49 Fun Facts About Burning Man

Burning Man has been held since 1990 in the Black Rock Desert of which US state?

Black Rock City rises each summer on the playa of Nevada's Black Rock Desert, roughly 100 miles north-northeast of the nearest airport city, and is dismantled again within weeks.

Burning Man's name comes from burning a large wooden effigy, the Man, on the Saturday evening before which US holiday?

Labor Day, the first Monday of September, caps the event, which runs for the nine days leading up to and including the holiday; the Man burns on the Saturday night before it.

Burning Man began in 1986 with a solstice bonfire at which San Francisco spot?

Larry Harvey and Jerry James burned a wooden man and a smaller wooden dog on Baker Beach, below the Golden Gate Bridge, on 22 June 1986 to mark the summer solstice.

The first Man burned in 1986 was how tall?

The first Man, built by Larry Harvey and Jerry James in 1986, stood 8 feet tall; it grew to 15 feet in 1987 and 30 feet in 1988 before the figure settled at about 40 feet.

Larry Harvey formally named the event 'Burning Man' in 1988 partly to head off comparisons with what?

The Wicker Man, the reputed Celtic pagan practice of burning live sacrifices in human-shaped wicker cages, was the comparison Harvey wanted to avoid; he said he had not seen the 1973 cult film until years later.

The 1990 desert move, 'Zone Trip No. 4', was organised by which San Francisco group?

The Cacophony Society, whose Zone Trips took their name from the 'Zone' of Tarkovsky's film Stalker, billed the 1990 outing to the Black Rock Desert as 'A Bad Day at Black Rock'.

Which novelist modelled Fight Club's Project Mayhem on the Cacophony Society, the San Francisco group behind Burning Man's 1990 Zone Trip?

Chuck Palahniuk's Project Mayhem came from a society founded in 1986 by survivors of the defunct Suicide Club, which also spawned the Santa Rampage.

Which volunteer group did Michael Mikel establish in the early 1990s to mediate on the playa?

The Black Rock Rangers, set up by Michael Mikel, nicknamed Danger Ranger, mediate disputes and help lost participants without acting as police; a Ranger-patrolled perimeter around the event began in 1997.

From 1991, John Law fitted the Burning Man with what to serve as a beacon in the dark desert?

John Law, who worked in the neon-sign trade, outlined the Man in neon tubes from 1991 so it could be seen across the playa at night, when the camp had no planned roads.

1991 was the first year Burning Man obtained a legal permit from which federal agency?

The Bureau of Land Management, which administers the federal land of the Black Rock Desert, issued the first permit in 1991; fire dancer Crimson Rose, later the event's art director, first attended that year.

Why was Burning Man forced to relocate to the Hualapai lakebed just west of the playa for 1997?

Andy Green's jet car went supersonic on the Black Rock playa that autumn; the event returned in 1998 with its first fence.

Which Burning Man co-founder quit after 1996 and sued over the event's trademarks in 2007?

John Law, who had added the neon to the Man, left the organisation after the troubled 1996 event and in 2007 sued Larry Harvey and Michael Mikel over ownership of the Burning Man name.

The flat playa of the Black Rock Desert is the dry bed of which prehistoric body of water?

Lake Lahontan, a Pleistocene lake that covered much of north-western Nevada, stood about 500 feet deep over the Black Rock Desert at its peak, laying down the famously level silt.

In which year did Larry Harvey write Burning Man's 'Ten Principles'?

Larry Harvey wrote the Ten Principles in 2004 as guidance for the growing network of regional events; they run from gifting and radical self-reliance to leaving no trace and immediacy.

Which of these is one of Burning Man's Ten Principles?

Decommodification is the principle that keeps commerce off the playa: no sponsorship, advertising or vending is allowed, and the organisers themselves sell little more than ice.

In Burning Man slang, what does MOOP stand for?

Matter Out of Place is anything that contaminates Black Rock City; participants are encouraged to leave no trace of their visit.

Under what name does Burning Man sell ice, its main sanctioned sale on the playa?

Arctica sells bagged ice from Center Camp and the 3:00 and 9:00 plazas, one of the very few cash sales allowed under the decommodification principle.

Radial streets in Black Rock City are named using what system, with the Man at the centre?

Radial streets carry clock-face times such as 6:00 or 9:15, with the Man at the centre of a 240-degree arc running from 2:00 to 10:00; the innermost ring is the Esplanade.

Which architect designed the Black Rock City street grid and every Man base from 2001 to 2012?

Rod Garrett served as Black Rock City's designer until his death in 2011, aged 76; the grid exists so emergency vehicles can find an 'address', and he also designed the Man's base each year.

The 'trash fence' enclosing the event's pentagon of desert is roughly how long?

The four-foot plastic barrier was first meant to catch wind-blown debris; since 2002 the land beyond it is off limits.

What is the speed limit for vehicles on Black Rock City's streets?

The limit is 5 mph on the city's streets and 10 mph on the open playa; ordinary driving is banned anyway, and only licensed art cars, service vehicles and bicycles may move about.

What do the letters of Burning Man's own 'DMV', which licenses art cars, stand for?

Department of Mutant Vehicles is the joke; 'mutant vehicle' was coined to distinguish radically rebuilt machines from merely decorated cars, and designs go in for consideration ahead of time.

The Temple, the event's second great structure, is burned when?

It is a non-denominational space where people leave messages and mementos for the dead.

In 2014 the Man was built without a base and stood how tall?

The 2014 'Caravansary' Man stood 105 feet tall, built without a base so that the figure itself was the tallest yet; later years returned to a smaller Man on a base.

Which department helps artists place work on the open playa and enforces burn platforms?

