The Burning Man festival is a week-long, large-scale event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance. It is held annually in the western United States, specifically in Black Rock City, a temporary city in the Nevada desert. The event is not a traditional festival but rather a community and global cultural movement guided by 10 practical principles. The name "Burning Man" comes from its culminating ceremony, the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred to as the Man, which takes place on the penultimate night of the event, the Saturday evening before Labor Day.
Burning Man is known for its diverse and participatory nature, with features of the event being subject to the participants and including community, artwork, absurdity, decommodification, and revelry. The event and its affiliated communities are guided by 10 principles that were originally written by Larry Harvey in 2004 as guidelines for regional organizing and later became a universal criterion of the general culture of the multifaceted movement.
The nonprofit Burning Man Project produces the annual Burning Man event in Black Rock City and provides year-round support, connection, education, and grants to an ever-growing network of regional Burning Man communities in more than 40 US states and 35 countries. The power of every Burning Man experience is held by each member of the community, and participation is encouraged in various ways, limited only by ones imagination.
