Wednesday, August 14, 2024
A Utah burner says 'goodbye' to burning man, with tips for newcomers.
Urban Living
Posted By Babs De Lay on August 14, 2024, 4:00 AM
After almost two decades, I'm saying goodbye to the desert playa and Burning Man. It's not because of last year's rain that stranded all of us for a few days and forced us to shelter in place. I'm just over the heat and hassle and onto new adventures.
My wife will be there for almost three weeks, as she has a staff role in managing Temple Guardians at the Temple of Together. We have both been volunteers there for almost two decades in an area most folks outside of the event don't know about.
Burning Man is not a rave or a giant concert/music venue like Coachella. It is a counterculture festival that celebrates art and self-expression. But there is plenty of music to be found, from the small live band stages to huge platforms with DJs spinning from dark to dawn under laser and drone shows.
It's held each year over the Labor Day weekend, about 120 miles north of Reno on an ancient lake bed made of alkaline dust and clay right around native Paiute lands.
The original festival was held in 1986 on Baker Beach in San Francisco, with a few dozen folks building an 8-foot effigy of a man that they burned on the shore one night.
For the past few years, about 70,000 "citizens" attended the event, with thousands of volunteers and minimal paid staff overseeing the celebration. Most of today's Burning Man is about creating art of all kinds, with hundreds of large and small objects built and brought in or built on the playa and set up around a huge central "man" sculpture, which burns on the Saturday of the holiday weekend.
The next night, the beautiful temple, which is designed and built by a different artist each year, is burned. Some of the other art is burned during the week, some sold after the event to public and private entities.
What folks don't know is that for years it has been almost impossible to get tickets to the festival, as it has sold out instantly. This year, for the first time that I can remember, there are tickets available for anyone who wants the experience!
That's right, nothing has changed about the event itself, except it's not sold out. Find out more information at burningman.org.
Tickets are $575 and if you don't care how much you can spend, they are $1500. For reals. Also, for the first time I've seen a massive call out for volunteers. I've seen social media saying only about 50% of the volunteers needed to run the event have signed up.
Yes, it's quite an adventure to get there. But once you're on the dirt and have set up or joined a camp, the fun begins. Many folks think it's a big rave, but there's so many things to do and people to meet. You literally get a book of about 50 pages of events and activities that happen 24/7.
About The Author
Babs De Lay
A full-time broker/owner of Urban Utah Homes and Estates, Babs De Lay serves on the Salt Lake City Historic Landmark Commission. A writer and golfer, you'll find them working as a staff guardian at the Temple at Burning Man each year.
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