Burning Man survived a muddy quagmire. Will the experiment last 30 more years?

RENO, Nev. — The blank canvas of northern Nevada's desert wilderness seemed in 1992 the perfect place for artistic anarchists to relocate their annual burning of a towering, anonymous effigy. It was goodbye to San Francisco's Baker Beach, hello to the Nevada Playa, the long-ago bottom of an inland sea.

The small company became the surreal circus of Burning Man, fueled by acts of kindness and avant-garde theater, sometimes with a dose of hallucinogens or nudity. The spectacle flourished as the festival grew explosively over the next three decades.

Some say it grew too much and too fast.

Things came to a head in 2011 when tickets sold out for the first time. Organizers responded with a short-lived lottery system that shut people out of what should have been a radically inclusive event. As Burning Man matured, the number of luxury accommodations grew, as did the population of billionaires and celebrities.

Katherine Chen, a sociology professor in New York City who wrote a 2009 book about the “creative chaos” of the event, was among those who wondered whether Burning Man would become “a victim of its own success.”

Exponential growth led to increasing questions about whether organizers had strayed too far from the core principles of radical inclusion, expression, participation and the promise to 'leave no trace'.

That last hurdle has never been more difficult to overcome than this year, when “Burners” tried to leave over Labor Day weekend after setting fire to the 80-foot-tall wooden sculpture called “the man.”

A rare rainstorm turned the Black Rock Desert into a muddy swamp 110 miles (177 kilometers) north of Reno, delaying the departure of 80,000 partygoers. Once outside, organizers had six weeks to clean up under the terms of a federal permit.

They passed the test last month by a narrow margin, with a few adjustments recommended for the future. The ruling by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management means Burning Man will be allowed to use federal land again next year.

However, the debate over the future of the event is sure to continue as divisions grow between the aging hippie types and the wealthier, more tech-savvy newcomers. Experienced participants fear that the newer set is losing touch with Burning Man's roots.

The event has taken a quantum leap from a gathering of hundreds to one that temporarily becomes Nevada's third-largest city, after the metro areas of Las Vegas and Reno. The festival attracted 4,000 visitors in 1995 and reached 50,000 visitors in 2010.

It's no wonder that die-hard Burners sound a bit like gripping cribbage players in a rural town square when they mutter, “It's not like it used to be.”

“It was a lot more raw back then,” says Mike “Festie” Malecki, 63, a retired Chicago funeral director turned California sculptor who this year made his 13th trip to the land of colorful themed camps, towering sculptures, drum circles and art cars. .

“There are more people who come to party and don't participate. We call them spectators,” he said.

Senior organizers have long grappled with whether to become more civil or continue what co-founder Larry Harvey described as a “rejection of order and authority.”

Ron Halbert, a 71-year-old from San Francisco, has been working in support of Burning Man's 90-piece orchestra for 20 years and remains optimistic.

“It's still the meeting of the tribe,” he said.

The event is tentatively allowed for the same attendance of 80,000 next year. Organizers are considering some minor changes but generally resist making new rules, executive director Marian Goodell said.

Critics on social media cried at the chaos left behind this year. They posted photos of garbage piles, abandoned vehicles and overflowing portable toilets, while ridiculing the “hippies” and their “leave no trace” mantra.

But that chaos may have helped bring Burning Man back to its roots.

Katrina Cook of Toronto said it forced people to stay true to the tenets of participation and radical self-reliance.

“The rain wiped out the people who didn't want to be there for the right reasons,” Cook said.

Mark Fromson, 54, was staying in a camper, but rain forced him to seek shelter at another camp where fellow burners provided food and cover. Another principle of Burning Man, he said, is about giving gifts unconditionally without expecting anything in return.

After sunset, Fromson set out barefoot through the mud for a long trek back to his vehicle, slogging through thick clay that stuck to his feet and legs. The challenge, he said, was the sign of a “good burn.”

Still, San Francisco's Jeffery Longoria, who marked his fifth consecutive trip to Burning Man last summer, said its core principles will evolve no matter what happens as a new generation takes over.

“The people who created this community, many of them are getting older and retiring, and there's a lot of new young people coming in, the kind who, you know, have a couple of $100,000 RVs and are just careless about the environment . ”

Soren Michael, a technology worker from Los Angeles who was on his 11th trip this year, said the biggest change was the ability to communicate with the outside world from the desert.

“It was almost part of the call to disconnect,” he said.

Twenty years ago, this psychedelic celebration like no other already attracted academic scientists – anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists and communications professors – curious about how the makeshift civilization functioned without real-world rules.

Burning Man references started popping up in TV episodes and talk show punchlines. The rich and famous ventured to Black Rock City, as the festival's temporary metropolis is called.

A complete exhibition on the phenomenon debuted in 2018 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington. Even then, veteran Burners complained that the event became as much of a curiosity to see as it was to do.

That's partly the problem veterans have with the rise of glamor camping, or glamping, where private companies offer package tours to concierge camps with luxury RVs and lavish meals under chandeliers. Some believe the camps violate Burning Man principles.

The growing number of billionaires and celebrities flying into Black Rock City's temporary airstrip on private jets “seems to be everyone's favorite thing to hate,” Goodell said. But wealth should not be a cause for shame, she said.

“The question is not about glamping,” she said. “Comfort doesn't imply a lack of commitment. It's about having a glamping camp and not being really engaging.”

The goal of Burning Man remains the same: to build a creative, stimulating environment, the essence of which people can take with them to their own community.

“That's what we thought from the beginning,” Goodell said. “We just didn't know it would involve 80,000 people.”