Burning Man turns 40, creating a cultural legacy in Nevada

Marian, thanks for making the time with us today. Very nice to be here. Thank you for having me. Can you remember your first burn and what your reaction to it was that drew you a lot deeper into all things Burning Man? I love remembering my first burn. It's kind of like your first burn leaves an impression on you that you almost end up comparing all the rest of your burns with. It was about 4,000 people. It was 1995 and I was in art school and I had seen some photos of a beautiful piece of art in the desert. And I really didn't realize that it was going to be as interactive and playful as it turned out to be. And I left that experience very touched by being in an environment that really was encouraging me to engage and be playful and say hello. And even 30 some years ago, you know, we were getting more distant. Technology was getting into our lives. And I remember thinking that it caused me to shed some of the barriers and to really encourage me to connect with people. Now, I want to go back five years from 95. This is when Burning Man relocated from San Francisco to the remote northern Nevada desert. What was it about Black Rock Desert specifically that called to Burning Man to establish its event there? Well, the event had started on a beach in San Francisco in 1986, and it was just a little moment of an art experience of burning a figure that really represented a person's angst in their life and their 20 friends stood with them to burn it and, you know, just watch the sunset, frankly. And... People came and stood near them. They were drawn by the fire. They were drawn by the figure. And the two men were actually sort of fundamentally introverted. And they looked at each other and said, we need to do this again. And so they did it on the summer solstice, starting in 1986, and they continued until 1990. But in 1988, In 89 and 1990, the numbers were in the hundreds. And when you get sort of 400 and 500 people and law enforcement shows up and tells you, you know, what are you doing? This is not what should be doing here. That pushed them in 1990 to not burn it and to take it down and carry it off the beach and try to figure out what were they going to do. And several friends had been out into the Black Rock Desert for various sort of happenings as they do out there. and had said, you know, Nevada, first of all, is very fabulous state that has wide open spaces and a very can-do attitude. And they liked that idea.

Many of them were very fond of their firearms and had been out into the desert using them and felt like, you know, Nevada was a place that would welcome their diverse opinions and ways of being. And they went up there exploratory and they went to Girlac and the folks in Girlac were typically prickly and friendly. They thought that, you know, why not? I don't think at the time they thought that 40 years later we'd still be here. Nevada, not just the Black Rock Desert, but honestly, the state of Nevada that has continued to embrace Burning Man and be proud of Burning Man as part of what's kept us in Nevada and not frankly explored other states. It's the place that has a great playa, has a great attitude. Northern Nevada has great economic opportunity for us to be building the event. So we're really proud of Nevada being our home. Besides the expansion of the event, was there one single thing that changed the most once you were at Black Rock Desert? The desert enabled them to create the environment that became a city. So looking at it as staying overnight means you're thinking about public safety. The distance of the drive immediately put them into a position of recognizing that you have to provide some framework and rules from a small campout. And as the camp out grew to become a community, you have to create basically community values. So being in the Black Rock Desert turned it into a camp out. The camp out turned it into community values. The community values enabled us to create a city. So Black Rock City is named Black Rock City because we're in the northern Nevada Black Rock Desert. And that's what birthed the really evolved version of Burning Man. Burning Man was much different when it was on the beach in California. It's really part of the global movement that we were able to create Black Rock City in the Black Rock Desert. And you had mentioned Gerlach. What have you all set up there now bringing it to the present? The town of Gerlach has been our home since 1990. We now own property about 20 miles outside of town, which is our staging area that has the containers and the trailers and the wood shop and the auto shop that we store and maintain over the winter. We also have property in town. There's a trailer park that we use to house the staff as they're arriving before they move to the Playa. We have an office. We have quite a few different domiciles in order to support our infrastructure year round. We do have about 20, I think 20 employees year round in Gurlac, maybe 25 at this point, and have certainly become part of the community. Our staff members, sometimes when they don't work for a burning man anymore or even seasonally get involved in helping the community, you know, stay thriving, get involved in the local politics, in the community boards. So we've become a steward of the long-term survival for the town of Gerlach.

