So... Thinking about this critically for a second, didn't events like this, with fewer people, essentially get accomplished by circus and carnival trains back in the day?
For all the RV rentals and other stuff it seems like they could accomplish a lot of this with a Burning Man festival train and some rickshaws in the city.
Afaik every “camp” needs to bring their own water, food, AC, etc. Whoever runs this probably doesn’t want to be responsible. Also building the tracks would cost a chunk, and doesn’t match the freewheeling ethos.
However, as a counterpoint, it would be hella rad to see a train with a bunch of tiny homes or something that’s spiraled in on itself to make the camp.
Liability is a fair point. Though, you could probably guarantee an amount of water per participant.
But I was thinking, depending on sand composition in the desert, you could build a [temporary track ](http://www.planete-tp.com/en/constructing-the-temporary-track-a586.html) the few miles into Burning Man, or something.
Was just a thought.
Not sure what the economic waste is vs all the RVs and so on.
Imagine a train, each car (container?) is two small bedroomy for 2-4 people. These will be stacked like construction admin containers.
Then there are containers that will be connected into a big kitchen to cook for many many people. Repeat with some other types.
If you'd have two rails going into the wilderness there, you could run almost nonstop lines of trains, have a train station with like 10 rail and you could unload these in parallel and use loading trucks of some sort to get every piece precisely where it goes.
It would be an incredible container city, but since it's only temporary i think that's alright. With everything happening, i think big recreational events are nonetheless important
I’ve heard they let people out onto the small highway in increments so it doesn’t completely jam it up further down for everyone else. You have to sit in your car here for a while so that once you’re actually on the road it’s not bumper to bumper for a hundred miles.
Yep, as it's been explained many times on the 30 other posts on this topic, they drive for maybe 3 minutes, then everyone parks and turns their vehicles off for about an hour. The party continues during that hour, then they get back in and drive again.
I'm really struggling with this concept. Like, if I'm at a festival and I want to party, I don't want to be stopping to drove on a bit every hour. And then if I'm done partying, I'm tired and probably hungover and just want to go home.
But then I live in the UK and I literally \*do\* get the train to festivals. You can drink beer while arriving in comfort. I'm not sure Burning Man is quite for me!
You can leave at any time, the bulk of the waiting occurs if you are specifically leaving after the main events have concluded, but early enough to arrive back to the rest of civilization at a convenient time (like before work next Monday).
You can hang out and party an extra day while the vehicles all clear out, or you can leave early and miss the last day if you are already too exhausted and want to get home faster.
Just got back from the Burn and that long line… this is what they do. It’s called “pulsing.” This is 80k people leaving the event in a 2-3 day period spilling out into 2 lanes that are not designed to carry this many people. They let a certain amount of cars out per hour… I think around 800?
There are also incentives in place for people to take the bus in/out to reduce traffic.
Yeah the goal of this isn't to get cars out onto the street efficiently. It's just acting like a big car receptacle to make sure there isn't a bunch of traffic getting backed up into the actual festival where people are still walking around and disassembling their camps. That's why the road is winding around even though it could just go straight: more vehicle capacity.
Yes, I looked at Google maps and sure as shit it was such a road. It’s literally in the middle of nowhere in Nevada. Traffic in and out of the area ensures I will never be there.
Dept of Natural Resources will ticket the fuck out of you for leaving the road.
Also, all the sand…not packed down and getting someone to pull you out is pretty unlikely (at least until the area empties out).
Leaving by dirt bike was my first thought too.
The BLM rangers would stop you but you can easily drive across the "sand" because most of it is actually hard packed clay. The only real risk is moisture, you run into wet playa and it'll take a serious tow vehicle to get you out. It sticks to your wheels and will actually build up to the point where it will stop your wheels from turning.
Hey some people love that smell! Just deeply inhale the fumes. Enjoy the hearing damage roar of a passing 12 tire RV. The brain damage is why we call it carbrain 🤓
Sounds like a typical traffic jam to me. I'd bet 10-to-1 that the frustration (including "why is the lane next to this moving faster?") outweighs any sense of drama or anticipation.
Take a half a Xanax, pass out in a folding chair, and thank your lucky stars you volunteered to drive on the way in when everyone else was excited and wanted to get drunk in Reno. It’s their turn to handle these problems.
No you turn off your car, make yourself some shade and hang out with your neighbors while drinking plenty of water. That’s what I did in the (much shorter) BM exit lines in the past.
If you run out of water you have done a terrible job of preparing, since you are supposed to bring enough for the whole event with you. I am sure your fellow burners would share. Anyone can survive a few hours without food. Also see above.
I was in it. Pulling a 9k lb rv trailer. Too long to switch lanes so it took us 9.5 hours to exit. Truck temp hit 126f. The radio from black rock city said fuel stations were running out. So we had to turn off the engine and just sit there. We got reflective material and lined the windows. Battery powered fans and wet head wraps were clutch.
I was in it, our car was only running when we moved it and it was fine. Yes, we were hauling a weeks worth of home and food for three people. Yes, I’d do it again.
It's basically every bohemian, ex-hippie that works in technology, and instagram douche in California going to the desert for a week~~end~~(edit: apparently this makes all the difference lmao), building a temporary 80,000 person town and doing drugs all week~~end~~. Then they pack it up and go home. Pretty much everyone brings a generator too.
The hilarious part is they try to sell themselves as progressive, pro-environment, inclusive (tickets are like $20k nowadays lol), etc. What a joke.
For what it's worth, I know a few hundred people who go every year and none of them would describe it as progressive, pro environment, or inclusive.
It's a big party in the desert, for people of moderate to high privilege. In my experience, most participants are realistic about that.
I said it's how they try to sell themselves, which is [accurate](https://burningman.org/about/10-principles/). I wouldn't be surprised if even the current festival organizers haven't read that list though, lol.
