Lol, your last paragraph resonates. I’ll probably have more to say about it once I’ve actually done it, but that’s basically the risk - either you’ll go, get out of your shell a bit, and have a good time, or you’ll be kinda bored and anxious.

Will say that based on your skill set, you’d probably do well with the crew that goes out and does initial setup or a bigger, more involved camp. In doing the grunt work, you’d likely make a connection with those folks which will help bolster the social experience of it all.

I think you should give something like this a shot - worst you could say is you tried it out, and had a meh time. But it could be awesome - I’ve yet to see someone talk about a festival like this and say “Yeah, I went - I was bored and lonely as shit”.

I’ve heard that from folks closer to Burning Man before - what’s different from your perspective?

Nice! Glad you had a good time!

Yep, I’m trying to keep the participatory aspect of it as front of mind as possible. Goal is to talk to as many people as possible, and say yes to as much stuff as I can (within reason/limits of personal safety). Was hoping to have some particularly cool thing/wandering experience at the ready, but for lack of planning gonna try and compensate by bolstering cool shit other folks are doing where the opportunity arises :).

me trying to find an article about 2005 specifically, only finding comments on forums and inferior social media platforms saying “Oh yeah, that’s just the Sunday at Reading, flaming tents and explosions are the norm, happens every year”

That’s a hell of an experience!