I’m Going To Burning Man!
My obsession with attending the Burning Man started randomly one night in the winter of 2015. I had recently set up an account on Couchsurfing.com and a guy messaged me who was traveling from LA to New York. He was passing through Omaha and looking for something to do so I took him to the bar (The Max). At some point in the night, our conversation turned to his love for Burning Man. I’d heard of the festival before but didn’t really know anything about it. His passion for the event was awe-inspiring and by the end of the night, I was completely fascinated with going! The next morning when my new friend hit the road to continue his cross country adventure, I settled in at my laptop and proceeded to type ‘Burning Man” into every known search engine. I was hooked with reading blogs, scrolling through forums and watching YouTube videos about this radical week in the desert at the end of August! So many people who attended just once would swear by this life-changing party and then started attending it every year. In my quest to consume everything Burning Man on the internet, I stumbled upon two movies online:
I’m Taking My Parents to Burning Man
Meet the GlamCocks
Those documentaries are fantastic and two of my favorite movies! If you are interested in learning more about Burning Man, start there!
Sadly, my hopes of attending the event were destroyed a few months later when I encountered the nightmare of purchasing tickets. Even though I clicked on the “Buy” button at the exact second tickets went on sale, they were gone.
I tried again the following year and no luck, same exact outcome and I was extremely discouraged but I wasn’t going to give up! I found out that there was a local Burner group in my area and a few months later, I attended one of their meetups at a local bar (Old Dundee). Once again, everybody was extremely passionate and helpful about keeping me inspired to go. The biggest take away that I got from the meetup was to expand on who I knew in the Burning Man festival. It appeared that the secret to getting tickets was much like everything else in life: it’s all about who you know and more people you know, the better your chances!
Over the last couple of years, when I meet people along my travels, I would often turn the conversation to Burning Man to see if anybody had attended and if so, what their experience was like. Last month I attended one of my first RV festivals (Xscapers) and I met somebody who had been to “The Burn” before. He told me the group he camped with and who to reach out to. I followed his advice first thing the next morning and before long, I was talking to one of the camp leaders who has been to the Burning Man festival for 20 years!
I’m super happy to say that connection sealed the deal! Being single on Valentine’s Day this year, I found myself sitting in front of my laptop when the email came in! I am going to Burning Man!