Burning Man LIVE

There are a whole lot of military veterans in Burning Man’s history and Black Rock City’s neighborhoods. Combat veterans Dr Raymond Christian (Army) and Samuel Williams (Marines) share stories with Stuart Mangrum (Air Force) about transitioning into civilian life, bringing survival skills and leadership chops to BRC, and finding tribal camaraderie… and a party. They explore how hackneyed clichés o...

Robot Heart started with a simple sound system on an old double-decker bus at Black Rock City. Over the years, it has evolved into a bespoke sound system, light arrays, iconic art, and an all-star lineup of musical talent performing to massive crowds at sunrise on Playa.… all on that same old double-decker bus.  Robot Heart also expanded its support of arts and artists beyond the playa, including...

Moshe Kasher has lived many lives as a subculture vulture - a hearing child of deaf parents, an addict at 15, in recovery at 16, a raver, a culturally Jewish standup comedian, an old school Burner and a longtime Gate volunteer.  With Andie Grace and Stuart Mangrum he explores how Burning Man is a waterboard of wonder where weirdos go to feel normal, and norms go to feel weird, and that the sweet s...

This is one of those full-circle stories that makes our dusty hearts glow a little brighter. It’s the tale of big art that emerged from a fossil-filled trash heap, came to life in Black Rock City, then returned to its source as a proud symbol of what a community can accomplish together. Tahoe Mack, a Las Vegas artist, tells the story of the Black Rock City Honoraria art piece she started when she...

The Tip of the Iceberg is a 30-foot tall clitoris of stone, steel, and cement, fabricated to be monumental like Stonehenge, thus the nickname Clit-Henge. It aroused a lot of conversation at Black Rock City 2023. It’s the phallic symbol’s sister. It’s highly sensitive and highly talked about, and according to the artist, the more we discover about what it does, the more we can celebrate the birthri...

Black Rock City is a temporary metropolis of  80,000 people who inhabit 1,600 theme camps and support camps. That means nine out of 10 participants' plans are coordinated by the Placement team — a handful of dedicated staff who decide which camps go where, and why. This year-round process is an art and a science that takes many factors into consideration — from city dynamics, to campers’ Radical S...

It's winter where we are. What are the coldest, most teeth-chattering, brrrr-iest of all the sanctioned Burning Man events around the world? FrostBurn is one of them, and its participants make it happen in the dead of winter on purpose, annually since 2008. Subzero temperatures, rain, sleet, snow, and sometimes sunshine. Why? Because they can. When the costumes are nothing less than comfy snow pan...

Stories. This collection is from Burning Man’s oral history project, an ambitious endeavor to track down and record interviews with people who helped shape the culture as we now know it.  Stuart and Andie “Actiongrl” Grace share some of the most memorable stories for your gratification and edification.  Lamplighters founder Steve Mobia talks about the San Francisco Suicide Club, the even-stranger...

Many people are surprised to learn that Black Rock City is home to two full orchestras and a Playa Choir complete with a secular Sunday sermon. Since 2012 Madi has been organizing and arranging the choir’s harmonies and happenings, each year with more and more help.  In this installment, kbot and Stuart talk with   Madi (Choir Director) Tory (Director of Dusty Productions) Leut (Preacher Man) They...

Some people are surprised to learn that Black Rock City is home to not just one but two full-fledged symphony orchestras. While the Black Rock Philharmonic kicks out the classical jams, the Playa Pops brings the big-ensemble sound to popular music.  Both are composed (ahem) of passionate volunteer musicians – classically trained, self-trained, and otherwise – who come together once a year to perfo...

Have you stumbled upon Midnight Poutine in Black Rock City? Maybe you listened to Québecois rock as you waited for some of that crispy, cheesy goodness? As with many camps on playa, Midnight Poutine is the cultural tip of the iceberg of a vast community of creativity and goings-on; this one in Montréal, Québec.  Arno Robin, one of Montréal's cultural instigators, spoke with Stuart and kbot about h...

Dana Albany has come a long way since her first art project in the Black Rock Desert, a scrap-wood camel that got her started making things out of found materials, from discarded metal and broken glass to sun-bleached cattle bones and deer antlers.  She has built flammable targets for notorious machine-art groups, worked as the artist-in-residence at a San Francisco dump, and had her large-scale m...

We committed to be carbon-negative by 2030. How will we do it? We have “Burning” right in our name. When it comes to solar, biofuels, and energy banks, we have many irons in the fire, or rather, we are planting many seeds. Hear how Black Rock City is a hotbed, or rather, a garden bed, for the innovation of clean energy. Stuart talks with George B Reed III, Burning Man Project’s Director of Regener...