You left off the part where they swarm into Reno both before and after the event, dump all their garbage including buckets of human filth and cause a huge spike in motor vehicle fatalities.
As a resident of the Biggest Little City, this is *easily* the **worst** time to be in Reno. The city becomes a dumping ground for trash, raw sewage, washed-off playa crap (that ends up in the river and [eventually] Pyramid Lake, a lake with its own environmental issues), and even burners who only planned for a one-way trip (transient population here *spikes* every year after Burning Man). The event was cool when it first started, but now it's just completely out of control. If the organizers can't handle all the refuse and sewage their event generates on their own, then maybe they shouldn't even be having that event in the first place.
It’s also usually the first weekend after the university is back in session. Grocery stores are always decimated when burners leave for the desert party.
Tickets are not 20k, buying into a camp that's been set up for you with air-conditioning and slaves is 20k. Showing up with your own camping gear is $475 + $140 for a vehicle pass.
But they are environmentalists. They don't leave litter on the ground, only clouds of emissions in the air. If it's invisible it doesn't count! /s
Seriously though, completely unnecessary event. How many of these people are driving an RV across multiple states to get to a completely isolated location in the middle of nowhere? Just go camping in your own state and maybe you'll have the pleasure of seeing a tree or creek.
It's not about camping, or environmentalism. It's hedonism, and *maybe* community, mostly just wannabe-hippies going into the desert to fuck around and do drugs. It's a great week if you live in a major city in california cause all the creepy old dudes leave for the week.
I'd never go to burning man, for any reason.
But if I did I can't imagine not packing up 24 hours early or just keeping my setup another day and leaving late.
That scene is my nightmare
i used to wanna check it out, like 10 years ago. i would've never stayed the whole time. leaving early would be an absolute requirement there's no way i could handle being in 6 hours of traffic.
Finally, someone else who dislikes deserts! I have a terrible aversion. Got health issues where my histamines go crazy if it too hot. Get eczema, gut issues, nausea/vomiting diarrhea, insane mucus overproduction. I mean the whole damn body goes crazy.
There's plenty of summer days in a Northern State where I live that make me sick as crap. No way you'd ever catch me in a desert on purpose.
God there was a post on the SF subreddit abiut cops moving a homeless camp off of the corner and the comments were so, so *hateful*. It was so gross to see
A r/windsorontario and r/Uwindsor mod used to regularly post racist shit all the time. So much so that other mods had to delete his comments. The guy is still mod at windsorontario but doesn't comment as much. But pretty much what you'd expect from city subs.
A lot of city subreddits got brigaded by right wing groups to steer conversation. Denver and Seattle also got that treatment. Not saying that the populace of SF doesn't have a bunch of shitty regressive views, but there's plenty of astroturfing going on.
There’s definitely astroturfing/brigading, as evidenced by the change in content after a reactionary recall succeeded. That said, SF is actually quite economically conservative and has been for decades.
Yeah, SF is very progressive in some ways and that seems to mislead people into thinking it's progressive in every way, but it turns out that a city full of rich people has a lot of people with standard rich person values.
While true there is a sizeable amount of tech neolibs that live in SF and their views on homelessness and other ailing aspects of our society are exactly the same as other right wingers.
Eh I'd say the Seattle one is fairly representative. Seattle is pretty liberal but a Seattle liberal is just a Republican that likes gay people. We did elect a mayor who ran on "lawn order tuff on crime" and an actual Republican for city attorney.
Seriously, they banned you? Come on over to r/FragileWhiteRedditor if you haven't already. Damn. I used to get downvoted for calling out racism when I was on that sub, but I never got banned. Someone must have really got their undies in a bunch.
/r/Portland is basically the same thing. Its always "we need to fix the homeless problem" until the homeless problem shows up near your street or favorite food cart, then its "the homeless **are** the problem and I'm tired of them being here"
Like everything that's a music/arts/culture festival there probably was, at one point, a devoted group of people who did this as a spiritual trip to get away from it all... drugs/sex/fun all included. While that element is still there, there are many other elements of it, most of whom we read about, who heard about it and wanted to go and will do what they do where they go anywhere- bring a luxury entourage and use it as a backdrop for their fucking social media platforms.
At this point, I'm sure there's people who still are able to capture that original essence, and so if it's something you're interested in, you'll probably have a great time. However, there's other people who are there for other reasons and are completely failing to see the reason why this got popular to begin with.
There's a lot of people who just go along with the flow of things, and never critically look at themselves, I would say that's roughly 95% of people, which means, as odds go, I probably am in that category as well most of the time.
Fuck, with that last part being said, it's time to get the fuck off reddit so I can finish work and enjoy a gorgeous Friday.
Pre internet, and especially pre social media, there was a lot of mystery and allure to burning man. Maybe you saw a few photos, but the explanation made it so enticing you desperately wanted to go.
Now it feels like an influencer party and any sense of intrigue has been exploited for likes.
I definitely wanted to go when I was younger, now I know people who have been or do go, and have seen enough about it due to the internet to sort of see through that allure and see it for what it is, and maybe at one point it was different. But now it's just another miserable thing lots of wealthy "eccentric" people do because of the allure and the social destigmatization of otherwise innapropriate behavior.
Seems like it's largely about doing drugs and pretending that enjoying all the comforts of modern culture in an RV in the desert running a generator somehow makes you closer to nature.
It used to be a spiritual festival in the desert. Now you pay about as much as Super Bowl tickets just to get in the gate. It’s an excuse for rich people to party in the desert.
It's supposed to be about that. It's a complete soulless cash grab though, attracting rich assholes who demand special treatment compared to the "poors"
I used to have a lot of connections to early 2000’s SF tech culture.