Now, the Burning Man Project works a lot with the Bureau of Land Management, of course, the federally owned Black Rock Desert requires that. But your organization also works with numerous state and local agencies, including the ones that, you know, basically help keep the attendees safe. I wonder if it's been a little tricky to establish those relationships, especially at first given that you're establishing these cooperative relationships with what I would call the rule makers and the rule enforcers. And Burning Man had, and maybe to this day still has this. nonconformist air to it. Was that difficult at first to us have that mutual trust established? We're branded often as deliberately working outside of the lines, when in fact, where we often can meet government agencies in the same places, the best collaborative opportunities are when the government agencies realize that the citizens and the community members can actually be in partnership with them. And we don't want more governance. We want a collaborative and a self-governance environment. And I think many of the agencies recognize, sure, we don't have all of the subject matter expertise that they do, but we have real enthusiasm to be partners and to actually do the right thing. I've been around long enough to say when we got to the size of, say, 15,000 people, 20,000 people, the degree in which you can just sort of self-governed for the sake of self-governing, it just has to be thrown out the window. We're big fans of public health and public safety. And I think where the relationships got interesting was finding... the administrators that saw that our real intentions were for public safety and that we were wanting to build ideas that would teach people and give them an opportunity without having a heavy-handed governance process in Black Rock City, but that we govern through rules and values. And I can give you one interesting example that always confounds people when we support community members building. Burning Man events and other places. First time we saw it was a group that was in Arizona. They were burners. They were interested in building an event. And the local sheriff's office said, well, you need to have trash cans everywhere. They turned back to us and we had worked really hard with the, frankly, at the first point was Washoe County when we were in 1997 on private land. And there are festival permits. that require certain public necessities for safety and public health. But we had learned how to have that conversation and how to show up in ways that we're, frankly, pro people. So we want more citizens. We all want more citizens that actually take care of their own trash. I've been to so many festivals, street festivals, carnivals, whatever, and the trash bins are usually full, you know, midway through the afternoon and someone comes through and removes them.

Now, that's hard to change if you're in a place where you've got vendors and you've got food. But at Burning Man, without any vendors for food and requiring the people to bring their own food, we eliminate the packaging in the waste behind trash cans. If you're responsible for your own food and your own waste, you can be responsible for your own trash cans. That's self-governance. And having that conversation was one of the most interesting journeys with us and with state health and local departments was, okay, are you guys really going to do this? We'd like you to have dumpsters at the tail end of your event. Well, now it's evolved so that the Paiute community has pullover spots where if you're a Burning Man participant and you want to pay $5 to have your trash bag, you know, left behind, then that's what you can do or you can choose to drive it back home. So it's also an economic opportunity. So it's self-reliance. in the course of communal effort. You know, you had mentioned economics a couple times. The economic impact to Nevada from Burning Man is considerable. It's more than 60 million. I want to talk to you, though, about the cultural impact. From where you sit, where do you think that Burning Man's ethos and practices, the aesthetics of the event, are most felt outside the Playa? You can look at it a couple of different ways. If you look at it just locally as it applies to Nevada, there are people from 89 countries that bought tickets to Burning Man. And one of the things I get when I travel internationally, 20% of the people come internationally. People come overseas. because they're attracted to the Western ethos of California, Nevada, Utah. What does the United States West look like? And they come and they take road trips. And I think from a cultural standpoint, it's a two-way street. for the folks in Nevada, whether it's Las Vegas, whether it's Reno, whether it's Elko, that there are people from different parts of the country, different parts of the world, coming and having conversations, they're seeing one another, they're in cafes, and it bridges the questions we have about and the fears that we have about other people. So being in an environment that allows us to say hello and be ourselves and be a little bit different, empowers everybody to feel hope and less fear.

