If you'd like to see reports from previous years, you can go to my main BM page, and especially if you don't know burning man, you should read my 2002 page which has more of an introduction.

If you'd like to use my pictures in a commercial setting, drop me a line to discuss and I can give you full resolution pictures (marc<at>merlins.org).
If you'd like to say thanks with cash, please donate money to one of the many camps and art installations that are often out of pocket after burning man.

Summary:

Can't believe it's been 16 years since my first burning man, and the 10th year for me. This was my first time arriving on sunday, giving us more time to see things without having to race around.
I got a burner's license to celebrate:

I again tried to enjoy the moments and interactions more than bike every last street, but I still covered a lot of ground. I biked 318km/197 miles in 7.5 days, which is a record for me. It is half the distance from San Francisco to LA on playa dust with a not so good bike. I did not have to worry about RC flying this year, unlike 2016

I did have a project this year, a giant (well, giant for home) 3.5ftx3.5ft Neopixel panel with 4096 LEDs which was on display at DustFish:

my hastily built electronics somehow survived the playa dust

Speaking of which, got many great comments on my shirt, including someone who said "Everyone stop! This guy won burning man" ;-)
If you want to learn more about how my shirt was made, you can go to this page.

While I had a high tech shirt with both front and back LED panels (1728 LEDs total), I was not the only one with a lit shirt:

my friend Chad Steinglass from the FastLED group I've been hanging out at while writing my shirt code

Black Rock City

The wind and viz were bad enough that there was a bus at the airport that did not want to leave because the driver said she couldn't see anything. So, we walked towards town, eventually got a ride close to esplanade and given that it was still sunday, we found some green playa bikes that were barely good enough to get us to camp (they were hard to ride, especially with luggage).

I'm not sure when BAIT, Burn Area Imprecise Transit, started, but cool to see it:

Anyway, after going through customs, we eventually found a ride to our camp (very long walk from the airport if you have luggage). For the rest of BRC, I've given many pictures of the essentials in my prior reports, I therefore refer you to them for more pictures I don't need to repeat here. Of course, it was a robot theme this year

this RC washing machine was really cool

Camps

Opal giving us a welcome briefing

Like my first year, nothing fancy for our home, just a tent, although I brought enough tarps to make shade for it:

brought 40W of solar panels

which helped charge all the electronics

sadly the panels weren't enough, I was using about twice as much as I was producing (top right)

Outside of Jennifer who was able to join this year, my two other passengers, JT and Joyce, were at Camp Soft Landing, so we went to visit several times to say hi and attend some of the talks:

the teahouse was popular as usual

Rick Doblin, director of MAPS

This year, Jennifer was with me to go visit all the theme camps that were there. I think we probably found 95% of them:

some people tried unnecessary high five really hard, throwing people in the air to catch the higher ones

uuum, ok :)

the obstacle bike course was fun again

viewing platforms were very welcome

despite the lack of water, things grow on the playa

man museum is still fun to see

awesome giant size 3d printed rotating heart. i have a small version of it

I took Jennifer to the Black Rock Wine Cellar

I'm assuming this is part of one of the races they have around the playa

baby cheetah camp was replaced with Nicolas Cage camp :)

Thank you to all the camps that were offering yummy food and drinks

grilled cheese is a BM specialty

champagne, sure thank you :)

yummy steak

these guys came equipped. Thank you!

ice cream too

fondue was awesome

Then, there is the issue of cookie cutter camps that are sold to pay and arrive folks. Many burners don't really love this, then again BM is about radical inclusion. Is there a right answer?

while others are likely just people who brought the same tents, literally :)

A few more funny signs from this year:

Some Camps are also interesting to visit at night of course:

My friend Tinic still had Duck Pond, with good music and a stocked bar:

Tinic and I go back 20 years, funny to run back into him on the playa

One camp had 4 decked out tents available to win for the night:

This leaves us with sound camps. Opulent Temple was a clear winner this year. They put out a great show with a solid lineup, including trance (thanks guys!). Listen to the video summary

But they were not the only ones:

awesome fire effect in this one

And then, there was the 747, the biggest one yet. It cost more to move to the playa, than to purchase and deck out. It was crowdfunded and was a labour of love. Well done guys:

I got a tour during the day on sunday, nice of them to give guided tours most of that day:

People

ran into the french maid parade again. I used to try and find where they started from. No need, easier to let them find me :)

Of course, even cooler at night:

And I ran into friends of course:

Scott

Afik

Fixit

Jennifer had fun exploring BM again:

And then there is the billion bunny march:

Critical tits, a few pictures only given that it's difficult to ask for permission

I also caught a few people biking by as part of critical dicks:

The last day, I found this on a playa, a human wrecking ball:

Art

The Orb was "interesting". It was used to display laser movies at night:

As always, as we reach sunset, things got better again:

some people got to climb it before it was banned as the structure was not very sound

I went back to Sonic Runway, quite cool as always:

Hexatron was also quite cool:

I'm told I blent in quite well :)

Paraluna was a new one, nice too:

The color wheels were quite nice, and it was quite cool how they could stack up and climb:

Great to get some elevated night views:

A Dutch university team brought a lot of hardware to do a drone show. The lowlight was the posted times that were confusing got pepole to come and wait for a show that wasn't happening, as well as terrible perimeter control (they wanted to do their own with volunteers and it wasted 30-45mn per show as a result, a damn shame when the artery was ready to give them experienced perimeter folks that would have done this properly). People pointed out to me that I shouldn't complain about a free show, but waiting a combined 3H+ there took a lot of time away from other nice things I could have seen.
All that said, the show was interesting. It was a flying swarm. I personally prefered intel-like shows where the drones drew shapes and letters, but that's just a matter of preference:

peek into the base they setup. No small feat...

hello world test to check the wind

Another one was the Rainbow Bridge that had very cool patterns on display, including pacman:

Sextant had its Tesla Coil again:

and when I was able to be up all night, sunrise is even better:

someone made a cloud machine

don't even ask me how this bird got here

Jaguara eating the sun

Vehicles

Of course, it gets even better at night:

Some coworkers built some very cool LED surfboards

Jaguara was new and super pretty. Close 2nd to Mayan Warrior:

The winner was still Mayan Warrior though:

And of course you had bikes too:

many bikes for rent

nice to see neopixels on a bike

and more

Many camps were nice enought to offer bike repair services and help. Thank you:

Fire

the size of perimeter around a burn gives you a clue of how nice it may be

the train burn had many fireworks

eventually the 2 trains collided and burnt

Big Polinator also had nice fireworks

Then came worm watch

The Man

the pre-burn show was excellent as usual

Pony!

After the burn was well over, the BBQ crew was back:

by sunrise, it was edible, well done.

Temple

There was a really cool silent piano you could listen to with headphones. Very cool idea and setup:

Speaking of pianos, William Cenote had his LED Grand Piano at Dustfish:

Then came the temple burn:

My friends Joyce and JT

Conclusion

The temple burn night was interesting to see again after so many years. Much more low key party-wise given that many people are already gone, and people have to strike the next morning, but still worth seeing for sure. The next morning, after getting up and packing up our own stuff, blondie was super nice, gave us a ride back to the airport in our boat art car, and we flew home:

I hope you enjoyed this report. Feel free to say thanks to me by simply sharing it with your friends, and see you on the playa in the future (or you'll see me at night with my lights).

Tips

Thanks