[PHOTOS] Burning Man 2024 served sexy, surreal Alice in Wonderland weirdness

Nearly all major cities have their own gayborhood. San Francisco has the Castro, New York has Hell’s Kitchen, Los Angeles has West Hollywood, and Black Rock City has 7:30. For those uninitiated in Burning Man culture, that last one may sound weird, but weirdness is just part of the Burn’s charm.

Last week, freaks and geeks from across the globe assembled in the Nevada desert to erect Black Rock City, the clock-shaped, dust-tinged metropolis that houses Burning Man. Equal parts art festival, sociocultural experiment, and hedonistic bacchanal, the Burn provides an otherworldy escape from the mundane “default world” where its denizens embrace radical principles and explore the outré side of their personalities. For those of you who missed out on this temporary oasis of community and chaos, we’ve snatched some of the Burn’s queerest moments, in every definition of that word.

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Curiosity Burned the Cat

Each year, Burning Man explores an overarching theme, which has ranged from simple concepts such as “Evolution” and “Metropolis,” to more specific ones such as 2016’s “DaVinci’s Workshop,” with its ambitious attempt to create a rotating Vitruvian version of the Man. (They never quite got it to work as intended, but hey, it was worth a shot.) This year’s theme of “Curiouser and Curiouser” referenced the surreal classic Alice and Wonderland, reflected in Cheshire Cat art cars, deep playa tea parties, and steampunk Mad Hatters.

A Burner by any other name would smell as sweet

An honored tradition of Burning Man is adopting “playa names,” monikers bestowed upon Burners, often by accident. For example, Patrick (pictured below) received the mantel of “North Star” when his friend complimented his ability to consistently orient himself on the pitch-black playa.

A Beautiful Day in the Gayborhood

Like most metropolises, Black Rock City contains its own “Gayborhood.” Located around the 7:30 sector of BRC’s clock-like map, this LGBTQ+ hub houses numerous bars, dance clubs, athletic centers, and even several sex clubs. What happens in the dust, stays in the dust.

Briefs and Ballerinas

While eccentric ensembles are encouraged every day at the Burn, Tuesday is unique in that it features not just one but two themes: Tutu Tuesday and Tightywhities Tuesday. Often these sartorial choices are not mutually exclusive.

Music makes me lose control

One of Burning Man’s principles is “Radical Self Expression,” which manifests in many ways, from fashion to visual arts to the multitude of musical performances that permeate across the Playa. One of the more popular DJ venues is Mayan Warrior, an art car that suffered a fire last year. Fortunately, like a phoenix rising from the dust, the newest incarnation of MW debuted at this year’s Burn and proved to be just as fierce as the original.

The Art of the Dust

In addition to music, Radical Self Expression is exemplified by the dust-stained epic art gallery that is the Playa. Prominent artists from across the globe assemble in Black Rock City days before the Burn commences to erect art installations of various shapes and sizes. The surreal creatures and objects that pierce the desert landscape would make even Salvador Dali’s subconscious jealous.

Burn baby burn

The week culminates in an event known as the Man Burn, a tradition that traces back to the original Burn at San Francisco’s Baker Beach in 1991. Reminiscent of a pagan solstice ritual, the various camps of Black Rock City congregate at the center of Black Rock City to witness the Man igniting in effigy. The timber titan is engulfed in flames and crumbles to the earth, marking the end of this year’s Burn. Black Rock City then disassembles, its denizens scattering back to the default world, and the playa hibernates for 51 weeks until it rises again from the dust.