The other layer to that is that the art that's coming out of Burning Man is placing itself in different parts of the world. Both Las Vegas and Reno have seen an increase in their public art because not only are the artists from the West, but those are two cities that have sought opportunities for more art. More art brings people out to enjoy it, to walk around in the evenings. Tony Shea, of course, did his work in downtown project. So there is the big rig jig, which I think is still in Las Vegas. There are a couple other pieces that he put in place. And in Reno, the city council has had and purchased several pieces. There are hotels that have purchased pieces. They're developers that are purchased pieces. So Nevada in particular is absolutely seeing the benefit of international and national artists and technologists and people that didn't know they were artists. Building large scale art. that when it's taken out a burning man with a little refurbishing can really bring communities out to come sit and have a picnic and another thing would be your state parade you're celebrating statehood has started seeing art cars in it 20 years ago the prizes for the best float started going to burning man art cars You know, I want to bring up one specific piece of public art, if only because there's a personal anecdote in it. You know, I went in 2010, and that was the year that the piece, Bliss Dance, was debuted. And lo and behold, I think three or four or five years later, there it was on the Las Vegas Strip. And I remember looking at it, and I'm seeing this piece of art that brought me, you know, directly back to the event and the playa. But then it's surrounded by all these hotels. Just looking at this going, well, here we are in one of the most hypercapitalistic areas you could possibly be. And here's a symbol, at least in my mind, of this event that is all about decommodification and gift economy. I can only imagine what you as the head of Burning Man project thought when you saw the placement of this art was there a moment where you wrinkled your brow or maybe you were looking at it like a proud mama who's like we've kind of made the big time. I think it was a little bit of both, to be honest with you. The project that brought in a number of art pieces had great ambitions that Las Vegas would be the beginning of a tour that would include these beautiful art pieces. And I think they started talking about it going to Austin and Detroit and Kansas City and really places that would welcome sort of an avant-garde way of looking at art and creating gatherings around it. The thing that does happen is if the art is dwarfed by contemporary buildings, it doesn't feel as grand as it does in the Black Rock Desert. So I think that's the feedback I did get from some people, which was they felt sad that Bliss Dance is magnificent and beautiful when you're, you know, six feet tall and it's 40 feet above you and there's nothing else taller than it. When it's placed next to a hotel that is 25 or 30.

40, 50 stories, it feels tiny and doesn't feel as grand. But they were trying to make an impact, and that's where they put it. Now, you have been with the organization in various capacities for about 30 years, a little more than 30 years. What has been the single biggest change that you have seen with Burning Man? We have more people doing affiliated Burning Man events and people attending them out in the world than we have going to the Black Rock Desert. 110,000 people have experienced Burning Man events in 2025. And that was about 69,000 in the Black Rock Desert. And that number continues to grow. And that ambition is something that we deliberately nurtured back in 97 and 98 when the internet came to life and people when they left said, well, how do I meet other people in my community? How can I bring other people together? Tell me how to do it. And now we're seeing more people doing it all over the world. 100,000 unique visitors to these affiliated events that follow the same principles, no trash cans, nothing sold, all ages, creative, collective, building together experience. Now, Burning Man has gone through its trials. Especially during an after-the-pandemic, the new docu series The Man Will Burn on HBO Max highlights this. And by the way, your organization fully participated in it. Ultimately, what has been, in your estimation, the biggest existential threat to Burning Man? I think that there's a couple of existential threats. I think there's one that we really can't control, and that is weather. And there's certainly been some challenging years since the pandemic. 2022 is extraordinarily hot, 104 degrees, one of the days there. People are living intense, really, you know, suffering dehydration if you don't take care of yourself. You know, the government is always a piece of the story. I think, you know, we started this conversation talking a little bit about government agencies and the journey for collaboration and self-understanding each other and following for the organization to understand what governments need. And it's still a challenge for us to meet each other at the table and see where we're going together. The weather is a bigger challenge in the government, and we're up for the challenge. I believe what we're doing is good. We don't really have a bad relationship with the government. We are always trying to improve it. The biggest existential challenge would be that the cost of doing a mass gathering like ours and a cost of doing other festivals in the world in general continue to go up. But the capacity for people that enjoy that kind of gathering, their capacity to... cover the costs and also come and be self-expressive at Burning Man without having food being sold to you, that cost is outstripping the capacity for people to actually pay and cover it. We are very unique in that philanthropy is what helps us keep our costs manageable.

