September 3, 1997

In case you hadn't heard, the 1997 Burning Man festival took place last weekend in Nevada. The organizers of the freewheeling annual event describe it as "the great upwelling of creative energy that occurs in the Nevada desert every year preceding Labor Day." In layman's terms, a bunch of urbanites drive to the desert, camp out for the weekend, take a lot of drugs, smear themselves with mud, and burn a giant effigy of a human form.

Vehicles were no longer allowed to roam at will, crushing drunken revelers by mistake. Though the shadowy origins of Burning Man don't include anything relating to technology, Wired and the digerati have adopted the event as an official nerd holiday, with last year's HardWired nudie picture book serving as a family photo album. And a couple of weeks ago, Burning Man hit the mainstream when Wired's Kevin Kelley spewed forth an article called "Bonfire of the Techies" on the pages of Time magazine.

Due to all this publicity, organizers had to tone down the anarchic Mad Max-like lunatic raves of previous years into a more orderly fry-fest last weekend. The official Web site included a survival guide and clear directions to the festival's site. A $75 cover charge was strictly enforced. And vehicles were no longer allowed to roam at will, crushing drunken revelers by mistake. If you add rules to anarchy, you get hierarchy, which means there are now official community leaders, big donators becoming "community benefactors," and, inevitably, T-shirts and baseball caps for sale.

Though nobody asked, we at skewer! decided to take the commercialization of Burning Man to its logical conclusion, complete with corporate sponsors, themed casinos, and bad rock bands. Idealistic old-timers might cringe, but they always do--and that hasn't stopped EuroDisney, interleague baseball, or an unholy Microsoft-Apple alliance. Old-timers might cringe, but that hasn't stopped EuroDisney, interleague baseball, or the Microsoft-Apple alliance.

Ten Hot Ways to Build the Burning Man Brand

1. Though there's already a Burning Man Web site, add more interactivity to it during the festival, including live Webcasts, chats with naked people, and collaborative digital art projects. Flaming GIFs will finally have a design purpose.

2. Offer more accommodation options: $75 buys you nothing; $150 gets you a wooden cabin with wood-burning stove; $250 gets you a condo with electricity; and $500 gets you a condo with a view of the Burning Man, plus membership at the Burning Man Spa with swimming pool, tennis courts, and full 18-hole golf course.

3. Promotional tie-ins should go beyond simple Burning Man wear. New products include Burning Man multicolored body paint; Burning Man deodorant that makes you smell like tumbleweed; and McDonald's Burning Man wooden action figures that kids can torch (matches not included). Flaming GIFs will finally have a design purpose.

4. License the idea to Harrah's so the gaming empire can open Burning Man Casino and Camping on the Vegas Strip. Cocktail waitresses wear mud, dealers spout poetry at random moments, and the indoor temperature is pumped to 110 degrees.

5. To take away the patriarchal underpinnings of "Burning Man," offer politically correct alternatives like Asbestos-Challenged Person or Highly Flammable Figurine.

6. Form Burning Man, Inc. with venture capital money and former Apple Computer board members. After a successful IPO, funnel funds into a secret project code-named "Woodsmoke"--an Internet search engine that's rigged to bring up sites on existentialism, free love, and the wonders of psychedelic drugs. Offer politically correct alternatives like Asbestos-Challenged Person or Highly Flammable Figurine.

7. Start a traveling musical show called Burning-Manapalooza, just so Perry Farrell will have another conniption over someone watering down his Lollapalooza brand name.

8. Approach relevant corporate sponsors, such as Match Light, Evian, and Coppertone.

9. Design a computer game called Bust Burning Man, where teens play a superhero cop who goes into the Nevada desert to arrest artsy drug-ingesters frolicking in the nude. He's a kinder, gentler Duke Nukem who tramples bad sculpture, arrests desert hipsters, and uncovers the technology/hippie connection. Start a traveling musical show called Burning-Manapalooza, just so Perry Farrell will have another conniption.

10. Have festivals throughout the year, but offer different extremes: Freezing Fellow in Duluth, Minnesota, in January; Wet Willie in Seattle in April; It's-Not-the-Heat-It's-the-Humidity Guy in the Louisiana Bayou in June; Drowning Dude in Miami during hurricane season; and Hot Foot Hank in Kilauea, Hawaii, sometime soon.

Mark Glaser is a freelance technology writer who writes the "Cybertainment" column for the Los Angeles Times but is looking for a CEO gig on the side. You can join the skewer! email list by sending him your favorite Mr. Bill joke.