What I Did During My Summer Vacation: Burning Man Edition

Bennett Haselton writes: "While nothing can really 'prepare' you for your first time at Burning Man, there are a few simple steps that can eliminate a lot of the stress. Unfortunately it can be hard to get information out of the 10-year veterans about how to do things the easy way (some of them probably view the 'easy way' as 'ruining the whole point'). So here's some advice instead from someone who just got back from their first time, and who likes to take the path of least resistance." Keep reading for the rest of Bennett's Burning Man advice.

If you get nothing else out of this article:

• You can fly to Reno Airport and take the Burner Express shuttle to Burning Man, instead of driving.

• You can rent a bike from one of the other camps at Burning Man rather than bringing one yourself. (Bringing one might be the easier option if you're driving there, but not if you're flying.)

• You can pay dues to a camp that will provide food, water, camping space, a place to store your trash (if you didn't know, there are no communal trash dumpsters at Burning Man), sometimes electricity, and sometimes access to a shower, rather than trying to arrange for all of those things yourself.

• If you just need space for one person to sleep, you can buy and bring a single-occupancy tent. You don't need to build a home-made shade structure out of PVC and tarp.

• If you have lower-than-average heat tolerance, buy ice from the ice vendors to make your own ice water, and carry a water spray bottle.

These points should be taken in conjunction with a more comprehensive guide to preparing and packing; I'm not writing a full guide to getting ready for Burning Man. These just happen to be the points where I wasted the most time going down the wrong path during preparation, taking advice too literally from the BurningMan.com website and/or grizzled veterans who thought that you honor the event's heritage by doing things the hard way, before realizing there was a much easier option. (I would have liked it, for example, if the Burning Man website had told me you can just rent a bike once you get there, instead of pointing me to a long list of other options that are much more hassle.)

Generally speaking, for more details on how to prepare, you should talk to someone who has been before -- but it's has to be someone who doesn't take themselves too seriously and will give genuinely usable advice. We all know people who give you the kind of advice that you can actually use because it closely corresponds with what people actually do; and we also all know people who give you the kind of advice designed to "make a man out of you" (regardless of gender) by steering you through an ordeal that will make you appreciate how hard they had to work, but which may not actually be useful. Burning Man attracts a disproportionate number of people from the second category, but you need to find and talk to someone from the first group.

In particular, one lesson learned the hard way: Do not ask a male Burning Man veteran how to do something, in front of a girl that they might be trying to have sex with later. Because you'll get an answer designed to impress her, not to help you -- something along the lines of hunting your own deer with a crossbow and then using the bones to construct a tent frame across which you stretch the fresh deer skin for shelter.

All right, I'm exaggerating, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that the first three people I asked about what kind of tent and shade structure I needed to bring, all of them suggested following directions from the Internet about how to build your own from PVC pipe and tarp from Home Depot, or how to build something called a Hexayurt. (Seriously, the Hexayurt sounds like an honest-to-God brilliant idea, but is kind of overkill, and realistically eliminated as an option if you're flying to Burning Man.) Really, you can get buy with a storebought tent.

A few other meta-points about how I got this information:

• I'm sure some people think that making it "easy" for people to survive at Burning Man will ruin it for the veterans, but I think that the less time you have to worry about practical details (such as your week's food supply running low or your home-made tent blowing over in the wind), the more time you can spend actually participating. I'm writing this because I had a good time, and I'd like to make it easier for other people to go, and once they get there, to have more time to contribute using whatever special skill they happened to bring with them.

• I'm erring on the side of paying a little bit more money for a little bit less hassle.

• Notwithstanding the foregoing, I consider these fallback options which cost a little more money but are guaranteed to work -- for example, pre-paying to rent a bicycle at the event. If you know someone who can bring a bicycle for you in their truck, great; but you have to find someone who is driving there, who has room in their truck, who is willing to do you a favor or let you reimburse them, who is not going to flake out and sell their ticket at the last minute, etc. I've always found that when you are looking for cheaper alternatives, it's a lot less stressful if you have a more expensive option you can fall back on, that you know will definitely work if the cheaper options fall through.

So, back to my list:

You can fly to Reno Airport and take the Burner Express shuttle to Burning Man, instead of driving.

Now I did say that most of my "simplifying strategies" were hard to find through the official channels, but this is an exception to that general rule, in that this option actually is promoted prominently on the BurningMan.com website, not least because the Burner Express shuttle service is operated by the corporation that runs Burning Man. The Burner Express shuttle costs $60 each way and runs from the Reno Airport to Burning Man, allowing you to get from the airport to the event without having to rent a car or coordinate a ride. That might sound expensive if you were planning to rideshare from the airport for free, but you also get to bypass a five-hour line of cars waiting to get in to Burning Man through the entrance gate, and bypass another five-hour line again on the way out. That works out to paying about $12 an hour to avoid sitting in a line full of hot cars, which sounds worth it to me. (There is also a Burner Express shuttle that runs from San Francisco to Burning Man.)

The major constraint that this creates is that you have to fit everything you're bringing into two suitcases per person, which is the maximum allowed by Burner Express, unless you pay extra to bring a third suitcase. (That's still plenty of space, but it does rule out things like the hexayurt.) You can use the extra-large luggage allowance to pay to bring a bicycle on the Burner Express bus, but that means you have to somehow get your hands on a bicycle at the beginning of the bus ride. That's not easy, since you would either have to leave Reno Airport, rent a bike somewhere in the city, and bring it back to the airport before the bus leaves -- or else fly with your own bike on the plane to Reno Airport, which is expensive. Which leads to the next simplifying strategy:

You can rent a bike from one of the other camps at Burning Man rather than bringing one yourself.

I rented mine from Playa Bike Repair camp for $200. If I'd reserved it earlier it would have been $150. (I don't know how many camps there are that rent bicycles to burners, but Hammer and Cyclery is at least one other one.)

This was the one point on which I wished the BurningMan.com website had pointed me in the right direction and saved me a lot of aggravating time chasing dead ends, since their website has three separate pages about bikes at Burning Man -- what kind to bring, where to get them, how to transport them, how to return them -- without mentioning the option of renting them from other camps. (This seems like such a big omission, that it made me wonder if part of BurningMan.com shouldn't be organized as a wiki, so that users can submit edits if the organization doesn't have time to maintain it. A link to the bike rental camps, is exactly the kind of thing that probably would have been added to a page about "bicycles at Burning Man", if it had been wikified.)

The Burning Man website does link to places you can rent a bike in Reno -- some of which are much cheaper than the $200 to rent from Playa Bike Repair -- but they were all booked out by the time I started looking a few weeks before the event. Also, if you're flying in to Reno and renting a bike from a shop there, you'd have to figure out how, after you arrive at the airport, you're going to go and pick up the bike to bring it back to the airport before the Burner Express bus leaves. All more reasons why I figured a bike rental camp was much simpler.

You do have to pre-arrange and pre-pay for a rental from a bike rental camp. Playa Bike Repair had no walk-up rentals available at the event, and I doubt the other bike rental camps would either, since they have to know in advance how many bikes to bring with them, based on reservations.

And speaking of Playa Bike Repair camp --

You can pay dues to a camp that will provide food, water, camping space, a place to store your trash (if you didn't know, there are no communal trash dumpsters at Burning Man), and sometimes access to a shower, rather than trying to arrange for all of those things yourself.

"Camps" at Burning Man are groups of campers who often pool their resources so that, for example, one person can drive in with a truck carrying a week's worth of food for everyone, instead of everyone bringing in their own food. Some camps have consisted of the same group of friends for many years and have completely closed their membership, so that even close friends of the existing members can't join. Others outright sell camp memberships to the general public. (My camp was in the middle of the open-ness spectrum; it wasn't open to the public, but two of the campers were guys that I had met a few times, so I got in by paying $200 and doing a share of the camp chores.)

One Burning Man participant, who had done more research than I did on the types of camp memberships that were open to the public, said that they varied widely in the value they offered for the dollar -- some charged up to $300 for almost nothing, while others charged under $100 for everything including food, water, and showers. He said that in order to find a suitable camp, he wrote up a "Burner Resume" describing his skills, and contacted various camps while putting out a request on the Burning Man forums. You might find some sweet deals that way, expanding your options beyond those camps which straightforwardly sell memberships to the public through a shopping cart interface right on their website.

Playa Bike Repair is in fact one camp that sells public memberships and gives you a discount on your loaner bike if you camp with them. (But read the fine print; they also ask you to work four 4-hour shifts (16 hours total) for the camp during the week.)

I can't vouch for any specific camp that has open membership; I'm just saying that as a general strategy, it's probably easier to pay money into a camp that will take care of these details for you, rather than worrying about everything yourself.

If you just need space for one person to sleep, all you need is a single-occupancy tent.

Originally, after reading the Burning Man Survival Guide for 2013, I was under the impression that you needed to bring a shade structure to the desert in addition to your tent. Basically, they recommend a tent to protect you from the elements, and then a separate layer on top of that to cast a shadow over the tent, to prevent overheating. (Obviously, the opaque fabric of the tent already creates "shade" inside, but if the tent is directly in the sun, the air trapped inside the tent will heat up like an oven. So you need a second layer above the tent, to create shade while still allowing the air to circulate between the roof of the tent chamber, and whatever is above it casting the shadow.) And this is where I got a lot of Bear Grylls types telling me how to build my own shade structure out of PVC pipe and tarp.

It's probably simpler than that. Basically:

• If you're sleeping in a single-occupancy tent and you won't be sleeping in it during the day, a regular camping tent is fine.

• On the other hand, if you might be sleeping or resting in your tent during the day, you'll likely want a tent that has a built-in shade canopy, or a separate shade structure.

• In either case, you should anchor it to the ground using rebar, rather than the stakes that come with the tent or the shade structure.

• But, in neither case do you need to build anything yourself out of PVC and tarp, unless you really want to save money. You can get tents and shade structures at REI or Sports Authority, and I think it's worth it to have one more thing that is built by professionals and that much less likely to have something go wrong with it.

Now here's where I may have gotten away with an easy approach because of my particular circumstances. Originally I brought a 12-foot-square shade structure that I had planned to set up over my tent. But I either caught a cold on the plane to Reno, or was hit with dust allergies as soon as I got to Burning Man (I still don't know which), so I was taking heavy doses of Benadryl every evening. And that meant I was usually out cold by midnight, and that meant I was usually up by 8 am the next morning and well out of my tent before the sun started heating up the trapped air inside. So I didn't even need my shade structure and never set it up.

On the other hand, if you plan on sleeping or resting in your tent during in the day, then you probably need shade. You can buy tents which have an extra layer of fabric separate from the roof of the tent, to let the air circulate while still providing shade, or you can get a separate shade structure. Most experienced burners say that an EZ-UP shade structure is not suitable because it can be too flimsy and likely to blow away in high winds; a burner in your city can help you find a sturdier shade structure that you can buy.

Remember, a flimsy tent or shade structure might merely be crumpled by high winds, so it's up to you if you want to take that chance. A tent or shade structure that is improperly secured, however, creates a hazard to other people, so it's your obligation to other burners to make sure your tent or shade structure stays attached to the ground, whether it crumples or not. That's why you should use rebar instead of the standard stakes which come with the tent (which are too short to anchor securely in the desert sand), and then cover the cops of the rebar with bottlecaps or tennis balls so that people won't impale themselves if they trip and fall onto one of the stakes.

One final note on that: I didn't set up my shade structure, but I did bring an electric fan that I turned on full blast to circulate the air in and out of my tent the one morning that I did sleep in for a bit. If your camp provides electricity to plug in a fan, that may work just a well for you, and be a lot simpler than a separate shade structure.

If you have lower-than-average heat tolerance, buy ice from the ice vendors to make your own ice water, and carry a water spray bottle.

Bags of ice are one of the few things that are sold at Burning Man, by the event organizers. Most days I would go to the ice vendors and buy my own 10-lb bag of crushed ice, bike back to the camp with it in my backpack, and empty it into my plastic water jugs. This got me only about two hours' worth of ice-cold water, before the ice was all melted -- but during the two hottest hours in the middle of the day, I considered it to be well worth it. On my definite packing list for next year: a cooler (small enough to fit in a suitcase) which I can use to store my own private ice supply and make it last all day, and a thermos to carry around ice water and keep it cold for as long as possible. (Almost everyone I saw was drinking lukewarm water from a camelbak or simple water bottle instead of a thermos; I'd gladly spend the extra 10 seconds screwing and unscrewing the thermos, to get ice-cold water instead of room-temperature. Besides, for hydration purposes, cold water is better for you.)

