Social media seems to be laughing its ass off about this tragedy, is it because the folks at burning man are perceived as frivolous hippies or something? Everyone I’ve ever met who was a regular burning man attendee has been a solid human being with strong morals, personally and financially responsible, a career. Upstanding members of society for sure. I guess all some people know is the sensationalized drugs and sex. A person died. This is a tragedy for an event that brings positivity into the world. Kind of annoyed.
That’s pretty much stripping all relevant context from the situation. The rains are absolutely a big deal for a special campout-celebration that’s held in a fairly hostile natural location, with ground that becomes disastrous in terms of movement when there’s heavy rain.
It would be one thing if BM was just a frivolous celebration, but it’s heavily art-oriented, creative in nature, and meaningful for a whole bunch of folks who are trying to engage in something special once a year. So it’s not The Holocaust, no, but more than just the loss of the festival, there’s still some real danger going on for hundreds of folks right now.
I approve of this abbreviation.
When you camp on a lakebed, you’re going to be camping in a lake sometimes.
AFAIK it’s a dried-up lake bed that rarely experiences this kind of thing during BM week.
Maybe I’m wrong, tho.
rarely
And yes, when rain rains on a dried lake bed (playa, not “beach” in spanish), you get lake.
Climate change means the cilmate will not stay the same.
It’s rained a bit while I was there years back, but not to this extent. Not that it wasn’t always a possibility though.
Pard, you sure as shootin’ got that part right.
And I’ve barely been following this year’s event at all. If heavy rains were indeed predicted, then it seems to me that at the very least, the organisers have some pretty colossal questions to answer.
Huh?
We can’t predict weather past about 7 days at best. “We” meaning humanity, “weather” meaning weather (not climate). I am pretty sure we can’t forecast how climate will change.
But the organizers of the event having pretty colossal questions to answer makes little sense to me in regards to flooding. BM was held on the beach in california until the gathering got too big and moved to the desert. The BLM gives BRC (BM) a permit each year (so far) and limits the population - they also controll ingress and egress to BRC. The gate to BM is sometimes closed whilst people are still in line, because the population has reached capacity. Population being something on the order of 75k each year, a lot les than coachella.
But again, burning man is a temporary event that creates a temporary city (BRC, black rock city), each year, come rain or snow. You really cannot come to this event and expect everything to go exactly as planned. There is medical (free medical, actually) there, but that doesn’t mean you can count on them to save your life. You should bring 1 gallon of water per person per day you plan on attending, at least, you should bring more meds than you think you’d need, etc… etc… It’s survival.
Heads will not roll because the rain happened. Nothing new about being told to shelter in place - when it rains even a bit on the playa, this happens. It just hasn’t happened to this extent, but there’s always a first for everything.
Much of what I’ve read confirms things you’re saying, and to be clear, I’ve never been there myself. I’ve only read about the event, including first-hand accounts, and seen video footage.
My point about the rain is that in the immediate days preceding the event, surely the organisers had a chance to examine the weather report and realise that at the very least, a strong advisory should have been sent out, or maybe even the festival cancelled. Also, is it possible they didn’t know how treacherous the soil there could get with heavy rain?
This is where burning man differs a little bit from other festivals. A good start to understanding this would be to actually read the terms and conditions of the event:
In short: the BLM controls when you enter and exit the event.
That’s just not how this works, but let me be more clear. BRC is a city, with a working post office, medical, a small power grid, and multiple law enforcement agencies. The city starts being built a few months ahead of time. By building, I mean building, as in sometimes there are large steel structures that need to be brought in with large semi-trucks to build multiple story buildings.
Because the event is mostly put on by participants and not the festival itself, every festival-goer (called participants) is encouraged to “radically self-express” or otherwise give to the community in their own way. Musicians and DJs perform, Artists create art, groups of people create camps and put on their own events. There’s a guide you’re given at the beginning of the event with a directory of these events put on by various camps - they aren’t a part of burning man, they ARE burning man. The organization itself just creates the infrastructure for the event, the participants organize the event.
What this means is that there are a few large camps which put up big stages and sound systems, or art cars (some of which are travelling sound systems and dance floors), and these need to be setup prior to the event. So, these large camps (or even smaller camps) have members which apply for something called “early arrival” which lets you arrive a few days prior to when gate opens and the rest of the participants arrive.
My point in saying all of this is that there is not only momentum of multiple months work going into getting the event setup, but that work and stake is spread across most of the ticket holders.
