Has Burning Man Flamed Out?
Torrential downpours leaving thousands stranded to their knees in muck and with little food and no transportation out… is this where it ends?
Burning Man has been on my bucket list for years. A week of kick-ass music and art, a sexy vibe, and party drugs with thousands of like-minded travelers — yeah, that has always appealed to me in a big way.
But when I started getting texts this weekend from friends who were there, telling me of the brutal storms, the rivers of muck, the closed roads, and the food shortages, I started to have second thoughts.
Let me try to capture Burning Man for those less familiar with it. It’s a week-long music and arts festival deep in the Nevada Desert each year. It’s built on radical inclusion, cooperation, and self-reliance — nothing is sold, and all participants bring all they need, expecting that they and others will share so that everyone has enough food, drink, and drugs to have a fabulous bonded week together. And it’s huge — approaching 70,000 people in this remote patch of desert a hundred miles from civilization.
The highlight is at the week’s end when the giant ‘man’ art installation is set aflame, with thousands of tiny notes of regrets and resolutions of the Burning Man attendees seeking redefinition and redemption from the party in the desert. There is a lot to like.