A water spray bottle, besides being a good way to deal with the heat, can also function as an icebreaker -- I didn't bring my own spray bottle, but many times I walked past strangers who said Hi and gave me a nice misting with water, sometimes scented with a flavor like lavender. Surprisingly, given how refreshing the spray bottles are, most people seemed not to have one, so everyone was always happy to see the person who had the spray bottle. Everyone at Burning Man is expected to contribute one way or another, and if you don't know how to juggle flaming chainsaws and you don't have boobs that you can walk around exposing everywhere, carrying around a bottle to mist people with is quite sufficient.

Of course spray bottles are not the only resource you can share for the benefit of the community. Next to every row of porta-potties distributed throughout the city at Burning Man, there was a wooden stake in the ground with two with two hand sanitizer dispensers attached to it, but the dispensers were almost always empty when I tried to use them, so I started carrying around my own hand sanitizer bottle. On my last morning there, since my personal hand sanitizer bottle was still 80% full, and since I had just spent a week snarfing up every piece of free food that was offered to me, I figured the least I could do was to stand by the hand sanitizer post for a few minutes and offer free hand sanitizer to anyone who wanted it, after they discovered that the official dispensers were empty. Nice way to give back to the community and say Hi to a few people, although not a great way to pick up the ladies since you're meeting them in the context of helping them wipe off bacteria from their own shit. Have fun!

Comments

Re:Happy Monday from The Golden Girls!

[clarkkent09]

A cosmonaut!?

so why do people go into the desert?

[alen]

i did it twice while in the US Army. two trips to the national training center in the california desert. i hated it. both were pre internet

it takes like 15 minutes to read the day's newspaper and after that, nothing to do
the radio stations played the same 10 songs every day, all day

WTF is so awesome about dumping technology and living like a caveman for a few days? try it for a month.

i came back and first thing i did was drink, watch TV and listen to music i hadn't listened to for weeks

Re:so why do people go into the desert?

[Anonymous Coward]

Attactive women in a consquence free environment. Find something to do? Find someone to do.

Re:so why do people go into the desert?

[Anonymous Coward]

Consequence free? Burning when you pee is a consequence.

Re:so why do people go into the desert?

[Garridan]

Not if it burns to pee beforehand. Remember, burning man is about sharing.

Re:so why do people go into the desert?

[timeOday]

I guess the point is there's nothing there except what people bring to it. No accumulated cruft, of whatever sort.

(And what they do bring is pretty different than an Army encampment).

Re:so why do people go into the desert?

[Shoten]

i did it twice while in the US Army. two trips to the national training center in the california desert. i hated it. both were pre internet

it takes like 15 minutes to read the day's newspaper and after that, nothing to do
the radio stations played the same 10 songs every day, all day

WTF is so awesome about dumping technology and living like a caveman for a few days? try it for a month.

i came back and first thing i did was drink, watch TV and listen to music i hadn't listened to for weeks

Burning Man is not like being at the NTC. For one, it's a social event rather than simulated warfare where you're trying to stay "alive" and not get "killed" while trying to "kill" others. (Quotes because, for those of you who aren't familiar, the NTC is a large area where our military does extremely realistic military training using laser-triggered sensors on otherwise extremely real weaponry. Think of it like military hardware configured to fire blanks, with laser tag attachments on them.) Following this logic, pretty much any situation would be boring...going to a shopping mall wouldn't be fun, because instead of shopping or seeing a movie, you'd be just practicing MOUT inside the mall with no ability to do any of the fun things that would otherwise be available to you.

I get why you'd be bored if you had nothing to do. But at Burning Man, there's a ton to do...starting off with simple socialization. There are tons of people there, each with their own things to talk about. Yes, some of them are total raisincakes...but that can be entertaining too. (I will gloss over the profoundly commonplace nudity, as the entertainment value of that fades after a while.) And in the meanwhile, the absence of contact with the outside world, for the most part, means that you are instead more motivated to look at the immediate community around you. There's art, there's interesting debate, there's a blending of people from many walks of life...and what makes it really neat is that at Burning Man, they have largely shed a lot of the things that would clue you into what they were like in normal life. (Which one of the people with the body paint is the dot-com success who holds several patents, and which is the guy who works at a surf shop?)

There's music to hear, art to look at, performances to watch...it goes on and on. Not at all like being at the NTC. And it's only for a few days, as you pointed out...if it went on all month, yeah, that'd be a bit much. So what? The same is true of almost anything else. You can't say that something is pointless because it'd be awful if it (insert unrealistic and non-reality-based condition here).

Re:so why do people go into the desert?

[sconeu]

You did time at Ft. Irwin? I salute you sir.

I was up there for a rip-roaring 3 days as a contractor, and was bored silly. I have no idea how you managed to do a full stint.

Re:so why do people go into the desert?

[ArcadeMan]

They don't call it "Burning Man" for nothing

Re:so why do people go into the desert?

[doom]

Burning Man is not like being at the NTC. For one, it's a social event rather than simulated warfare where you're trying to stay "alive" and not get "killed" while trying to "kill" others.

Well, except for Thunderdome, of course.

Re:so why do people go into the desert?

[Shoten]

Burning Man is not like being at the NTC. For one, it's a social event rather than simulated warfare where you're trying to stay "alive" and not get "killed" while trying to "kill" others.

Well, except for Thunderdome, of course.

Touche :)

Here's the deal

[djupedal]

. . . without photos of Elon Musk, I stopped reading. Might as well be a Chamber 'O Commerce blurb.

The only winning move...

[zawarski]

..is not to play.

Re:The only winning move...

[jellomizer]

The burning man doesn't sound like a good time to me.
All the problems with living in a city combined with all the problems of camping.

I much rather go camping away from all the people. Or visit a City where there is an infrastructure to make sure I can survive well.

nice guy

[Anonymous Coward]

>> I figured the least I could do was to stand by the hand sanitizer post for a few minutes and offer free hand sanitizer to anyone who wanted it, after they discovered that the official dispensers were empty. Nice way to give back to the community and say Hi to a few people.

Awww. Such a nice guy.

How about this?

[realmolo]

Don't go to "Burning Man".

"Burning Man" is for pretentious douchebags.

Re:How about this?

[xevioso]

Be careful about your hipster-hating ways... hating people who want to take a fun vacation in the desert is the latest trend, you know. And following the latest trends might make you...a hipster.

Re:How about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least you didn't deny the truth: hipsters ARE pretentious douchebags, brainwashed with the liberal leanings of their parents, they go out into the world making socialist demands on everyone else, calling THEM the douchebags if they refuse to comply.

Re:How about this?

[Shoten]

Don't go to "Burning Man".

"Burning Man" is for pretentious douchebags.

That seems a rather ironic thing to say, since you're posting it in response to a guide for how to make it easier for people to attend, in direct contravention to some of the pretension that the OP calls out.

Re:How about this?

[xevioso]

Bullshit. Hipster is a meaningless word; it's a word used to describe anyone who does anything trendy nowadays. If you are a square and young, and pretty much do anything that statistically a majority of the population is doing, such as drinking a bud-light rather than a craft beer, or wearing a button up shirt on a regular basis rather than a t-shirt with an obscure rock band logo on it; then you are not a hipster. Everyone else, well, get ready to have to deal with all the hipster-hating crap people such as you spew all the time. Pretentious douchebag.

Re:How about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

"craft beer"

"t-shirt with an obscure rock band logo on it"

Oh crap. Apparently I'm a hipster.

Re:How about this?

[argStyopa]

One million percent agree.

It's an "open" festival for the most "open minded" of counter culture crusaders...who end up forming their own elitist clique of snobbery, grossly ridiculing and excoriating newbs pretty much for "being new" and whose experimentalist outlook really pretty much ends up with smoking weed, not bathing, and convincing women that showing us their tits is "freedom of expression", not simply indulging adolescent male impulses.

Re:How about this?

[Herder Of Code]

I don't know if it was on purpose but "Burning Man fucking sucks, don't come" is like the oldest joke on the playa. The more people there are, the harder it is for veterans to get tickets, good spot etc so yeah since I want my tickets too: Burning man sucks, stay the fuck away.

Re:How about this?

[kolbe]

^This. I once opted to attend this and contacted several individuals to offer my services. About 2 months into being part of the planning E-mails I realized just how bass-ackwards the organizers were and backed out of helping them.

The only people who go to this are those wanting:

a) Drugs, Art and Music
b) Drugs and Sex
c) Drugs, Sex and Music

Just say no.

Re:How about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

two out of three aint bad? lets take care of the bathing thing

Re:How about this?

[jareth-0205]

Be careful about your hipster-hating ways... hating people who want to take a fun vacation in the desert is the latest trend, you know. And following the latest trends might make you...a hipster.

Fully agreed! So disappointing to see a backlash against something as a fashion. I'll wager those hating it have never been.

Re:How about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's the real douchebag? A person attending a gathering to enjoy themselves or a person running from website to website posting comments calling people liberals and socialists.

Re:How about this?

[Splab]

Have you actually been there?

I haven't, but sure as heck is on my bucket list. I attend Roskilde Festival every year, which is kinda the same, except there is a shit load of trash when it's over, but it's about love and having fun - experience things outside your normal comfort zone (chemical toilets, sleeping in a stinky noisy environment, living without your normal convinience things). Trust me, it's good for you, you learn there is an alternative way to view the world, even though you might not share it or totally disagree with the LSD loving hipster crowd, you still should listen to their point of view and then repectfully disagree instead of being and uptight twat (respectfully...)

Re:How about this?

[Mullen]

Hey, some of go for the "Art, Sex and Music"!

Re:How about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> "Burning Man" is for pretentious douchebags.

And dirty hippie wannabes.

Re:How about this?

[xevioso]

Yep. You are definitely a hipster. You don't happen to have any facial hair do you? Hipster-haters tend to put folks with facial hair in the hipster category. Be careful.

Re:How about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

*blink*

*blink*

*blink*

So, I'm to take it you're a person who hates drugs, art, music, and sex?

Re:How about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

This was insightful the *first* time you posted it. The second time, I'm afraid you started a trend.

Oh no! You're trendy! You must be a hipster!

I hate you.

Re:How about this?

[xevioso]

Except that hipsters are in self-denial, and would never be caught admitting they are part of something so trendy, as apparently hipsters revel in their uniqueness while at the same time acting like other hipsters.

And so I deny that I am a hipster.

Which makes me a hipster.

Which proves how utterly stupid the term hipster is to begin with.

Re:How about this?

[xevioso]

And as we all know, hipsters love irony, so the OP, I'm afraid, is quite the hipster.

Re:How about this?

[Zeio]

This event is clearly for those with lots of disposable income. The spirit of the thing is lost. Its a orgiastic romp of drugs and supposed freewill which comes at a rather big price tag. This isnt woodstock summer of love, this is designer drugs and hedonism that is rather unappealing to look at. At one point I had some desire to see this spectacle, but it has clearly degraded to the point where it is being attended to by rats like Eric Schmidt, a philandering spying money grubber.

Re:How about this?

[painandgreed]

Don't go to "Burning Man".

"Burning Man" is for pretentious douchebags.

Which camp are you with when you go?

Re:How about this?

[Narcocide]

No, he's a NARC that doesn't get laid. If pressed he'll probably claim to actually *like* art, sex and music, but if pressed harder won't be able to recall the last time he enjoyed any of the above.

Re:How about this?

[kermidge]

You know I smoked a lot of grass
  Oh Lord I popped a lot of pills
  But I never touched nothin'
  That my spirit could kill

--Steppenwolf, "The Pusher"; written by Hoyt Axton, whose own lyric runs:

You know I smoked a lot of grass
  And I popped a couple of pills, now
  But I never touched nothin' that
  could break my will, now

--c. 1963 Lady Jane Music-BMI

I've never been to Burning Man, have you? My impression from word and picture is that the gathering covers a variety of type, from aging-hippie to those cutting new grooves. If I see anything at all corporate about it is in the organizing of structure and guidelines.

Re:How about this?

