Saturday 28 August 2010

Black Rock Desert Burning Man Festival 2010

Commencing on the Sunday before and ending on American Labor Day holiday, this annual festival is not for the faint hearted. Said to teach participants self reliance and with the the ritual burning of a large wooden imitation of a man on the Saturday evening, create a new beginning.

This live web cam feed is in Gerlach, the site of the Burning Man:

Live Black Rock Webcam for the Burning Man festival

Background Information:

1997 was a pivotal year for the event. The car-friendly, open dry lake had become over-run with 10,000 attendees and was deemed too dangerous to continue in the same way with unrestricted driving. To implement a ban on driving and re-create the event as a pedestrian/bicycle/art car-only event, it was decided to move the event to private property. Fly Ranch with the adjoining Hualapai mini dry lake-bed was chosen. This brought Burning Man into the jurisdiction of Washoe County permitting. To comply with the new permit requirements and to manage the increased liability load, the organizers formed Black Rock City, LLC.

Since then, one of the challenges faced by the LLC has been trying to balance the freedom of participants - a defining element of the experience - with the requirements of BLM and various law-enforcement groups. Over the years, numerous restrictions have been put in place.

One notable restriction to attendees is the 7-mile long temporary plastic fence that surrounds the event and defines the pentagon of land used by the event on the southern edge of the Black Rock dry lake. This 4-foot (1.2 meter) high barrier is known as the "trash fence" because its initial use was to catch wind-blown debris that might escape from campsites during the event. Since 2002, the area beyond this fence has not been accessible to Burning Man participants during the week of the event.

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