporary city (housing ~30,000 residents in 2002) is an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance.

Some primary foci of the festival:

• Leave No Trace[?] (an ecological concept).
• Commerce-free event (well, excluding coffee and ice which benefit the local Empire/Gerlach school system, and the onsite commissary for staff) where participants rely on a gift economy.
• Spectator-free zone, only participants allowed.
• Bike culture (cars are allowed, if they're art cars).
• Arts and crafts, particularly outsider art and visionary art.
• Partying (by default).

Participants often self-identify as "Burners[?]". (This usage may vary with region.)

Coming back to the "real world" from the event is said to be a little jarring because of the requirement of money in order to sit, to enjoy entertainment/music, to imbibe, etc. To relieve this culture shock[?], Burners may engage in decompression parties[?].

Burners also continue community building through localized events such as Flipside, Soupthang[?], Playa del Fuego, and SynchroniCity.

External Links

• Official Burning Man Website (http://burningman.org/)