HHeavy rain has turned the Burning Man Festival, famous for its eponymous statue, into a mudslinging in the Nevada desert. Organizers urged festivalgoers on Saturday to “save food, water and fuel” and take shelter in a “warm, safe place.” The rain was expected to continue until Sunday evening.
The annual festival, which marks the conclusion of the burning of a 45-foot statue, was due to end on Monday. “Do not travel to Black Rock City!” the organizers warned, using the name of the festival site on the online service Twitter, which was renamed “X”. Access to the festival was closed for the rest of the event “and you will be sent away,” it said.
Because of the rain, the “Playa”, the huge open space in the middle of which the statue stands, was impassable.
Burning Man started in San Francisco in 1986. It sees itself as an indefinable event somewhere between a celebration of counterculture and a spiritual retreat.
From small beginnings on a San Francisco beach, Burning Man has grown into a structured festival with an annual budget of nearly $45 million. Last year, 75,000 people took part. Since the 1990s, Burning Man has been held in the Black Rock Desert of northwestern Nevada.
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