Even if burning man was cancelled the moment there was rain, it would still mean there are people there who need to do the work of removing all the gear brought in, waiting until BLM allows them to do so, and waiting for BLM to tell them when they can leave, or just fending for themselves if BLM officers leave early. But one thing is for sure - if that stuff isn’t removed from the desert, the organization can count on not having BLM issue a permit again for the next year - the only reason they keep issuing permits is because of the massive effort that goes into restoring the land to it’s original condtion (“leave no trace”).
Then we have things like 4th of Juplaya, which is in the spirit of how burning man started: at the same location, around the 4th of july, people just show up and start partying. No tickets are sold, it’s not a formal event. It’s just a place where people show up and party. People camping in near darkness and also people driving as fast as their cars can on the desert playa, while lighting off fireworks, mad max style. Something tells me that people would still come to 4th of Juplaya even it flooded, but that’s just a guess.
It’s well known in the burning man community that playa when wet is impassible. Sometimes gate gets shut down because of this. This was the case when I was there a few years back for early arrival. It rained a bit, and got muddy, gate was shut for a day or so and then opened back up.
It’s not soil, it’s a very fine alkaline dust and it gets very muddy when wet. Forget driving, forget riding a bike, you’re going to have problems walking.
Thanks for the extensive writeup, and if I understand you correctly, there’s more or less *way* too much momentum of various kinds for any group in particular to call the event off even knowing that harsh weather was about to hit.
So if you’re a participant you can acknowledge that this year’s event kind of sucked, but that it was still worth it on the whole. Do I have that right?
One other thing-- I notice some people calling the event a ‘rich person’s event,’ as if to imply the whole thing is frivolous, and that it’s of no consequence that this one was ‘rained out.’ Thoughts?
I know old burners, none of them went this year, nor the last few years. They have other smaller events they go to now that retains the old feel of Burning Man. It is very much frivolous now.
Okay, what makes it frivolous now?
Alcohol is common now, the art is ignored by a lot of people, people just aren’t as generally sociable. From what I can see, it’s morphed into something that’s less about sharing and showing art, into showing off and partying. I am not a habitual burner, so leaning on stories and photos from friends, and maybe the prior years were just off years, and I missed the year that brought it back to its roots… but somehow I doubt it.
Ugh, yeah, that sounds plenty disappointing. :S
Brother, Burning Man is an excuse for a bunch of people to do a fuckton of drugs out in the middle of the desert.
Burning Man has never been anything other than a monument to excess. It is, if anything, a poignant statement regarding humanity.
Am I happy people are struggling? No. But I’d be lying if I didn’t think they deserve it. Maybe the survivors will spend their free time better. Probably not, it’ll just end up meaning poor people are allowed less and less in coming years.
I’m not debating that drug use, alcohol and sex don’t go on there, but what consenting adults do is their business IMO. For that matter, huge swaths of the rural and semi-rural States seem to be given over to that sort of thing, too, and I think that’s of far more concern than a one week festival, brother.
Regardless, I’ve seen plenty of footage and pics, and there’s undeniably loads of creativity, art projects, chance meetings between interesting people, and the tribal-experiential aspect going on at BM. I happen to think all that stuff’s pretty damn cool, and I feel no need to dismiss the whole thing just because I’m on some moral high ground from afar.
“Art” flocks to places like that because of rich people with too much money doing dumb shit… like partying in the middle of the desert.
Furthermore what makes you think what I’ve said would result in me not condemning those in the south as well? What is this whataboutist bullshit?
I’m not even going to touch the “tribal experiential” bit.
Sounds like a pretty facile, cynical, and plain inaccurate way of looking at the tradition:
https://lemm.ee/comment/3200143
Fine, but calling it a tragedy takes away from actual tragedies.
For who? I understood that when he called it a “tragedy,” it was heavily based on his POV and emotions at the time. That’s about as innocuous as it gets, and isn’t going to change anything across the world IMO.
The word “literally” used to have a specific meaning, but now it annoyingly has the exact opposite meaning of its original. The word “pentultimate” was supposed to mean “second to last” but then it turned into “super-ultimate”
No one anything changes the word… Until it does. It would be nice if words can keep their meaning without getting diluted so when you really need it, you have it.
Yeap, I understand those sentiments, and am fairly picky about language myself.
Still, in cases like these, I have to bow to the fact that language is and always was fluid & ever-changing. That, and the fact that we must pick our battles in life. *shrug*