Image credit: Dmitri Zotov via Unsplash

You’re riding down the playa in the middle of the night, with your bikes lit up. Everyone's wearing lights as the desert is pitch black. There’s a glow in the air from drones that form a whale swimming through the sky; they then transition into a rotating wolf. Slowly noise erupts from across the playa, it sounds like 80,000 people are howling. These moments are only possible because of the ideology of Burning Man, where experiences are meant to be enjoyed in and of themselves, without an ulterior motive.

At Burning Man because the foundation is on the experience and the contribution even in the micro-expressions things move in a different way. If brands were to come in the whole festival would collapse, as that would detract from the reason it is so great in the first place, so it would cease to exist.

Forward-thinker vs free thinker 

Having worked in tech in the US, there were always a lot of people I knew who went to Burning Man. The first Google Doodle was even created because Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were taking a few days away from the office to head to Black Rock City. So attendance was very intrinsic to the culture of Silicon Valley and its free-spirited, free-thinking inhabitants make up a chunk of the attendees. 

Usually, it’s a mad rush to secure your spot, refreshing your browser in hopes of procuring a ticket. This year is the first time I’ve ever heard of the tickets not selling out. But it’s understandable with the harsh weather conditions and the expense, it’s quite a journey. There is a level of commitment needed. 

Being part of a camp can help you survive when you get there, they can help you with the basics like food and water, but you need to think ahead about everything you could need for the week. You can find tips and tricks and packing lists online, it is such a community that people like to make that information super available. Ultimately the lack of corporate interests means that you are part of creating this 75,000-person pop-up city and that, in part, is enabled by the community of people who have been there before and want to keep the ethos alive. 

Contributing community 

Within marketing and advertising, you often see the word “community” used quite liberally in order to service a brief or talk about an audience. But at Burning Man and burner-adjacent events, you’ll find a genuine community where people help each other in ways that are both big and small 

You're cycling around and hear “champagne snow cone” and you’ll stop off to have a drink and a chat,for free. Eventually, you’ll feel bit grotty because of all of the dust, and happen upon a “spa” where they’re misting people down with cool, lavender-infused water; again it’s free. One time I went to a porta potty and when I came out, I was greeted by a guy wearing a suit with a table. He had everything you could need, mouthwash, toothbrushes, hand sanitizer, and he just sat there helping people. 

All of these experiences are put on by people for other people. There is a level of contribution, care and openness that you don’t often see and to experience it is next level. The forethought and intentionality to bring all the elements needed to execute these contributions, as a camp or individual, requires a certain mindset. It's a genuine expression of human kindness with people giving without expecting anything in return.

A lot of this you won’t even see online as the vast majority of people don’t even bother to take their phones out; it’s nice to respect people's privacy and keep the event pure. And when it comes to content creators at Burning Man filming or creating ads, it's definitely  frowned upon as it’s against the ideology of the experience, and people are not shy about calling this sort of behaviour out. But even if you had a couple thousand people who were there with that motive, you have to remember that the content you see is not reflective of the experience as a whole. 

Experiences without brands  

While our work is certainly about the experience, we also need to show the value of the brand. It’s not just about drinking champagne, it’s about which champagne you’re drinking. When you strip out the brand and there isn’t any messaging, you just live, and exist and experience it. And there is something quite wonderful about that, because in modern life your attention is constantly being vied for by brands, which can have a negative impact on whatever you’re experiencing.

A lot of people focus on the music and huge sound camps with mega DJs, but the majority of Burning Man consists of smaller theme camps who put on workshops and all sorts of events from pillow fights to art shows. It shows that when you lead with genuine experience and put people first, the experience will inevitably be much better and more memorable as a result. If brands can take themselves out of the equation and focus on providing something that people actually care about, it can create impact in a way that wouldn't be possible if the focus was on the branding and the messaging. 

You’ll know someone went to Burning Man because they’ll fucking tell you. In part, because they want the cultural kudos (let’s be real) but mostly because people always leave with so many incredible moments to share. And that’s because the experiences are genuinely built around people, which is a rare and beautiful thing in this day and age. 

So although going this year wasn’t on the cards for me, I’d go again in a heartbeat.