[bennetthaselton]

I met some people like that, but a lot of people who weren't. Part of why I wrote the article is that even for veterans who really do want to make it easy for newbies, the veterans may have been doing it the hard-core way for so long, that they don't even recognize the invisible assumptions that make it hard for newbies to follow their advice. (For example, they might give you packing advice based on the assumption that you're driving there; they might talk to you for five minutes about building a hexayurt without realizing that you can't do that because you're planning to fly in and you can't pack the materials on a plane.) Now a veteran could just send the newbie a link to this article, while appending their own suggestions and modifications to this advice.

Re:How about this?

[bennetthaselton]

Well, I had fun, and I didn't trip on any drugs except Benadryl. I like music and art. I also like sex, but the despite a pretty-even ratio of guys to girls at the event (only 53% male according to http://afterburn.burningman.com/11/census/ ), the ratio of unattached men to women (i.e. single, or poly, or otherwise available to have sex), is pretty high. So only the tallest and best-looking men (or, if you're an idiot, the "most confident") have much of a shot, so I didn't bother trying very hard. Besides, I didn't have a lot of space in my aforementioned single-occupancy tent.

You really can see a lot of mind-blowing things there without the sex and drugs. I grew up on the Mad Max movies and never dreamed that I'd be hanging off the side of a real-life Thunderdome watching a fight.

Re:How about this?

[RussR42]

Just say no.

Why would I do that? Sounds great! (Except for the backwards organizers)
Lemme guess, you're bit religious?

Re:How about this?

[ToddInSF]

How does this comment get a +5 rating ?

Ahh, got it, pretentious slashdot douchebag says what ?

so cool ya know

[Anonymous Coward]

cool stuff stops being cool when everyone and their fucking grandmother are doin the trendy cool stuff, ya know? All that's missing is for someone to say how burning man was "so epic"

Because...

[Anonymous Coward]

They're a bunch of hipster douchebags who want to relive the hippie days, but having allowing the country to fall to such a level of nanny-ism, the only place they can go and do it without being arrested is out in the middle of some podunk desert in the ass end of the U.S. where nobody cares enough to budget surveillance apparatus to watch them other than perhaps for calibration purposes :)

Re:Because...

[xevioso]

Ah and here we go with the Burnin Man hating folks. Anyone who wants to do something different for vacation than go on a cruise or sit on a back porch drinking a crappy beer...yeah, those people are douches.

Of course you know hipster-hating is the latest trend...be careful about following the latest trend...it might turn you into a hipster.

Re:Because...

[Garridan]

Fun fact: hipsters existed before hippies.

Re:Because...

[Deadstick]

Anyone who wants to do something different for vacation than go on a cruise.

This. What could be more doucheful than paying piles of money to be waited on hand and foot by a legion of poverty-scale Third Worlders who get fired if they aren't sufficiently servile?

Re:Because...

[hawguy]

Ah and here we go with the Burnin Man hating folks. Anyone who wants to do something different for vacation than go on a cruise or sit on a back porch drinking a crappy beer...yeah, those people are douches.

Of course you know hipster-hating is the latest trend...be careful about following the latest trend...it might turn you into a hipster.

I think the amount of hate towards a group of people that pack up and leave town for a holiday weekend to be with other like minded folks is more of a "Hey, look at me, I'm so cool that I hate Burning Man and everyone that goes there" reaction. There's a similar group of people that say "Burning man sucks now, but I used to go when it was cool", where "when it was cool" varies from 1986 to 2 years ago, depending on when that person last attended burning man.

Burning Man isn't my idea of a fun weekend, but I enjoy hearing the stories (and seeing the pictures) from those that do attend.

Re:Because...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Can all the hipster douches just shut the fuck up and get back to posting pictures of naked women wearing body paint?

You know your purpose; now serve it! >:-(

Re:Because...

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes Burners douches is they act like its something more than it really is. If you just said "My summer vacation was doing drugs in the desert for a few days" people wouldn't really care all that much.

Re:Because...

[egcagrac0]

Hipsters were around before it became so mainstream.

Re:Because...

[pspahn]

Personally, I think it sounds like it could be a great time; however, these days, the idea of dropping a grand or two to attend just seems like a complete ripoff.

Yeah, I would have liked at attend back in the early 90's, but mainly because it was an affordable getaway back then. I think it's cool they offer a number of ticket options for different budgets, though.

I'm more of an isolationist anyway, and I'm not a fan of the heat. Give a nice (naturally) air conditioned campsite up at 10,000 feet anyday over spending a week on the desert floor. Maybe if I went with a bunch of friends they can all head east to the desert from Reno and I'll just skip up somewhere above Tahoe and go fishing for the week.

Re:Because...

[HornWumpus]

Fishing is a better use of explosives then burning man anyhow.

Re:Because...

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I think it sounds like it could be a great time; however, these days, the idea of dropping a grand or two to attend just seems like a complete ripoff. Yeah, I would have liked at attend back in the early 90's, but mainly because it was an affordable getaway back then. I think it's cool they offer a number of ticket options for different budgets, though.

Consider a regional burn. Less investment of time and money and at the end, you'll know for sure it it's your thing or not. Plus, I hear they are more like the Burning Man of the past than Burning Man today.

Re:Because...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hated hipsters before it was cool.

Re:Because...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay for this, pay for that... doesn't sound like hippie paradise to me... more like some edgy vacation camp perfectly integrated in our capitalist society.

Re:Because...

[badboy_tw2002]

Its possible to both love burning man and hate hipsters. For instance, I hate hipsters, but I like going to Dolores Park, so therefore I love Burning Man as one week a year its hipster-free!

Re:Because...

[QilessQi]

This. It seems like no one can post anything about Burning Man without both sorts of haters crawling out of the woodwork.

There seems to be a growing backlash against the haters, so soon I expect that those same haters will join the backlash and say, "I was hating the people who hate the people who go to Burning Man before hating the people who hate the people who go to Burning Man was cool."

Re:Because...

[xevioso]

No, I think there needs to be a lot more hating of the haters for this to happen. At some point the folks who crawl out of the woodwork to hate burners will slowly disappear, and then those hating the haters will start to disappear. Unless you hate the idea of the haters of the haters disappearing, in which case you will be starting a new trend, which some people will hate.

Re:Because...

[TheMadTopher]

Of course you know hipster-hating is the latest trend...be careful about following the latest trend...it might turn you into a hipster.

I've been hating hipsters since before it was hip to hate them. I'm the hippest hipster hater there is.

I think I have to go hate myself now....

Re:Because...

[Anonymous Coward]

do something different for vacation

It was something different a decade ago. Now its... more like a refugee camp with dusty art and polygamy. I am going to do something different... Freezing Man. Stay tuned for details.

Re:Because...

[Anonymous Coward]

so paying money to the poor is bad? it is better to not go on the cruise so they don't get any income?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Normally...

[tocsy]

Normally I hate the people who make this comment, but this time it's actually true:

How is this either a)news for nerds, or b)stuff that matters?

Re:Normally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea this is ridiculous. Nerds != hipsters, there may be overlap, but they're not one and the same.

Re:Normally...

[mcoletti]

I proffer the following syllogism:

I am a nerd
I go to burner events
I have not been to Burning Man
I want to go to Burning Man
I found some of the advice useful
Therefore this was useful news that matters to me, a nerd

Re:Normally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hipsters?

Try furries and woks.

But yes the overlap thing.

Re:Normally...

[xevioso]

Because it turns out that a large portion of people who go to Burning Man are in the tech field. Many are from Northern California, and Burning Man is a place where a lot of folks with tech experience come and put their knowledge to use by cobbling together interesting technical devices for fun. It's not just camping in the desert, although it is that at a bare minimum.

Re:Normally...

[travdaddy]

Hipsters go to Burning Man. A few years ago hipsters thought it would be cool to be nerds. Apparently it has caught on enough now so that there is a loose association between Burning Man and nerds.

Hipsters ruin everything.

Re:Normally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I for one found this useful. Who knew it took so much planning to do drugs in the desert?

Re:Normally...

[Garridan]

Burning man is essentially the Pennsic of the maker community. There are a lot of nerds that go to burning man. Lotsa arduinos projects and hackers of all stripes. It's not just a drug scene.

Re:Normally...

[ForCripeSake]

Good question!.

As a nerd I am extremely interested in Burning Man because it is one of the largest non commercial technical and logistical collaborations on the planet. If slashdot's collective boner Re: Makerdom, hacking, 3d-printing is an genuine, then there is no fucking way you shouldn't care about Burning Man unless you are coming from a standpoint of ignorance.

Mechanical, civil, software, and probably a dozen other fields of engineering are exercised though the creation of art installations, mutant vehicles, A/V LED displays, pyrotechnics, welding/sclupting etc. Things get made PURLEY FOR THE SAKE OF MAKING SOMETHING THAT SOMEONE MIGHT LIKE TO LOOK AT instead of the tedious bullshit someone pays you to make at the 9 to 5. Makers are out in force at Burning Man and related events, and if you think that this is just some hippy bullshit you are parroting the collective "wisdom" of a handful of internet know it alls, or (and I'm sorry if this is the case) you seriously ran with the wrong crowd. I've gained more meaningful and applied technical experience preparing for events like these than many of my formal technical classes have ever offered. Hell, I got to play with Arduinos, Kinects, and picked up some basic EE for free thanks to art grants.

Yes, there are hippie types. Yes, there are douchebags. Maybe that is true of all events with a population of >40k participants? I am really disappointed at Slashdot's attitude towards events like these because we are using our supposedly vast technical intellect to be dismissive and small towards something that is right up our goddamned alley. We are giving bad advice, plain and simple.

Re:Normally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Burning Man was born out of techie geek nerds? Do you not know the Burning Man history?

Re:Normally...

[Phylarr]

By the same logic, news about my cat belongs on Slashdot because I am a nerd and it would matter to me.

Re:Normally...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a different nerd, I approve of stories about cats. I've been looking at photos of clouded leopards to cheer myself up on this Monday.

Re:Normally...

[Anonymous Coward]

you forgot to put lots of Americans of European ancestry,

some crowds consider going to Atlanta, Georgia during the summer as an amazing activity,

I am of neither group

Re:Normally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did you bother even reading this if it were not a subject you deemed suitable?

Re:Normally...

[mcoletti]

I refuted the claim that *no one* that's a nerd would find this compelling because I provided a ready contradicting data point. I implied that I was likely not alone in this set, and admittedly that was an implication I should have made clearer.

To wit, given my experience, I've encountered many, many nerds of various flavors at burner events. One example is a guy that made an interactive art piece that he hacked up involving a Kinect, a projector, and image processing software that was a hit. There was also Camp Justice League where everyone spent the burn dressed as a superhero. I had a pal dressed as Bat Girl from that camp help me assemble my tent in terrible gusts -- because helping people is what super heroes do, dontcha know. And I would hope I needn't explain the connection between comic book hero cosplay and nerdom.

And, hell, I go to play bagpipes, which is about as nerdy a musical instrument as the accordion or sousaphone.

Re:Normally...

[pspahn]

If others are confused, the correct term and spelling is "wook", as in "wookie". A term that is essentially the 2013 version of "hippie" (with some changes, such as wooks not only being into "festies" where they can watch Further, String Cheese, etc, but they also like that heavy hip-hop crunk dub step stuff as well).

Re:Normally...

[DriveDog]

"you seriously ran with the wrong crowd"

Unfortunately this seems to happen way too often. Get to know the people you plan to camp with/share preparatory expenses with.

My only complaint about BM is that the BLM and friends make a killing overcharging. We need burners in Congress to put a stop to that. Maybe there's a Reservation that would like to rent a dry lake bed.

Re:Normally...

[Garridan]

Not all large gatherings of white people are exclusive. Now, if you just hate white people, that's your problem.

All the burners I know would like to see more diversity: gender, culture, ancestry, politics, whatever. My neighbor is a chinese immigrant, and she had a blast there. Only you can make Burning Man a more diverse event. Pennsic, on the other hand... I've meet too many racists who devote their lives to the 'glory days' of old Europe, and too many black and hispanic SCAdians to really say either way. As I haven't been involved in the SCA for a decade, I don't know anybody I can ask if they feel excluded at wars.

Re:Normally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, there are certain types of people who will hate something just because they see it make other people happy. They hate the fact that something makes others happy, and they want to bring them down by ridiculing that thing or marginalizing the people involved. They are sociopaths.

Re:Normally...

