Burning Man: The Only Flame IT Pros Welcome

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August 30, 2000 (5:14 AM EDT)

By Jill Morneau,

Looking to briefly escape the wired life? Observe even more oddities than you see every day on your city's downtown streets? Or maybe just delight at watching a 40-foot effigy burn like dot-com capital?

Check out Burning Man, the annual Nevada desert confab that is expected to draw up to 28,000 artists, IT professionals, public relations staffers, and others. It runs from Aug. 28 to Sept. 4.

IT folks who attend characterize the event at Black Rock Desert as a much-needed getaway.

"Everything here is so structured based on money, time, or networking, in this industry," said Dave Donohue of Scale Eight Inc., San Francisco, an Internet storage firm. "You're thrown out of balance of how things work in the real world, and this [event] allows you to re-prioritize things, to kind of re-center yourself. It's a stark contrast from the incredibly capitalistic nature of the self."

Clothes are optional, creativity is mandatory, and corporate logos are forbidden in the annual boomtown known as Black Rock City.

Though Burning Man does not encourage shop talk among IT professionals, Tom Geller, president of Bandwith P.R., San Francisco, said it happens.

"It's inevitable to talk about what you're interested in," Geller said. "If you meet a Java programmer who used to work at the same company, you might start talking about what you did in general. But if you're going to Burning Man just to schmooze -- people would be like, 'Hey, I'm vacation.'"

But unless you're in the Larry Ellison or Bill Gates income league, it's not exactly a bargain. Admission is $220-$250, and tickets will not be sold after noon (Pacific) Friday. So there won't be any sneaking in just to see the grand finale.

Once inside the camping area no cash is exchanged. Participants are expected bring all they need to survive and to barter if they need more.

Burning Man isn't a laptop- and power-lunch fete, but that doesn't prevent high-tech companies from striking a hip pose. Adobe Systems Inc. (stock: ADBE), San Jose, Calif., features a Burning Man photo album on its website.

Four people will be attending from GCI Group, a PR company specializing in high tech, said Jill Davey, senior account executive with the San Francisco firm.

Although Burning Man is an art festival, it draws many IT pros because of its affinity to the San Francisco Bay area, where founders Larry Harvey and Jerry James threw their first fire party at Baker Beach in 1986.

Since then, the event has grown and relocated to lonely Nevada desert.

The festival's highlight is Saturday when a 40-foot figure of a man is set alight, creating a magical atmosphere in the dark desert sky.

Last year's event drew 25,000 people to see the figure go up in towering flames. But the spectacle is more than just fire.

The "man" was traced with lights and balls of flame spewed from propane cannons on the side, Davey said.

"Green, blue, and red lasers shoot from mountain to mountain and everyone has costumes, face paint," Davey said. "Some people are painted from head to toe ... and some are in Halloween costumes, or clothes from second-hand or vintage stores."

The real technical genius happens in the small camps, Geller said, with art projects that incorporate technology. One person asked others for old Macintoshes so he could build a wall with video art.

Each camp has its own theme and decor. Geller will be part of Camp Goat Rodeo, featuring a 16-foot goat as its centerpiece.

The goat was arc-welded with resin and chicken wire, and took weeks to build. Geller got his own hands dirty in the process, but came away with welding skills.