The annual, weeklong cultural festival, held on a stretch of northwestern Nevada’s Black Rock Desert nicknamed “the playa,” has epitomized a certain hallucinogenic, communal, radical DIY spirit since it began as a gathering of friends on San Francisco’s Ocean Beach in 1986. Burning Man attendees can expect to encounter all manner of strange phenomena, from a titanic glowing pyramid and an imperious temple made of tinder sticks to fire-snorting robot dinosaurs, a mobile neon Mayan warrior sculpture and a real-life Thunderdome.