[DNS-and-BIND]

Like Burning Man today has any relationship whatsoever to how it was in the beginning.

Re:Normally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good question!.

As a nerd I am extremely interested in Burning Man because it is one of the largest non commercial technical and logistical collaborations on the planet. ...Makers are out in force at Burning Man and related events, and if you think that this is just some hippy bullshit you are parroting the collective "wisdom" of a handful of internet know it all's, or (and I'm sorry if this is the case) you seriously ran with the wrong crowd. ... I am really disappointed at Slashdot's attitude towards events like these because we are using our supposedly vast technical intellect to be dismissive and small towards something that is right up our goddamned alley. We are giving bad advice, plain and simple.

I'm a tech/artist at Burning Man and in the SFBay and I'm all up into that Maker movement, and I came in here to post that I could not agree more with this sentiment.The thing about my area that's really amazing to me is that it's possible to go to an art event and then a tech conference in the same city, and see the same type of stuff on display in the interactive/light/sound/installation areas, but the tech guys appear to be completely ignorant of the fact that there is a whole networked community of artists and crafty people who're doing the same thing, and in this case the demand and the participation is bigger in the art side.

Seriously, nerds, you have no idea. If you like games, lighting, interactive programming, noise, digital, whatever, get out there.

Re:Normally...

[RJFerret]

The virtual world of Second Life was inspired from an attendance of the Burning Man festival.

Why would nerds want to socialize with other nerds and creative people and others? To be inspired, to network, to create, to pursue their desires, to recreate, to experience life, to [i]fill in the blank[/i].

Most folks I've met who knew what the Burning Man festival was have been nerds. Who else would engineer the various contraptions that Burning Man features/celebrates? Ever see an overhead shot of the geometrical layout of the city?

Many nerds don't hate others, or even their comments.

Re:Normally...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say the problem is not so much whether one or more nerds have attended this thing so much as: have ENOUGH nerds and computer-ish types been interested in this that it's okay to just launch straight into a discussion that's complete gibberish to people who have never even heard of it?
Whenever I see summaries come through my feed that look like a solid wall of unknown jargon, I always find a comment that says "ZOMG this isn't news for 'nerds' anymore!" when it really should be "Did you REALLY consider whether your audience knows what half that shit means? Shame on you for not explaining better and potentially winning thousands of readers over to your corner of nerddom"

Excellent question.

[khasim]

And more to the "why do people do things the hard way" theme of TFA, why did Bennett Haselton decide to go Burning Man?

The "why" of why you go will also determine the "how" of how you do things there.

There is a HUGE gap between the people who go and construct their art and participate in the gift culture and those who go so that they can say "yeah, I went to Burning Man".

Re:Excellent question.

[xanie]

I think he is what is called a "tourist".

This was my first year as a virgin, and I did a lot of prep before hand. "The Journey" made the destination that much more rich and filled with, as I already had sweat and emotional equity into the thing.

I couldn't have replaced that for $200 in convenience by paying a camp to do it for me. I learned about building a hexayurt with a could of other virgins and one vet, learned about solar energy, and I learned a lot about myself.

Re:Excellent question.

[houghi]

If you want to have it easy, just take this or take this

Re:Excellent question.

[curunir]

Moreover, there are many different Burning Man experiences to be had and I think he had a different one than I've ever had or ever want to have.

For one, most of the fun happens at night...the day is too hot. I rarely return to my sleeping area before 5am and in those rare occurrences I'm usually not alone. Without a tent with a pretty serious sun shade, sleeping past 7am is almost impossible. I'm not sure how others deal with 2 hours of sleep per night for an entire week, but I can't function that way. I've realized that it's just easier to rent the RV so that I can sleep comfortably until noonish.

Second, his experience seems far more solitary than mine. I usually bring an outdoor sun shade, but I mostly don't use it. During the days, I tend to go around the event wandering into other camps making friends. It's my favorite part of going there...I love the randomness of not knowing whether I'm walking into a situation where it's clear after 2 minutes that I should leave or I'm going to have a pleasant hour-long conversation or even if it's the start of a serious friendship/relationship. The pleasant hour-long conversation is, by far, the most common, but I've had quite a few of the other two as well.

Third, I cannot fathom going out there without being sure that I have enough water. Flying into Reno just doesn't seem like an option since I can't bring the 3 5-gallon containers I feel I need for the duration of the event. Also, painting a cheap bike can be fun and make it really easy to identify yours in a crowd of other bikes. It also makes it really hard to steal (either intentionally or unintentionally) if it has a very unique look. Every few years I get a new cheap bike and put my own artistic imprint on it...I'd rather do this instead of renting both because I feel it's more in the spirit of the event and because it's annoying to have to constantly lock up your bike.

I get the distinct feeling from his post that he went because he was interested in it but basically wanted to blend in and observe. That's fine, but experienced burners will give you advice to based on what you should do to participate, not just watch. Had he followed the advice to build a hexayurt with PVC from home depot, people like me might have spontaneously stopped by to say hello...not so with his single-occupancy tent.

Re:Excellent question.

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand. I learned all that shit before I was 14. Hearing about adults stumbling through and figuring that shit out is just hilarious.

Re:Excellent question.

[mcoletti]

Nothing wrong with going to just observe. And it sounded like he adapted and found ways to contribute and make friends.

Re:Excellent question.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but they probably don't get raped at night by the counselors.

Re:Excellent question.

[Prien715]

Flying into Reno just doesn't seem like an option since I can't bring the 3 5-gallon containers I feel I need for the duration of the event

Gerlach may be dead, but Reno has plenty of stores. There's an unwritten rules that if you're flying in, your group stops at the grocery store -- which is filled with other awesome Burners. They're generally pretty easy to identify, but not as easy to identify as the playa-dust encrusted passengers on the flight back. As far as other supplies, many Burners pool their resources and rent a shipping container, at least in NYC and ATX.

Driving is a waste, unless you live close, as some of us have jobs and would rather spend Monday and Tuesday on the playa rather than commuting. YMMV.

And happy burn!;)

Re:Excellent question.

[bennetthaselton]

I probably should have emphasized that I did spend most of the time actively participating; I did some magic for passers-by and for a few groups of people who invited me back to their camp after they saw me doing some street magic. (And I was living in Charcadia, the village that runs the Charcade, the fire-themed live-action video games, so I put in some volunteer shifts helping to keep those games running.)

I don't think I had a "solitary" experience. I didn't expect people to stop by my single-occupancy tent, which is why I went out to meet other people :) But I didn't talk about my own contributions in the article because I didn't think they were as relevant to what I was trying to tell people, which was, how to get there and survive there taking the path of least resistance.

However, my whole reason for taking the path of least resistance, was so that I could free up more time to volunteer or do my own performing or participate in other people's events. That's why I figured it was in keeping with the spirit of Burning Man.

If I had an afternoon off here in Bellevue with nothing else to do, it might be fun to go out and learn to build a hexayurt. I just didn't want to do it at Burning Man because it would have taken time away from something else.

As for water and the bikes -- (1) whether you bring in your own water or rely on the camp to bring it in for you, things *could* go wrong either way; letting an experienced campmate take care of it might actually be the safer option. On my camp organizer's advice, I did bring in a gallon of my own water in case there were problems at the beginning of the event. (I packed it empty, and then got it out and filled it up at Reno Airport.) (2) Having a unique look to your bike makes it hard to steal, but so does locking it. Cutting through a bike lock is probably a lot easier than scraping off someone's "unique" bike design to make it unrecognizable.

Of course if someone wants to truck in the materials for a hexayurt and build it, more power to them -- I just want people to know there is the option of doing it an easier way.

Re:Excellent question.

[HnT]

The more I keep reading about BurningMan, the more it seems that...
a) for me as a regular guy, not artist trying to push what I am doing, this is the last place on earth I am wanted or welcome

b) holy crap it has turned into a HUGE festival type event with lots of money being made and

c) looking at it from afar the whole thing has never given off a friendly, welcoming, positive vibe - instead everyone who talks about it does so in a very berating way and how NOT to do it and how all sorts of people are doing it "wrong" when at the end of the day all I see is a gigantic festival with raves all over the place with lots and lots of sweaty people. Nobody ever talked about cool things they did there or anything positive or friendly.

Re:Excellent question.

[bennetthaselton]

I should add: the editors (for the millionth time) changed the title of the article to something that made a lot less sense than my originally submitted title. My original title was:
Burning Man Made (Slightly) Easier
They changed it to:
What I Did During My Summer Vacation: Burning Man Edition
Giving that title to the article, makes it sound like all I actually did at Burning Man was rent a bike and melt my own ice to make water, which indeed would have been a pretty boring experience. If I had been writing about what I did, I would have included more about the street magic and about volunteering for Charcadia.

Re:Excellent question.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. Then what's the point of going at all?

Re:Excellent question.

[curunir]

looking at it from afar the whole thing has never given off a friendly, welcoming, positive vibe - instead everyone who talks about it does so in a very berating way and how NOT to do it and how all sorts of people are doing it "wrong"

Wow...that was not my intention and I'm really sorry if that's the vibe I gave off. Burning Man is one of the most positive vibes I've ever found. Whether it's dancing, making art, talking, or however you put yourself out there, the people I meet rarely judge (negatively...there's lots of positive feedback) or try to inhibit you.

Ironically, I think that leads me to unintentionally judge others for not participating because I know how liberating it can be to participate in that kind of environment and I want to encourage others to participate as well. I feel that the world I inhabit the other 51 weeks of the year discourages participation and I end up assuming that people who don't participate at Burning Man are doing so because they wouldn't do it back in the real world. I think I need to be careful about saying the things I want to say in a way that sounds like it's a judgment of others' choices.

But at the same time, I'm not sure how to get across how great it can be to get in touch with parts of yourself that you didn't know existed. I've always been a shy, unartistic person. I'm not an artist that wants to show my art to others. I play and write music, but almost never share it with others (electric piano with headphones). But at Burning Man, I've gradually learned to come out of my shell and do things that push my boundaries. I make bad art with people who are better at it than I am, talk to strangers and generally put myself out there in a way that I could be judged by rarely ends up happening.

And this feeling is so powerful that I want others to experience it. But then again, there are many different experiences that people can have out there and almost all are valid. I hope I've given you a glimpse into the one that I've grown to crave and that I don't mean to judge those who don't have or seek the same type of experience...I only want people to know that it's possible.

Best advice for Burning Man:

[intermodal]

Sunblock. Lots of sunblock.

What a waste of time

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather just go camping in the woods. If you want crowds, stay in the city.

Re:What a waste of time

[HornWumpus]

To say nothing of the fact that Burning man now bans 'private' explosives, dogs and guns. I'll admit that dogs were a bad idea as they get scared and run away.

Re:What a waste of time

[St.Creed]

To say nothing of the fact that Burning man now bans 'private' explosives, dogs and guns. I'll admit that dogs were a bad idea as they get scared and run away.

I don't mind that, but I'm drawing the line at banning private artillery pieces.

Uh...wasn't Burning Man last month?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> While nothing can really 'prepare' you for your first time at Burning Man

Uh...wasn't Burning Man last month? Why the hell would anyone care NOW?

Re:Uh...wasn't Burning Man last month?

[mcoletti]

Because Burning Man is a recurring annual event, and many on here, such as myself, have not been, but want to go, and so found some of the advice useful.

Re:Uh...wasn't Burning Man last month?

[DriveDog]

Now's an excellent time to start thinking about next year's.

Re:Uh...wasn't Burning Man last month?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Because Burning Man is a recurring annual event, and many on here, such as myself, have not been, but want to go, and so found some of the advice useful.

It also takes a while to prepare for it.

Just AFTER an instance is the best time to pick the brains of the attendees, while memories are still fresh, for helpful information on what to build.

Starting now also gives you nearly a year to get your stuff ready for the next one - at a leisurely pace, with time for debugging and remakes, before you have to stress-test it in a desert for a week - while your life depends on it working adequately. B-)

Re:Happy Monday from The Golden Girls!

[Anonymous Coward]

Being that Bea Arthur looks a lot like Brezhnev, cosmonaut is appropriate.

The fullness of lame.

[Anonymous Coward]

Burning man was cool.... The first couple of years.
And then. Just like EVERY COOL THING EVER... It became to be about the money and got all corporatized.
And now. it's a bunch of 'hipsters' spending a fuckload of money pretending they're different.

