Spark: A Burning Man Story Page #4

I mean, you can't just make the

event bigger.

Yeah, this is... it's like in

our house every day of the week.

[LA GRACE]:
Obviously everybody

is freaking out about

what's going on with the tickets

for Burning Man this year.

The... the initial reaction was

- - was absolute shock

and complete frustration and,

you know, flat out anger.

And so then that heightened all the other

little things that people whisper, like,

"Oh, they're, you know, it's... they're...

they're, you know, they're about money"

and "It's changed"

and "It's, you know,

they're not what it used to be".

You know, and so it heightens all the

things that it whispered in the hallway

and it... and... and it elevates

them to a shout.

If we can all get on board

and create a semi-transparent

process,

one that might even say, that

these groups..

Are the curators and are

somewhat... managed.

[STEVEN RASPA]:
I've just got to

say though,

I'm very uncomfortable with

the term curator.

The thing that I love about

Burning Man is that

we haven't applied judgment

to people's work.

Everybody's effort

is equally valued.

Oh we totally apply judgment.

[RASPA]:
The biggest part of

the experience has been

the uncurated aspect of it.

So if now we're... we're placing a

higher premium on things that are

judged by this small group

of people,

I think it sort of antithetical

to the larger amazing spirit of

of the whole thing, personally.

So I... I'm saying that this is

important but language-wise...

We don't have a choice.

We need another word.

We're already curating

out there.

The camps themselves...

...Matt says you can't just join

[ARGUING LOUDLY].

No, you're right.

That's why we wanted to change the

word is what you're saying, Steven?

[RASPA]:
Right, and I don't want

us, then, how... how many...

how much effort did we put into saying, 'we're

not a festival, we're not a festival? '

We don't schedule everything,

we don't curate everything.

So I don't want us

to become a festival.

It's not as... as... as simple as

putting butts in stadium seats.

That works if it's just a

spectacle, that's...

but then people wouldn't feel

the way they do.

I mean, people want... people

want to go to the Super Bowl

and they're disappointed

but they don't get irate,

as if they had been betrayed

by their parents, you know,

as if it was an

intimate betrayal.

We've always faced existential

challenges,

you know, from the very

beginning.

This is nothing like the

dread year of '96.

That involved personal,

deep, dark stuff.

People are streaming

into the circle.

This is swordfish-people are

streaming into the circle.

We had 10,000 people and we got to that size

that you couldn't manage, really, anymore.

[fire burning, screaming,

crowd yelling]

My children,

evil lurks amongst you.

That's right, there are those amongst

you who are not spontaneous,

those amongst you

who are not creative.

Hard though it may be to

believe, you know who you are.

[crowd screaming, becoming

rowdy]

We'll talk to him after the show

if we survive.

[LAW]:
We did absolutely

everything we could

to try and ensure that the event

wasn't unsafe.

And... and it was unsafe,

we couldn't control it.

You know, we burned

the Helco Tower

and that was a 32 foot tower

with 10 gallons of gasoline

aerating in the dry air.

And I was watching the wind to

make sure that it didn't shift

because if the wind shifted, you would

have been... I would have emulated.

[noisy crowd]

[explosion, crowd cheering]

[shattering]

[cheering and yelling continues]

[GOODELL]:
And that was

terrifying.

I remember... I didn't think I

was going to come back.

It was before I met Larry and thought

I wasn't ever going to come back.

I was terrified.

It was definitely Mad Max and scared

the sh*t out of everybody there.

You keep people back.

Move back as far as possible, we've got

propane tanks right there that are too close.

So there was no guiding force,

no organization at all.

So it was like a train tipping

around a corner, like,

about to go off the

rails for days.

[crowd yelling, fireworks]

[flames burning loudly]

[firetruck sirens]

At, like, 6:
00 in the morning,

somebody who was

high on something

ran over a tent

with two people in it

and then hit another tent

with another person in it.

[HARVEY]:
It became apparent that we were

responsible for everybody's welfare,

there wasn't anybody else.

It was on us.

So then we were de facto

The State,

which... which was a conundrum for

the... for the... the hipsters,

you know, what... what does an

anarchist say to that?

[raucous crowd, fire burning]

[LAW]:
I could see where

it was going.

It's like if we're going to

keep doing this event,

we're going to have to have

a bureaucratic infrastructure,

and, you know, spin stuff.

And I can't-I couldn't do

that.

I couldn't be part of that.

[HARVEY]:
It was a question of two

different visions of what it should be.

Should it be civilized or should

it be essentially a...

a repudiation of...

of order and authority?

But if it's a repudiation of

order and authority

and you're the organizer and it

involves thousands of people,

what's that say for you?

What kind of a moral position

is that to be in?

We could have just said,

okay, we're done.

That experiment was fun,

it's done, it's complete.

And we could have not gone

to the other level,

but clearly there was more to be had if

you were interested in what we are now.

Well, I didn't want to be a cop and

I didn't want to be a bureaucrat

and it was clear that that's what was

necessary for the event to get bigger.

Well life after Burning Man has been,

you know, like 15 or 16 years for me.

I keep my little office for my little sign

business here, and I, uh, write here,

and it is a unique building,

they have giant neon clocks

and neon letters that wrap all the way

around the building on the 16th floor.

So I keep the neon going and

also work on the clocks.

I took my son to Disneyland not that long

ago and we had the time of our life.

A wonderful time.

But you have to accept the

control factor

that maintains the

infrastructure of Disneyland.

Same thing with Burning Man.

It's a great event,

but it's anything but

an uncontrolled event.

It's a controlled, professionally

mounted, corporate-owned event,

which makes money.

[MIKEL]:
During those early days

that John Law's referring to,

yes, there was tremendous

amount of freedom.

And we can always go back to

that... to that small group,

But...

You're never going to go any

further than that.

In order for us to survive and

get along on this planet,

we need to engage everyone.

We have to engage thousands,

millions of people.

kAnd I think that, for me, is

the most important freedom.

This is significant, it's a

significant thing, it's important.

We have to do it, we're giving our

lives to it, it's that important.

[BOYNTON]:
My engineer ran

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