Tag: Burning Man

BURN2: Celebrate Burning Man in Second Life, October 8th to 17th, 2021

Entrance to the BURN2 festival (SLURL)

Once upon a time, a man named Philip Rosedale went to Burning Man…and the rest is history. Some say that it was Philip’s experience at Burning Man which inspired him to create the still-thriving virtual world of Second Life. And so it seems very fitting that, as the real-life Burning Man festival has been cancelled for the second year in a row due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we gather in Second Life for a virtual Burning Man festival.

Veteran SL blogger Inara Pey writes:

Burn2 2021 opens its gates at 17:00 SLT on Friday, October 8th, 2021 and will run through until Sunday, October 17th, 2021. Possibly as a result of the 2020 event proving so popular amongst Burning Man veterans – that event went virtual due to the pandemic – this year’s Burn2 Octoburn is taking place over a total of 12 regions, double the usual number. Thus, there are more camps, more builds and more things to see and do.

The theme for this year’s event is The Great Unknown, once again matching the core theme of Burning Man, and the organisers of that event describe the theme in these terms:

THIS YEAR’S BURNING MAN THEME IS AN INVITATION TO EMERGE FROM OUR COLLECTIVE ISOLATION, TO EXPLORE THE UNFAMILIAR CONTOURS OF A CHANGED WORLD, AND TO REIMAGINE OURSELVES, OUR COMMUNITY, AND OUR CULTURE IN WAYS THAT MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE BEFORE THIS PERIOD OF PLAGUE AND PAUSE. AFTER A LONG YEAR ADRIFT IN THE MULTIVERSE, BESET BY ANGST AND UNCERTAINTY, IT’S TIME TO CLIMB UP OUT OF OUR ESCAPE PODS AND LOOK OUTSIDE TO SEE WHERE WE’VE LANDED. ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN, LIKE NOAH? AT THE BOTTOM OF A RABBIT HOLE, LIKE ALICE? OR ARE WE ON A VAST AND ENDLESS PLAIN, RINGED BY ANCIENT MOUNTAINS, THE SORT OF UNFATHOMABLE TERRITORY THAT ONCE CAUSED MAPMAKERS TO THROW UP THEIR HANDS AND WRITE “HERE BE DRAGONS” AT THE MARGINS OF THE KNOWN WORLD? 

The official BURN2 website offers a bit of background on the virtual festival:

BURN2 is the first sanctioned Burning Man regional in the virtual world. Burning Man has always had a presence in Second Life since its beginning, and BURN2 is the latest incarnation of Burning Man presence there. Today, BURN2 occupies a region in Second Life year-round called Deep Hole, with extra regions added to their virtual space during special events. It is run by a group that includes people involved directly with Burning Man, along with seasoned Second Life programmers and digital artists with a genuine interest in Burning Man.

The BURN2 community is a mix of those who attend real-life Burning Man as well as people from all over the world who may never have the opportunity to visit the real playa, but share a genuine interest in Burning Man. For many, BURN2 is their Burning Man experience. Together, we celebrate Burning Man culture in the unique environment of Second Life.

…

BURN2 has many of the elements of the Burning Man event, including being set in a desert playa virtual environment, and the opportunity to create your own environment. BURN2 has many of the same organized groups such as Lamplighters, Fire Dancers, Rangers, a DMV complete with crazy art cars to drive around, and many talented artists who build and share their art with the community each year.

You are encouraged to explore the dozen sims of BURN2 on foot, via bicycle (free ones are available at the entrance), or using one of the many crazy free vehicles you can find scattered around. There’s even a hot air balloon to take you high over the playa!

At the end of the BURN2 festival, the burning of The Man and the Temple will take place at 12:00 noon Second Life Time/Pacific Standard Time on Saturday, October 16th, and Sunday October 17th, 2021 respectively.

For more information about BURN2, please visit their website or subscribe to their RSS newsfeed (and if you are complete and utter newbie to Second Life and BURN2, start here for step-by-step instructions on how you can participate). Here’s the listing of all the events taking place, and an event calendar. You can also follow BURN2 on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube. See you on the playa!

P.S. There is a large selection of free gifts from various creators located immediately in front of the entrance to BURN2.

UPDATED! Burning Man Returns As a Virtual Event on Various Platforms from August 22nd to September 7th, 2021

Black Rock City at Burning Man 2016 by Kate Shay on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Sadly, this year’s real-life Burning Man festival has, once again, been cancelled due to the continuing global coronavirus pandemic. Instead, events are happening on various virtual world platforms, as follows:

  • BRCvr (in AltspaceVR for VR and desktop users) returns from last year to capture the spirit, culture, and principles of Burning Man in VR. Join thousands of participants, visit over 200 camps and art pieces. Engage with 1000+ events in a cutting-edge space cultivating conversation, connection, and community.
  • Build-a-Burn (on Topia) is a network of browser-based virtual worlds with spatial video chat. Freely explore the camp metaverse for moments of sponteneity and serendipity. It’s easy to create a camp, add art, and customize everything. Anyone can easily create a unique experience to delight fellow Burners.
  • Dusty Multiverse is accessed on mobile phones and VR headsets. Burners enter as 3D avatars and can explore the environment, art, and performances and talk to others via live voice chat.
  • The Infinite Playa is a photo-realistic digital simulation of the Playa that puts you at the center of an interactive & social world of art, music, games, talks & performances.
  • SparkleVerse is a magical online city. Our digital playa is a 2D browser-based map with social features where you can wander through art, music, and experiences co-created by participants.
  • Burn Week: Global Live Stream (on PORTL) is a global streaming event featuring daily regional broadcasts, the Man Burn, and  the Temple Burn all in an interactive environment where you can broadcast yourself, join or create a camp, and start video watch parties with friends.