The Artery, Burning Man's art placement team, assigns locations on the open playa, requires burn platforms to protect the playa surface, and makes sure installations are lit so vehicles do not hit them at night.

Black Rock City LLC was formed in 1999 by Harvey and five others; Larry Harvey's official title was what?

Harvey styled himself chief philosophy officer (formally 'Chief Philosophic Officer'); of the other founders, Michael Mikel became historian and archivist and Marian Goodell, then communications chief, later served as the Project's CEO.

In 2013 Black Rock City LLC became a subsidiary of which nonprofit?

The Burning Man Project, a nonprofit formed in 2011 that won 501(c)(3) status in 2012, took ownership of Black Rock City LLC in 2013 and took over running the event.

Which property west of the Black Rock Desert, the event's 1997 refuge, did its nonprofit buy in 2016?

Fly Ranch, a 3,800-acre property with the famous Fly Geyser, had hosted the 1997 event; the Burning Man Project bought it in June 2016 with donations from supporters as a year-round site for projects.

About how many people were reported at Burning Man in 2019?

The 2019 count was about 79,000 (78,850 reported), against a BLM permit cap of 80,000 covering participants, staff and volunteers.

The first-ever Google Doodle, in 1998, was created to announce what?

The doodle, a stick figure behind the second 'o', told visitors the founders were at Burning Man: Larry Page and Sergey Brin posted it on 30 August 1998 as an out-of-office notice.

Which tech executive said in 2014 that Burning Man 'is Silicon Valley'?

Elon Musk, criticising HBO's Silicon Valley in a 2014 interview, said that Burning Man 'is Silicon Valley' and that anyone who had not been there did not understand the culture.

In which two consecutive years did Burning Man not take place, the first cancellations since it began in 1986?

2020 and 2021 were lost to the COVID-19 pandemic; thousands turned up unofficially anyway, and in 2021 an illuminated drone display outlined the Man in place of the burn.

What stranded thousands of attendees at the 2023 event over the holiday weekend?

Rain and flooding from a late-summer storm turned the playa to deep mud on 1-2 September 2023; organisers banned all driving until the surface dried and issued a Wet Playa Survival Guide.

In 2024, tickets went unsold for the first time since which year?

2024 was the first year since 2011, when the event first sold out, that tickets remained unsold; organisers even asked large sound camps to publish their DJ lineups early to spur sales.

What was the individual ticket price, including taxes, in 2016?

CNBC estimated the real cost of attending, with travel, camp fees and costumes, at $1,300 to $20,000.

What is the Burning Man parody called in a 2014 Simpsons episode?

Blazing Guy is the desert festival Homer and Marge attend in 'Blazed and Confused' (season 26, 2014); a character even says 'Burning Man' before correcting herself.

Which 2016 video game features characters visiting a Burning Man-themed event?

Watch Dogs 2, set in San Francisco, sends its hackers to Swelter Skelter, a desert festival modelled on Burning Man; a 2005 Malcolm in the Middle episode was also set at the real event.

The road-traffic technique used to move vehicles out of Black Rock City during Exodus is called what?

Pulsing holds traffic on Gate Road and releases it in waves, roughly a mile of cars at a time at intervals of up to an hour, to keep the highway beyond moving.

The nearest commercial airport to Burning Man is in which city, more than two hours' drive away?

Reno–Tahoe International Airport is the nearest with regular commercial service; shuttle buses also run to the tiny towns of Gerlach and Empire.

The FBI's threat assessment of Burning Man found the only major threats were crowd control and what?

Drug usage and crowd control were the only major threats the FBI found, yet it still sent an unspecified number of undercover agents, who reported no adverse threats or reactions.

Which regional Burn is held in the Tankwa Karoo?

AfrikaBurn, held each April or May in South Africa's Tankwa Karoo, burns a central sculpture called the San Clan instead of the Man; Kiwiburn, Blazing Swan and Midburn are in New Zealand, Australia and Israel.

Where is the regional Burn called Nowhere held?

Nowhere is held each July in the Monegros desert of Aragon, near Zaragoza, Spain; first staged in 2004, it is one of the oldest official regional Burns in Europe.

Larry Harvey, Burning Man's co-founder and figurehead, died in 2018 from complications of what?

A stroke on 4 April 2018 led to Larry Harvey's death in San Francisco on 28 April, aged 70; he had led the event since the first Baker Beach burn in 1986.

The regional Burn called Burning Flipside is held in which US state?

Burning Flipside takes place in Texas, at a private ranch outside Austin, over Memorial Day weekend; Apogaea is Colorado's regional and Playa del Fuego is Delaware's.

How many volunteer Temple Guardians watch over the Temple around the clock during the event?

The Temple is a non-denominational space where people leave words and objects to be burned on the final night.

Which Washington, D.C. museum staged the 2018 exhibition No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man?

The Renwick Gallery, the Smithsonian American Art Museum's craft branch near the White House, filled its whole building with No Spectators from March 2018, with installations spilling into the surrounding neighbourhood.

Terbo Ted, credited as Burning Man's first-ever DJ, opened his set with a record by which artist?

Electronic music camps began appearing in 1992, an offshoot of the San Francisco rave scene.

What nickname did the outskirts area where DJs set up in the 1990s acquire?

The Techno Ghetto was the name given to the rave camps placed on the city's outskirts in the mid-1990s; later, particular spokes of the city were designated sound camps with volume limits and speakers angled outward.

On what FM frequency does Black Rock City's public radio station BMIR broadcast?

BMIR (Burning Man Information Radio) broadcasts on 94.5 FM from Center Camp, alongside Recycling Camp, the Ranger outposts and the Arctica ice sales.