Burning Man LIVE

Remember that whiteout in deep playa? That prepared you for a NASA mission to space, maybe.

Andie Grace talks with Samuel M. Coniglio, aka Ranger Spacecat, and Spaceman Sam. He isn't just a ten-year Black Rock Ranger and a veteran of the legendary Neverwas Haul (that three-story Victorian house on wheels)...

He’s a writer, inventor, and futurist who worked on the Space Shuttle and the ISS. From his Zero-G cocktail glass, to his book about making offworld living worth living, he studies creature comforts in extreme environments. 

Stuart Mangrum opens the show wit...

George Paap, a pioneer of the Burning Man Regional network, talks with Andie Grace.

He founded Burning Flipside in Texas, the first-ever Burning Man sanctioned event beyond the desert. What inspired him? Black Rock City 1997. He found freedom there, and it sparked a lifelong mission.

Hear his adventures of building a culture from scratch, and why, as a futurist, he believes Burners are steady & ready to handle the societal shifts ahead.

There’s a world of civic hacking where "making cool stuff" meets "making useful stuff."

Hear tinkerers, gearheads and other makers share about the inventions that won them Burners Without Borders Civic Ignition Grants. These grants are little sparks that fire up the next level of open-source technology for all of our community, and for all the world.

Colin Jemmott and MJ Brovold of YOUtopia, the San Diego Regional event, share about their low maintenance light source that’s sturdy, solar-powered, and buildable by anyone. They're also building a huge steel pop-up book! 

Sam S...

Insightful. World-Building. Spit-take inducing.

Mark Day’s videos serve as a digital gateway for many thousands of Burners, capturing that blurry edge where the default world ends and the playa begins. 

From his early days building tripper trappers and doing stand up comedy, to his controversial tinkering with AI art (think Dalmatians made of donuts), Mark has put 10,000 hours into his “24 Hours at Burning Man” videos.

Andie Grace talks with this unique content creator to explore thresholds and multitudes. They discuss how to capture the moment and also experience it. They dive head first i...

It's absurd.
It perturbs.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! (And boy has it been a year!)

Following in the footsteps of show-biz luminaries like Stephen Colbert, Jon Stuart, and the cast of Star Wars, we hosted a (non-denominational) holiday show in front of a live online pseudo-studio audience in 2020.

Broadcasting from their snowed-in virtual holiday cabins, Stuart and Andie entertained guests:
· Santa Zero - originator of the now-infamous SantaCon phenomenon
· Mrs. Claus - founder of Burning Man’s first theme camp, Christmas Camp
· Tubatron and his Flaming Tu...

His huge steel sculptures have graced Black Rock City for decades, then found forever homes in cities, festivals, and private collections around the world.

Hear veteran structural sculptor Michael Christian go deep and wide about his Burning Man art, from a tree of bones to a 65-foot tall tower.

He shares about his installation "Down the Drain," a commentary on human alignment, or misalignment... or maybe it’s about toilets blowing kisses at each other!

He talks with Stuart about the shift from a "lone artist" mindset to community collaboration, and how to ge...

RootHub (aka Aloha) weaves the core values and shared struggle of building Black Rock City and his work in Hawai‘i. He draws inspiration from the Hawaiian people’s concept of kuleana (responsibility to the land and community).

When he’s not building BRC with DPW, or playing music to amplify people’s stories, he’s diverting food waste from landfills and incinerators into much needed, nutrient-dense soil for growing food. He does this through his companies. The names say it all:

· Full Circle Solutions Hawaii

· Leftover Love Company ("We love your leftovers")

Hear how...

He brought theme camps and art installations to Black Rock City, and yes, he DJed!

Now he brings the spirit of kindness and collaboration (and Do-ocracy) into creating public policy.

He co-founded a Burning Man Regional nonprofit.

He directed a cultural arts center.

He collaborated on cultural policy for racial equity, social justice, and creative sustainability.

He ran the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture.

He now creates affordable housing through community development projects.

He says that nonprofit and public sector work is open source, “so...

“I think therefore I am.” ~Descartes
John Jennifer adds: 
I care therefore we are… and you cannot think your way to ‘we’

He is a poet, an architect, and a cultural instigator. He helped create The Museum of No Spectators which includes Burning Man art of snark and social justice, but no velvet ropes.

He’s a paradox embracer. In a world of binaries, he asserts that between black and white is not a gradient of gray; between black and white is all the conceivable colors.

Hear him philosophize about different styles of art...

She’s a longtime senior leader of the Black Rock Rangers and the principal of the Gerlach K-12 School. Keeper lives year-round in Gerlach, one of the smallest and most remote towns in the US, and the closest community to Black Rock City.

In this storytelling episode, she shares her unique perspective on blending the worlds of Burning Man and rural life.

