The Man Will Burn

Yes, uh, we're going to take over the world.

When?

Sooner than you might think.

Welcome to Burning Man!

Oh, we got people coming.

-Welcome home. -How are you?

-Hello. -Oh!

Dust angels, please.

Roll over.

You gotta get the full package here.

That's it. Love the dust.

You may now ring the man's doorbell and tell him,

"I'm here to burn!"

Yell it out.

I'm here to burn!

Imagine that you are put upon

a desert plane,

a space which in itself

is so vast and blank,

that only your initiative can make that a place.

Imagine you're surrounded by thousands of other people,

that together you form a city,

and that within this teeming city,

there is nothing that's for sale.

If you've seen an aerial shot

of Black Rock City, it's a beautiful clock shape.

What people don't know is that it's an actual city.

There are roads, neighborhoods, and community spaces,

all designed to create

spontaneous interactions between people.

Have you ever been in a city

where you couldn't buy or sell anything?

When you give a gift or receive a gift from someone,

it creates an immediate moral bond with them.

That's, of course, where community begins.

This is an inhospitable,

natural environment that will kill you if you let it.

We live in a consumer society

and we're completely insulated from the realities of nature

in our own inner needs.

There's nothing like living through a catastrophe

with other people to bond you to them.

That's the point. We want that challenge.

Why do some of the most

talented, brightest, most creative people

come to our temporary city

in the middle of the desert,

work harder than they normally do in their jobs,

give up their scarce resources,

and call our little dusty city home?

What are they getting here

that they're not getting in our year-round cities?

People keep saying,

"Well, what does Burning Man mean?"

- -

Burning Man leads people up to the threshold

of what religious experience is.

In fact, it gives them the experience pretty largely.

It is a city of imagination.

And imagination wants to be free and abundant.

And we're creating joy.

We're bringing connection.

[fireworks popping and whistling]

In the default world,

people are more disconnected and lonelier than ever.

That's why people think of Black Rock City as home.

Four, three, two, one.

Ignition.

I don't think it's-- I've got enough-- Hang on.

Can I zip it all the way up?

People were saying no. Option down or up?

It looked a little uptight

when you got it all the way up there.

Yeah. Exactly.

-I am a little uptight. - I know.

Hi, everyone...

-Hello, people. -...thanks for joining us for a second time.

We're so excited to share news

about what's going on behind the scenes

at Burning Man Project.

Without further ado,

I'll hand it off to our CEO, Marian Goodell.

Hello, everybody. I'm Marian.

We are on the road to making a decision

about whether we'll do Black Rock City 2021.

It takes a lot of energy to do this.

Go, no go, Burning Man. I have no fucking idea.

We've faced a number

of existential crises

over the years,

and, and the COVID pandemic has certainly been one of them.

The deadly coronavirus officially hitting the US.

In 2020, we didn't really have a choice.

We had to cancel.

And it was a... it was a huge letdown.

The theme for 2021 was the great unknown

because we had no freaking idea if we would do Burning Man

that year or ever again.

Honestly, you know, I'd say that feelings

were divided in the organization.

Do we want to be dealing

with people with bad COVID-19 symptoms

in the middle of nowhere?

Um, what feels successful?

Is a successful event that nobody died from COVID?

What is the thing that we're trying to prove by doing this?

The answer to that is to not do Black Rock City.

The reality is, we could still find ourselves in a situation

where we don't have enough money,

and we'll have to let people go.

And if we let the people on this call right now go,

I don't know that we can fire up the engines again.

That's still all true.

Here I go, first time back in the office.

Today's an important day.

We're going to announce our decision

about whether to do Burning Man or not this year.

I'm done waiting and wondering and watching people be tortured

as to whether we're doing it or we're not doing it.

Uh, we need to make a decision. There's no good decisions.

There's two bad decisions to make.

Marian's been CEO of Burning Man since 2013,

and I've been by her side,

running it with her, ever since.

Our board is evolving into a new sort of board.

We have a fair amount of new board members,

and we've not worked together as a team all that much,

certainly not with a crisis like this before.

They started asking a lot of questions recently

about whether we're gonna survive.

"Are the finances okay?" "Am I doing my job?"

"Is it gonna be safe?" "Are we doing the right thing?"

"Are we being responsible?"

It's kind of becoming pretty clear

that it's a lift that we're not ready for.

What if we cancel the event?

We need Burning Man to survive the pandemic.

And a lot of people around the world feel that way.

- Hi. - Hey!

Kimbal was a new board member.

His brother, Elon, had made a significant donation,

and Kimbal was representing that.

And he's been coming to Burning Man

for over 25 years.

My name's Kimbal.

I'm very honored to be here today with you guys.

Welcome, Kimbal.

You know, I really struggle

to describe Burning Man to people.

But the way I like to describe it is,

imagine the beach.

Some people like it, some people don't.

But would you ever say to someone

who has never been to the beach,

"You don't need to go see the beach"?

It is an experiment that is never-ending.

I think it means different things to different people.

For me, personally,

it is this amazing opportunity to...

once a year,

burn the past

and start again.

It's my religion. It's my ritual.

It's my spiritual calling.

And I never miss it.

Okay, so we're gonna, uh, turn it over here

to Marian and her team.

It's so weird to not be in front of a laptop, okay?

Let's just say that's where I feel weird for a moment.

Okey-doke.

So, the item at hand

is Black Rock City recommendation and discussion.

Um, our recommendation is that

there be no Black Rock City of 2021,

and, um, that we aim all of our efforts

for Black Rock City 2022.

Kimbal, you want to share just a little?

That's just a bad idea.

People will be depressed as hell because of this announcement.

So, be very thoughtful that this will traumatize people.

I found it depressing

and lacking in vision.

There is vision, and I've been thinking about this

-for quite some time. - Yeah.

Farhad?

I think it's an incredibly conservative decision.

Um, and Burning Man is not-- That's not--

That's not the image of Burning Man.

We are radically self-reliant, we're civically responsible,

we are a communal effort thing.

30,000 people or more are gonna gather in the desert.

And as long as the 10 Principles are in place,

Burning Man happens, with or without us.