not worth it

There’s a Secret Burning Man Happening and We’re Telling Because We Weren’t Invited

Just think of all the droplets the dust can carry. Photo: Jim Rankin/Toronto Star via Getty Images

Like those kids from The Prom who throw their own prom after school canceled the prom, Burners — annual attendees of Burning Man — are hosting their own, secret version of Burning Man after the festival was canceled in April due to the coronavirus pandemic. KTVN and NBC News 4 reported that “hundreds†of Burners began to gather in the stretch of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert that they refer to as “the playa†as early as August 30, and that the Bureau of Land Management and sheriff’s deputies are on site. Twelve miles of desert gives these revelers plenty of room to social distance, particularly without the sorts of crowded raves and installations of most years. A Burning Man organizer told NBC News 4, “People made the decision to come here during a global pandemic. So we decided to keep people’s camps 200 feet away from one another and to advise wearing masks when meeting others. If people feel safe, then they should make others feel safe.†This guerrilla Burning Man is all within the spirit of the original festival: defiant, anarchic, and not particularly sanitary.

There’s a Secret Burning Man Happening in Nevada