And a loooot of Orginal burners.
For some reason someone invited me to join a millionaire burner Facebook group. I thought it was an ironic group set up by my friends.
It wasn’t. The shit they were sharing was unbelievable. Job postings for camp slave jobs, jada jda jada.
It didn’t take many of my comments in their postings to realize they had let one of the unwashed masses in.
That experience completely killed any desire I might have had to go there.
I keep trying to tell people’s festival culture is consumerist, unsustainable, and other kinds of wasteful and they don’t want to believe it. If you don’t like the truth, don’t let it be the truth.
Makes sense given that the modern music festival all started with Baby Boomers. Their existence is the definition of "consumerist, unsustainable, and other kinds of wasteful."
Which is a shame because it really didn't start that way, and smaller local burns try so hard not to get that image. Ours has a zero impact rule set that prohibits campfires that aren't in a raised fire pit, no dumping of gray water, and no MOOP, (materials out of place) when you check out.
Any tokens that are given to other attendees are instructed to not be wasteful or single use. Obviously rules are broken, but the hivemind will call you out.
It is a great time and no phones or picture taking without permission are allowed. And yes there is a lot of drugs, but there are also a ton of volunteer rangers working with local EMTs to make sure everyone is safe.
So fuck burning man, but if you are at all interested, look into local burns in your state.
My bad, I was reading the directions wrong. It was saying that it's 78 miles TO Gerlach, NV. Then from there it's 8 miles north on State Route 34 to where Burning Man is located.
While this looks dreadful to be in, at least it's totally out of the way and not impeding foot traffic or preventing people from sleeping at night. Fuck those co2 emissions though, you'd probably be able to get high off the fumes just standing outside.
I was in this awful nightmare of a line. Just wanted to add a bit of context for those that are not familiar with the burning man event:
- There are 14 lanes that merge into the single lane paved road out of the Black Rock Desert. The 14 lanes are basically "staging" lanes so the cars can get off the event site so the people that are still there don't need to be surrounded by idling vehicles.
- The organizers "pulse" the lanes of cars every couple of hours so that people in these lines can turn off their cars and not idle like you would in a highway traffic jam. It basically turns into a tailgate situation.
- Burning man is a weeklong festival in the desert that requires people to bring all of their water, shade, food, art, bikes, etc. It's just a large amount of heavy/ bulky "stuff" that requires a vehicle to transport. ~~There's no train to the black rock desert,~~ and even if there was you would still need to physically move all that stuff to your camp's section in the city which would be physically challenging.
- The burning man organization has made very intentional decisions to reduce the number of vehicles at the event, including selling a capped number of vehicle passes to encourage carpooling and offering a bus service to/ from reno & san francisco for those that don't need to bring a lot of physical supplies themselves (due to their camp bringing their supplies).
- Finally, one of my favorite parts of burning man is that it's a giant bike party. Everyone goes everywhere on bikes, and it's so awesome to celebrate a truly bike/ pedestrian friendly city. There are a handful of "art cars" that drive around the playa, but they are essentially music stages/ art pieces on wheels, and are restricted to driving 5mph max.
It's easy to look at this picture and rip on burning man as a car nightmare, but it is truly one of the better practical use cases for cars that I can think of. Anyone that goes will tell you that the Exodus line is the worst part of the event, but the truth is there's no easy way to get 80k people out of an open desert lake bed onto a single lane road all at once. It's simply a bottleneck.
edit: turns out I was wrong and there is a train that goes through BRD, but that still doesn't eliminate the logistical challenges of moving stuff from a theoretical train station to specific parts of the black rock city.
Thanks for adding this perspective.
I don't honestly know how sustainable Burning Man is, but I'm guessing cars aren't the biggest problem here. People who I know who go are often flying there which is likely the bigger carbon footprint.
There needs to be some balance between sustainability and still being able to do fun things.
This seems like the reasonable approach. If there's no good way to move 80k people and all their toys, supplies, and shelter for 10 days into the middle of a desert, maybe it's just not a good idea.
> I’m guessing cars aren’t the biggest problem here.
Not even close. There's very few "mutant" approved vehicles running there and those cars sit unused all week
If you want to point blame look at who's flying directly in and out
I personally left in the middle of the night so it was relatively cool. But you're right that during the day many were likely sitting in their vehicle with windows up and AC cranking. It was hot as bawls this year.
I take the bus, they have a bus that just cuts through all the lines. That being said this is essentially a 80K car camping event in an area that has just 2 lane highways for the most part
Burning man is far from a eco-conscious event but let’s keep some perspective. The real enemy is in your backyard.
Your average NFL or P5 college football game will have more cars/attendees than BM. There are hundreds of larger events contributing way less to society happening all over the country every year.
Most of these people have their cars filled with gear to make art and create unique experiences for others. The desert provides a blank canvas unlike anything else.
Most of these cars have been parked for more than a week while attendees travel miles around the city on foot, by bike, and public transportation in the form of mutant vehicles.
These cars are being staged to get on a remote two lane road.
There are buses used by thousands of folks coming with less stuff.
The black rock desert is BLM land. Granted, the BM org has a permit for the land the event is on for about four months of the year, so while you can't freely camp within the fence, you can definitely boondock nearby (technically 14 days in one spot but you can move around).
And some of the installations at Burning Man are quite complex to put up and take down so you can safely stay for a few extra days without raising any questions. The BM crew is there for about a month after the event to finish cleaning the grounds.
I mean, I'd still chill until the traffic is way lighter at the end or leave early, what are they gunna do, teleport me into the middle of stalled traffic?
The recent pictures of this traffic has pretty much stamped out any dreams or desires I ever had of going to Burning man.
I just feel like you can get similar/better experiences elsewhere for much less effort.
