by Janelle Brown | July 11, 1997 | Wired Magazine

IN APPROXIMATELY 47 days, thousands of freaks, hippies, artists, and pagans will start their annual trek out to Nevada for the Labor Day Burning Man. What they will find this year, however, is a strikingly different festival, with a new location, new rules, and among some, a new wariness. Despite the trepidation of some veterans, a strict permit for the 11th incarnation of Burning Man was acquired on Wednesday from the Washoe County commissioners. The organizers are making big changes to ensure that the concept of spontaneous community can be preserved within an expected crowd of up to 20,000 people. "Ever since I moved to the playa I've been hearing about the critical mass.... Some say it's 1,000 people, some say 40 people. The critical calculation is not the numbers; it's not quantitative, it's qualitative," says Burning Man founder Larry Harvey. "Our task this year is to knit people into a group in which the overwhelming majority feel they're related to the others, and still have a part of the individual invested in the group."

For many, the playa of the Black Rock desert - flat as a pancake and dry as a bone - has been the essence of the Burning Man experience. It was, however, also the source of many problems last year, being too vast and open to allow much control: The sky was laden with dust clouds from car traffic, and countless freeloaders sneaked in the back way.

This year, the new location is on private land: the Hualapi Playa, a 12-square-mile desert complete with sagebrush and scorpions, on the edge of a smaller playa, near a famed hot springs. (The last location was 400 square miles.)

"Out there was like outer space. This is more like wilderness camping," explains Harvey. "I like the idea of bringing people into more direct contact with nature. It has a way of calming them down."

Besides dust clouds, last year's event also saw more serious problems like petty theft, overdoses, and accidents. The most devastating were a pre-event death due to a motorcycle crash, and three critical injuries that occurred when a man high on multiple drugs ran his car over a tent in the middle of the night. There were also, says former organizer John Law, a reported 600 traffic stops by police made on Highway 447 on the way out.

"1996 was the year Burning Man went over the edge: too many people for the infrastructure, too many gawkers, too many cars, too many arrests, too many heartbreaks," Stuart Mangrum, the recent ex-director of communications, writes in his zine, Twisted Times. "After years of beating the odds, we got our asses whipped, and we did it to ourselves."

But considering the chaos that could happen during an event of Burning Man's magnitude, the problems were relatively small, asserts Harvey. And, he points out, "if last year had been the horror show everyone is saying it was, why would the locals be supporting us? Why would the police department endorse us?"

More people, more problems?

That was last year, though. The population this time is expected to almost double, so those supportive police are also requiring that the security measures be stepped up dramatically. While last year only 12 sheriff's deputies were on duty in the area, this year Washoe County deputies will be greater in number and warier of potential problems, along with an additional staff of off-duty officers that Burning Man has hired to deal with any serious problems.

Organizers insist that these authorities will be positioned around the perimeter of the event, instead of actually inside it, and not "busting heads" unless called in by the volunteer staff of Burning Man rangers. "We're not going to be surveilled by this disapproving army," asserts Harvey.

This year will also see the elimination of what organizers see as the key source of last year's problems: the automobile. The cars were previously the source of two conflicts: traffic - which generated enormous amounts of dust - and day-tripping gawkers, many of whom came in by car to drink beer, leer, and steal. Campers will no longer be allowed to drive their cars around, required instead to anchor them to their camp; the day-trippers will have to pay a fee to get in, and will be required to park their cars and walk a half-mile in.

Two additional rules that will be enforced are the no fires rule, forbidding all but small campfires contained by rings of stones, and a ban on all raves. Both the police and organizers felt that last year's rave camp was the focal point of many problems: the site of the tent accident, and in a location so isolated that young new ravers weren't able to pick up the community vibe. As for fires, the copious dry grass in the new location has the local authorities anxious about fire hazards - to the point where the event permit was contingent on the group hiring 40 firefighters and four pumper trucks to stand by.

The cost of the firefighters, plus the costs for land reclamation, reseeding, insurance, permits, and other Bureau of Land Management fees, could total more than US$800,000 - not including other event costs. The ticket price has consequently been driven up to $75 - and the group still expects to lose money.

So come the party-goers, so goes the party

Beyond the rules and environment changes, however, the most crucial element in preserving the archetypal Burning Man will be the types of people who come, and how many veterans return. Last year's event received media saturation from everyone from MTV to CNN, plus newspapers and magazines worldwide. As Law puts it, "Every frat boy from Fort Lauderdale to Chico is going to try and be there. And why not? It's tits and beer and drugs."

With the entire vibe of the event contingent on the mind-space of those attendees, indoctrinating the new population into the ways of the Man is critical.

To do so, Harvey has already been campaigning in the media to promote the event's ideals, and in the new location all attendees must funnel through a gate where they will be given information about what the Burning Man community "means."

The volunteer rangers will also be given a weightier role in being "socially proactive" - more than 200 people will be volunteering to not only help prevent problems, but to work on introducing campers to their neighbors and promoting the idea of a collective culture.

"I think it's going to be the same as it always is," explains Burning Man spokeswoman Marian Goodell. "People who understand the philosophy come - and there will also be new people who don't know what to expect. But you indoctrinate them by behavior. I genuinely believe that we can do it."

A different Man

Despite all the precautions organizers are taking, there are still those that feel that Burning Man as they knew it in the past is over. At least three of the long-time organizers have departed, vocally expressing sentiments like that of John Law, who said that "it could never be as free-form and anarchic as it's been in the past - something I found very attractive. Now that needs to be augmented with a formal structure." Law says that structure "will change the whole event."

As disaffection with the event has become so prevalent, organizers have resorted to satire, creating parodies of their foes. BigRig Industries, a group formed by Burning Man volunteers, write jokingly in their newsletter promoting a "takeover" of Burning Man, "The community experience so fondly trumpeted as the living skin of the Burning Man is pocked, scarred, and so lacerated that it is no longer the durable integument needed to sustain the Burning Man's viscera. Last year's community was such a stark and realistic representation of modern civilization that it reminded us of our own downtown Oakland."

Whether Burning Man can continue as a volunteer enterprise, avoiding the commercialism and infrastructure that might turn it into a Lollapalooza for freaks, will likely be tested this year. Harvey is optimistic: "Humans are adapted to forming culture. If you give people the right cues, it's simple to do it. You just have to get to them before they get to you."