Tickets for all these events can be purchased here. Prices range from pay-what-you-can (for Build-a-Burn and Sparkleverse) up to US$88 for an unlimited pass for the Infinite Playa experience. TechCrunch reports:

There have been few illusions for attendees that a virtual event is any substitute for the real thing, but organizers have tried to get creative when it comes to the social web experiences so that attendees can reclaim some of the camaraderie. While the organization won’t be setting up an official presence, some camps have already committed to hosting an unofficial return to the desert…

Most of the creators behind last year’s experience are back this year, including a few VR-centric experiences and a handful of livestreaming and Zoom-based apps designed to spice things up a bit. This year’s apps include the VR-based BRCvr, interactive chat platform Build-a-Burn, 3D world Dusty Universe, “photo-realistic” simulation The Infinite Playa, video chat Sparkleverse and livestream platform Burn Week.

This year, the apps have a reserve ticketing system set up for “early bird tickets” and they are all charging different prices based on the experience type. The most aggressive pitch is from Infinite Playa, which is offering tickets ranging from a $16 two-hour pass to an $88 unlimited pass. Others are adopting donation-based pricing tiers, while the Burn Week livestream is offering a free stream to all viewers alongside a $29 “extended experience.”

See you there!

UPDATE May 14th, 2021: I forgot to mention what is probably the longest-running of the virtual extensions of Burning Man, BURN2, which happens in Second Life! Although their major celebration usually happens at a different time of year from the real-life festivities, there should be some events happening during the Burning Man festival, so be sure to check it out. Just search for “BURN2” under Places in your SL viewer. (Thanks to Spiffy Voxel for the reminder!)

UPDATED! Burning Man Events in Sansar

Although it is not one of the ten official platforms and services hosting events in the Burning Man Multiverse, the social VR platform Sansar is also throwing a party to celebrate Burning Man.

Bagnaria and Medhue (who collectively are known as FullSpectrum) have been building a Burning Man world, and they invite you to come party with them. A virtual man burn ceremony will take place tonight (Saturday, Sept. 5th) between 10:30 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. Central Daylight-Savings Time (CDT), and again tomorrow (Sunday, Sept. 6th), between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. CDT, at a time more convenient for Europeans. Just click on the links above to see the Sansar Events listings, which should automatically give you the correct times in your local time zone.

Unfortunately, I will be missing the festivities, as I need to catch up on my sleep. Have fun!

UPDATE Sept. 6th, 2020: Medhue posted the following video of last night’s event (the man starts burning at the 8 minute 30 second mark):

Review: BRCvr in AltspaceVR Is an Impressive Feat

Yesterday evening, my friend Andrew (the former producer of my show, the Metaverse Newscast, which is currently on indefinite hiatus) invited me to join him as we explored the many different virtual worlds forming a part of the BRCvr experience, a virtual recreation of the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. BRCvr is one of ten official Burning Man virtual spaces in their Multiverse, replacing the real-world event which was candelled due to the pandemic.

Unlike some of the Burning Man Multiverse platforms which have struggled to launch on time and cost money to attend (up to US$150!), BRCvr opened on schedule and is free! Andrew and I were very impressed by what we saw last night, so this morning I decided to pay a return visit.

On my first visit last night to the sprawling virtual Black Rock City, it was daytime. You really do get a sense of the size of BRC! I was informed that this is a 1:1 recreation of Black Rock City (which I assume means that everything is sized accurately according to your avatar size).

But when I returned today, it was near sunset, with the artwork casting long shadows across the flat desert:

The landscape is dotted with teleporters, both to take you from one place to another within Black Rock City, and also to take you to other virtual worlds (there are apparently up to 120 of them linked to their main hub world).

Much of the art on display has a separate portal to allow you to see the artwork in higher detail than it appears in the main world, such as this statue (you can easily get back to Black Rock City from the menu of places in AltspaceVR)

Take the portal into the Burning Man itself, in the centre of Black Rock City, and you can then take teleporters to visit the Burning Man statues of previous years! (Try doing that in real life!)

The tireless Kent Bye just published a Voices of VR podcast interview with Greg Edwards, the lead developer of BRCvr, which you can listen to here.

Kent Bye’s map of BRCvr (source)

Daniel Terdiman, in an article he wrote for Fast Company, reported on his experience in BRCvr:

BRCvr’s main entry point is a spot out in the open, just a few dozen virtual meters away from what any Burning Man veteran instantly recognizes as the Center Camp Café, the beating-heart hub of Black Rock City. A good start: Things looked right. They sounded right, too. I heard the sound of a blast from a fire cannon. I heard laughter. And I heard people nearby having random conversations.

I turned to my left, and there, just a few meters away, was the Duck, a converted golf cart some friends of mine converted to look like a big rubber duck. I have spent an uncountable number of hours riding around on it over the years. It was pure serendipity that it was just about the first thing I saw—but as any Burner knows, that’s the type of serendipity that happens all the time in BRC. This was a very good sign. And it was just the beginning.

He was impressed by the experience, and I was too. Andrew tells me that they are planning to keep BRCvr up for the rest of this year, but I would encourage you to visit before the official closing! Set aside an hour or two; you’ll need it to explore all the linked worlds!

This Saturday evening at 7:00 p.m. Pacific time, there will be a live performance by Diplo in the PlayAlchemist Pyramid. You can RSVP here.

P.S. I forgot to mention that AltspaceVR has relaunched a MacOS client this week, just in time for Mac desktop users who want to attend the festival. More information is available in this tweet by the BRCvr organizers.

With a shout out and a thank you to Andrew William.