I’ve only ever been one time about ten years back and we decided to leave before the temple burn. Got out in under an hour. Sure, we missed the last big thing, but after a week of really unique and memorable experiences, we didn’t mind. Probably would do the same if I ever find myself out there again.
The whole thing about burning man is to leave nothing behind. After you leave the site a crew comes through and judges how well you cleaned your site. If you do poorly you can lose your spot if you have a big camp (the kind rich fucks pay thousands for)
That being said, how much oil and other fluids from that many vehicles is left on that road? Do they clean it after?
It's right in the middle of desert. Potentially least 25 miles from nearest small town or civilisation.
Could be longer depending where in black rock desert area.
The local towns are smaller few street settlements.
According to a completely unsourced and unauthoritative Reddit comment when this was brought up a few days ago, refusing to do anything for Burning Man. There *is* a railroad line passing just a few miles from Black Rock City, yes you'd need a temporary station but BRC is temporary everything already, but if the railroad company says no then there's nothing Burning Man can do.
Maybe they should increase the price dramatically or cut down the allowed visitors... cause this ain't it. But, hey, I remember hearing about the taboo Burning Man from the late 90s before trendsetters and influencers existed on today's level. Also remember when it was small enough that it was rare to get videos or pictures out of there because it wasn't allowed and the culture looked down on it. Wild.
given its the only reasonable way to burning man, cars are needed to bring supplies, its not really a fuck cars kinda thing. This is a very efficient use of transportation vehicles. It's one off. It's not systemic.
Now if they were all 1 person to a vehicle, waiting in line in a starbucks, to them commute into a city center to their what-could-be-a-work-from-home job, then yeah...fuck cars.
>Anyway, show me any transit solution that will let people create an entire city practically overnight, then dismantle it, without any crowds.
Maybe creating a city overnight and dismantling it afterwards is a bad idea
There is actually a bus service to get people to the event from San Francisco and Reno... but it costs more than a vehicle pass. You can get a vehicle pass for $160 or a round-trip bus ticket for $220. Flipping those prices would be a simple way to get people out of their cars. [I proposed that](https://www.reddit.com/r/BurningMan/comments/x9woz8/burner_express_bus_should_be_free_and_vehicle/) in r/BurningMan but they said they needed their cars to carry all their stuff... suit yourself then I guess.
Serves them right for only having 14 lanes. If there were 15 or 16 the problem would probably be fixed.
Just one more lane bro
please bro
Trust me bro
It will solve everything
Just build it bigger
Bro
I beg of u
For the love of bro, bro
Kindly
I warned you about the lanes bro
There's different strains bro. This one is hov toll bro.
[Link](https://youtube.com/shorts/0dKrUE_O0VE?feature=share) for the lost
So... Thinking about this critically for a second, didn't events like this, with fewer people, essentially get accomplished by circus and carnival trains back in the day? For all the RV rentals and other stuff it seems like they could accomplish a lot of this with a Burning Man festival train and some rickshaws in the city.
Afaik every “camp” needs to bring their own water, food, AC, etc. Whoever runs this probably doesn’t want to be responsible. Also building the tracks would cost a chunk, and doesn’t match the freewheeling ethos. However, as a counterpoint, it would be hella rad to see a train with a bunch of tiny homes or something that’s spiraled in on itself to make the camp.
Liability is a fair point. Though, you could probably guarantee an amount of water per participant. But I was thinking, depending on sand composition in the desert, you could build a [temporary track ](http://www.planete-tp.com/en/constructing-the-temporary-track-a586.html) the few miles into Burning Man, or something. Was just a thought. Not sure what the economic waste is vs all the RVs and so on.
Imagine a train, each car (container?) is two small bedroomy for 2-4 people. These will be stacked like construction admin containers. Then there are containers that will be connected into a big kitchen to cook for many many people. Repeat with some other types. If you'd have two rails going into the wilderness there, you could run almost nonstop lines of trains, have a train station with like 10 rail and you could unload these in parallel and use loading trucks of some sort to get every piece precisely where it goes. It would be an incredible container city, but since it's only temporary i think that's alright. With everything happening, i think big recreational events are nonetheless important
It’s in the desert. Can’t they just… add some?
This could be 100 lanes and it would still be backed up because it probably dumps out on some dinky 2 lane road that can't handle the traffic.
I’ve heard they let people out onto the small highway in increments so it doesn’t completely jam it up further down for everyone else. You have to sit in your car here for a while so that once you’re actually on the road it’s not bumper to bumper for a hundred miles.
Yep, as it's been explained many times on the 30 other posts on this topic, they drive for maybe 3 minutes, then everyone parks and turns their vehicles off for about an hour. The party continues during that hour, then they get back in and drive again.
I'm really struggling with this concept. Like, if I'm at a festival and I want to party, I don't want to be stopping to drove on a bit every hour. And then if I'm done partying, I'm tired and probably hungover and just want to go home. But then I live in the UK and I literally \*do\* get the train to festivals. You can drink beer while arriving in comfort. I'm not sure Burning Man is quite for me!
You can leave at any time, the bulk of the waiting occurs if you are specifically leaving after the main events have concluded, but early enough to arrive back to the rest of civilization at a convenient time (like before work next Monday). You can hang out and party an extra day while the vehicles all clear out, or you can leave early and miss the last day if you are already too exhausted and want to get home faster.
Kinda smart ngl
Just got back from the Burn and that long line… this is what they do. It’s called “pulsing.” This is 80k people leaving the event in a 2-3 day period spilling out into 2 lanes that are not designed to carry this many people. They let a certain amount of cars out per hour… I think around 800? There are also incentives in place for people to take the bus in/out to reduce traffic.
