An inside look at Burning Man's 30-year evolution from beach bonfire to international mega-event

In late June, 1986, Larry Harvey and Jerry James joined a handful of friends on San Francisco's Baker Beach in search of radical self-expression. They didn't come empty-handed.

Earlier that day, Harvey and James had collected scrap wood and built an eight-foot statue of a man and his accompanying dog. Later that night, the group hoisted them up and set fire to both. Little did they know that a 30-year tradition had just been born.

Today, Burning Man draws more than 50,000 people to Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Over the course of a dusty, freewheeling week in late August, the festival celebrates notions of self-expression, civic responsibility, and art.

This year's Burning Man will be held from August 28 to September 5. Here's a look back at how one of the world's most surreal, iconic festivals came to be.

SEE ALSO: 20 insane structures built at Burning Man

For the first three years of Burning Man, the festival was held on San Francisco's Baker Beach. By 1989, however, Golden Gate Park Police had learned of the event and prohibited any actual burning. The event was a fire hazard, they said.

In 1990, Harvey and James decided to relocate to the second-largest and flattest piece of land in the US: Nevada's Black Rock Desert. At first, people didn't really know what to do once they got there. Some found hot springs. Others played music.

In 1996, the founders created a formal organization, Black Rock City, LLC, to handle liability, security and planning for the festival. They also improved safety by relocating to a nearby gated property. Burning Man was poised for worldwide explosion.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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