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LESSONS OF BURNING MAN: A CASE STUDY OF THE GATHERING AND ITS AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT PRACTICES A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Drexel University by Naima L. Murphy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Arts Administration September 2015 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Andrew Zitcer and Julie Goodman­Hawkins for their support during the development and completion of this thesis. Their guidance encouraged me to unpack themes and find research in unexpected areas. Thank you to interview participants Will Gardner, Alexandra Kirsch, Lauren Christianson, Laura Oxenfeld, and Olga Grigorenko who graciously and uninhibitedly shared their stories of the Playa. This same group, including Alexandra Piacquad and Jenny Lykken, assisted in my preparation for travelling to Burning Man in 2014 and equipped me with several packing lists, costumes, coconut water, and endless memories. Thank you to the many people I met on the Playa, all of which exemplified the strongest themes or Burning Man and helped to expand my perspective and remember that if you can build a vehicle shaped like an octopus shooting flames from each tentacles, you can build absolutely anything. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... 3 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... 4 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 5 METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................................................... 14 BURNING MAN HISTORY....................................................................................................... 20 EXTERNAL VIEW OF BURNING MAN ............................................................................... 30 AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION ................................................................................................ 34 SUMMARY ................................................................................................................................. 45 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................47 2 LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1 ­ Burning Man participant works on mural beside his camp ...................................... 7 ​ ​ FIGURE 2 ­ Sign encouraging participants to read carved wooden poetry towers and contribute ​ to next year’s poetry project ............................................................................................................ 8 ​ FIGURE 3 ­ Several vehicles making their way from Gerlach ................................................... 11 ​ ​ FIGURE 4 ­ Burning Man participant completing the census .................................................... 14 ​ ​ FIGURE 5 ­ From left to right: Camp at burning man, my reflection in a Center Camp mirror ​ installation, and Burning Man grant­funded Sea of Dreams installation on the Playa ................. 17 ​ FIGURE 6 ­ Burners in the Center Camp tent during an open mic session ............................... 19 ​ ​ FIGURE 7 ­ The evolution of Black Rock City maps ................................................................ 22 ​ ​ FIGURE 8 ­ Mutant Vehicle riding through the Playa ............................................................... 23 ​ ​ FIGURE 9 ­ Radical Inclusion .................................................................................................... 26 ​ ​ FIGURE 10 ­ Celtic Chaos bar and dance party in the Playa ..................................................... 32 ​ ​ FIGURE 11 ­ Temple of Grace ................................................................................................... 35 ​ ​ FIGURE 12 ­ Live instrumental music at Burning Man ............................................................. 37 ​ ​ FIGURE 13 ­ Spectrum of audience engagement and involvement via Alan Brown ................. 38 ​ ​ FIGURE 14 ­ Free­form capoeira and dance workshop in Center Camp, Burning Man ​ participant engages with art .......................................................................................................... 39 ​ FIGURE 15 ­ Sunrise burning of Embrace installation, Saturday night burn schedule .............. 41 ​ ​ FIGURE 16 ­ Burning Man information board on the Playa ...................................................... 43 ​ ​ 3 ABSTRACT Burning Man is recognized as an annual gathering in the desert that encourages curiosity and a disregard for societal norms. The latter is at the core of public perception, but with the event’s embrace by tech and art professionals, the temporary city in Nevada regularly inspires studies and think­pieces about the benefits of experiencing Burning Man. The research in this paper considers what brings participants to the gathering and keeps inspiring them to make the pilgrimage to the desert each year. Alongside audience development surveys prepared for United States arts organizations, interviews with Burning Man participants, and the event’s official census help to unpack how Burning Man attracts over 60,000 people annually. By acknowledging the Burning Man Project as a non­profit arts organization, research is used to illuminate transferrable audience development and retention tactics. The effective engagement practices of the Burning Man project are focused on inclusivity, community development, embrace of ever­evolving technology, and partnership between full­time staff and volunteers. 4 INTRODUCTION This thesis is a case study of the Burning Man festival that seeks to draw from the week­long event’s growth since 1986 and understand how other, more traditional arts organizations can learn from the temporary city in Nevada’s desert and similarly inspire long­term commitment and creativity among participants. As many arts organizations continue to seek opportunities to build audiences while maintaining their faithful contributors, this study will displays Burning Man and its location in the desert beyond the most­common perceptions and uses its commitment to art and community as a foundation to connect to other participation­driven art organizations. Burning Man is a week­long annual gathering that began in San Francisco but has been held in northern Nevada’s Black Rock Desert since 1991. Organizers work year­round to develop “Black Rock City”, a temporary urban oasis filled annually with over 60,000 residents, an unobtrusive infrastructure and artistic installations strewn throughout the desert. Loyalists of the event, a fairly homogeneous community frequently referred to as “Burners”, travel from around the world to experience a departure from a “default world” filled with rules and societal regulations. For many, Burning Man provides a space for uninhibited release, creativity and community. In order to embrace the growth of this event and the various intentions of its audiences, the Burning Man Project has developed its gathering into a week­long party, a shared spiritual retreat, a massive art exhibit, a hands­on social experiment, an opportunity to meet new people and anything else that is brought by its community. In a documentation of the gathering’s history, Brian Dougherty noted: 5 It is the most glamorous, anarchic city on earth, where on any given stroll you might wander past giant metal flame­spewing lotus flowers, or hop on a life­size, glowing white whale as it sails over the sands backlit by an endless starry sky. But Burning Man is more than just fun. It’s a place where accumulated cultural debris is swept aside in order to reinvent what is important. It’s an underground mecca for Americans who are searching for community and meaning (Dougherty, 313). What was once a small group of friends celebrating the summer solstice has since evolved into a year­round nonprofit organization that seeks to spread the innovations and creativity of its August festival internationally. The Burning Man Project’s mission to “facilitate and extend the culture that has issued from the Burning Man event into the larger world” is carried out by approximately 70 year­round staff, 17 board members, 40 emeritus influencers and over 2000 volunteers each year. The event is imagined and constructed by this passionate community inspired by a set of principles rooted in participation and self­reliance (Burning Man, 2015). This makes Burning Man an evolving experience, one that has both familiar and foreign elements for those who visit Black Rock City and explore “the Playa” each year. Radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self­reliance, radical self­expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation and immediacy are at the core of Burning Man’s mission and the organization provides a variety of tools to communities hoping to apply the principles once they leave the Playa. The infrastructural framework of these tools is structured similarly to other arts organizations and allows Burning Man to support local communities with grants and other resources. An important characteristic about the annual gathering facilitated by the Burning Man Project is that it depends heavily on volunteers and other Burners to create an eclectic, experientially diverse environment by welcoming different activities and embracing strange. Burners are eager

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