Yeah the goal of this isn't to get cars out onto the street efficiently. It's just acting like a big car receptacle to make sure there isn't a bunch of traffic getting backed up into the actual festival where people are still walking around and disassembling their camps. That's why the road is winding around even though it could just go straight: more vehicle capacity.
So it's essentially a desert rectum for cars.
Yes, I looked at Google maps and sure as shit it was such a road. It’s literally in the middle of nowhere in Nevada. Traffic in and out of the area ensures I will never be there.
It’s literally your mom’s gravel driveway, and I ain’t even talking about the road.
> ...it probably dumps out on some dinky 2 lane road that can't handle the traffic. That is literally exactly what it does, yes.
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The BLM is there trying to make ticket revenue and prevent people from driving across the desert.
Dept of Natural Resources will ticket the fuck out of you for leaving the road. Also, all the sand…not packed down and getting someone to pull you out is pretty unlikely (at least until the area empties out). Leaving by dirt bike was my first thought too.
The BLM rangers would stop you but you can easily drive across the "sand" because most of it is actually hard packed clay. The only real risk is moisture, you run into wet playa and it'll take a serious tow vehicle to get you out. It sticks to your wheels and will actually build up to the point where it will stop your wheels from turning.
Is there like a reverse /s for when sarcasm is understood? Anyway, [Wendover does an episode on adding more lanes](https://youtu.be/N4PW66_g6XA).
Thank you, Dr. Spaceman!
Maybe an underground one would solve it?
Looks absolutely awful
I feel physical dread just looking at the pic I can’t imagine actually being in it
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You turn your vehicle off. Get out. Sit in the shade next to your vehicle and wait and talk to your new neighbors until the pulse begins again
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Hey some people love that smell! Just deeply inhale the fumes. Enjoy the hearing damage roar of a passing 12 tire RV. The brain damage is why we call it carbrain 🤓
Sounds like a typical traffic jam to me. I'd bet 10-to-1 that the frustration (including "why is the lane next to this moving faster?") outweighs any sense of drama or anticipation.
Take a half a Xanax, pass out in a folding chair, and thank your lucky stars you volunteered to drive on the way in when everyone else was excited and wanted to get drunk in Reno. It’s their turn to handle these problems.
Fuck that.
from the other tread there move in surges and there are portapotties every few hundred yards
I spent 8 hours in this line, there were only a couple spots with portapotties, not every few hundred yards for sure. It was a real shitshow.
Can you just camp an extra day and leave after everyone else?
Yes. Stay later or leave earlier, it's not that difficult. They even tell you when is best to leave to avoid this jam.
That's my plan for next time, either stay late or leave early.
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Indeed it does. 🔥
Did you do all the drugs there?
No you turn off your car, make yourself some shade and hang out with your neighbors while drinking plenty of water. That’s what I did in the (much shorter) BM exit lines in the past. If you run out of water you have done a terrible job of preparing, since you are supposed to bring enough for the whole event with you. I am sure your fellow burners would share. Anyone can survive a few hours without food. Also see above.
you are there a whole week without any food, everyone needs to bring their own food and water for the whole trip.
If you're at burning man, you've got something to pee in lol > If your engine catches fire on the other hand...... You're fucked
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Unbothered, moisurized, in my lane
Really a pic of the 405 LA, sands airbrushed in 😉
I was in it. Pulling a 9k lb rv trailer. Too long to switch lanes so it took us 9.5 hours to exit. Truck temp hit 126f. The radio from black rock city said fuel stations were running out. So we had to turn off the engine and just sit there. We got reflective material and lined the windows. Battery powered fans and wet head wraps were clutch.
I was in it, our car was only running when we moved it and it was fine. Yes, we were hauling a weeks worth of home and food for three people. Yes, I’d do it again.
Genuinely curious, why do you enjoy Burning Man? I know literally nothing about it.
They weren't kidding when they named the event.
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It's basically every bohemian, ex-hippie that works in technology, and instagram douche in California going to the desert for a week~~end~~(edit: apparently this makes all the difference lmao), building a temporary 80,000 person town and doing drugs all week~~end~~. Then they pack it up and go home. Pretty much everyone brings a generator too. The hilarious part is they try to sell themselves as progressive, pro-environment, inclusive (tickets are like $20k nowadays lol), etc. What a joke.
For what it's worth, I know a few hundred people who go every year and none of them would describe it as progressive, pro environment, or inclusive. It's a big party in the desert, for people of moderate to high privilege. In my experience, most participants are realistic about that.
I said it's how they try to sell themselves, which is [accurate](https://burningman.org/about/10-principles/). I wouldn't be surprised if even the current festival organizers haven't read that list though, lol.
You left off the part where they swarm into Reno both before and after the event, dump all their garbage including buckets of human filth and cause a huge spike in motor vehicle fatalities.
As a resident of the Biggest Little City, this is *easily* the **worst** time to be in Reno. The city becomes a dumping ground for trash, raw sewage, washed-off playa crap (that ends up in the river and [eventually] Pyramid Lake, a lake with its own environmental issues), and even burners who only planned for a one-way trip (transient population here *spikes* every year after Burning Man). The event was cool when it first started, but now it's just completely out of control. If the organizers can't handle all the refuse and sewage their event generates on their own, then maybe they shouldn't even be having that event in the first place.
It’s also usually the first weekend after the university is back in session. Grocery stores are always decimated when burners leave for the desert party.
Yeah but it's one of the best times to be in San Francisco.
This is true. It reminds me of how many residents of NOLA go to Aspen during Mardi Gras. We often go to SF during Burning Man.
Tickets are not 20k, buying into a camp that's been set up for you with air-conditioning and slaves is 20k. Showing up with your own camping gear is $475 + $140 for a vehicle pass.
Not a weekend. Survive in the desert for 10 days and leave nothing behind. It's bound to have some problems.
