Anybody whose been to Burning Man will tell you that you have to go there to understand what it is. That’s not necessarily true. One can learn a great deal about the experience if one only listens to their annoying friend who goes every year, has for the last ten years straight, as a matter of fact — each time is more mind-blowing than the last, as you might have guessed. Your friend won’t stop talking about it, actually.

Burners call it home. You get a playa name like Precarious Fox, or Indigenous Erectus, which is pretty cool. You have to enter a raffle to get tickets, no matter what sort of status you hold there, which is also legit.

But, what does Burning Man stand for anyway?

The event takes its name from its culmination, the symbolic ritual burning of a large wooden effigy (also called “The Man”) that gets more elaborate every year. If everything goes to plan, the burning of the man happens Saturday evening of the event. Burning Man likes to believe that it incorporates the following philosophical tenets:
radical inclusion (for some, more like radical insulation); gifting (not just herpes and HPV); self-reliance (but, really, it’s communal alliance); radical self-expression; and civic responsibility (to an extent). It takes a small army to clean up after the privileged folk who attend Burning Man each year, with plenty of bikes left behind (upwards of 5,000, actually) that get donated to charity (which is actually pretty cool).

Burning Man also stands for sweet art installations and musical acts slightly crappier and more esoteric than Coachella. People offensively continue to misappropriate headdresses at both events. But where else can you ride a bicycle in the buff? S’all good in the Burning Man hood, far as stuff like that goes.

“Keep Burning Man Potentially Fatal” is one tagline you might see out there. Black Rock City, for all its rules and regulations, began as a largely autonomous zone. YOU MIGHT DIE, your ticket warns, and that would be your responsibility. People go to monthly meetings in preparation for the one-week event, as lame as that sounds. Others go to several parties and themed-evenings throughout the year until they go back “home,” for the requisite one-week-maximum burn.

There are plenty of ways to die in the desert: overdose, murder, death by art car. Just like how Manson invaded the summer of love, bringing the party to a dead stop, there are plenty of real jerks, sources of evil, and flat-out unfortunate events that can happen. Darkness is waiting to pounce upon the naïve and defenseless out on the playa. There’s also mass amounts of ineptitude going on as the Black Rock Desert becomes the third largest city in Nevada for one week. For every Bedouin out there exists a Yang to their Yin, a moronic hedonist who can’t have nice things, a buzz kill waiting to happen.

In order to get a full picture of Burning Man, you might need an unbiased opinion, which is what I’ve attempted to achieve here.

15. That Whole Rape Thing

Rape occurrences are plentiful at Burning Man and could be an article all unto itself (and is, as a matter of fact). Just be aware of this hidden problem that Burning Man likes to sweep under the rug.

As recent as 2012 it was reported that Burning man still wasn’t equipped with “rape kits.”
Remember this fact while eating caviar forked off of another person’s nether region while pouring champagne down a gypsy’s throat with a live violinist playing alongside a mediocre DJ spinning deep jungle house among velvet tapestries.

It might be shocking to find that in such an environment where people flirt their way to sleeping ditch upgrades with a new “host” every night (it even sounds bacterial), that they might be dealing with entitled jerks who might not have other people’s best interests in mind. They also might not hear the word “no” very often. Take heed in such a hedonistic environment. Be careful what you give up for a spot next to a port a potty — but not too near, so you don’t have to be exposed to the fumes.

14. Motorcycle Accident

Michael Furey, a neon artist, drank at a bar until dusk during set up days in 1996, decided it was a fine idea to drive home. There was somebody in a van driving back at the same time, and Michael thought it was also a good idea to start playing chicken with that white van, eventually being decapitated by the side mirror.

Joe Fenton an early Black Rock ranger added that, “when Furey died, the first thing Larry [Harvey, Burning Man founder] did was look at his watch. He made sure to say it happened at 11:30 the night before the event officially began. So it didn’t happen at the festival but before the festival, as if Furey’s death was somehow not related. It was a stupid, alcoholic, moronic death. But you couldn’t deny that he chose this event to die at.”