She tells the tales of keeping the town’s school open after the local mine closed, transforming it into an all-ages institution of families. 

She shares about how locals offer a year...

Black Rock City has an airport, a hospital, a post office... and yes, an observatory! For a decade, the Black Rock Observatory has served as a portal to the cosmos, bringing deep space to the desert.

Father-and-son Zoom and Robin Newhouse are at the helm of the observatory that houses several telescopes for viewing planets, galaxies, and even our sun. They offer a museum of meteorites that are billions of years old, and they even have custom tarot cards. The Observatory's theme camp serves as an expert nexus: It is home to Space Talks with physicists and pr...

Recorded in Black Rock City, you can hear the grainy gravitas of their voices...

For decades now, Jon Sarriugarte, Kyrsten Mate, their daughter and their team build mobile art. 

From a meter maid cart turned space shuttle, to a custom copper retro fire snail on wheels, their creations make up part of BRC's moving landscape. They built a trilobite to ride, a gilded golden zeppelin car, and a noir submarine buggy.

Then there are the Serpent Twins. Back in 2011, when the playa glowed with now outdated EL wire, these 50-foot long slithering dragons r...

Hear the stories of the art and artists. Black Rock City hosts 400 artworks from around the world. This episode features 12 of them, and this year’s Temple. 

This is a sonic journey of artist's recordings and chats with Burning Man Project's Director of Art, Katie Hazard. 

Desert Arts Preview is your chance to step behind the scenes and listen to the process of creating interactive, collaborative, community-built artworks.

This episode explores: 

REMASTERED FOR 2025: Our most popular episode of all time. 

Listen in as longtime Burners talk about the dynamic aspects of thriving in Black Rock City: mental, physical, material, and relational.
Andie, kbot, Molly, Stuart, and Vav explore:

and much more and other and new!

Featuring cameos from longtime Burners: Anjelika, Chef Juke, Crimson Rose, DA, Dave X, Halcyon, KJ, and Lulu Lurine.

They discuss doing it all, doing it right, and doing it wrong, as access to being r...

Zander was the executive director of The Long Now Foundation, dedicated to long term thinking. He also helped build their library, a book club for the end of the world, with all the titles we would want to rebuild civilization, if needed. 

He is one of the brains behind the 10,000-Year Clock, designed to tick off the years, and chime the centuries. He’s now co-creating the future of the web at Automattic. 

He and his team are bringing a library to Black Rock City, to the World’s Fair pavilion under The Man. It’s a refr...

AI is a context changer, a shaker upper, and a force multiplier to what our human minds can do.

Andie says that AI is a major philosophical shift in humanity, and when this kind of thing happens, the first people she goes to are artists and academics.

Andie and Stuart talked with a few artists and academics about their AI infused art coming to Black Rock City. They share their dreams and nightmares, and how to 'go beyond.'

 · Chad Elish — Verse-O-Matic

 · Kate Greenberg, Deva Temple, Eric Vicenti — "Out the Other"

 · D...

Kevin Kelly is a leading thinker of the digital age. The founding editor of Wired Magazine, he helped produce the Whole Earth Catalog, and an early internet pillar called the WELL. He is a journalist, an artist, and a longtime member of the Burning Man community.

He is a radical optimist.

The future is a construct of the collective imagination. We see utopian stories as too pie-in-the-sky. We have a morbid curiosity for dystopian stories. What’s in between? Iterative improvement. Protopia.

Delve into this conversation on cultural narratives, the transformative potential of AI...

Black Rock City's soundscape is a wild ride from Afro-punk to Zydeco. This episode explores the why and how of two styles: 

Stuart, a self-proclaimed EDM newbie, gets a crash course from a DJ in the know. He chats with a legendary DJ about how Burning Man transmogrifies DJ culture into something utterly unique. It’s a refreshing deep dive for aficionados!

Then, Allie spins the radio dial through BRC's sonic smorgasbord and tun...

Leo is a pioneering light artist, bringing teams and tech together to activate buildings, bridges, and bastions. He started Burning in 1994, founded Disorient camp, and is part of Black Rock City every year.

Here he shares his journey from crafting a single beacon at his tent to leading monumental art projects that reshaped skylines. He illuminated the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, the historic bridges of London, and projects everywhere from NYC to Tokyo.

Join Leo and Stuart on how the open-source innovation of BRC impacts the default world. Leo shares his process for conjuring...

Thunderdome has been part of Black Rock City for 25 years. Marisa Winter has led it for most of that time. One need not experience it to benefit from the wisdom of a high-profile, high-intensity theme camp.

Marisa and Stuart talk through the leadership structure and community practices that result in Thunderdome's chaotic harmony of performance, showmanship, and cathartic “consensual violence.” 

