by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC

As a Brit on foreign shores, I’m not quite as familiar with Burning Man as a cultural institution as Tao – her reflections on the power of BM as a transformational event are truly intriguing. I am also captivated by Grist’s take on greening the Burning Man here. It certainly does sound like this event is taking great strides to both minimize and maximize its impact, i.e., reducing waste and pollution while increasing education, inspiration and fun. However, in my unofficial Change role as ‘curmudgeonly young sceptic’, I feel compelled to point out that there is a simple question of size that threatens many such events.

I have not been entirely unaware of the phenomenon that is Burning Man – I first heard about a secret, intimate festival somewhere in the Nevada dessert via a program on the BBC back in the late 90s (the BBC is where I get most of my news of secret, intimate events!). Since then, it has grown exponentially, with 40,000 people attending this year, compared to 25,000 in the year 2000, and 3,500 in 1995. I find it hard to believe that such dramatic growth could not bring about a fundamental shift in balance between production and consumption.

I’ll resist joining the inevitable chorus of ‘sell out’ that follows any event that actually becomes a success and given the fact I have not attended, it wouldn’t seem fair. I do understand that very little is for sale at BM, allowing it avoids much of the commercialism of other festivals out there. However, in my experience of organizing green spaces and workshops at festivals in the UK, there was always a very, very fine balance between folks who come to actively participate, create and explore and folks who come to watch, gawk and consume.

In my experience, the absolute height of positive festival experiences comes from the maximum number of people who see themselves not as customers (even if they have paid for a ticket), but as co-creators of whatever event is going on. By this I mean folks who will dress the part, folks who will get out there and talk to strangers, folks who will dance like they mean it. I even mean folks who will form drum circles, and I HATE drum circles!

It sounds, from many of the experiences I am reading on the web, Burning Man has somehow miraculously continued to maintain the healthy balance of creation versus consumption and I hope they continue to do so. I just worry that the inevitable media hype over any such event will eventually be its own downfall – here’s hoping that the Man keeps burning in style for years to come.

Tags: culture, nature, recreation

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Green Misc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.