Wednesday 1 September 2010

Burning Man Black Rock City Day 3

Seen as a community effort, this annual festival tests people's self reliance, encourages their self expression and participation in the event.

This web cam feed is live in Black Rock thoughout the festival:

Live Black Rock City webcam

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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