Marisa shares insights gleaned from decades of theme camp operation, like

· Letting people make non-permanent mistakes allows them to own the lessons

· Prioritizing community is never the wrong answer

· Making h...

Most people in Black Rock City live together in placed camps, aka theme camps, the most unique aspect of this unique event. BRC has 1200 camps.

At the intersection of Communal Effort, Self-Expression, and Immediacy, theme camps gift a uniquely decommodified ‘third place’ of offerings and ambiance.

At this annual symposium, staff and volunteers share how they gift their interactive camps to participants. There’s an art and a science to it. These highlights are about the art of it.

Solar power is simple now, thanks in part to Burners who gift the power of the sun. The Burners in this episode also gift steamed rolls with savory fillings, called bao — so much delicious bao.

The theme camp “Bao Chicka Wow Wow” has been a part of Black Rock City for a decade. Its campmates share the prosperity of bao with artist groups, volunteer teams, and participants lucky enough to find their camp or their pop-up “restaurant row,” all powered by custom solar kits.

David Hau (Chairman Bao), Marcus De Paula (Next Level), and their campmates...

Explore the magic monuments of Black Rock City 2025.

Katie Hazard, Director of Art, leads the selection, placement, and installation of artwork,  and she leads Burning Man's art grant selection committees. 

The ARTery is in the center of Black Rock City, slightly offset like the human heart. It’s the epicenter of art support for nearly 400 art pieces, from towering sculptures to immersive environments.

Before these art projects are sourced, crafted, and assembled with everything from hot glue to heavy equipment, they are first conceptualized by artists and engineers. Burning Man’s Honoraria project grants...

Legend whispers of a time when Burning Man was a lawless Eden, a fiery playground of unbridled do-ocracy; no rules, just pure creative chaos. But as Black Rock City has grown into a thriving metropolis, so has the need for structure. We've gone from jokey forms for an ‘artistic license’ to complex permit obligations. We’ve gone from giving ourselves permission to taking on a system that can feel overwhelming.

How can we better balance radical self-expression with the necessities of a city? How can we purge bureaucracy, or are all those old rules essential for safety and su...

Mutant vehicles! Theme camps! Art experiences! It all emanates from the community… overlapping circles of people who are everywhere between being newcomers and seasoned, local and global, young and old.

Andie Grace talks with next-gen Burners Taylor Andrews, Kat Ebert, Mani Senthil, and Whitney Wilhelmy about how to find your crew like you never thought possible.

They break down barriers and clear pathways through an initiative called “Rising Sparks” which demystifies BRC and Regional events, and guides Burners to get more from the magic.

They explore the art of participation: 

Hundreds of people create the temple in Black Rock City. It’s a community intent on creating a work of art that is a space for people to grieve and revive.

For the first few years of Black Rock City we didn't have a temple. Now, people can't imagine living without it. Each year, participants create messages, tributes, and altars for who and what they want to release. The event culminates with the burning of the temple in what organically evolved to be a silent Burn.

Listen to Stuart talk with Miguel Arraiz García, the...

Disasters happen. Communities come together to recover and rebuild. Governments and NGOs help however they know how.  

Will Heegaard sees every disaster as a chance to build back greener. His non-profit provides power and water from nature.
· power from the sun – instead of gas generators
· water from the air – instead of plastic water bottles

He helped with disaster relief from hurricanes in Florida, North Carolina, and Puerto Rico.
He helped in West Africa, in the Philippines, and with the Maui Fires.
He helped with the LA Fires.

And he taught h...

Back again by popular demand: more tales from Burning Man’s oral history project, an ambitious endeavor to track down and talk with people who helped shape the culture as we now know it.

Hear stories of early technology on the playa, in Silicon Valley, and on the internet.

 · Andie Grace, aka Actiongrl, interviews from the vantage of having co-created Burning Man’s world of communications, from Media Mecca to this very podcast.
 · Brian Behlendorf - technologist and open-source software pioneer. He developed Burning Man’s online presence and connected people through the Venn diagram of...

He is a celebrated author, entrepreneur, leadership maven, and a founding Board Member of Burning Man Project. He’s a serial contributor to the culture and the cause.

In this episode, Chip and Stuart explore how to use the 10 Principles to make conversations interesting and how a description of Black Rock City always becomes a riddle.

They resist the urge to quiz newbies on the 10 Principles, while they also say that Burners should not take themselves too seriously. 

They try on the notion that nothing matters and everything’s humorous.

They make...

Burners often speak about the work it takes to prepare their art, art car, or camp for Black Rock City, but for many, it doesn’t end there. A project sparked in the desert or at Regional Events can take on a life of its own, continuing year-round in surprising ways.

