When it comes to event communities, Burning Man’s is in a league of its own. Burning Man has always been about more than the annual Black Rock City event, and over the years, the project has cultivated a community of dedicated Burners — so dedicated, in fact, that thousands still gathered in the Black Rock Desert even though the event has been cancelled for the second year in a row.
Last year’s cancellation of Burning Man led to a Virtual Burn Week filled with different virtual experiences for Burners to explore, which is taking place again this year until September 7th. One of the platforms participating in Virtual Burn Week for the second time is BRCvr, the foundation of which was originally built in 2014 but found a new life last year.
“BRCvr came into being out of necessity,” explains Athena Demos, co-founder of Big Rock Creative and BRCvr. “Because of Covid and Burning Man being cancelled, there was this true need for the Burners to get together. And that was the magic sauce of BRCvr.”
BRCvr began as a low-poly, Google Cardboard VR experience created by Greg Edwards and produced in partnership with Demos, who saw the potential and brought it to the Burning Man organization. However, it ended up being shelved for several years.
“They loved it and thought it was spectacular, but they didn't really see a purpose for it — it was an archival tool, and it was single user. Social immersive VR hadn’t yet really become mainstream, it was still for a niche market of gamers.”
By 2020, social VR had become a reality, helped along by tech such as the standalone Oculus Quest, and BRCvr was given its time to shine. When the pandemic hit in March, Demos’s business partner, Doug Jacobson, was getting ready to plan a big birthday party for June but quickly realized that it wasn’t going to be possible to get everyone together.
“We contacted Greg, who by that point had been working in VR for a while, to ask if we could scan the house where the party would have taken place and do it in VR instead,” says Demos. “And that’s when Greg dusted off the old Burning Man experience from his hard drive, Doug uploaded it to Altspace, and next thing you know, they’re both standing at Burning Man in this low-poly Google Cardboard version of the virtual playa.”
Demos joined them in the virtual world shortly thereafter, and only a few days later, Marian Goodell, CEO of the Burning Man Project, announced the cancellation of Burning Man. Demos immediately contacted everyone she knew in the organization to tell them about the new-and-improved VR experience, “and little did I know that there were four or five other platforms all doing the same thing,” she says.
“So there ended up being six virtual burns on very different platforms that were all very distinct. We are very much concentrated on headset, immersion, socialization, connecting with your friends, etc. but we’re not a video game. There are things you can interact with, but it's not gamified.”
Following an agreement with the organization, BRCvr became an official virtual Burning Man experience for 2020’s Virtual Burn week and is returning for this year’s. Demos notes that although the platforms try to work together as much as possible, “the interconnectivity of six different platforms isn't here yet.”
However, within BRCvr on the Altspace platform, “we created a metaverse,” says Demos. Coincidentally, last year’s Burning Man theme (which was chosen back in 2019) was “multiverse,” and this year’s theme — The Great Unknown — is similarly apropos, especially since “we don’t know how many people are going to show up!” says Demos. Although if last year’s showing of 13,000 users is any indication, the experience will be quite popular.
BRCvr is accessible through Microsoft’s AltspaceVR, which Demos notes can be tricky to access due to Microsoft’s security measures but in the end is all part of the Burning Man experience: “Going to Burning Man has never been easy. There's always bumps in the road, you might get a flat tire, or your car will overheat, or the plane is late — there’s always something that makes it really difficult, and logging into the Altspace platform is really difficult.”
The virtual Burning Man experience is about more than just being in an environment that looks like Black Rock City, explains Demos — it’s about recreating the intangible feeling of community and curiosity that comes from attending the event. “When we created BRCvr, all we were really doing is trying to duplicate that ephemeral, emotional Burning Man experience,” she says.
In BRCvr, this takes the form of discovering different art installations that community members have designed and submitted from the starting point of the main playa, and exploring portals that take you to other worlds within the platform. This year, for example, there are 11 zone worlds that house larger 3D models that couldn’t fit on the main playa, as well as worlds called The Museum of the Man and The Museum of the Temple that include all 35 iterations of the physical Burning Man and 3D models of previous Burning Man temples, respectively.
The virtual world has also allowed Burners from around the world to join the event, sometimes for the first time: “Some of the builders on the Altspace platform are based in Europe and have never been to Burning Man — this is their Burning Man,” explains Demos. “They have no way of actually going due to the expense, accessibility, visas, etc.”
And when it comes to the future of BRCvr, Demos has no doubt that it will live on. “There's no turning this off,” she says. “It is going to continue when the physical Black Rock City is built again. Marian [Goodell] said, ‘You can't cancel Burning Man, you can only cancel Black Rock City.’ Burning Man is the people. It's the ethos. It's not just an event. It happens all over the world. It’s a subculture, and now we’re more accessible than ever.”
When the physical event returns, Demos’s vision is that it will link into the virtual world. People will be able to go into VR and connect with others on the physical playa, which will bring the entire global Burner community together. “Burning Man has always been the proving ground for new technologies,” she says, “and this is going to be no different.”
BRCvr has just announced that it will be staying open until September 15th to allow users more time to wander the virtual playa and explore the various worlds and art installations. For more information on how to participate, visit BRCvr.org/rsvp.