(Washington) The participants of the American alternative festival Burning Man could no longer go to or leave the site on Saturday, installed in the Nevada desert, because of heavy rains which transformed the place into a field of mud and forced the organizers to close the doors.
“The gates and airport of Black Rock City (the name of the site, editor’s note) remain closed, all entry or exit is delayed until further notice”, repeated at regular intervals since midnight the account X (ex-Twitter) of Burning Man.
The organizers also invited participants already there to “conserve water, food and fuel and find a warm and safe shelter”.
Due to the heavy showers, “la playa”, a huge esplanade characteristic of the event, was made impassable.
If the rains stopped during the day, they should be back on Sunday, the last day of the festival, while temperatures in the night from Saturday to Sunday should drop around 10 degrees, still according to the account of the organizers.
The majority of the planned activities have been suspended, including the burning of the wooden giant installed in the center of “la playa”, which marks the end of the festival and gives it its name.
The festival had faced an intense heat wave last year with strong winds which had already made the experience difficult for the “burners”, the name of the festival-goers.
Launched in 1986 in San Francisco, Burning Man aims to be an indefinable event, between celebration of the counter-culture and spiritual retreat.
Originally held on a beach in San Francisco, Burning Man has become a structured festival, with a budget of nearly $45 million (2018 figures) and more than 75,000 participants in the last edition, down from the previous one in 2019.
It has been organized since the 1990s in the Black Rock Desert, a protected area in northwestern Nevada, which the organizers are committed to preserving.
