ABSTRACT
The culture of Burning Man is catching fire, and spreading across the Atlantic. This can be thought of almost literally: in 2008, the Irish festival Electric Picnic set ablaze the Temple of Truth a towering, 55-foot structure which burned to the ground on the last night of the celebration. It was an intricate, filigree installation built in the typical style of the San Franciscan artist David Best, a Burning Man regular. It is true that one could take the similar burning spectacle at Green Man festival in Wales, a finale that arguably holds stronger connections to neo-pagan mythology than to Burning Man, and argue that these instances merely coincide with established practices found elsewhere. To the festivals industry, Burning Man represents a seductive example of an event that has advanced novel differentiation, in large part, because it has flourished outside of the conventional ticket-selling, concert-model formula.
