Burning Man 2019
The biggest misconception and myth about Burning Man is that it’s just a bunch of hippies and stoners getting high in the desert. This could not be further from the truth. The majority of attendees, on any normal day, conduct themselves professionally in society as teachers, attorneys, doctors, entrepreneurs, scientists, athletes and all sorts of role models. A fraction of attendees are the full time free thinkers and new age healers who have built installations into the desert here over the last twenty years. Some campers cross it off as a bucket list experience and some become part of the yearly flock. Burning Man is an all ages event and is FREE to children under twelve. When the Burning Man community started it was much more exclusive and the tickets would sell out fast. Over the years, organizers have added more and more tickets and the festival has continued to sell out. As the event grew the organizers feared a corporate take over and decided to make the festival currency free. It now operates in a non profit capacity and, besides the tickets themselves, nothing is for sale at the event. Everything is exchanged on a barter system within the community. With over 70,000 attendees this year, Burning Man has become a household name and bucket list experience for adventure seekers around the world.
Photo by Howard G
The thing about Burning Man is that it’s centered around community. You have 70,000 people divided into camps, some as large as two hundred people and some as small as twenty, sharing resources. Some are lavishly decorated and others are centered around one novelty like a cool bar at one end. Each has something to offer and the campers share with the community. You might get pizza and snowcones from one camp on one day and french fries or pizza from a different camp on another day. You can wander along and make all kinds of friends along the way. Some camps are VIP and off limits but pretty much everywhere else is open with tons to see and experience.
Photo by Howard G
Majority of campers attend the daily events at the bigger camps. Meditation, a reverse slave auction and yoga camps are very popular. There are lots of giveaways as people share their wares and talents. Wait, reverse slave auction? Yeah, so basically someone will offer themselves to do something and the crowd will bid for that item or service. You could offer to clean a camp for one hour and someone may offer a shower and a hot meal in return. The bidding can get pretty crazy but it stays PG rated despite what may happen afterwards. The most charged we saw the auction floor was when a woman offered a two hour massage and the bidding began. It ended when a man offered to take her flying on his plane for a tour overhead. The room deflated pretty quickly as she accepted. Funny little desert society going on out here.
There are like ten burnings during the course of the festival, the most popular being the famous Burning Man, The Temple and The Folly. These giant fire displays light up the night sky each night and illuminate the massive camps. Use the app iburn to see all the art and all the timelines for when different burns are happening.
Photo by Howard G
A couple bucket list items to check off:
The Human Carcass Wash. You go through a human car wash naked and people haplessly wash you. This has been going on for over ten years. It’s a fun thing to say you did and will be good for a lot of laughs.
Orgy dome is one of the most famous central themed camps. Don’t let the name fool you. There are no orgies here. You might see a couple having sex in public but nothing you haven’t seen before. This is also overrated, but check it out for the experience.
There are a lot of theme camps like the yoga camp and there are a lot of hippie related camps with shamanism and new age teachings. Check the smaller camps and explore in every direction. There are also VIP camps where they spend over $10,000 per camper to make crazy VIP experiences with lots of extras including lavish tents and private airfare. It’s amazing how much some people spend on the Burning Man experience, arriving in private planes and splurging on elegant amenities in their camp. Lots of women come dressed to the nines in sparkly costumes and you may see celebrities mixed in with the crowds. The ‘Burners’, as they call themselves, fly in from many countries all around the world.
Photo by Howard G
Burning Man is a healthy environment with lots of great people who are having so much fun expressing themselves freely. Our roving reporter was there for 8 days and saw very little evidence of hard drug use besides the occasional request for acid or molly at night. There are lots of international people all over the place and people really come together in a genuine loving way. The laughter and amazing art is a part of the medicine in this place.
They may search your car at entry so be careful what you bring. They search for things like pets and stowaways but their could be narcs in the crowd so be careful with any drugs besides cannabis. Once inside, we encourage sharing cannabis with as many new friends as possible. We shared Blazy Susan pink rolling papers and cactus gear with many new friends.
Tickets usually go up for presale in March at a premium of $1,400 each. Regular admission tickets go for around $400 and then another $100 for the vehicle pass upon entry. You can check all the camps on the iburn app and plan your itinerary accordingly but be prepared to throw your plan out the window and just wing it in the Nevada desert.
Photo by Howard G
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Michael Cassini is the founder and editor in chief of The Cannabis Cactus Magazine. He focuses on community relationships with a goal to maintain a culture of love, peace and knowledge in the cannabis industry.