The good, bad and ugly sides to Burning Man gathering

THE GOOD

40°45’13.83”N, 119°16’37.20”W.

With the possible exception of a holographic spandex jumpsuit, few things are more essen­tial for anyone venturing into the featureless Black Rock Desert in Nevada for Burning Man 2017 than the GPS coordi­nates. The summer shindig, which started in 1986 as a low-key San Francisco beach party attended by about 20 free spirits, has become a counterculture juggernaut, drawing “Burners” from every corner of the planet.

This year, the arts gathering (don’t call it a festival, there’s no scheduled entertainment) runs from August 27 to September 4 and will culminate, as always, with the ritual burning of a giant wooden effigy of a man. Well, not quite always. In 1989, wildfires in California meant police were suspicious of anyone purposely setting things ablaze on beaches, or anywhere else, and so the figure remained unburnt. The search for a new site began and, a year later, about 80 believers made their way to remote Black Rock Desert for the inaugural Nevada Burning Man.

Next week, about 70,000 people will set their satnavs and head into the middle of nowhere in cars, motor­homes and heavily customised mutant vehicles. Some will book flights with Burner Express Air, landing at Black Rock City Municipal Airport, which doesn’t exist for the other 51 weeks of the year. An assortment of New Agers, enlighten­ment seekers and weekend warriors (regular 9-5ers) follow directions to a horseshoe-shaped collection of tents and mobile homes built on a huge salt pan, an area of hard, cracked clay, known as the playa. For a few days, the tempo­rary settlement becomes one of Nevada’s largest cities.