Make sure you look out for your own out there, because best believe most people out there are looking out for number one. Maybe don’t play chicken and don’t be a jackass on a motorcycle, too.

13. Erika The Red

In 2011, Erika “The Red” Kupfersberger passed away from a cerebral hemorrhage at Burning Man. Her aneurysm occurred on the playa in 2011 and had very little to due with her being at the festival, to be fair. People have had recorded heart attacks and strokes during the event, and not infrequently — sometimes not having anything to do with environmental factors.

Erika’s sister, Kira wrote in a touching post that “Erika’s edema coincided with the burning of the Man, occurring on the Friday night of the festival. As she was inundated with water, the man was consumed by flames.”

12. It Can Get You In Your Sleep

You can fall victim to dumb stuff while you sleep, so proceed with caution. A 45-year-old man this year was found by Pershing County Sheriff’s Office in severe pain and tended to by medical personnel, according to People, after being hit by a Burning Man employee. The driver was a 35-year-old female, who police volunteered for the Lamplighters.

The victim was airlifted to Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno, Nevada, where he remained in stable condition with several injuries. Chill.

11. Not Even DJs Are Safe

You might be a sick DJ and think you’re on top of the world. You hold down what some might call the best job in the world. Even though you probably aren’t good enough to get into Coachella or a music festival that actually matters, you can play the crap out of Burning Man, reaping all the benefits in the process (free drugs, easy hanky panky, etc.). However, Adam Goldstone, a DJ with a heart condition as well-known as his spinning, died in an RV in 2006 after fainting. Pray that he’s playing that great gig in the sky as you read this.

10. Listen To Your Heart

In 2005 Sam Rich, member of Controlled Burn, a fire-dancing crew, died in a way that really surprised everyone… of a heart attack. Rich sustained a head injury that Wednesday and was given stitches on the spot just the day before he died. He’s that guy who you’re sure is going to expire one way (death by fire-dancing, for instance), but, instead, passes in a way that comes completely out of left field. It just goes to show you, don’t be so quick to pass off any injury you suffer, and don’t take any previous or existing heart conditions lightly at Burning Man.

9. Die Like A Rich Guy

Some people just can’t help themselves when it comes to showboating. In 2003 one fatality occurred at Burning Man with two aircraft-related crashes that same year — must have been something in the water. Barry Jacobs, the pilot of one of the planes, died after being hospitalized from doing rich guy stuff. Since when did Burning Man become our 20-year high school reunion, anyway?

If you’re going to use Burning Man as a platform to demonstrate your value or thrill-seek, make sure you do so in the safest way possible. Maybe just don’t do planes, either; just a thought.

8. Death By Art Car #1

In 2003 Katherine Lampman was run over by an art car she was exiting. ePlaya reported that, “she had been dehydrated and twisted her ankle when she fell, and that, “according to event organizers, her death marked the first time a participant died at the event.” If you don’t count Furey, the motorcycle man, then the statement is accurate.

One can’t help but wonder if this one could have been avoided. She was reported to have tried her “darndest to live her life like every day was her last.” The festival was important to Lampman; she did not know if she’d ever be able to attend if she didn’t go that year.

7. Death By Art Car #2

Art gallery manager Alicia Louise Cipicchio was struck by a fur-covered party bus called “Shagadelica,” which, I have to admit, is both the saddest and grooviest sentence I’ve ever had to write. Shagadelica also sounds like a name for an album that’s sitting lifelessly on Outkast’s cutting room floor. Cipicchio is said to have fallen off the bus, landing under the wheels. She was a unique spirit and an interesting person, so much so that a list article just like this one exists with some amazing facts about her life.

6. The Burn

It seems like the dangers of letting a large edifice burn to the ground would be known to organizers, yet stories like these seem to come up more than once. The first one on record was from back in 2001, when a participant chose to run into a fire, according to the Afterburn, likely after the burning of something called “Amazing Larry’s Lucky Seven Ages,” a casino built into two large dice in the deep playa. Question mark.

