Burning Man 2015 Impressions

I've returned, alive and happy, from another wonderful week in my favorite desert. I found this year a little harder than other years, but nothing earth-shattering. 

The Temple of Promise.

I'll be writing a bunch of posts and am editing hundreds of pictures and hours of video currently, but I wanted to just share a few random recollections from Burning Man this year:

• The Temple. Wow. I'm pretty biased given my involvement in the project, but it turned out even better than I expected. The lighting in it at night....my god. Gorgeous. I loved the way the lit-up spire stood against the black background of deep playa, in particular.
  
  
• There were some really incredible structures out there this year other than the Temple. I particularly enjoyed the Temple of Mazu (which wasn't the Temple but was pretty damn fantastic regardless) and the Totem of Confessions, where Susan Sarandon laid the ashes of Timothy Leary to rest.
  
  
• The carnival midway around the Man base was executed very very well. Although for pure visual stimulation there's no beating the giant spaceship base from 2013, for interactivity, this year's Man base wins, hands down. It was really great, themed fun.
  
  
• Speaking of the theme, I think it came together really nicely, primarily because the idea of a carnival is broad enough and rooted enough in common experiences that it was easy for a lot of people to adopt carnival-esque costumes and behaviors. Loved it.
  
  
• "Indian" headdresses. Fuck me there were a lot of them, and 100% of the time they were on some Brochella-looking douchecanoe of one gender or another.
  
  
• This year it was like half of Burning Man decided they wanted to arrive at gate opening on Sunday. Another new year, another new traffic pattern. I left Reno at 7:20 am and arrived in camp at 4 pm, with only about 80 minutes of that on Gate road. So Gate totally killed it on opening day (well done!), but 447 was very very slow. Lots of everyone just stopped in the middle of the highway and getting out of their cars for 20 minutes+. 
  
  
• The weather was off and on. Generally fairly pleasant during the day, when there wasn't a whiteout dust storm, at least. It definitely got cold at night though, and I saw a lot of people who weren't prepared for temps in the low 40s or high 30s.  Speaking of dust storms, the aforementioned one on Friday was something else. Not the worst I've seen by any means, as the winds probably weren't higher than 30 mph or so, but I've never felt it get that cold during the day time on playa. I've certainly never had to change into "something warm" during the day out there.  I was wearing an ankle-length fur vest at 4 pm!
  
  
• For whatever reason, I generally really enjoyed most of the music I heard. Last year I had a tough time finding a groove I was into. I kept hearing a lot of trap (which I don't like), but this year, whether by playa serendipity or the constantly evolving musical trends on playa, I heard a lot of music I really liked. Best night, musically, for me was from about 2-4:30 am at the dome attached to Disorient, on Thursday night. I don't know who the DJs were or whose music they were playing, but it was fantastic. Also heard some awesome music at Sacred Spaces village on Friday night, and was filming/taking pics of Carl Cox during his set on an art car at Opulent Temple's white party on Wed, which was fun. Carl gets Burning Man and is full of joy, unlike Diplo, who followed Carl's set and started off by promoting some production company over the microphone, at which point I left to go literally anywhere else. Come on. This isn't EDC.
  
  
• I spent a lot more time this year off the Esplanade at night. I'm often drawn to the big sound camps at night, especially Opulent Temple (which, as you know, wasn't doing their normal sound camp this year), but I only spent one solid night at one of the really big ones (White Ocean) this year. It was, however, a particularly great night, so there's that. Mostly though, me and my little group were generally to be found dancing at smaller camps at night, or doing the bar thing and just chatting with like-minded Burners. As Spanky's Wine Bar (and so much more) was close to us, we ended up there a lot at one point or another. I always love the vibe and people there.
  
  
• Coolest-looking camp I saw this year was Cirque Gitane, which was on G somewhere around 8 pm-ish. This thing was incredible. Someone spent a lot of money to create a tent interior that felt like a Victorian-era explorer's lodge or something. And they poured pretty decent wine, which is a big bonus for this grape-loving burner. This was also possibly the most attractive crowd I've been around. It was a little ridiculous actually. It felt like we had walked into a room full of models, which might have been a little off-putting except that damn, it was so comfortable as a break from dancing. And nobody really minds eye candy do they? 
  
  

Much more to come!

Southern entrance to the Man base.

Cotton candy at the Man base. My wife in foreground.

Highway 447 during one of the periods of stopped traffic on Sunday.

Carl Cox throwing down at Opulent Temple's White Party on Wednesday night out by Serpent Mother.

Cirque Gitane. Quite the atmosphere, and this only shows about 1/6th of the tent.