Here are the craziest things I saw at Burning Man 2015.

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This year over 70,000 people traveled to Black Rock City, Nevada, to celebrate the annual Burning Man Festival. 

Among this year's Burners? My 22-year-old friend and her 60-year-old father. 

In case you're not familiar with the event, Burning Man is a week long festival of art, education, and social enterprise, celebrated in the desert, or "the Playa."

It's also known for insane raves, mind-altering drugs, and no shortage of body-positive nudity. 

Not exactly an event most 22-year-olds would think to attend with their fathers.

"It was a really joyous thing to do together as a family," my friend told TI about the festival. "I felt such a replenishing of my soul and it was just great to be able to feel that with my dad there."

Keep reading to learn more about what it's like to attend Burning Man with your dad. 

Everyone at Burning Man goes by a Playa name, a nickname or alternate persona to be used throughout the festival. In the desert, my friend was known as "Artichoke," a vegetable she identifies with for its "loving, nerdy, literary, erotic, and architectural," qualities.

Her father, a tax-attorney by trade, went with something a little more serious. He chose "Disregarded Entity," an IRS term, as his Playa name.

"Disregarded Entity is actually abbreviated as 'DRE,' so of course we shortened dad's name to "Dr. Dre" for the trip," Artichoke told Tech Insider.

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Note: We obtained permission from parents to photograph all kids for this article if their faces are visible in the photographs.

With its harsh desert conditions and reputation for wild parties, Burning Man isn't the first place one would think to take a family vacation with small children.

But much to my surprise, this year's festival was filled with kids and people of all ages.

Children mostly took advantage of kid-friendly daytime activities, like a human version of Hungry, Hungry Hippos, where they got to participate in the game:

Or cheer on friends:

There, I talked to three sisters who were at the festival for the first time.

The girls told me they were having fun, but that the bathroom was too far from the tent where they were staying. 

As the official Burning Man website states: "Everything in the Burning Man Survival Guide applies double to kids. Water, food, shade, sunblock, comfortable clothes, and knowing their (and your) limits are all important to being able to enjoy the experience."

These girls were well equipped with food and drinks ...

Gear to fight the dust...

And accessories.

Another family I spoke to came all the way from Warsaw, Poland, to attend their first Burning Man accompanied by their young daughter, Stella.

"She's running around and having a great time," Stella's mom, Ela Kanior, told me Saturday morning at Center Camp. "Everyone wants to talk to her and play with her."

But the desert terrain does have its challenges. "It's been tough with the dust," says Kanior, "but for Stella it's great fun being in a tent." 

As for how it's affected the parents' experience at the festival, Kanior says, "For us, we need to take care of her and make sure she eats. Last night she fell asleep and we still rode around on the bike with her at night."

"At home she a routine," adds Kanior. "Here, her bed is a bike trailer."

Vanessa and her 8-year-old daughter, Itzci, traveled from San Francisco to attend the festival. It was Vanessa's third Burn and Itzci's first.

"I read a blog about a single mom who brought her kid to Burning Man and that's how I decided to bring her," Vanessa told me as we were both hiding from the desert heat inside a café with gifted refreshments. "There's nothing especially hard about having a kid here. It's good for her because she's a city kid. She needs to feel what it takes to survive with earth."

Itzci, who likes to spend her time drawing, told me she enjoys biking around but it gets cold at night so she puts on a lot of blankets. She didn't tell anyone at school she was going to Burning Man.

Below is Luca. He was perfectly happy hanging out in this stroller while his parents danced nearby during a daytime party. His mom told me Burning Man is "very kid friendly" and that her 16-year-old son grew up coming but he couldn't make it this year.

This is Bailee from Reno. It was her first Burning Man experience as well, and she was staying with her mom, Coral, in a tent. Bailee was very friendly and engaging, and clearly having a good time. 

Many parents who bring their children to Burning Man stay in an enclosed camping area for families called "KidsVille," where families bond with each other and have access to trampolines and toys.