Damm sad.
The man got burnt by greed.

Re:The fullness of lame.

[xevioso]

And of course, its the same comment every year...Burning Man has jumped the shark; it's no longer cool....people were saying that 15 years ago. And every year people have to point out to people like you that the event keeps getting bigger and bigger and yet advertisements are STILL banned at Burning Man.

Careful with your hipster-hating attitude. Hipster-hating is the latest trend. And a slavish attention to the latest trends...well, that makes you a hipster.

Re:The fullness of lame.

[foma84]

Rainbow gatherings didn't.

Re:The fullness of lame.

[Anonymous Coward]

So both following the latest trends and hating the latest trends makes one a hipster? Crap...I guess we're all douchey hipsters then.

Re:The fullness of lame.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you create every comment here about hipsters and how burning man sucks? Because they're all the exact same. Lame.

Re:The fullness of lame.

[xevioso]

If you are hating on hipsters, you aren't just following the latest trend...you are actively engaging in it.

By the definition of the hipster-hating morons who frequent these boards, that makes you a hipster.

Re:The fullness of lame.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are hating on hipsters, you aren't just following the latest trend...you are actively engaging in it.

By the definition of the hipster-hating morons who frequent these boards, that makes you a hipster.

As you have established yourself as an arch-hipster, I can see how the hipster hating trend is difficult for you. On the one hand, you are a devout hipster and must embrace all trends until they become "mainstream," on the other hand, this trend is to hate you for being a hipster. As such, you caught in a hipstercritical self-loathing until you can either end or mainstream the hipster hatred trend. So long as it remains a simple condescending response from people who do not live by trends, it is too much a trend to ignore and too little a trend to be mainstream.

On the other hand, most of the people who scoff at hipsters are not bound by the hipster code and can utilize or ignore trends at their leisure. So your attempts at attacking the hipster-hatred trend are bound to fail because of a different core outlook on life. Some of the more inherently malicious non-hipsters may, in fact, act to intentionally keep the hipster-hate at the proper level of obscurity to perpetuate self-destructive behavior among the devout hipsters and doubt among the casual hipsters.

Re:The fullness of lame.

[Herder Of Code]

I'm not sure where the whole "Burning Man is for hipsters" thing comes from but it's so far from the truth it's hilarious. Yes, some people could be considered hipsters, I guess, but really you have so many subcultures there or just plain ordinary people like me who go there for a week to have a blast, build some great art, meet interesting people etc.

Re:The fullness of lame.

[xevioso]

There is no hipster code, you moron. This may come as a shock to you, but some people like to do things, not because they are cool or trendy or in, but because they find something inherent good quality in that thing. Some people listen to indie rock bands or drink craft beer and extol the virtues of said band or beer because they LIKE IT. Not because it is cool. This is why idiot hipster-haters are idiots. They think people who do these things do it because other people are doing it, when often it's because they find some good quality in the trend they are following.

For example, I have a massive, gigantic long handlebar moustache. Supposedly I am a hipster, although my age places me outside the normal hipster age range, whatever the hell that is. My massive moustache gets comments all the time...little kids love it, women comment on it, it's gotten me laid more than a few times, and I have met a ton of other gents who compete in bearding competitions and have made a ton of new friends. I like my "hipster" moustache because of the benefits it brings me, not just because it's the cool thing to do. And apparently defending something that I like, whether it be beer, music, or facial hair, for example, makes me a "pretentious douche".

In any event, most of the so-called hipsters I know don't give two shits what people like you think about them...they just go on being themselves.

Which does in fact make them cool.

Re:Happy Monday from The Golden Girls!

[Salgak1]

As I recall, the actual lyric is ". . .and a confidante. . . "

Which, unfortunately, I learned from a co-worker had the theme as her ringtone. . . . 10-15 times a day. . . .

Thanks for the advice

[mcoletti]

I've only been to a regional burn, Playa del Fuego, but I realize that's but a shadow of the real thing. (I think of it it as a training camp.) Given the expense and distance of Burning Man, one might look to going to a local regional burn first to get a flavor of the real deal. As a plus, you might befriend folks that are going to Burning Man and be able to camp with them.

Fortunately I'm already going to heed part of your advice when I do go. I've got a slot available to me with the Irish pub, The Dusty Swan. Seems they're a little short on bagpipers, and I'm all too happy to fulfill that role. And I met the proprietor of The Dusty Swan at Playa del Fuego, so there ya go.

Re:Thanks for the advice

[Anonymous Coward]

A mini Burning Man held in Delaware? That just seems wrong, the environs have to be somewhere Edward Albee could kick back in. I guess. My feeling about it all is that the founders and/or early attendees of BM probably set up their own no bullshit alternative to it all in an undisclosed location decades ago - and shouldn't that be the whole point, to have a wholly spontaneous happening in a remote location? Find 50 people and do your thing.

Hah, I play Irish bagpipes. Good to see another student of the drone here. Bring a box of spare reeds, Nevada is rather dry as I understand it.

Re:Thanks for the advice

[mcoletti]

Right. This is attempt #3 for a reply. If this doesn't go through without /. eating it, I'm giving up. :P

The Delaware property is old farmland now managed by the Delaware Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club. There's plenty of room for the 1200 folks that show up, and it's in very rural area, so few neighbors. (However, there are one or two problem neighbors, hence the sound is dialed down after 2200.)

And regularly occurring events makes for easier planning and logistics. Kinda nice to plan ahead, especially if you have complex art pieces or little vacation time. Besides, you get a folks that show up each year, and it's kinda nice to have familiar faces. I doubt you'd get that for spontaneous events.

Irish pipes? Uilleann? FSM, those look impossible. Jeebus, looks like you need a PhD and a pilot's license to operate one of those.

I've got a set of big pipes, but also have some shuttles that I love love love to play. Unfortunately they're too quiet, if you can believe it. So I have on order a set of Scottish smallpipes which have the perfect volume for pubs. Loud enough to hear, but not overwhelming. That, and being cauld wind instruments might (hopefully) mitigate some of the dryness issues of Burning Man. (No worries about PDF as it's fairly humid.)

Re:Who is this author?

[xevioso]

Some people go to Burning Man, so those people might care.

Also, why should I care whether you care or not?

tl;dr

[neo-mkrey]

There, I just had to say it, now I feel better, thanks.

Re:tl;dr

[bennetthaselton]

Well shoot I included the tl;dr version right at the top of the article. #cantwin

Re:Happy Monday from The Golden Girls!

[Anonymous Coward]

I recall that you are a fucking moron.

Re:god i wish all you burners would just stay ther

[xevioso]

And they wish you'd stay away, square.

The building is half the fun

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to burning man many times before I had kids. My buddies and I like to build things so for us it was fun to build a geodesic dome and try our hand at a fancy evap pond for our camps grey water. If you are going alone then I recommend joining a camp and its ok to pay camp dues as it costs money to bring all of that shit out there but pick your camp for its theme and because you like the idea for the camp and/or the people and not just on the services they provide to you. The whole point is to try to be a part of the camp and not to just be a customer of the camp. So if you like to play bocci find a Bocci camp. You think that the barbie death camp is hilarious try to see if you can camp with them. Or better yet find a artist that needs some help before or during the event (having worked on several large installations myself over the years that I attended I highly recommend it) and volunteer some time (they always need the help). Maximize your chances for making friends as burning man is way more fun with friends.

Grizzly 11 year veteran out

Is this what burning man is about these days?

[PSXer]

>pay money for services
>pay money for services
>pay money for services

Wait, how is this different than spending a week in the city? I mean, other than the fact that you get to tell people you went to BURNING MAN, of course. I survived in the desert- by paying a lot of money!

There are still a lot of good campsites in the US. Most of them don't have porta-potties.

Re:Is this what burning man is about these days?

[pspahn]

Precisely my thoughts.

I know of a particular camp site in Utah that is near the edge of the rim of Canyonlands. If you didn't know it was there you'd never find it unless you went out of your way to look for it. I'd much rather collect a dozen or so friends and plan a week out there for a heckuva lot less money.

Re:Is this what burning man is about these days?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. The solution to inconveniences at Burning Man is capitalism.

Fail = Your radical self-reliance

[Anonymous Coward]

So your radical self-reliance which is a keystone of Burning Man is to completely rely on other people by means of PAYING them for transportation, lodging, food, water, electricity, even a bike. And your search and reading comprehetion must be zero because you were unable to find the Newbie's Guid to attending BM which is on their site and repeatedly mentioned and refered to for first timers. And the cherry on top is after a week of scarfing free food from everyone else you think handing out anit-bacteria lotion for a few minutes by the porta-potties is "giving back to the community" - leaving your bottle the first time you saw it was needed would be giving -- what you did is just self-centered egotistical worthless crap.

You are lucky you posted this on /. instead of BM website as they don't full their punches -- you would be told you're a f*ckard and should go off and die!

Re:Fail = Your radical self-reliance

[xevioso]

Only some people go to Burning Man and engage in "radical self reliance". Some people just go to party, and having to bus out your own trash and cook for yourself is a minor inconvenience. People go to BM for different reasons. Doing the self-reliance thing is fun the first time, but it gets tedious; I personally don't want to spend a ton of money to go do that. I go to BM for other reasons, just like tens of thousands of other people.

Re:Fail = Your radical self-reliance

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it boils down to going there to be there and see the sights, and going there to participate. Standing around and gawking at everyone else's awesome is the former. Being awesome yourself is the latter.

The key is that the latter need to not antagonize the former, because honestly most people aren't awesome the first time.

From a 7 time burner

[Anonymous Coward]

The info in the article is a bit basic and can be found in more complete form elsewhere. With this being a site of News for Nerds I would have hoped to see more about some of the ingenious tech that people employ to do cool things on the playa. Swamp coolers that can give you 60 degree temps in a hexa yurt when it is around 100 degrees outside. Fire breathing dragon art cars, buses converted to sail boats with working sails and sound systems to rival the best dance club in your town, Some of the great minds in tech are out there and mixing with some of the great minds in art with no goal other than trying to blow your mind. Article doesn't do the tech justice.

If you are interested in seeing my humble offering of photos from the event they are here: http://skeivesworld.squarespace.com/burning-man-2013/ .

If you want to see better photos Burning Man photos look up Trey Ratcliff's photos up on Stuck in Customs or on Google+.

Re:From a 7 time burner

[dentin]

I went with a 'family' camp of 6-8 people, with only one veteran burner, two single-year ladies, and everyone else newbies. As one of the noobs, I built a couple of cooled hexayurts, one for me and one for the veteran. They were totally worth the time we put into them, if for no other reason than naps in the dark at 2 pm.

I can safely say that we relied on nothing but ice and portapotties from others while there. Our spot is also green on the moop map. I'm not sure how I feel about going as easy as the OP. I'm sure it would make some things easier, but the experience would be so vastly different that I'm not clear it would be the same festival.

Keep that attitude.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I met sooo many pretentious douchebags there every year I went. It's nothing but frat boys and chavs as far as the eye can see - they even make you do a kegstand on entry to prove you can "hang with the heavies".

It's helped me get in touch with my inner Broseph, and pop my collar year after year. After all, Pauly D was headlining this year...

You 'rented' a bike for $200...?

[knarf]

Let me guess: you have an iPhone. Just an assumption, but your actions seem to fit the pattern.

'Renting' a bike for $200 is... not exactly cost effective. Why did you not buy a bike for that price instead? Donate it to charity if you don't need it afterwards. Why line some unscrupulous bike shark's pockets?

Re:You 'rented' a bike for $200...?

[SleazyRidr]

I'm glad to see that you thoroughly skimmed the summary. The issue raised is the difficulty in getting a bicycle from a bicycle store to the burning man event. It is estimated that the additional cost of transporting a bicycle (compared to the planned mode of transportation: catching a plane then a bus) would exceed $200. This leads to a potential business venture to economically transport bicycles from bicycle shops more efficiently than people could on their own, and then charge them somewhere between what it costs to transport bicycles on mass and what it costs to transport bicycles individually. Welcome to capitalism.

Re:You 'rented' a bike for $200...?