The desert seems lifeless, yet it’s home to a whole lifecycle of bugs and animals from bunnies to foxes, from lions to horses to – most dangerous of all – COWS! Hear about the hidden lives of all that’s alive around Black Rock City. Stuart talks with biologist Dr Lisa Beers aka Sciprus. When she’s not teaching in remote villages on the other side of the planet, she’s Burning Man Project’s land fel...

How would you overcome shyness at BRC? How would you break people’s brains at SantaCon? How would you acculturate museum docents to Burner culture? Brody Scotland shares how she did it, and how she went from hating Black Rock City to working year round in the Burning Man Art department. Brody and Stuart delve into the uncommon common sense of self-care and “feelings” in the emo roller coaster of B...

Stuart and Burning Man’s Community Services head honcho Terry “Retro” Schoop riff on the streets of our fair city and the naming thereof, from the controversial to the miraculous to the misunderstood. Black Rock City has elaborate art themes, each with street names, each with curious conditions. Why does our recreational refugee camp even need street names? Were they always alphabetical around an...

Yes, Burning Man has a Chief Technology Officer, and his name is Steven Blumenfeld. In this episode Stuart chats with “Bloom” about art, innovation, immediacy, and the power of the unexpected, with trippy side trips into AR, VR, and AI (and TLA). Yes, we have a CTO. We have all the enterprise tech needs of any not-small non-profit, with the added complications of ridiculously challenging work site...

Psychedelics advocate and amateur Burning Man scholar John Turner’s two passions come together in one interdimensional rabbit-hole of a website: Trippingly.net. In compiling the ultimate fan site of Burning Man history, John has captured a lot of great playa stories, and he shares some of the best in this conversation with Stuart. He explores the subjective unknowns of Burning Man events and psych...

She traveled to six continents for Burning Man Regional Events, to get to the heart of an ever-evolving global culture that creates community in a disconnected world. She wrote a book about it, and we published it! It chronicles her odyssey to Afrikaburn (South Africa) Black Rock City (USA) Blazing Swan (Australia) Burning Japan (Japan) Fuego Austral (Argentina) Midburn (Israel) Nowhere (Spain) He...

Most people in Black Rock City live together in placed camps, aka theme camps, the most unique aspect of a most unique event. There are almost 1300 camps in BRC.  The annual Camp Symposium brought together dozens of staff and volunteers to talk out what they do to gift their interactive camp to BRC. Hear (or read) highlights from the Plenary, many voices sharing knowledge and exploring ideas.  Bry...

Katie Hazard leads Art Management for Burning Man and the committee that grants more than a million dollars to artists each year to create art that’s first stop (and sometimes only stop) is Black Rock City. She shares about some of the grant recipients that align with this year’s Black Rock City art theme (ANIMALIA). She and Stuart Mangrum discuss Burning Man’s art movement in relation to, and som...

As a founder and co-producer of one of the largest and oldest Burning Man events, Monique Shiess has a lot going on. AfrikaBurn does too. Started in 2007, it averages 10,000 participants annually in recent years.  Monique shares its origins with Stuart and Andie. From the EDM scene, gallery spaces, queer community, and producers of “weird gatherings,” they birthed AfrikaBurn with roots in anarchy,...

Athena is a wanderer, an adventurer, a muse. She is Regional Contact emerita from Los Angeles, founder of their nonprofit The LA League of Arts, and a founder of BRCvr — a crown jewel in the tiara of our multiversal experiences online. Athena talks with Stuart about how Radical Inclusion and Immediacy foster human connection, and about how a balance of decommodified spaces and commercial spaces ca...

How are films shot in Black Rock City? Why? And really, HOW?  "Profiles in Dust" is the most prolific video troupe that dares to document the dynamic Burning Man events. Since 2011 they have produced 50 mini-documentaries, profiling the inspirational creators in the scene, and behind the scenes.  Terry Pratt is their nominal leader. He talks with Stuart about the joy and the turmoil, and adventure...

What happened at BRC? What didn’t happen? Why did it seem that we couldn’t get back to interdependence?  After the traumas of the pandemic and political vilification, we somehow didn’t trust each other at BRC. Or if we did, we didn’t seem to know it, or feel it, or enjoy it.  Andie Grace swaps stories with Buck Down, a 25-year Burner, Gate Manager, musician, and author of the wildly popular articl...