"Adults love the lack of structure at Burning Man, but most kids need some structure and security to be comfortable with their surroundings," warns the Burning Man website, which also provides a downloadable Family Survival Guide.

KidsVille aims to provide a bit more structure for families with programs like the Black Rock Scouts, who host "playa-cational field trips, events, and volunteer opportunities" in hopes of "Educating tomorrow's burners, today!"

And no age is too young to become a "Burner." According to the festival's website:

Anybody under 18 years of age must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian aged 21 or older at Burning Man. Children 12 and under will be admitted for free, but (as of 2015) must have a Kid’s Ticket... Children ages 13 and older require full-price tickets. Be prepared to show proof of age.

But kids at Burning Man are nothing new. 

In fact, wee ones have been attending the festival since its inception in 1986, and parents have reasons beyond not being able to find a babysitter for bringing their kids along to the weeklong festival.

"The burner parents who bring them believe this experience to be truly enriching, a culture they are very much a part of that they want to share with the closest people to them," luminary activist and photographer Zipporah Lomax, who has gone to Burning Man every year since 2000, told Slate. 

"I think the basic truth is that kids are truly at ease out there," she added. "In some sense, it’s as though we, the adults, get to spend a week remembering how to be like them—to meet them in that imaginative space in which they naturally exist."

SEE ALSO: I just got back from Burning Man and here's what I saw

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When it's nearly 100 degrees in the middle of the Nevada desert, clothing is limited, and sometimes even optional at Burning Man — "an annual art event and temporary community based on radical self expression in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada."

But for those who do choose to wear clothing, it's all about the costumes. The ornate outfits have become a huge part of the festival.

Bikinis, body paint, tutus, masks, headdresses, wigs, floral crowns, and feathers — it's all there. Often all worn at once.

Check out some of the best outfits from this year's festival...

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Burning Man is famous for its colorful costumes worn by attendees.

Women go all out.

So do the men.

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The legendary 'Missed Connections' section on Craigslist is often an incredible mixture of absurdity, heartfelt longing, and wistfulness. And this is doubly true of those from Buring Man, the yearly festival in the middle of the desert whose very nature invites an intense nostalgia that keeps people coming back year after year.

And the missed connections this year do not disappoint. There are people who were given a piece of someone's hair, only to be left in the desert dust alone, and those who had an amazing connection until someone said something about vaping in a van and their potential lover left.

"You were crying under a crocodile..."

Read on for this year's amazing Burning Man missed connections:

Note: If you've never read a "Missed Connections" post before, Craigslist users often use tags like 'm4w' (man looking for woman') to alert people to their own gender and the gender of the person they're looking for. Please also note some of the listings contain obscenities.

SEE ALSO: Here's what the inside of a 'fancy celebrity camp' at Burning Man looks like

'Burning man - m4w'

'Twelve from Burning Man - w4m'

"I know this is a total longshot but we hung out Friday night after meeting at a camp "bar" A huge group of guys followed me around the playa calling me Queen until it was late and just the three of us. I named you Twelve. I guess I passed out and woke up confused then ran away. I wish I had stayed and spent the rest of the burn with you.

I wish I could remember where you were from. Hopefully that wasn't the last time I will see you.

Also if you are Twelve give me some background details so I know it's really you."

'Crying under a crocodile at burning man. Mark, aka Fruit Salad , - w4m'

"You were crying under a crocodile. I was with a couple friends who noticed. You had a purple (was it blue?) faux-hawk. We descended upon you and embraced and comforted you. We ended up back at your camp in a delirious state of sleep deprivation and substance come-down. You made us bacon and eggs and we lay down for a nap that became a bit of a sticky triangle. My friend, being the more agressive of the two of us, rose to claim you. But I felt our connection (perhaps it was only in my head?). When we parted you had invited us both back (seperately) and I told you I couldn't come back without telling my friend. But I felt desperate to find you again. As we rode off, I told my friend that I really wanted to go back to see you. She pointed out that she saw you first (that she had actually met you at a festival previously) and that meant she had dibs. (I don't believe in dibs, I believe in fate and cosmic convergence). She then lectured me about not letting dudes get between our friendship and that there were plenty of men on the playa. True, but the fact was, whatever happened in our brief interaction affected me. It was the most magnetic connection I had experienced on the playa. I try to make this make sense to her but she insisted I let it go. So, as the honest and true friend I am, I let you go. But I thought about you and hoped for a serendipitous meeting on the playa.