[Herder Of Code]

Well it's almost worth it. Note that I NEVER rented but here's how it works if you buy: If you fly in, there's a few problem with bringing your own bike, which I faced. I was in Reno, mind you: -Bikes disapear crazy fast in Reno, even walmart for those sub-130$. -You're renting a car, you need to buy a frigging bike rack now. You then have the added stress of scratching the rental car with the bikes hanging from a super cheap bike rack. Note that the bikes won't fit inside with 2.5 gallons per person per day with 3 people in the car plus food, tent etc. Note that we flew in with all our equipment except the food, if you're efficient you can pack everything in a your luggage and still be withing you weight allowance. -The bike is destroyed at the end of the week and it's probably full of spray paint anyway and you can't bring it on a plane. The big money saver here is to buy a Burning Man bike from the Reno Bike Project. They take trashed BM each year and make them playa worthy again and sell them back to you for very cheap. They will even take them back afterward. PS: Walmart bikes have a reputation for dying on day 2 on the playa, I witnessed that myself several times. I must say the guy who wrote his experience is much more wealthy than me, I usually DO NOT HAVE A bike because I can't afford to bring one. I actually walk, which is pretty crazy if you've been there. I just scrape together the money for 1) Plane tickets 700$, 2) BM tickets 300$ 3) Car rental split with others 500$-1000$ depending on rental outlet 4)Food: whatever is left :). I mean fuck, two years ago between us we had 50$ left for 2 days in Reno for food and everything after the burn. We agreed to bet everything on the red in roulette, yes we won :).

Re:You 'rented' a bike for $200...?

[Herder Of Code]

Err crap all my formatting disapeared and I have to go, sorry :P

Re:You 'rented' a bike for $200...?

[bennetthaselton]

iPhone? Silly, you can't enjoy my latest masterpiece without a familiarity with my entire oeuvre:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/13/08/02/1333257/how-did-my-stratosphere-ever-get-shipped
However, after years of dealing with unbelievably aggravating bugs in Android phones, I'm ready to try an iPhone, so maybe you still get the zing point.

I couldn't find a way to buy a bike and get it out to the playa and then get rid of it afterwards. I understand there are some charities that collect bikes from people as they're leaving, but the information about that option, was rather scattered. I couldn't find a single information source making it absolutely clear that I would be able to get rid of my bike that way, and I didn't want to be stuck on the last day without a way to ditch the bike.

Of course $200 is expensive, but I think the long-term solution to that is price competition between different bike rental camps. There are multiple bike rental camps right now that do compete on price, and all of them do still charge about $200, so maybe that does reflect the true cost to them of trucking in the bikes, trucking them out, and dealing with wear-and-tear issues resulting from a week of riding them at Burning Man.

Re:You 'rented' a bike for $200...?

[leland242]

The Hammer and Cyclery was renting them for $200, BUT you get $100 back when you return the bike. So my options were either buy a shit bike at Walmart and give it away or rent one on site. The one on site has a guarantee to work and if it breaks / tire pops, I can go back and say - hey, your bike broke - can you help me fix it? The Wally world special - not so much.

Flying in from the East Coast and not having to deal with getting a bike was well work the $100. That said, we did discover some lower cost options in Gerlach, but they require either having a bike mount or schlepping it into the RV - and you do not want a dirty playafied bike in your RV on Monday.

Plus, it was my understanding the police were hassling people about "obscured licence plates" when a bike tire is in front of them. No bike mount = one less hassle to worry about.

Nature finds a way

[Anonymous Coward]

Watching from the sidelines, I get a kick out of how things get commercialized. It's just like Jurassic Park where they thought they had reproduction all prevented by cloning females... then parthenogenesis occured. Capitalism is just like that. It finds a way.

Nevermind that Burning Man is a corporation and people actually work for it. (What's the interview like there?). They've got people conducting trade outside the venue by selling these camp memberships. That's a new one on me; but it's not surprising.

No, no, just fly in.

[Animats]

No, the way to do Burning Man is to fly in. Burning Man has its own temporary airport, and six charter operators are authorized to use it. If you come in on a charter flight, fly in, or charter your own aircraft, you avoid the traffic jam. Not only that, the airport has its own VIP entrance gate with no line. Send your people on ahead with a truck, so your camp is all set up and operating when you get there. That's the way to do it.

Consider the advantages of fractional jet ownership.

Re:No, no, just fly in.

[turgid]

Does it have to be an organic, vegetarian, hemp-powered, recycled eco-plane?

Re:No, no, just fly in.

[painandgreed]

No, the way to do Burning Man is to fly in. Burning Man has its own temporary airport, and six charter operators are authorized to use it. If you come in on a charter flight, fly in, or charter your own aircraft, you avoid the traffic jam. Not only that, the airport has its own VIP entrance gate with no line. Send your people on ahead with a truck, so your camp is all set up and operating when you get there. That's the way to do it.

You may have been modded funny, but it's not too far from the truth. There is an airport and if you fly in, I think there is s separate gate procedure to getting into the event since the airport is outside. Neither of which has any significant wait compared to driving in. We have a pilot friend that comes down in his airplane every year. We drive down a truck so he has us take down his water and bike. In return, we get plane rides which are well worth it. Plus, all the pilots have their fun too being able to view the event from the air, as well as going to such things as mountaintop playas in the area that are only accessible by air.

WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

This article should be titled "Rain Man's guide to Burning Man."

I mean, come on. How hard can it be. I do not need a 4 page article to learn how to bring some basic camping supplies. Yet another list of the obvious from Bennett Haselton.

A crossbow?!

[doggo]

A crossbow?!

Why don't you just go on down to Home Depot and buy yourself a pre-killed, pre-skinned deer.?! Jiminy H. Cricket toasting over an open fire!

Crossbows are for wussies. What you want to do, see, is make yourself an atlatl, and atlatl darts. You'll need to knap yourself some obsidian atlatl dart points. While you're knapping the atlatl points you should knap yourself an obsidian skinning blade too. Then after you kill the deer, you can use the antlers and gut to to mount the skinning blade.

'Course the atlatl darts would be better if you used gut to lash the points to the shafts. But that pre-supposes that you already got a deer... which ideally you should have... by taking a club, ambushing a deer, running it down and beating it to death (be sure to apologize to the deer spirit for taking one of its brothers).

With all this hide & gut, you've got the makings of a good travois, which you'll need to haul your gear out to the playa, 'cause they ain't no deer on the playa. An if you got a lotta gear, yer gonna need to go and capture you a mustang, and break it, to pull the travois. So, better put that on your to-do list.

Re:A crossbow?!

[Anonymous Coward]

atlatl...Neolithic poser. Real men use Clovis points.

Re:A crossbow?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Real men chase their prey down and beat them to death with their bear hands.

Re:A crossbow?!

[TeknoHog]

Real men chase their prey down and beat them to death with their bear hands.

This.

Re:A crossbow?!

[shutdown -p now]

Real men don't have hands, you mammalian wussy.

Re:A crossbow?!

[Anonymous Coward]

A shot of Jameson's for you, good fellow

A month later...

[maas15]

I think the most important aspect of this article is that people who went to burning man are still talking about burning man.

wow, someone who went ot burning man

[geekoid]

wants to talk about burning man? And let everyone know they HAVE to go becasue, wow, man.

color me shocked.

Or maybe Portland has made me jaded.

Re:wow, someone who went ot burning man

[xevioso]

Do you like football?

Do you ever extol the virtues of your favorite team?

Hipster.

So, you're missing the point.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that doing things the hard way encourages you to enjoy the event anymore. But, encouraging people to do things the easy way discourages people from doing things to help participate in the event.

If you're looking to bring a suit case and a tent, how are you going to add to burning man. It's not just a festival. It's a participatory event. The fact that I do things the hard way means I show up with the experience, tools and (in my case) extra equipment to help the other people around me set up.

Plus, the advice you're giving for your second and third bullet points are just patently terrible. First off, the rent on site bikes are generally set up for burners who come from a long way (East Coast, International, etc). If you're encouraging new people to get it, it's taking away resources from people who really need it more. People with the means to bring things out should do so, so the people who can't can take advantage of the resources on playa.

As far as your third point. It's perfectly valid. But most people aren't going to be able to take advantage of it unless they're living in a city with a theme camp which they're interested in camping with. If you're only local option is the local gay poly mature camp, then most people probably wouldn't want to go down that route. Some camps will bring people in who aren't close enough to do pre-event set up. But, they also ask you to do shifts for whatever their theme camp is doing. As a new person and someone who didn't set up before hand, it could be shit jobs like de-mooping dance floors at night when you'd rather be out having fun. You could be sitting around washing dishes in the highest heat of the day. And since there's no running water, you'll be dealing with stinky dirty water the whole time. You could be the person running the hydration station during the time of the day when no one is out and you're basically vegging out for 4 hours when you could really be spending the time doing something more interesting. These things need to be done. But, be well aware that you can't just pay to get into a theme camp and have them take care of everything for you. And if you're the kind of person who would commit to this and "quit" when you decide it's not worth your time, then you're really not understanding what this event is about.

Sure it's much easier to set up for this event than most people make it out to be. But, that's not the point, you want to be prepped to the point where you don't have to worry about things when you get out there. If you have your bike, you don't have to worry about renting one or finding a yellow bike if you want to go out into deep playa and enjoy all the random art out there.

If you have a great shelter, you have a home base to retreat to if you're camping somewhere without better shelter.

You don't NEED about 80% of what the guide lists besides the transport, food and water. But, it makes the event 1000x better if you're prepared. And the advice you've given is really not an option for a lot of people. The danger is that they don't do any work and about two weeks before the event, they try to set up what you mention and they either decide they can't go or they show up woefully under-prepared.

You can buy a bike at Burning Man for $200?

[Overzeetop]

They sell bikes at Burning Man for $200? Or perhaps you meant to buy the bike at home and pay several hundred dollars to ship it as close as you could get to burning man and then rent a car to go pick it up and drive it to Burning Man. Or maybe you just like the idea of a thousand mile ride to Burning Man on a sub-$200 bike with all your gear strapped to your back.

He sounds more like someone with a job than an iPhone (though, to be honest, you do need a job to afford an iPhone so maybe you're onto something). Those of us with jobs in the "real world" appreciate that sometimes time is money, and with the limited time we have we'd rather not spend it all on logistics when someone else offers it already done. If you bill $100-$300/hr (or more), spending $1000 to get as much as possible out of a once-a-year event doesn't really seem that excessive.

Re:You can buy a bike at Burning Man for $200?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every town with an airport has a Walmart... just buy a $100 bike there.

Good advice.

[justfred]

This was a fine article; I'm a long-time burner and I see no problem with your methods (or your posting here!). I can't imagine getting everything I needed into three suitcases; I usually bring a trailer! Hooking up with an existing camp is great advice, also because you've got a built in set of default friends. Hooking up with an art project, like the CORE groups, is even better! Burning Man is best when you become one of the creators, not just one of the consumers.

With one exception, that is still ancient Burner lore: rebar. Don't use rebar. It's hard to get in, hard to get out, and injury-prone. Buy large stakes from Home Depot -the yellow/orange plastic ones - or 12" nails, if they have them. Or buy large spade stakes (10" or so) at the surplus store. And be sure someone in your camp has a small sledge to drive them in (and lever to remove them).

This article confirms what I thought about BM

[GodfatherofSoul]

It's officially a tourist trap for yuppies. Bike and camping gear rentals???

Re:This article confirms what I thought about BM

[tibman]

If you lived far away or outside the US, what would you suggest? Build a bike from discarded shampoo bottles at the airport?

Re:This article confirms what I thought about BM

[Anonymous Coward]

If you live in Europe, KazanTip festival is way more fun, plus it's on a beach. I've been to both. BM is just a bunch of people in a new environment mostly getting drunk and snorting cocaine and taking ecstasy. Yeah that happens on the shore of the Azov Sea also, but there are a lot more people and way better music.

Re:This article confirms what I thought about BM

[tibman]

Thanks for the tip!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Question?

[Anonymous Coward]

So are bike rentals one of the few forms of commerce that are allowed then?

Ignore this article completely

[ZuchinniOne]

If you actually have any interest in Burning Man other than to say "I went" you should disregard pretty much everything this guys says.

Burning Man is an experience ... not a place you visit. The city is built by the people who go ... INCLUDING YOU. So go with something that you want to share with everyone else! Show people how awesome you are and teach people about things they didn't know.

You will get out of burning man exactly what you put into it. And if you do what this guy suggests, you sadly won't get much.

