Art at Its Heart
It’s ironic that Burning Man falls on Labor Day weekend, because the amount of sweat and elbow grease that goes into creating the temporary art displays is staggering. The result is the world’s largest interactive display of art , set in a lunar landscape that gives an otherworldly flavor to the whole experience. You’ll see art cars that look like magic carpets, mechanical fire-breathing dragons trolling the desert and maybe a life-size replica of an 18th-century shipwreck. At night, this Mad Max-meets-Alice in Wonderland experience turns into a visual spectacle so surreal you’ll think you’ve regressed to being a 4-year-old experiencing the Main Street Electrical Parade at Disneyland for the first time (see our "25 epic photos of Burning Man") . Of course, there’s the elaborately designed temple, which burns on Sunday night in a solemn ceremony after the tribal, primal burning of the Man on Saturday night. Be prepared for lots of fire, including roaming bands of tribal majorettes tossing flaming batons in the air.
Theme camps are the cultural cul-de-sacs that populate Black Rock City. Depending on the year’s theme, these camps—which often have as many as a few hundred participants in their tents, hexa-yurts and RVs—help create the festival’s homegrown flavor. Ideally, if you’re coming for the first time, there may be a set of Burners you can join. Otherwise, you can reach out to a theme camp to see if you can be part of their village. Note that Burning Man is not a place for spectators, so prepare to wear costumes and participate in creating the camp.
Burning Man is also about discovery, so it’s fitting that approximately a third of attendees each year are festival virgins. For those who want to learn, there are more than 2,000 free classes, workshops and events offered each year during the festival. Everything from Understanding Personality Types and a Vegan Coconut Ice Cream Social to a Human Carcass Wash (particularly valuable as you’ll have desert dust in every crevice) and How to Drive a Vulva is on offer. Given all the informative and irreverent workshops and events, you’ll need to either plan ahead or leave it to chance. While we recommend the latter, you can prep yourself by checking out Rockstar Librarian’s annual guide for music.
Burning Man is simultaneously simple and complex, an adult summer camp where both time and money are figments of the imagination. You may find great solace in this communal experience, which gives hope that we can burn and bury our baggage and allow fresh ideas, ways of living and new heroes to emerge.