Two days later, when I saw my friend again, I asked her if she had gone back to see you. She said she had, and sort of passed it off like it was no big deal. Then she very casually said, you can go see him if you want, I don't care. WTF!

I had to find you. I went back to your neighborhood but couldn't remember exactly where. (8:45 and g-h?). I rode up and down your streets searching. I did this everyday. Still, I could not find you. Must not have been meant to be. Also, I know how it is out there. When we met, that was all the feelings and connections of that moment, and the moment changes along with those emotions. I'm accepting of this.

And I just wanted to tell you I'm still thinking of you. You somehow impacted me.

Are you out there? I remember you saying you lived in Oakland. I remember your playa name being fruit salad. I remember your hands, and all your bracelets, I remember your brown eyes, with their tears and their intensity. These are the only details I can recall to help me find you.

Perhaps you'll see this. Perhaps an aquaintence will. If not, this is my closure. At least I tried. Farewell my beautiful connection."

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Burning Man's reputation for hard partying and harsh desert conditions didn't scare away an older crowd from this year's week-long festival in Black Rock City, Nevada.

Burning Man is filled with people of all ages, from very young to very old. And more people than ever before are starting to bring their parents to join in the fun.

Scott, 36, has been attending for six years and this time decided to bring his dad, Rick.

"It's a place where you can connect with yourself, and he gave up some things to be my dad, so I wanted him to experience that," Scott, who traveled from Redondo Beach with his father, told Business Insider while checking out some of the many art pieces the desert had to offer.

And during his time at the festival Rick experienced it all.

"We've been doing a little bit of daytime activists and a little bit of partying," added Scott. "He's been up every day at sunrise."

Rick, meanwhile, says that despite tent living being "a little dustier than I like," his experience has been "amazing."

"The last year my son has dedicated to his father," said Rick. "It's a very moving thing to be connected to your son and see each other as friends and not just a dad."

I found another father-son duo at a place called The Petting Zoo. A 49-year-old dad from San Francisco brought along his 16-year-old son and 23-year-old nephew.

"We are having so much fun," the dad told me. "We haven't seen all the debauched sexuality and drugs that have been represented about the festival, but what we have seen is a die-hard crowd that loves people."

Another older gentleman from San Francisco said, " I was at the second Burning Man at Baker Beach, and now here again this year."

His buddy said it was his fifth time. "We love it here — we love the art and the survival skills it requires to be here comfortably and the very nice people we meet here."

"But we're burnt out," he added, laughing.

Joan Bloodworth, from Madison, Wisconsin, is 81 years old; this was her first Burn.

"Yesterday, I wasn't so sure about everything, but today I feel wonderful — everybody is so friendly," Bloodworth said. "I keep getting gifts, and I'm taking in the sights."

Bloodworth decided to attend at the urging of her daughter.

"My daughter and her husband from Berkeley have been coming for years, and she said this was the year she wanted me to see it. He was a foreman, so he got one of these little cabins I stay in. I'm sleeping on the floor, but it has a refrigerator and air-conditioning, and it's wonderful."

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I recently returned from Burning Man and of all the things I saw, one of the most interesting is how groups of people work together to form "camps" — the communities in which they live during the week-long festival.

While some "turn-key" fancy camps have a full staff cooking and cleaning for them, most festival-goers sign up for a week of chores to help their camp function as a community. 

Check out the daily duties of what it takes to make a camp function...

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Here's what an aerial view of Burning Man looks like. The structures on the ground are all organized into "camps."

