Burning Man festival heating up
RENO -- More than 40,000 people are expected to converge on the Northern Nevada desert beginning today for the annual Burning Man counterculture arts festival dedicated to "radical self-expression and radical self-reliance."
Participants from around the world will spend the week leading up to Labor Day in Black Rock City, a makeshift 5-square-mile encampment on the playa of the remote, sprawling Black Rock Desert, about 120 miles north of Reno.
Authorities expect as many as 45,000 people to attend the eclectic, anything-goes gathering. Last year's crowd peaked at 39,100, up 6.6 percent over the previous year.
The festival climaxes with the traditional torching of a 40-foot-tall wooden figure known as "The Man," the event's namesake object. Other artwork is burned.
Protecting the environment is the theme of the 22nd annual festival. In addition to solar panels powering the pavilion at the base of "The Man," the event will feature demonstrations of bicycles with generators and gasification machines that eat trash.
"People can show what they're doing to try and save the planet," Burning Man board member Will Roger Peterson told the Reno Gazette-Journal.
"They'll be showing technology and art together."
Local Albertsons grocery stores will be selling such eco-friendly items as biodegradable garbage bags, hemp rope and solar-powered camping lights for participants.
James Cooper of Sparks said he fills an "art car" he built with biodiesel fuel.
His "Surly Bird" car was made from a red pickup with a flat bed, upper deck and canopy.
"We call it a double-decker party car," Cooper said. "We basically roll around and provide art and a mobile party for people."
Devotees of Lord Krishna from around the world have set up a Krishna Camp at a cost of about $20,000.
The temporary, full-fledged temple with life-size deities will feature discussions about Krishna, devotional singing, worship, fire sacrifice and free Indian tea.
Plans also call for a daily chariot procession.
Unlike the rest of Burning Man, sex, gambling, liquor and meat will be prohibited at Krishna Camp.