One more note ... the people who go are a VERY diverse group. My camp included a neuroscientist, an astronomer, an author, a person who works at the White House, several business owners, an opera singer, an android developer, and people from Russia, Brasil, Japan, Mexico, and the US.

The gifts I made to give away were necklaces that I hand carved and polished out of a piece of stromatolite (3.5 billion year old fossilized algae) I bought.

Re:Ignore this article completely

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Bennett Haselton. I always disregard everything he says.

Re:Ignore this article completely

[Anonymous Coward]

Who gives a shit about your baubles. I mean really.

Re:Ignore this article completely

[bennetthaselton]

I figured that the less time you spend building your living space and cooking your own food, the more time you can spend participating in other ways.

If building a kick-ass living space is how you participate, fine, that's one way. Or you can set up an unremarkable living space very quickly, so that you can use more time to explore and share music or art or whatever skill it is you brought with you.

Re:Ignore this article completely

[ZuchinniOne]

It's not your living space that was the problem. But the idea that you should avoid as much responsibility for MAKING burning man happen as possible.

Every year there is a larger percentage of virgins than the previous year ... and that's awesome! More people coming and learning about the culture and having an amazing experience is fabulous. But because so many virgins are coming it is more important than ever that they be involved and participating.

The city doesn't just magically happen and appear for spectators to come and enjoy it. It comes from the hard work, blood, sweat, and tears of the people who go to burning man to share something.

I think its a good idea for virgins to make some things easier on themselves since your first year is a huge culture shock. But if you're not participating you're missing the whole point and really just ending up being parasitic.

Re:Ignore this article completely

[doom]

I figured that the less time you spend building your living space and cooking your own food, the more time you can spend participating in other ways.

Yeah, but the trouble is you didn't really think about what you were going to contribute, did you?

If you're not local, and don't have a truck to transport stuff, working on large scale, collaborative art work would be difficult, but nevertheless there are people who think of things they can do besides be a spectator:

• I met a Russian dude there who was going around telling jokes, and offering to teach people how to do backflips.
• I guy I knew brought a set of small stencils and an airbrush, so he could do stenciled body art.
• I was once handed a small, decorated notebook with a pen attached to it, with the instruction that I write something in it, and pass it on to someone else, using the same little ritual with which it was handed to me.

I was glad to see you weren't recommending renting an RV... a friend of mine tried that one year, and I was suprised at how badly it sucked, it was even worse than I thought it would be-- hot, nasty and isolating: now that's convienient for you.

I have to say though, the weirdest thing about your advice was to rent a bike once you get there-- it at least used to be a serious no-no to sell stuff on the playa, you're supposed to get any finacial transactions over with before you get there. It may seem like a silly rule, but it keeps it all from degenerating into hamburger stands and budweiser booths.

And one last point: if all you're looking for is a place to party, why not go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, or something like that? Plan ahead far enough and you can rent a hotel room. What could be easier?

Re:Ignore this article completely

[bennetthaselton]

Of course participants should contribute. Who ever said you shouldn't contribute? I volunteered multiple shifts with Charcadia, the village I was staying in, which set up Dance Dance Immolation and other games. When I wasn't doing that, I biked around and did street magic for some people, or just met people and made new friends. And the whole point is that I had more time to do those things, because I didn't spend time doing things like building a hexayurt.

The suggestions that I'm making are suggestions that only make things easier for yourself, and have no bearing on whether you're contributing to the community. When you're building housing for yourself, whether you build a hexayurt or just throw up a tent in two minutes, makes no difference to anyone else there.

Re:Ignore this article completely

[bennetthaselton]

Yes, I did contribute. I just realized, I think part of the confusion comes from the fact that the editors changed the title of this article without checking with me. It was originally "Burning Man Made (Slightly) Easier", and they created the title "What I Did During My Summer Vacation: Burning Man Edition". This makes it sound like I spent my entire time at Burning Man riding my rented bike back to my storebought tent so I could keep melting my own water.

Actually, I volunteered multiple shifts with Charcadia, the village I was staying in, which set up Dance Dance Immolation and some other fire-themed games. When I wasn't doing that, I was biking around doing street magic for people. I didn't go into this in the article because it didn't fit into an article about how to make Burning Man easier to get through. If I had been writing an article about "What I Did At Burning Man" (as the editors seem to think I did), I would have gone into more detail about actively participating.

The whole point is that I had more time to do all of those things because I took the easy route by paying dues to a camp that brought in food and water, setting up a storebought tent instead of a hexayurt, etc.

To be honest, I would have seen nothing wrong with recommending renting an RV as an option, except that (1) I didn't know much about it, but (2) I've heard that option is quite expensive. But if coming in an RV solves certain problems for you, so that it frees up more time for you to go out and actively participate, what's wrong with that?

As for renting the bike, I did say that you have to pre-arrange the bike rental before you get out there. (Perhaps it wasn't clear, but that includes pre-paying before you get out there, since as you point out, you're not supposed to pay for anything during the event.)

I went to Burning Man instead of Mardi Gras because you can see amazing things at Burning Man that you can't see anywhere else. That's no particular reason to lug in all of your own water instead of pooling resources and paying someone in your camp to do it.

Re:Ignore this article completely

[doom]

Okay, so the deal is that you yourself more or less got what it's about, but you wrote an article that skips all of that, it comes off like the "Accidental Tourist" guide to BM.

And you're missing the point about what I was saying about RVs: it's attempt at doing things The Easy Way that doesn't actually work all that well. Bringing along a box to seal yourself up in has a psychological appeal for some, but I think you're better off with a decent respirator mask and wallowing in the dust.

Re:Happy Monday from The Golden Girls!

[Anonymous Coward]

Morons don't like listening to things over and over? Duh...OK.

Someone needs to add the Golden Girls guy to the list of /. trolls on wiki. Only other place he does his shtick is forum.bodybuilding.com.

Intolerance...

[Anonymous Coward]

...in the other 51 weeks is one reason people go to Black Rock. And there sure is a lot of that here. Some people just can't stand to see others enjoy themselves or work for a better planet.

My advice? Meet months ahead with veteran and other newbie burners and get to know them. Find a group you like and who likes you. Hang out/camp with them locally and/or attend a regional burn (usually a long weekend, and they're all over the planet). Do avoid getting taken in by freeloaders who're looking for you to finance their week-long party. In fact, those going just for a party are the wrong bunch to go with. Look for those seeking what makes BM special and to contribute to the community with skills, art, or just elbow grease. Don't plan on showering so much. Most of us didn't need ice cold anything. Take lotion for your feet, goggles, eyedrops.

Re:Intolerance...

[ZuchinniOne]

And don't forget to book your tickets early for the Daft Punk concert at the trash fence.

Re:Intolerance...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear you can get a package deal for that Daft Punk show that includes all the Krug champagne you can drink. And you don't have to worry about LNT 'cuz DPW will pick up after you.

Re:Intolerance...

[ZuchinniOne]

Yep that's right! It also includes 200 burner bucks for getting beer at the bar inside the temple of the man or center camp.

Re:Intolerance...

[xevioso]

What's wrong with Daft Punk?

Still no explanation for why you would be there.

[EWAdams]

"Go to socialize"? I can socialize in a bar or a public park.

It's evidently not for makers; makers need electricity and tools, unless they're whittling wood.

Walk around and look at nude people? Is that seriously the point of the exercise?

MOD THIS UP

[basecastula]

Please mod parent up.

Re:Still no explanation for why you would be there

[ZuchinniOne]

Have you seen the shit they build there?? Its THE place for makers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMfzFIERJIg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ5Etr9t2E4

#1 Tip -- don't bother

[Morpeth]

The only people I know who go/have gone aren't the kind of people I'd trust... with or for anything. Nobody likes to talk about it, but some really bad sh*t can happen at BM -- especially for women.

Plus I'm not sure the point of being drunk, high, weird, with 1000s of 'we're cool and fringe' pretentious strangers (yes, I know, gross generalization). If I wanted a good outdoor/camping experience, I'll just go hiking in southern Utah with a few close friends.

Re:#1 Tip -- don't bother

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody likes to talk about it, but some really bad sh*t can happen at BM -- especially for women.

I assume you're referring to a high incidence of rape, but since you're too lily-livered to type the 'i' in "shit" you could be talking about accidentally smoking a joint or something.

Spell it out, pussy.

Re:#1 Tip -- don't bother

[prince hal]

Ooh, touched a nerve, did he? That's pretty tough talk for someone listed as "Anonymous Coward."

Re:#1 Tip -- don't bother

[bennetthaselton]

You can see some amazing stuff there, all the more amazing when you realize that most of what you see was built by volunteers on their own budget in their own backyard (and then disassembled and trucked out and re-assembled in the desert).

I grew up on the Mad Max movies and never dreamed that I'd be hanging off of a real Thunderdome watching people fight inside. For you it might be something else.

The people in my camp were absolutely chil and trustworthy people. I ran into some of the kind of pretentious people that you're talking about, but it's not impossible to find people to go with who aren't like that.

Re:#1 Tip -- don't bother

[Morpeth]

I wish they wouldn't even allow ACs on here. I ignore anything they post, they're just trolls 99% of the time... and bad ones at that.

There is a lot of Pennsic/burner overlap

[mcoletti]

I go to both burner events *and* Pennsic, and can readily relate that there is significant overlap between both. (E.g., the Batgirl I mentioned in a separate reply that is with Camp Justice League at Playa del Fuego is one of my Pennsic campmates; and at least three more of my Pennsic buddies also go to PDF and other burns.)

News for Nerds?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think so.

What's this noise about burning man, like any self respecting nerd should care about a hippie/hipster convention, and nothing about Dragon*Con, a real nerd fest.

There's nothing but hippies and hipsters at burning man. Anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant, lying or denying.

Cheap, local alternatives to Burning Man

[mcoletti]

If you find Burning Man too expensive or inconvenient, but you're still interested in checking it out, then you might want to consider a local burn, instead. They're generally much, much smaller and more intimate.

Here's a list to get you started:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regional_Burning_Man_events

The myth of drugs at burns

[mcoletti]

Though there is drug use at burns, that's not the point of those events. It's a collaborative space for makers and artists. I've been to several burns and the only "drug" I've consumed is alcohol, most of which was in the cooler I brought with me. And I didn't drink too much because that would otherwise interfere with playing music, which was one of the main reasons I went in the first place. :P

Rubber Johnnies?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many rubber johnnies should you take? I heard that burning man was one giant orgy. When I was in my early 20s I reckon that given half a chance I'd have been able to get through a 12-pack of Durex no problem, and I don't even take drugs.

Mind you I could never score. So is it more likely at burning man? Do the chicks go naked? Is it like 1967?

One of these days, I swear, I am going to score.. with a chick!

Re:I miss JonKatz

[Anonymous Coward]

You slavishly read and post to every article, regardless of whether it interests you?

You have at least one problem.

ah, enlightenment

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks for opening my eyes...
I never realized that the nine billion names of god each and every one was some kind of slur.

Re:ah, enlightenment

[pspahn]

Whoa whoa... I wouldn't go so far as to call it a slur. Wooks are proud to be wooks. And, I mean, can you blame them? Out of all possible slurs, they were assigned "wook". Wooks were pretty badass. Yes, some people use it as a slander... though, they/re usually are too busy with their 9-5 that they wouldn't get it if they tried.

Re:Still no explanation for why you would be there

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, no one want you to go. There's too many people already and you don't sound like fun to hang out with.

"Go to socialize"? I can socialize in a bar or a public park.

That's not the same thing. Not even close. I don't know where to start on that one. Do normal people really socialize in parks?

It's evidently not for makers; makers need electricity and tools, unless they're whittling wood.

There's electricity. There's lots of makers. I've soldiered stuff at a burn, with a micro torch. It's a place to stretch your self reliance. I've got a generator too, but I can carry the torch with me.

Walk around and look at nude people? Is that seriously the point of the exercise?

Because it's wonderful to see people feeling so comfortable. The nudity is really overrated. After about 24 hours, you stop even noticing it.

Burning Man isn't for everyone. Hell, that's part of the point. It's a place for people to be awesome, to be freaks without boring people complaining all the time.

Re:Still no explanation for why you would be there

[Anonymous Coward]

It's evidently not for makers; makers need electricity and tools, unless they're whittling wood.

Maybe go to learn why this is such a ridiculous statement?

If you've never camped in the desert before...