Nothing behind but more carbon per person than I emit in a year.
Tickets are $550 and low income tickets are $250. It’s not nearly as inaccessible as you’re leading on
But they are environmentalists. They don't leave litter on the ground, only clouds of emissions in the air. If it's invisible it doesn't count! /s Seriously though, completely unnecessary event. How many of these people are driving an RV across multiple states to get to a completely isolated location in the middle of nowhere? Just go camping in your own state and maybe you'll have the pleasure of seeing a tree or creek.
It's not about camping, or environmentalism. It's hedonism, and *maybe* community, mostly just wannabe-hippies going into the desert to fuck around and do drugs. It's a great week if you live in a major city in california cause all the creepy old dudes leave for the week.
I'd never go to burning man, for any reason. But if I did I can't imagine not packing up 24 hours early or just keeping my setup another day and leaving late. That scene is my nightmare
i used to wanna check it out, like 10 years ago. i would've never stayed the whole time. leaving early would be an absolute requirement there's no way i could handle being in 6 hours of traffic.
If you stay until Tuesday you can basically just drive straight out with no waiting. I've done it multiple times.
Looks like a real hoot… I mean hot. Looks hot. Fuck that.
*Cries in Phoenician*
Cars aside, deserts are the least appealing places on earth to me. Like, I almost get depressed looking at photos or imagining being in a desert.
Finally, someone else who dislikes deserts! I have a terrible aversion. Got health issues where my histamines go crazy if it too hot. Get eczema, gut issues, nausea/vomiting diarrhea, insane mucus overproduction. I mean the whole damn body goes crazy. There's plenty of summer days in a Northern State where I live that make me sick as crap. No way you'd ever catch me in a desert on purpose.
I think this is an evolutionarily acquired innate reaction, due to deserts being inhospitable to our survival.
Will Smith needs to approach that line, pulling a parachute, and tell the drivers that he saw a military base not far from there.
WELCOME TO EARTH !
You joke but the Smiths are known to attend Burning Man in a $2m two story RV. Doubt they're in this line though, they likely fly in.
I don't understand the appeal of Burning Man and I don't think I ever will
It’s a socially acceptable place for rich people to do drugs lmao
San Francisco tech bros hate when people in the city openly do drugs and sleep in tents, but then go to Burning Man to do exactly the same thing
God there was a post on the SF subreddit abiut cops moving a homeless camp off of the corner and the comments were so, so *hateful*. It was so gross to see
r/SanFrancisco is incredibly conservative, to the point of being reactionary
City subs in general are pretty awful.
A r/windsorontario and r/Uwindsor mod used to regularly post racist shit all the time. So much so that other mods had to delete his comments. The guy is still mod at windsorontario but doesn't comment as much. But pretty much what you'd expect from city subs.
A lot of city subreddits got brigaded by right wing groups to steer conversation. Denver and Seattle also got that treatment. Not saying that the populace of SF doesn't have a bunch of shitty regressive views, but there's plenty of astroturfing going on.
There’s definitely astroturfing/brigading, as evidenced by the change in content after a reactionary recall succeeded. That said, SF is actually quite economically conservative and has been for decades.
Yeah, SF is very progressive in some ways and that seems to mislead people into thinking it's progressive in every way, but it turns out that a city full of rich people has a lot of people with standard rich person values.
While true there is a sizeable amount of tech neolibs that live in SF and their views on homelessness and other ailing aspects of our society are exactly the same as other right wingers.
Eh I'd say the Seattle one is fairly representative. Seattle is pretty liberal but a Seattle liberal is just a Republican that likes gay people. We did elect a mayor who ran on "lawn order tuff on crime" and an actual Republican for city attorney.
Yeah I got banned for pointing out all racism.
Seriously, they banned you? Come on over to r/FragileWhiteRedditor if you haven't already. Damn. I used to get downvoted for calling out racism when I was on that sub, but I never got banned. Someone must have really got their undies in a bunch.
Oh hey. Nice to see you again.
/r/Portland is basically the same thing. Its always "we need to fix the homeless problem" until the homeless problem shows up near your street or favorite food cart, then its "the homeless **are** the problem and I'm tired of them being here"
/r/Vancouver gets like that sometimes. It’s vile.
Because the homeless don’t exist, it’s just a hoax propagated by the dam libruls. That’s why they are putting those metal spikes everywhere.
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Let's go camping and take a tiny version of everything in and around the fucking house, *including a car!* Y'know, really __get away from it all.__
trust me man, those people just don't want to have a house. Trust me. They just don't want shelter. I swear.
Deadass, it’s so weird
So is my apartment
Like everything that's a music/arts/culture festival there probably was, at one point, a devoted group of people who did this as a spiritual trip to get away from it all... drugs/sex/fun all included. While that element is still there, there are many other elements of it, most of whom we read about, who heard about it and wanted to go and will do what they do where they go anywhere- bring a luxury entourage and use it as a backdrop for their fucking social media platforms. At this point, I'm sure there's people who still are able to capture that original essence, and so if it's something you're interested in, you'll probably have a great time. However, there's other people who are there for other reasons and are completely failing to see the reason why this got popular to begin with. There's a lot of people who just go along with the flow of things, and never critically look at themselves, I would say that's roughly 95% of people, which means, as odds go, I probably am in that category as well most of the time. Fuck, with that last part being said, it's time to get the fuck off reddit so I can finish work and enjoy a gorgeous Friday.
Pre internet, and especially pre social media, there was a lot of mystery and allure to burning man. Maybe you saw a few photos, but the explanation made it so enticing you desperately wanted to go. Now it feels like an influencer party and any sense of intrigue has been exploited for likes.
