to express themselves artistically through painting, music, dance, performance and other forms of creativity. Each year Larry Harvey announces a theme for the event to provide them with inspiration – in the year 2006, for example, it was ‘Hope and Fear’. The theme influences almost everything about the event – from the clothes the people wear to the vehicles they travel around in. In keeping with the original idea many of the art exhibits and events revolve around fire, and specially constructed platforms are erected to ensure that all acts of burning are done safely. 7. For the duration of the event the burners make their home in a self-built community called Black Rock City, which regular attendees abbreviate to the letters BRC. The city is always arranged in a distinctive semi-circular pattern, but its street names differ from year to year in keeping with the changing theme. Just as it seems to appear miraculously in the desert, the city disappears with equal suddenness. Following the principle of ‘Leave No Trace’, the participants dismantle the temporary structures that they built for shelter and take them away together with all their litter as they depart, leaving the desert in the same condition that they found it. Once Burning Man is over for the year, it is as if it never took place at all.