Camps are where people stay during the week-long festival. They can be home to anywhere from two people to hundreds of people.

Some fancy "turn-key" camps come complete with a private chef, open bar, nice bathrooms, even chandeliers...

Check out a fancy camp here.

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A San Francisco couple got an unpleasant surprise on their way to Burning Man this year.

As they were on their way to the annual arts festival in the Nevada desert, they received an email from one of their friends, thanking the couple for renting their apartment on Airbnb, The Guardian reports.

But the couple hadn't put their apartment on the home-sharing site.

Instead, they had hired a professional house sitter they'd found on the site TrustedHousesitters.com, who had then listed the apartment on Airbnb himself — for a price of $2,000 for five days.

"I feel violated, and pretty upset that somebody I thought I could trust has done this to me," one of the apartment owners told The Guardian's Jemima Kiss. "He told our friends that there was a 'misunderstanding' between us, but there’s no way I told him he could go ahead and make $2,000 for himself."

Trusted Housesitters removed the offending house sitter's profile from the site, and Airbnb banned that person's profile as well. The couple is also pursuing a civil lawsuit against the house sitter.

"We have zero tolerance for this sort of fraudulent activity," Airbnb told Business Insider in a statement.

Trusted Housesitter told The Guardian that because the couple didn't use its on-site messaging tool to reach out to the house sitter, it was harder to investigate the complaint beyond deleting the profile.

The couple, for their part, said that next time they'll just recruit some friends to look after their apartment.

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Now that all the burners have gone home and the dust has settled on the Playa, it's the perfect time to take in the massive art installations that dominated Burning Man this year.

Publisher Amy Chan of Just My Type shared photos of her experience, snapped by photographer Tomas Loewy, with Tech Insider.

"There are breathtaking art installations everywhere, and hundreds of workshops and programming are offered daily — from aerial silk yoga, to sound therapy, to foot massage 101, to the basics of S&M," she said. "There really is something for everyone."

Keep reading to see Loewy's coolest photos of Burning Man art installations.

The LOVE sculpture by Alexander Milov shows an arguing couple's inner children reaching toward each other.

Source

The Temple of Promise was created by Bay Area artists. Its archway is 97 feet high.

Here's a video about the temple.

Michael Garlington's Totem of Confessions was incredibly detailed with hints of Khmer and Vedic architecture.

Source

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People's annual Burning Man outfits can be so outlandish, they tend to outshine everything else.

But now that the Playa has been cleared, it's the perfect time to look back at Burning Man's most out-of-this-world art cars.

Photographer Tomas Loewy is a habitual burner who shoots amazing photos of the event every year and has released a book of his photography. He shared some of his best photos of art cars over the years with Tech Insider.

Art cars are designed by burners from all over the country, Loewy said, and they usually become the unofficial mascots of their owners' camps. Attendees are welcome to climb into the art cars and check them out up close.

Keep reading to see Loewy's coolest photos of Burning Man art cars.

This art car is designed to look like the Cheshire Cat from "Alice in Wonderland." It appeared at Burning Man in 2013 and 2014.

Here's a phone with wheels, with two burners hanging out on top.

This yacht car fits dozens of burners on top.

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The yearly Nevada festival of Burning Man is many things. 

It is a place where 65,000 people descend on a 7-square-mile patch of the Black Rock Desert, getting whipped by sandstorms, and, of course, burning "the man."

But as the "leave no trace" rule declares, Burning Man is not a garbage can. Everything set up at the start of the week must come down.

This before-and-after image, created by the Daily Overview, reveals just how great of an undertaking that can be. Slide the bar to see the transition. 

To make sure the "leave no trace" rule is upheld, Burning Man relies on a Playa Restoration Team (The "playa" is the land used during the festival).

Crews of people determine which areas have the most trash — or, as Burners call it, "matter out of place," or MOOP.

They color-code the areas based on severity, green being the lightest MOOP areas, yellow being moderate, and red being the most moopy — Burning Man's words, not mine — and have a line of people clean up each area.

