Burning Man

About Burning Man

Burning Man is an eight-day annual event that takes place in Black Rock City, a temporary city on the playa of the Black Rock Desert in the U.S. state of Nevada, 90 miles (150 km) north-northeast of Reno, ending on the American Labor Day holiday in September. The event is described by organizers as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance and takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening. The event is organized by Black Rock City, LLC, under the guidance of one of the founders, Larry Harvey, and five other members of the board, including Marian Goodell, Harley Dubois, Michael Michael, Will Roger Peterson, and Crimson Rose. In 2007, 47,366 people participated in The Burning Man Project.

The annual event now known as Burning Man is the result of a merger of two events, one of which began as a nameless beach party on the summer solstice in 1986 when Larry Harvey, Jerry James, and a few friends met on Baker Beach in San Francisco and burned an 8-foot (2.4-meter) wooden man as well as a smaller wooden dog. The inspiration for burning these effigy figures has been shrouded in mystery by Harvey, who described it as a spontaneous act of radical self-expression. Though, it should be noted that the act strongly resembles the climax of the 1985 film, The Legend of Billie Jean, where an effigy of the title character is consumed in a fire. Sculptor Mary Grauberger, a friend of Harvey's girlfriend, Janet Lohr, had held art-party gatherings on Baker Beach on or about the summer solstice for several years prior to 1986, and the burning of sculpture was a central theme. In addition, a key ingredient of the pre-Burning Man gatherings, and a link to today's event, was that Baker Beach is a cove area frequented by nudists.

Harvey had attended some of the earlier solstice gatherings on Baker Beach, and when Grauberger stopped holding her parties, Harvey picked up the torch and ran with it, so to speak. Harvey asked Jerry James to build the first 8-foot (2.4-meter) wooden effigy with him, which was much smaller and more crudely made than the neon figure featured in the current ritual. In 1987, the effigy had grown to almost to 15 feet (4.6 meters) tall, and in 1988 it grew to around 40 feet (12 meters).