So we need the community at all levels to bring what they can to the table so that we can be financially viable for the long haul. And speaking of The Man Will Burn, it is happening three and a half weeks from now. And I'm wondering how you plan on commemorating the 40-year milestone on the Playa. Well, we all have our ways. We don't have a significant celebration. Being here for 40 years is the celebration. We all do it in different ways. I think I'm sure the fireworks were going to be fabulous for the man. And the temple this year is very, very unique. We have seen really extraordinary art. apply and get funded this year. For me personally, I have family members. My 83-year-old uncle is coming from El Paso, Texas, and my 21-year-old niece and five other family members. So, you know, I look at it as one of the ways that I'll be celebrating with family and looking at what a magical place. My uncle was around for the summer of love. He went to Woodstock. And one of the things he tells me is that Burning Man is an example of what it is he and his generation we're looking for. A place where people connect, there's kindness, there's building together, there's laughter, there's joy, and there's awe. And I think the fact that we're still doing it and we're rocking and rolling and making it happen, that's the proof in the pudding. And I'm proud to be celebrating 40 years. And that's Marion Goodell. She's the CEO of the Burning Man Project, which produces the big event. The 40th Burning Man happens, August 30th through September 7th. And we'll have a link for more information at KMPR.org. Marion, thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much. It's great to be here. And now we have Chris Wagner, the managing editor of the alternative newspaper, Reno News and Review. She's long reported on the arts and culture in Nevada. Chris, thanks for speaking with me today. Hey, Mike. Great to be with you. So let's start with your Burning Man pedigree, so to speak. What's been your participation with the event over the years? About 20 years ago, I was assigned as a reporter to go cover the event for the first time and I thought I will do my job. I will conclude that I have been there and done that. I was fascinated by the thing and I have been back many, many times. I have reported on it. Several times over the years. And also I've worked on art projects. My husband, Jerry Snyder, is a Burning Man artist. So some years, I am there on the play of building things with him. Now, Burning Man takes place a little more than two hours north of Reno. What do you think Burning Man has met to Reno and in the surrounding towns?

So many things. For some people, it's an annoyance and it's just too much traffic and too much dust. And for some people, there's a bit of a buzz in the air and people who don't go seem to really enjoy it. I think probably a higher percentage of Renoites attend Burning Man than maybe people in other cities because they're so close. Yeah, you know, it's funny if you go up there, there's a like a Burning Man Arts Administration department and you go check in with them if you're bringing an art project. And the people staffing the arts administration department are the same people who work in Arts Administration in Reno. So there are kind of ways where it feels like little bits of Reno are transported to the Playa and there's some Playa version of them. And we'll have a little bit more about the Reno Arts community with regards to Burning Man in a second. I wanted you to kind of paint a picture of what happens to Washoe County the week or so before and during after Burning Man is happening. Do you get folks stopping by? Maybe they're getting hotel rooms or provisions, you know, all throughout this period. What's the energy like? The large casino parking lots are full of fanciful buses and art projects that look like they're about to be installed. There are some businesses, like some of our midtown restaurants, will be absolutely hopping. A few years back, I went up to the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation to ask people there how they felt about the Burning Man traffic. Most of the 80,000 or so people who attend the event travel through the reservation. Some people told me that they were having a really good time running seasonal businesses and selling festival wear and lights and things like that. And they were having a really good time meeting international travelers. And some people told me that they really had had enough of the extreme amount of traffic and they'd had enough of the amount of trash that's left. So I think anywhere you ask in Reno or in Washoe County, you're going to... can you get a pretty wide range of answers about how people feel about this event? How much do you think the expressionism and the visuals and the in the sociocultural behaviors of Burning Man have seeped into the culture at large? I think the way you see Burning Man culture play out in Reno, you'll see it mostly in the arts community. And this is pretty interesting. There's this entire maker space, the generator, that isn't formally associated with Burning Man, but established itself around Burning Man art and Burning Man culture and became a place. It's like a giant warehouse where artists can make huge works. So we don't just have local artists working there. We've actually had a lot of artists move to town so that they could work in the generator or actually we have a couple of other art spaces too. People have moved to town and started working in those. We're attracting interesting people, which is great. Do you notice that the people that have moved to Reno to create their Burning Man art, are they also contributing to the arts community in Reno itself?