What happens when a camp or mutant vehicle takes a break from Black Rock City? After all the Communal Effort devoted to their playa project, do they even know how to stop? Apparently not... and the world benefits.

kbot and Stuart speak with people wh...

Tom Price co-founded Burners Without Borders, Black Rock Solar, and a company that gifts clean-burning kitchens to people in Kenya.

Tom talks about the weather, specifically hurricanes, and how Burners Without Borders started and grows despite extreme circumstances because Burners are extreme!

Tom’s tales of adventure include paperwork pranks and ad hoc Cajun catharsis. If Burning Man is a permission engine, giving people agency in their lives, he says the lesson of Burning Man is finding out what is too much and then finding the sweet spot.

Note: The company names they joke...

Academics from everywhere experiment, collaborate, and even interpret our stories of "This one time at Burning Man."

In this episode, Stuart talks with people from Burning Nerds, an annual gathering of academics in Black Rock City. They keep it light, though; not too many unnecessarily fancy words. 

Dr Jukka-Pekka Heikkilä describes the technique used by the Burning Man Project that gives more power to the people. 

Bryan Yazell and Patricia Wolf of the University of Southern Denmark use Flash Fiction in BRC to develop a new subgenre of sci-fi called climate fiction (‘cli-fi’), stories...

Everywhere? 

Regional events actively align with Burning Man's 10 Principles. 85 official events happen in 30 countries, with collectively more participants and more art grants than the original Nevada event.

After 25 years, the combined regional presence is huge, diverse, and evolving, and it all started in one place: Black Rock City. Whether you're Burning in New York or New Zealand, all backroads lead back to BRC.

We called a bunch of the Regional leaders to see how things are going out in their other homes away from home. We heard from Argentina, China, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, I...

Thousands of people volunteer each year in Black Rock City, for days, weeks, or months. Add to that the volunteers at the many Regional events around the world and it’s more than can be counted on fingers and toes. 

Why do we volunteer?

Is it because we feel we received a gift and we want to pay it back, or pay it forward?

Is it the meditation of hard work in a hard place adding a dimension to our experience?

Is it the chance to do something different, for a pix...

Burning Man doesn't make itself. The people who share their time and treasure, they create this weird wonder. Each of these people have stories about how Burning Man influenced their lives and how their lives influenced Burning Man. 

The Flaming Tuba Guy is one of these people. His name is David Silverman aka Tubatron. Andie Grace talked with him about how his animation career started, how his musical career started, how the Mansonian Institute started, how his career with The Simpsons started, and how that influenced his involvement with Burning Man and vice versa. He also volunteers a...

Allow us to introduce you to the people who called the Black Rock Desert “home” way before we did. This is your backstage pass to the original Burners of the Great Basin: The Pyramid Lake Paiute. 

Strap in for a road trip that's part history lesson, part cultural exchange, and essential listening for when you wonder, "Who lived here before we showed up in tutus?"

We're not just passing through, we're digging deep with…

Marian Goodell, CEO of Burning Man Project, talks with a lively audience as part of Robot Heart’s Residency in Oakland, California. She is joined by Candace Locklear (aka Evil Pippi), Erin Douglas of the Black Burner Project, and Robot Heart’s Justin Schaffer and Satya Kamdar.

It’s casual. It’s layered. It’s a room of Burners.

What constitutes culture jamming? Where does Burning Man bridge the divide to bring people together? How have pillars of our culture evolved from awkward beginnings?

They swap stories about the perks of unbranding. They joke about...

Take a trip through the puzzle of porta-potties at a free-range event, highway happenings, and the new news about prep. This is deeper than “What is MOOP?” This is the ART of Leaving No Trace.

It’s part of the Burning Man ethos, and it’s why Black Rock City is the world's largest Leave No Trace event. Now nearly 100 other Burning Man events around the globe adhere to this attitude, this mindset. It’s an ongoing quest to leave less and less of a trace. As the principle is written, it invites us to leave spaces in better...

Burning Man culture brings people together across all kinds of divides, yet we’re seeing an uptick of intolerance toward art and experiences in our community. The default world is often divided by ideology, religion, and politics. Could that division seep into this culture that aspires to welcome everyone?

How can we navigate the turbulent waters between, say, Radical Self-expression and Radical Inclusion? How do we walk the line between free speech and hate speech? How do we keep our global community together in times of outright war?

Listen in on a roundtable discussion about co...

Tony “Coyote” Perez may be the best at thriving (and not dying) at Burning Man. He is the Black Rock City Superintendent, the Burning Man OSHA Instructor, and the 26-year Burner whose job it is to put himself in harm's way and then get out of his own way!

Sit in on a chuckling conversation between Stuart and Coyote. They put the wisdom in wise-crack. It’s not because they’re so smart; it’s because they’ve made every mistake and then asked why and how. 

This is not a list of tips and tricks—those...