SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Burning Man 2025 starts this Sunday, and between 70,000 and 80,000 people are expected to be in the Nevada desert outside of Reno celebrating.
Last year, attendance was down after the 2023 Burning Man dealt with flooding and mud causing problems.
“It’s a labor of love, it’s a big labor of love!”
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On a small San Francisco street in Nob hill, what was once a school bus is now a fine-tuned Burning Man machine.
“This is my bus, the magic mustache bus. Me and my best friend got it gifted to us in 2018, and when he passed away I wanted to turn it into an art car,” said Otto Wacker who continued, “so I’m turning it into a 30 foot handlebar mustache.”
Come Sunday, this bus will be in Nevada’s Black Rock City on the Playa for Burning Man. This is Wacker’s 10th burn.
“I have not been excited until today,” said Wacker.
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It’s a reunion two years in the making. And it all started back when Edward Aten says he lost his AirPods at the Burning Man festival in Nevada in 2022.
It’s Kristopher Floyd’s first burn.
“We are taking a bus, a burner bus, so it’s full send for this one, you know? We’re all together, going in together, and hopefully coming out together. Our camp is over a hundred people, we’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time and effort getting ready for this. You know, the Titanic Sin crew is a really tight team, really great people,” said Floyd.
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The team has been busy with warehouse work on weekends to make sure their ‘Mothership’ runs perfectly.
Micah Byrnes’ indoor camp at Black Rock City ran so perfectly that when there were floods and mud two years ago, they worked with those from FEMA.
“The mud burn situation was wild. It was like, we literally were housing people, feeding them every hour. Burning Man actually sent us diesel fuel with a tractor to keep our generator going,” said Byrnes.
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This year though, Micah said instead of having their own camp, they’ll be exploring others and staying in pods that look like cool tents.
“My plan now is to fly in with a pilot friend for a few days. It’s one of the funnest things in the world, Burning Man,” said Byrnes. He continued saying, “Just meet new friends, and find weird things out there.”
“We can finally disconnect and just really kind of exist and just be in the moment, and exchange culture with everybody there,” said Floyd who will be putting his phone in a box.
“It’s one week out of the year where 80,000 people come together and they try to make a utopian society ya know, and that’s what I love about it,” said Wacker.
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