Burning Man: puts other festivals in the shade

In late 1986, a beach party celebrating the summer solstice marked the first official Burning Man. Within a few years, its participants had become so many, and its activities so outlandish, that founder Larry Harvey and his friends decided to move the festival to somewhere more appropriate. They chose the Black Rock desert, a 100-mile prehistoric lakebed in north-western Nevada, where temperatures regularly reach 110°F.
By 1997, Burning Man was already well on the way to becoming a cultural phenomenon. That year 10,000 people turned up to experience a week of desert living, far outside the mainstream culture of the United States. Within "Black Rock City", participants abide by a gift economy, in which commerce of any type is expressly forbidden. "Burners" must bring all their own food, camping equipment and water; and are expected to "participate" in one form or another. Many choose to construct extraordinary temporal pieces of art: full size buildings made of driftwood and junk, flashing sculptures belching flames into the night. Walking around the desert after dark, this formerly empty expanse shimmers with a thousand projections and creations, impromptu performances, DJ booths, fantastical art cars resembling pirate ships and dragonflies. "It's like stepping through the looking glass," one Burner told me. "The default world - which is what we call the world outside - just can't compare with this."
In 2007, numbers at Burning Man reached 35,000. There were people of every age group, from every stratum of society. I was among them, knowing no one, expecting little more than a fun week in a somewhat surreal environment. And yet, like thousands before me, the week was transformative, life changing, instantly addictive. This third largest city in Nevada (vanishing "without a trace" after the festival') was spotlessly clean, full of highly creative and considerate individuals. People travelled everywhere by bicycle, some of them naked. Everywhere I went, people offered me food, free rides on their "mutant vehicles", invitations to all-night parties, yoga lessons, fire juggling demonstrations. Dressed in bizarre costumes, wearing sand goggles and dust masks, it seemed easy to take people at face value, little caring what they did outside Black Rock. The annual theme, which last year was entitled Green Man, seemed to perfectly mesh with the zeitgeist. Invention and great creativity was needed to rethink the carbon-based structure of our world. At Burning Man that world seemed to rise up in the present moment, ecologically sound and full of laughter.

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