BURNING MONEY
At a desert festival where cash is forbidden, elite attendees are spending big bucks on lavish meals and private chefs
WHAT do you do when you’ve got the munchies in the middle of an unforgiving desert? If you’re an elite “Burner,” just ring for your private chef.
Burning Man is an otherworldly, nine-day-long arts festival set on a sprawling, dry lake bed — the playa, to those in the know — in Black Rock City, Nev. From Aug. 26 to Sept. 3, attendees, aka Burners, adopt new identities (“playa names”), don elaborate costumes (or wear nothing at all), take drugs, party on fantastically decorated mutant vehicles (“art cars”) and ritualistically burn an enormous wooden man.
During the festival, which debuted in 1986, attendees are meant to practice decommodifica- tion, meaning that money and marketing are verboten. Also a must: radical self-reliance, which means bringing everything they need to survive — including water — since civilization is miles and miles away.
At least, that’s the idea. But recent years have marked a shift for Burning Man: It’s become something of an It networking event for Silicon Valley tech gurus and stifled Wall Streeters looking to blow off steam. But they’re not interested in totally roughing it — and that’s led to the creation of lavish camps, along what’s known