What is the Burning Man festival about, if anything?

[SueEllen]

There was a show on Sky arts a few weeks back about the artwork on display there. If you can find that on a catch up service it will explain a lot.

Can you write a synopsis for us?

[WTFH]

Any one been to the Burning Man Festival? Would anyone want to be invited?

It seems vaguely New Agey, or started out that way, but is there an underlying theme these days?

What's it all abaaaht Alfie?

It used to offend the right whingers, was a bit of a hippy/new age thing about celebrating the summer solstice. Then businesses realised they could make a fortune selling merchandise etc, and the festival lost its edge, as it became almost a parody of itself.
By the early 2000s, a lot of the planning for it was done on tribe.net

[hairymouse]

Can you write a synopsis for us?

Well, there's a giant dried lakebed in Neveda. The ground is white dirt, very alkali and the wind blows hard. Often they have a giant festival where thousands camp out, because of the wind and sand they wear Goggles and look very steampunk. Artists come weeks before the festival and build giant structures and statues, many of which move and have crazy lights. People also build giant Mad Max style vehicles and drive around looking crazy. At night, the lights are completely nuts. Everyone dances a lot and possibly there's a lot of nudity except for the Goggles.
The centre of the whole thing is an elaborate statue of a man and the highlight is burning that. Lots of the other artworks and structures are burned as well. I don't think any bands play, the art is the attraction.

I've never been to that festival, but I have driven around on the lakebed and did some kitebuggying. It's a pretty inhospitable environment but there's plenty of wind and space. I think the site is relatively close to the solar concentrator, where they have mirrors on the ground to reflect the sun onto some liquid salt in a tower in order to generate electricity and vaporize birds.