The arts community in Reno is a lot more siloed than you might think. There's not a central district. There's a university arts community, there's the Burning Man arts community, there are a few other arts communities, and they're a little bit more separate than you might guess. And what I have seen is... I think I've seen a little bit more interaction between these separate parts of the arts community with Burning Man artists as a catalyst for that. So it's interesting, the way they work, if they're working on an enormous project, they might need several different kinds of artists. It's not just that one person working. So they're kind of recruiting and putting the word out all over town. So that's where you're seeing some crossover. So this year, an artist, Gazelle Dosti, who is initially from Iran, she moved. to Reno so she could work, make her giant works closer to Burning Man. And an artist in town, Nathaniel Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a printmaker and muralist, is now working on a Burning Man project. So that's the kind of thing I mean. You'll see these different communities circulating, like, more than we used to. Do you have a sense of how many people that were active in the arts community in Reno start to make art for Burning Man later in their sort of creative or professional careers? Yeah, you would think that that would be a progression. Like you're making paintings and then you decide you're going to make something for the playa. But I can't actually think of a time that I have seen that. I don't see a ton of crossover that way, actually. Now, in Las Vegas, you probably know this, Chris. There are several prominent large-scale installations of art that debuted at Burning Man. Reno, as I understand it, has several Burning Man originated works as well. Which do you think are the most prominent or noteworthy of, you know, discussion? The ones you'll notice first are the space whale in downtown Reno in the Belief Plaza. It's a giant stained glass whale, and that's been there for several years now. And then West 4th Street, you'll see several really large Burning Man sculptures there on Jay Resort's property. And those are probably the most prominent. And they bring a really fun, quirky aesthetic to the neighborhood. But if I'm going to say that, I mean, I personally, I like these sculptures. I have... interviewed people who really felt like these large pieces are symbols of gentrification that to a lot of people is unwelcome. Outside of those two prominent areas downtown and West 4th Street, you will actually see other pieces that debuted at Burning Man in parks and along roadways and along freeway sometimes. We have a lot of them. And this is an interesting thing. Reno, our city officials are interested in having a lot of public art, and there's only so much budget for this. Burning Man Art is kind of a bargain. There is a lot of it here. It's often, almost always, it's built for the event, and it's not built with years of weather in mind. It's not often designed to be a permanent.

installation. So our city will borrow things temporarily sometimes or they'll, you know, sometimes have them retrofitted. But it is interesting. There is a, like a wealth of art that could be temporary or permanent public art just in our region just because it was at the festival. And I think that's a benefit that I'm guessing is pretty unusual for a city to have. And, you know, see if you're an artist and you've built a giant steel structure for people to climb on at Burning Man, it's possible that it may end up languishing in a warehouse somewhere in Empire or Sparks or something, and you're not sure what to do with it next. So that affects the pipeline of public art that we can access. 40 years on, what do you think that Burning Man's legacy is here in Nevada? It's de facto home. I'm a news reporter, and I hesitate to predict the future. I think that we have seen a lot of interesting instances of people working together, like collaborating to try to make something big happen. And that has started to feel like not a Burning Man thing, but a Reno thing, like a Reno. creative world thing. You know, who knows that the festival will go on forever? But I bet that spirit of collaboration that came from this event will linger here indefinitely to forever. And that was Chris Wagner, the managing editor of the alternative newspaper, Reno News and Review. Chris, thanks so much for speaking with us today. Thank you, Mike. Always a pleasure.