Burning Man Festival: A Celebration of Art

After two days of rain that left the sprawling Burning Man festival awash in mud, by Sunday evening the ongoing art party of 72,000 people was still upbeat amid general good spirits.

Gerardo Mendoza of New York City walked across the city with a large suitcase balanced on his head, his feet sliding on the slowly drying mud. Like many Burning Man attendees, he dismissed suggestions that the event had been anything other than a success. The culmination of the nine-day event, the burning of a towering sculpture called The Man, built anew each year, was called off Sunday afternoon.
They make up a small portion of the 73,257 people who were in attendance Friday night. By Sunday the population was at around 72,000. Most attendees took advantage of the improved weather Sunday afternoon to walk the desert floor one last time to admire the remaining art. Some visited still-open free bars hosted by other camps or dismantled their elaborate shade structures and dance stages.
Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey laid out 10 principles of Burning Man in 2004, among them inclusion of all who wish to take part, unconditional sharing and gift-giving, self-reliance, and civic responsibility. Burning Man is all about self-expression and the rejection of corporatism and capitalism Instead of using money, attendees borrow, barter, and trade.