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Black Rock City, LLC Gets Green Light from the BLM for 2012 Event

June 12, 2012, San Francisco, California. – Black Rock City, LLC, the organization that hosts the annual Burning Man event, is pleased to announce that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has authorized a Special Recreation Permit (SRP) for this year’s event, set to take place from August 27-September 3rd on the Black Rock Desert Playa, approximately 8.5 miles north of Gerlach, Nevada.

In addition to authorizing the one-year SRP, the BLM signed a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) on the related Environmental Assessment (EA) of Burning Man’s proposed actions for 2012-2016. Black Rock City, LLC has been working with BLM and Aspen Environmental Group for the past two years to complete this EA. The document suggests environmental mitigations based upon a gradual increase in population to 70,000 over the next five years.

For this year’s event, the BLM has set a maximum population of approximately 60,900 participants, or “citizens” of Black Rock City.

“As we celebrate this milestone, we’d like to thank our partners at the BLM and look forward to working with them towards securing a multi-year permit in the near future,” said Marian Goodell, Burning Man co-founder and Black Rock City LLC’s Director of Business and Communications.

Burning Man is the largest permitted event held on Federal land. For twenty years, the Black Rock Desert, north of Reno, Nevada, has played host to the annual art event, which began on a beach in San Francisco in 1986 and has grown to attract more than 55,000 participants annually, from every state of the Union and twenty-three countries worldwide. The BLM has issued a permit for Burning Man each year since 1992.

Curious about how this will impact further ticket distributions for this year’s Burn?  See this blog post.

As anyone who has walked back to camp after watching the sun come up out at the trash fence will tell you: the playa is big. Really big. Gigantic and huge to boot. But it’s even bigger than that. Really. Really. Big.

It’s so big the only way I can explain it is to show you a picture and hope that you click on it:

This is a 110 megapixel panoramic image I shot of the Black Rock desert last Wednesday. It’s made out of 42 individual images, and stretches all the way from the Temple of Transition all the way back to Gerlach. Click on the image to see the whole thing in high-rez interactive animated detail.  Requires Flash and a full water container. Extra sunscreen would be a good idea, too.

Tales From The Playa are dreams and memories of events that took place at Burning Man, as told by its participants.

If you’ve never been to the Playa in the winter, you’re missing out on quite a powerful experience. Benjamin “Jets” Wilner was out there this winter, and he recorded his thoughts, and took some striking pictures. While he sent us this back in February, we thought you’d enjoy it … even in the springtime. He writes:

“I’m sitting in the Reno airport, and thanks to the free wifi I have something to do besides waste the money I barely have in the slot machines they have here.

Playa in Winter, Photo by Benjamin Wilner

I came up here to this cold city in the dead of winter for one reason: I just wanted to see the Playa in the opposite state of how I’m used to seeing it. For no particular reason, really, other than just being there. It’s something I’ve wanted to do ever since my first Burn, in 2008. The Black Rock Desert is barren enough even during Burn week each year, but I couldn’t imagine what it was like in the winter when it’s completely empty, so I wanted to see it for myself that way. Read more »