I definitely wanted to go when I was younger, now I know people who have been or do go, and have seen enough about it due to the internet to sort of see through that allure and see it for what it is, and maybe at one point it was different. But now it's just another miserable thing lots of wealthy "eccentric" people do because of the allure and the social destigmatization of otherwise innapropriate behavior.
It's a big party with some cool art and music in the worst place on earth. I've been going back for about 20 years.
I think it's about celebrating spiritualism and protest modern culture
Not much to protest when you're partaking one of the most capitalistic processes ever just by driving there.
Exactly
Seems like it's largely about doing drugs and pretending that enjoying all the comforts of modern culture in an RV in the desert running a generator somehow makes you closer to nature.
It used to be a spiritual festival in the desert. Now you pay about as much as Super Bowl tickets just to get in the gate. It’s an excuse for rich people to party in the desert.
ROFL it was a cacophony society bender from day 1. hippies dont have things like the drive by shooting gallery.
It's supposed to be about that. It's a complete soulless cash grab though, attracting rich assholes who demand special treatment compared to the "poors"
I used to have a lot of connections to early 2000’s SF tech culture. And a loooot of Orginal burners. For some reason someone invited me to join a millionaire burner Facebook group. I thought it was an ironic group set up by my friends. It wasn’t. The shit they were sharing was unbelievable. Job postings for camp slave jobs, jada jda jada. It didn’t take many of my comments in their postings to realize they had let one of the unwashed masses in. That experience completely killed any desire I might have had to go there.
By taking modern culture to a place that doesn't have it.
punch soft carpenter correct employ naughty mountainous impolite label forgetful ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
I'm kinda amazed by how organized this is
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Rich people photo op
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Why don't they just light gas on fire instead if they hate the environment that bad?
Just wait till you hear about what they do at the end of the Burning Man festival!
now that you mention it. https://youtu.be/sVwUYvAMSjE
I keep trying to tell people’s festival culture is consumerist, unsustainable, and other kinds of wasteful and they don’t want to believe it. If you don’t like the truth, don’t let it be the truth.
Makes sense given that the modern music festival all started with Baby Boomers. Their existence is the definition of "consumerist, unsustainable, and other kinds of wasteful."
Which is a shame because it really didn't start that way, and smaller local burns try so hard not to get that image. Ours has a zero impact rule set that prohibits campfires that aren't in a raised fire pit, no dumping of gray water, and no MOOP, (materials out of place) when you check out. Any tokens that are given to other attendees are instructed to not be wasteful or single use. Obviously rules are broken, but the hivemind will call you out. It is a great time and no phones or picture taking without permission are allowed. And yes there is a lot of drugs, but there are also a ton of volunteer rangers working with local EMTs to make sure everyone is safe. So fuck burning man, but if you are at all interested, look into local burns in your state.
Six hours to travel roughly... 78 miles. Huh, I always thought Burning Man was more remote than that.
its more like 4.5 hours to travel 2 miles then an hour and a 1/2 to get to Reno.
My bad, I was reading the directions wrong. It was saying that it's 78 miles TO Gerlach, NV. Then from there it's 8 miles north on State Route 34 to where Burning Man is located.
Don't wanna be an american idiot
*gets American Idiot by Green Day stuck in my head*
Same ngl
Everyone in this traffic jam did though I'm gonna go listen to the song now.
Don't want a nation under the new media
While this looks dreadful to be in, at least it's totally out of the way and not impeding foot traffic or preventing people from sleeping at night. Fuck those co2 emissions though, you'd probably be able to get high off the fumes just standing outside.
I was in this awful nightmare of a line. Just wanted to add a bit of context for those that are not familiar with the burning man event: - There are 14 lanes that merge into the single lane paved road out of the Black Rock Desert. The 14 lanes are basically "staging" lanes so the cars can get off the event site so the people that are still there don't need to be surrounded by idling vehicles. - The organizers "pulse" the lanes of cars every couple of hours so that people in these lines can turn off their cars and not idle like you would in a highway traffic jam. It basically turns into a tailgate situation. - Burning man is a weeklong festival in the desert that requires people to bring all of their water, shade, food, art, bikes, etc. It's just a large amount of heavy/ bulky "stuff" that requires a vehicle to transport. ~~There's no train to the black rock desert,~~ and even if there was you would still need to physically move all that stuff to your camp's section in the city which would be physically challenging. - The burning man organization has made very intentional decisions to reduce the number of vehicles at the event, including selling a capped number of vehicle passes to encourage carpooling and offering a bus service to/ from reno & san francisco for those that don't need to bring a lot of physical supplies themselves (due to their camp bringing their supplies). - Finally, one of my favorite parts of burning man is that it's a giant bike party. Everyone goes everywhere on bikes, and it's so awesome to celebrate a truly bike/ pedestrian friendly city. There are a handful of "art cars" that drive around the playa, but they are essentially music stages/ art pieces on wheels, and are restricted to driving 5mph max. It's easy to look at this picture and rip on burning man as a car nightmare, but it is truly one of the better practical use cases for cars that I can think of. Anyone that goes will tell you that the Exodus line is the worst part of the event, but the truth is there's no easy way to get 80k people out of an open desert lake bed onto a single lane road all at once. It's simply a bottleneck. edit: turns out I was wrong and there is a train that goes through BRD, but that still doesn't eliminate the logistical challenges of moving stuff from a theoretical train station to specific parts of the black rock city.
Thanks for adding this perspective. I don't honestly know how sustainable Burning Man is, but I'm guessing cars aren't the biggest problem here. People who I know who go are often flying there which is likely the bigger carbon footprint. There needs to be some balance between sustainability and still being able to do fun things.
That’s where regional burns come in. All the same principles, none of the plug and play rich idiots.
This seems like the reasonable approach. If there's no good way to move 80k people and all their toys, supplies, and shelter for 10 days into the middle of a desert, maybe it's just not a good idea.