[Sir_Eptishous]

I love the "mystery" that has been created about camping in the desert.
The "legitimacy" of "grizzled veterans".
The "tips and tricks" handed down to only "deserving" virgins/newbies:

1. Water(check!)
2. Shade(check!)
3. Reliable Gear(check!)
4. Common Sense(I fucking hope so...)

For those of us who live in or near the desert southwest(Colorado Plateau) and have camped in that terrain for years, listening to "grizzled veterans" discuss a long weekend party in the desert like they're going on a month long backpack trip through the Kalahari is either very annoying or good for a few laughs around a secluded, remote and quiet campfire late at night.

Re:Who is this author?

[DexterIsADog]

But... but... he mentions standing by the porta potties for "a few minutes", squirting hand sanitizer on people, to "give back to the community" and get to know some people. In return for scarfing up free food all week.

Does this sound like the most useless individual on the planet? I mean, aside from the fact that he went to Burning Man?

The "WHY" question...

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all - been there more than a few times and not planning on missing in the future - that is coming from East Coast.

Surviving is not a problem, considering you're not going to do something extremely stupid. After all 50K+ pple do come back every year.

Technical questions like buying a bike vs renting it, or renting a car vs taking a bus - long story - you can save some $$ but lose everywhere else.
(you sure the bike is going to be there for you and in working condition if you decide to rent it? Have any idea what it takes to drag all your stuff including clothing, food, water, beer, tent, sleeping bag, cooler and such across the playa from whatever place the bus drops you off? How about doing it @ 140F and not knowing exactly where your camp is?)

You have to remember, that the whole event lasts only for one week, so time is the matter and you don't want to waste a minute of it on fixing your bike, looking for your camp and all that other crap that can be relatively easy avoided by planning ahead.

Now we're coming to the most important thing - how to make the most out of that week. Look at previous years pictures, youtube clips, talk to people, get in touch with burners - see if there is something in it for you. And if you do find something, see how you can contribute to it, get involved, make it better, more interesting.

And finally - Burning Man is not for everyone. You can't take the heat, practice single mindedness, frown at folks different from yourself, get easily offended by say sight of naked girls jumping on a trampoline - so many other worthy destinations out there just waiting for ya...

Re:Who is this author?

[xevioso]

No. People appreciate it when you offer them hand sanitizer after using a portable toilet in a hot desert. It's a nice thing to do. It's not on the scale of building an orphanage or curing AIDS, but its a nice gesture. Deal with it.

The commercialization of Burning Man

[Anonymous Coward]

When did all this paying for things become acceptable? It's been a while since I've gone but back in the day no money was to change hands. This was a basic premise of the community. It makes me sad to read this capitalist rape burning man on Slashdot.

Tents and shade structures.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Back when I was tent camping, my wife and I had (serially) more than one commercially-made, high-quality, camping tent. These were strong synthetic cloth structures that hung from a framework.

One was a little dome tent with bent fiberglass poles, a couple others were big stand-up tents that hung from aluminum poles that formed hockey-stick shapes that joined at the center.

All of them had (or had available) a shade cover. This was a shaped cloth structure that went OVER the supports and had bungi-cord fasteners at each pole to hold them in place. The curved or pyramidal shape of the tent roof, along with the couple inches of clearance between the cover and the tent proper, caused any slight breeze to clear the hot air under the cover. (Some of them also had a small hole at the center so they'd change air by convection even in a dead calm.)

Result: Tent WITH shade structure as a single, strong, unit, suitable for quick setup and stable shape even when subjected to strong winds.

Caveat: I'm NOT a Burning Man attendee. So I don't know if there's some reason this won't work or would be unacceptable.

So I went to burning man solo once

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is my experience

I went to burningman a few years ago. I drove solo from NC to NV. I took a bike and bike rack, a tent and some tarps, and a bunch of water.

I bought some rebar in St Louis home depot and bent it inside the store to make super tent stakes the way I read on the burningman website.

I threw a bunch of tarps and a wool blanket over my tent once I camped. You say wtf would you cover your tent with 6 inches of material? Wouldn't it make it hot? Nope in converse it slowed down the heat getting into my tent. It was hot, but it took a while.

My tent never blew away. I did get some dust inside it, but I had duct taped all my seams and it was mostly dust from my body and not blowing in.

Since I was alone, I did a bunch of volunteering. I've found that by working you can make easy conversation and meet friendly people.

I worked for the lamplighters, the bicycle repair people and the computer information people.

I did all the burner events I could. I looked at the art. I did the naked greeting thing. I did the thunderdome fighting thing.

I got a random kiss from a nice looking chick. I got a few hugs from chicks. I did not get laid. I about got into two different fights. I met three notable douchebags other than the potential fights.

I'll be honest I met about an equal amount of douchebags to cool people and by the end, I was like I am ready to get the fuck out of here. I don't do drugs and I drink in moderation. I guess if you liked getting fucked up its everything they say it is. To me it was not that big of deal.

In closing I will say this. I worked multiple days for the lamplighters. I made some friends there and was given a free food token for my work. One night I was in there camp and I sat on a couch out of the way of others so I could use a cell phone. I was talking to my cousin whom I checked in with once a day. I felt some rain and I was like wtf. Then I heard some shouting and I looked around some kids were throwing ice at me yelling. They told me no phones in camp. Pretty much ran me off. I didn't want a fight and did not want to cause a scene so I left. But I had been helping these guys for hours and no one ever told me about phones and no one came to my aid. The next day when I would usually work, I talked to one of the older guys about what happened. He said he had been out at burningman since the beginning and he contested this rule about no cellphones. He said he was happy that I told him what happened because he knew me from my work with him. He also said he was sorry it happened yadaa yadda yadda.

I was like fuck it. Its just a bunch of circle jerks who talk a big harmonious talk but in reality they are just a bunch of wankers.

Fuck that place. If I wanted to hang out with drunks, I can do that locally and I don't.

Re:god i wish all you burners would just stay ther

[DNS-and-BIND]

"Square"? What is this, 1953, daddy-o? Modded up to +3 Informative? Yeah, guess what, "squares" already don't go to your precious counter-culture. We DO stay away. But no matter how hard we stop our ears, we can't stop hearing you people talk about how awesome you are and how great it is to be away from us, if only for a week. It's the equivalent of hearing that lady in HR talk about how great her cruise to the Caribbean was and how everything was wonderful and Manuel the bartender was so nice and knew all these jokes and ways to fold a paper napkin in the shape of animals and come and see the photos! You know how insufferable that is? Yeah, that's what you sound like.

So yeah, next time you go, stay there.

Re:Still no explanation for why you would be there

[painandgreed]

It's evidently not for makers; makers need electricity and tools, unless they're whittling wood.

If you don't have any tools to bring and can't figure out how to generate your own electricity or use another source such as peddle or wind, you really shouldn't call yourself a "maker". That goes double if those tasks sound like unneeded hardship rather than a challenge.

Eric Cartman

[mattack2]

[Eric Cartman]
Goddamn hippies.
[/Eric Cartman]

(Joking, I thought this was an interesting read, though I'm never going to go..)

Re:god i wish all you burners would just stay ther

[xevioso]

"But no matter how hard we stop our ears, we can't stop hearing you people talk about how awesome you are and how great it is to be away from us, if only for a week."

And yet you clicked on the article about how to have fun at Burning Man. No one made you.

So now, not only are you a hipster for hating on hipsters, which is the latest trend, you are also a hypocrite.

Which makes you a hypohipstercrite or something.

Burner Express

[Anonymous Coward]

The Burner Express is an independent company - not run by Burning Man - just licensed by them.

alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Rainbow Gathering. July 1 , for a week or two, every year , a different national park each time. Free. Big on hippies and drugs. No official leadership. Unofficial website. Ask around among homeless hippies. Greeting is "Welcome Home" http://rainbowgatherings.org/

Bread and Puppets, Grover, Vermont. Summer weekend of camping , puppet theatre; free bread, or used to be anyway. They burn a large wooden sculpture in the finale. 50 years running. Much smaller than BM. More theatrical orientation. Also touring productions. From their website: "Some of the elements in the performance will be “daffodil combat forces battling F-35sthe elimination of the 800,001st Palestinian olive tree- totally unattended by the National Outrage Orchestraan Animal Rental Facility which offers disenchanted customers of civilization instant transformation into frog or deer, cricket or rat”. There will also be new characters, like “underprivileged Corporate Dwarves, overshadowed by Ordinary 99% Giants promoting brand-new economy-shrinking ventures, while the Lubberland National Dance Company enhances the program with eternal values gloves-on dances presented to the gloves-off practitioners in Guantanamo and elsewhere”. http://breadandpuppet.org

I am surprised no one brought it up

[Anonymous Coward]

...but the sale of products and services is explicitly prohibited within BM community.
Which makes a really good explanation for why ability to rent a bike or camp membership is not mentioned by the official guide. Because if the organizers knew about those camps, they would kick them out.

As for the original poster - you did significant damage to the community by rewarding such camps for their behavior. And since you do not seem like someone who would damage the community intentionally, I think it has more to do with your level of ignorance about what BM community is about.
So - yeah, you are still a tourist. :)

Which is fine, but I think you can do much better next time.

Re:I am surprised no one brought it up

[Anonymous Coward]

It's obvious that neither Bennett nor anyone managing the moderation queue understands Burning Man, else this whole sparkle pony guide would have been sent to /dev/null

You didn't get it.

[ChrisKnight]

Bennett,

    If these are your take-aways from Burning Man, I am sorry. It is apparent that you just didn't get it. You had a technical experience, but apparently not an emotional one. From your article, it sounds like you were a perfect spectator; but not a participant.

    I've only been nine years, and I'd happily share all my tips with you. I have no problem 'making it easy' for people. But if they came back from the event with nothing to share except how to make it easy on themselves I would wonder why they bothered at all.

    You can camp with my crew next year. We aren't the perfect camp, but nobody from my camp has ever come away with this dry of an experience.

   

Playa Bike Repair

[Netsnipe]

As one of volunteer bike mechanics (I was the short Chinese guy who spoke with an Aussie accent!) at Playa Bike Repair, let me just say that even though may of us put in long hours at that camp, it was worth the cramped hands. The respect, kudos and love that we got from our fellow Burners was humbling. I rarely had to wait in line for coffee, ice or pancakes whenever I let it be known that I was picking up supplies for our camp or that I was due on shortly for a shift. I reckon that only people who got more respect than us were the EMRs and Rangers.

And for those questioning the cost of the bike rentals, keep in mind that those rental fees not only paid for the bike transportation, but also for the also the spare parts and oils/lubricants we handed out to fix thousands of bikes throughout the entire week and to keep the generators running to power our air compressors and camp amenities.

Cheers,
Andrew

Re:Playa Bike Repair

[wonkey_monkey]

(I was the short Chinese guy who spoke with an Aussie accent!)

What are you now?

Re:Playa Bike Repair

[Anonymous Coward]

oils/lubricants we handed out...

Yes, for bikes... not gay sex. Sure... we believe you....

Just the punchline

[Molochi]

You here to talk, or you here to fish.

Is Burning Man like Fight Club?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first rule of Burning Man - you do not make Burning Man accessible to lazy nerds.

Re:god i wish all you burners would just stay ther

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the neatest things about burning man was that the people attending (when I went) were pretty friendly and nice. And if you came up with hack-y type ideas (improvised electronics/pyrotechnics/etc) you were usually met with encouragement rather than derision.

That's probably the biggest thing I miss about the event; the positivity.

Re:Who is this author?

[DexterIsADog]

The poster is a dork who did the *very* least he could, then mentioned it to make himself look good. He is the type of douchebag that people associate with Burning Man.

Deal with it - though I suspect you can't, you're obviously over invested emotionally on this subject, considering your profligate posting on it.

Warm water is better

[Anonymous Coward]

In the desert most people simply cant drink cold water fast enough. Cold water is often reccomended because people tend to drink more of it, but when you need to inbibe a liter every hour or so to keep up, it's hard to get that much cold water in your stomach.

Camp vs Individual

[Dripdry]

Personally? I *liked* pulling all my own stuff together and the difficulty of organizing it myself. Maybe "like" is a bit strong, but...
I passed on camping with a group that had all the trappings. It was my first time and I wanted to do it myself, and it made all the difference. I was able to own the experiences there from start to finish, both good and bad, and I wouldn't trade that for anything.