5. A Model Burner

Former Hong Kong model Rosemary Vandenbroucke, who was arrested at the event in 2010 on drug charges (ecstasy possession), got into trouble again only a day after being released on bail. At least you know her answer in case your pickup line is, “You party?”

Vandenbroucke didn’t stop there; she crashed her rented motorhome into Reno’s famed Biggest Little City in the World arch. She fled the scene, but eyewitnesses helped identify her vehicle, which resulted in Vandenbroucke being booked a second time within a 24-hour span. She might not have gotten the memo about Burning Man’s philosophical tenets. We’ve all been there, am I right?

4. The One-Armed Bandit

Back in 2003, Christopher Scott Johnson, a man who would later be known as the “One-Armed Bandit,” showed up at the Department of Public Works (DPW) ranch looking for work. Sounds like the setup to a James Dean movie, I know. Anyway, The One-Armed Bandit’s erratic behavior and his excessive boasting about having killed a man prompted the ranch manager (named Metric, of course) and Will Roger to call the police. They discovered that Johnson wasn’t kidding around; he had, in fact, stabbed a man to death in a van… by the river! — (just kidding). He stabbed his man on the road to the playa.

3. Jermaine “Jerm” Barley

Suicide isn’t really anything new at Burning Man, and it wasn’t at the time of the notable death of 22 year old Jermaine “Jerm” Barley in 2007. Besides having a name that sounds like a lost character from To Kill a Mockingbird, Jerm was a DJ who went by the name of Optic Orange, and, also, a fitness enthusiast. He died by hanging himself in a Moroccan-style tent full of gym equipment at Comfort & Joy camp.

Sadly, Jerm’s suicide went undetected for some time, some reporting that it had looked like a dummy. Jerm was no dummy. Some actually believed it was some sort of art installation. Mellow. Reports of the event that year included several arrests as police were also bogged down with calls having to do with sexual assault.

2. Aaron Joel Mitchell

Friends and family are still mourning the death of Aaron Joel Mitchell, who evaded security officials, juking his way into the middle of Burning Man’s signature ceremony in front of 50,000 onlookers for this year’s burn. Anybody who wasn’t there might call it poetic (maybe some who were there might call it that, too), some might call it meta, many would also call it a tragedy. There are images taken at the festival of Mitchell, 41 and from Switzerland, running into the flames that look ripped straight from The Last of the Mohicans. He left behind a wife and many confused friends and family members who are still trying to make sense of the event.

1. Paul Addis

“When you meet the Buddha, you must kill the Buddha.” ~ Old Buddhist saying.

Performance artist and playwright (with no known address) Paul Addis burned the famous namesake icon five days early back in August 2007. He singlehandedly set the 40-foot-tall man-edifice on fire much to the chagrin of orgainizers.

First off, this guy was kind of a legend, pulling what some might call the ultimate prank. It’s up for debate whether you think it was a criminal, deranged, insane, or awesomely punk rock thing to do, but he definitely got the book thrown at him with a 12-48 month prison sentence and a $25,000 fine, and was also ostracized from the Burning Man crowd.

“This was not an act of vengeance, it was one of love,” Addis said. “A love of the ethos that is fading at Burning Man. There’s no sense of spontaneity. No sense of ‘F- it. Let’s burn this down.’ ” He just wanted to burn this mother down, that’s all. Sadly, Addis would end up making headlines again as he flung himself into a city-bound train at Embarcadero Station.

No matter if you think Burning Man still makes any sort of legit statement, whether you believe that Burning Man has become a bloated caricature of itself or not, the bottom line is this: know what you’re getting into. Don’t glamorize the event in your head. Be practical. Be aware. Keep a healthy suspicion, so long as it doesn’t kill your vibe. And, lastly, maybe if you’ve been there 10 years in a row, maybe it’s time to find a new adventure. Maybe it’s time to give your ticket up to somebody whose never been there yet.