Full Disclosure: I am not a “Burner” per se (a person that goes to Burning Man almost every year or a person tries to live life in the “real world” with a Burning Man-centric ethos).
In fact, aside from my brief Burning Man experience in 2017, I’ve only attended Burning Man once – way back in 2010.
But I’m going back this year and I’m stoked.
Flashback: My First Burning Man Experience (2010)
If you don’t know what Burning Man is, I’m not going to try and explain the whole thing here, but here’s a couple of quick videos that will tell you basically all you need to know.
So now that we got that out of the way – what I am going to do is tell you about my Burning Man experience and why it left such a profound and lasting impression on me.
Flashback To 2010
So there I was, driving down the 101 Freeway, when I got a call from 2 of my closest friends, yelling, “pack your stuff, we’re going to Burning Man”! To which I responded, “what the hell is Burning Man”?
Days later, they picked me up in an RV and we were off. I had no idea what to expect or what I was getting myself into.
“Bliss Dance” by Marco Cochrane
The Arrival
After an all night marathon drive, the RV finally pulled into the Burning Man grounds at sunrise (complete with a couple of random burner hitchhikers we picked up along the way).
Festival volunteers climbed aboard and asked who among us were “virgins”. Before we knew what happened, a couple people were carried out of the RV and rolled in the alkaline dust of the dry lake bed known as the “playa”.
There. We were baptized.
We made camp and headed out to explore.
The Daylife And The Artwork
First and foremost, Burning Man is an art festival.
To say the artwork is “impressive” is wholly inadequate. Here, almost everything you run across is extraordinary; some pieces even rise to the level of “earth-shattering”.
Among the first pieces of art we “discovered”, was the now-infamous “Bliss Dance” by Marco Cochrane (which you can now find at the Park MGM in Las Vegas).
The beauty and scale of sculpture was a true revelation as Bliss Dance could be seen towering over the desert from almost anywhere on the esplanade.
I had no idea, but Burning Man was a huge place. The playa was so vast that one could ride their bike for hours a day, everyday, and still discover new art installations right up until the moment they departed the festival. That’s exactly what happened to me.
Below are some of the outlandish scenes found out on the playa. Enjoy.
Dust storms are a frequent hazard of playa life
“These guys”, am I right?
Art cars and bikes, like something out of Mad Max, are the transportation modes of choice
I was told this phone was a direct line to God, but I didn’t get a chance to independently verify.
The Metamorpasis
Sure, Burning Man is based around the motto of “radical self-reliance”, but in reality it’s much more than that. There is a omnipresent collectivist culture that permeates everything with that distinctive “all are one” vibe. I could sense this, but I wasn’t “there” yet.
The hardest thing to acclimate to is that money and status mean nothing on the playa. Nothing. Contrary to popular belief, the festival is not a bartering society but rather, a gifting society.
Translation? Everything is free. Well, everything except coffee and ice.
About now you are probably asking yourself, “Wait, you mean everything is free”? Yes. And No.
It took me several days to wrap my head around this. Moreover, it took me just as long to realize that Burning Man was a fully self-contained city with everything you could ever need or want (or didn’t know you needed or wanted).
The first couple of days, I unabashedly took full advantage of this culture. I must have hit up every single bar in burning man. Twice. Along with every wine tasting, food pairing, beer garden, and tequila shooting I could find. Not to mention every restaurant, concert, stargaze, lounge, BBQ, and DJ set. Somewhere in between I was at every dance party, rave, thunder dome and camp party I could find.
Oh, and that one snow cone spot.
Black Rock City life
Then something happened to me. I woke up one morning and headed out for a bloody mary and breakfast at a little restaurant around the corner from our RV. There was a huge line, but there were only two of us so we were promptly seated at the bar.
As time went on, the line grew and grew. We finished breakfast (and our bloody marys) and I turned to my friend and said, “I’m gonna help them out”. I asked the waiter if I could do anything and he said, “actually we really need someone to help with the dishes”. “Done”. I spent the next couple hours working at the restaurant.
Then I went to another bar and asked if they needed any help. I spent that afternoon as a bartender. I was having such a good time making drinks and meeting people that I didn’t even realize I was helping out and giving back.
I finally got into the spirit of Burning Man and I didn’t even know it.
Another dust storm approaches
The Nightlife And The Artwork
First of all, everything they say is true. Everything.
Everything is as fun as they say. Everything is as crazy as they say. Everything is as extreme as they say. At least from the pieces of the nights I can remember.
I remember a massive rave at a schoolyard playground structure replica (complete with slides, monkey-bars, and fire poles). I remember an awesome bar on a moving silver bus with Christmas lights. I remember grabbing guitars and playing Radiohead songs from off “The Bends”. I remember randomly jumping on art cars and cruising around for hours on end.
I remember drunkenly climbing sketchy ladders in a tower to the sky and having a super-deep conversation with somebody I didn’t know about something I can’t remember. I remember freezing in the midnight chill and then standing by massive flame-throwers to warm up. I remember stargazing until the sunrise atop the RV.
I remember the artwork on the playa looked brand new and completely different when all lit-up at night.
I remember having some of the best times ever with some of my closest friends.
The Temple
On one of our bike rides out to the playa, we came upon a beautiful wooden structure resembling a bird’s nest. My friend turned to me and whispered, “this is the temple”.
My first thought was this was some cult-like temple for some weird religious sect I knew nothing about.
My friend reassured me, “It’s not what you think, we should go in”.
As we wandered around the structure, I noticed people crying, others praying. I noticed people placing pictures and letters on the wall, wiping tears from their eyes. We took a moment to walk through the temple and read some of the things people wrote.
Now I knew what this place really was. Now I understood something else about Burning Man.
A few days later the temple would be burned to the ground. For the people who lost a loved one, the burning of the temple represented the definitive closure of one final goodbye.
The Burning Of The Temple
Our last night was the main event, the burning of the temple. There was also another crazy white-out. Nobody seemed to know exactly what time the event was going to start. Soon we started hearing rumors that the temple burn would be canceled due to the extreme white-out conditions. Still the crowd continued to build.
Finally, a massive cheer rumbled through the crowd and people began running through the dust strom in every direction. It was pure chaos.
As the fire grew, it’s glow finally became visible and everybody started heading toward the glow off in the distance.
The fire raged on until we could see the flames towering above the crowd.
It was beautiful. It was dangerous. It was glorious.
Final Thoughts: My First Burning Man Experience (2010)
In the grand scheme of things, I would say my experience was pretty standard, at least to burners. But to people that have never been to Burning Man, it’s hard – if not impossible to explain.
I could easily see why so many people become full-time burners, returning every year without fail. For me, this experience stands out so much among my many travels perhaps because I’ve only ever been there once.
Whatever the case, immediately after the 2010 Burn, I remember thinking to myself Burning Man was an experience that every single human on earth should have (at least once). Although that was almost 10 years ago, I still think the exact same thing as I’m writing this today.
Cheers!