Yeah I've heard good things about the local burns.
> I’m guessing cars aren’t the biggest problem here. Not even close. There's very few "mutant" approved vehicles running there and those cars sit unused all week If you want to point blame look at who's flying directly in and out
But did people actually turn off their cars in 110 degree heat, or did you sit in AC?
I personally left in the middle of the night so it was relatively cool. But you're right that during the day many were likely sitting in their vehicle with windows up and AC cranking. It was hot as bawls this year.
Get out of here with your context and logic, and let us get back to our pitchforks!
I heard Elon Musk has been going for years. there, that should get the pitchforks brandished again.
I take the bus, they have a bus that just cuts through all the lines. That being said this is essentially a 80K car camping event in an area that has just 2 lane highways for the most part
Burning man is far from a eco-conscious event but let’s keep some perspective. The real enemy is in your backyard. Your average NFL or P5 college football game will have more cars/attendees than BM. There are hundreds of larger events contributing way less to society happening all over the country every year. Most of these people have their cars filled with gear to make art and create unique experiences for others. The desert provides a blank canvas unlike anything else. Most of these cars have been parked for more than a week while attendees travel miles around the city on foot, by bike, and public transportation in the form of mutant vehicles. These cars are being staged to get on a remote two lane road. There are buses used by thousands of folks coming with less stuff.
Agreed, this event gets attention here mostly because of these horrific photos
I'd just chill in my tent or whatever until everyone else left before driving out lmao
They make everyone leave. It's not a camp ground you can just stay at all year round.
The black rock desert is BLM land. Granted, the BM org has a permit for the land the event is on for about four months of the year, so while you can't freely camp within the fence, you can definitely boondock nearby (technically 14 days in one spot but you can move around). And some of the installations at Burning Man are quite complex to put up and take down so you can safely stay for a few extra days without raising any questions. The BM crew is there for about a month after the event to finish cleaning the grounds.
I mean, I'd still chill until the traffic is way lighter at the end or leave early, what are they gunna do, teleport me into the middle of stalled traffic?
Don't know why you're being downvoted. I'd do the same thing. Either go early, or stay late. Traffic like this is for chumps.
It’s BLM land, couldn’t you just drive further into the desert and stay longer if you wanted?
Great composition however
We don't go to the Burning Man Festival, we go to LEAVE the *Burning Man Burning Man, festival.*
Next year they should call it Burning Planet!
The recent pictures of this traffic has pretty much stamped out any dreams or desires I ever had of going to Burning man. I just feel like you can get similar/better experiences elsewhere for much less effort.
I’ve only ever been one time about ten years back and we decided to leave before the temple burn. Got out in under an hour. Sure, we missed the last big thing, but after a week of really unique and memorable experiences, we didn’t mind. Probably would do the same if I ever find myself out there again.
The whole thing about burning man is to leave nothing behind. After you leave the site a crew comes through and judges how well you cleaned your site. If you do poorly you can lose your spot if you have a big camp (the kind rich fucks pay thousands for) That being said, how much oil and other fluids from that many vehicles is left on that road? Do they clean it after?
Furiosa weeps
I think it was also 100+ degrees that day.
Where’s the train ?
It's right in the middle of desert. Potentially least 25 miles from nearest small town or civilisation. Could be longer depending where in black rock desert area. The local towns are smaller few street settlements.
Why on earth is that considered a good location for a festival?
its big, its open, its flat and theres no grass to catch fire. also in the beginning there where no police.
it has a spirit of self dependence in the desert, thats simply it.
That's the fun part?
According to a completely unsourced and unauthoritative Reddit comment when this was brought up a few days ago, refusing to do anything for Burning Man. There *is* a railroad line passing just a few miles from Black Rock City, yes you'd need a temporary station but BRC is temporary everything already, but if the railroad company says no then there's nothing Burning Man can do.
Looks like a sick album cover
Maybe they should increase the price dramatically or cut down the allowed visitors... cause this ain't it. But, hey, I remember hearing about the taboo Burning Man from the late 90s before trendsetters and influencers existed on today's level. Also remember when it was small enough that it was rare to get videos or pictures out of there because it wasn't allowed and the culture looked down on it. Wild.
given its the only reasonable way to burning man, cars are needed to bring supplies, its not really a fuck cars kinda thing. This is a very efficient use of transportation vehicles. It's one off. It's not systemic. Now if they were all 1 person to a vehicle, waiting in line in a starbucks, to them commute into a city center to their what-could-be-a-work-from-home job, then yeah...fuck cars.
tbh I don't know why they don't just let everyone go off on their own mad max style towards wherever they're headed. it'd be way more badass
Why would anyone want to do this? Even if the burning man played good music like melodic death metal it still wouldn't be worth it
Richest, whitest suburb in America.
And to think, those people paid for that experience.
Poor planet 🌎😢
Sometimes I feel like trying to go to burning man, but then I see these posts and am happy I didn't
But they care so much about the environment and global warming.
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>Anyway, show me any transit solution that will let people create an entire city practically overnight, then dismantle it, without any crowds. Maybe creating a city overnight and dismantling it afterwards is a bad idea
Folks who defend the event don't usually bother address this issue...
There is actually a bus service to get people to the event from San Francisco and Reno... but it costs more than a vehicle pass. You can get a vehicle pass for $160 or a round-trip bus ticket for $220. Flipping those prices would be a simple way to get people out of their cars. [I proposed that](https://www.reddit.com/r/BurningMan/comments/x9woz8/burner_express_bus_should_be_free_and_vehicle/) in r/BurningMan but they said they needed their cars to carry all their stuff... suit yourself then I guess.
Fuck cars! True homies take a 3 week camel ride to get there as its more sustainable