Then the transformation back into an ordinary desert is complete.

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The Bureau of Land Management, the US Department of Interior agency responsible for managing 264 million acres public land, is hiring a project manager for Burning Man. 

The annual salary for the full-time position ranges from $69,497 to $90,344.

The responsibilities of the position are riddled with government abbreviations, like in the following sentence: "Incumbent is to perform as project leader for complex projects such as RMPs, major EIS's and EA's and Special Recreation Permits, in particular the Burning Man event, which have a broad scope and often require coordination outside the district organization."

As odd as the posting may seem, an RMP or Risk Management Plan for an event that attracts nearly 70,000 costumed characters to set up "theme camps" in a sandstorm-prone 7-square-mile patch in Black Rock Desert — is totally necessary.

The job posting expires on February 8, so for those interested, apply online here or email nvjobs@blm.gov.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: All of the must-see things at Burning Man this year

In a patch of desert 50 miles outside of Las Vegas, the tech elite and ravers gather for a networking opportunity like no other.

Further Future is a desert dance party that's like TED meets Burning Man— a hippy, future-focused festival hopped up on organic juice and ecstasy that costs $350 to attend (not including extra amenities).

The three-day festival, which went from April 29 to May 1, caters to the Silicon Valley crowd, with its tech installations, glamorous camping (aka glamping) accommodations, and abundant Wi-Fi.

This year's attendees included Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet; Stan Chudnovsky, head of product at Facebook Messenger; and Bob Pittman, the founder of MTV.

Here's what it's like to attend the so-called Burning Man for the 1%.

Welcome to Further Future.

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The event is a hit among tech workers, including Alphabet's (read: Google's) Eric Schmidt.

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Yes! That's Eric Schmidt, a veteran Burning Man attendee, wearing a top hat and mirror-plated vest.

"This is a high percentage of San Francisco entrepreneurs, and they tend to be winners," Schmidt told The Guardian. "It's a curated, self-selected group of adults who have jobs."

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Source: The Guardian

Burning Man, the Coachella-meets-"Mad Max" desert festival attended by hippies and the tech elite alike, announced a major expansion last week. The nonprofit behind the festival purchased a patch of Nevada desert 21 miles north of its Burning Man grounds to the tune of $6.8 million.

Fly Ranch stretches 3,800 acres across Washoe County, and will operate as a year-round laboratory for innovation, art projects, and community development. Burning Man communications director Megan Miller tells Tech Insider it will host events and gatherings, and there is no near-term goal of turning it into a commune.

A company blog post calls it "the next step in the grand experiment that is Burning Man."

Burning Man got its start on a beach in San Francisco in 1986, as a spontaneous bonfire where they burned a human effigy. It became a tradition among friends, until four years later when the local police intervened.

The so-called "burners" relocated to Nevada, where the annual festival continues to be held. Today, the event brings like-minded individuals together under the sun for music and activities centered on self-expression, like building creative vehicles, practicing yoga, and petting individuals at the "human petting zoo."

Since Burning Man's temporary Black Rock City has been at capacity since 2011, the organizers are looking to Fly Ranch as a space for creative overflow. It used donations earmarked for the expansion, not ticket revenue or concessions sales, to buy the land, according to the blog post.

Burning Man emphasizes Fly Ranch as an extension of the community, rather than a mere commercial endeavor. A promotional video released by the company shows stunning aerial shots of the property for two minutes and ends with the words "Welcome home" superimposed on a misty lake scene.

What exactly will take place at Fly Ranch remains unclear.

It will be open 365 days a year, as a central hub of Burning Man culture. When Burning Man established itself as a nonprofit in 2012, it set out to create space that "incubate and showcase collaborative and interactive arts" and foster community. It may double as a sort of workshop, where creators can build everything from effigies to hardware.

The website hinted at projects will revolve around shelter, clean energy, environmentalism, new models of living, and other innovations that drive social change.

Burning Man has not said when construction will take place, but Miller confirms the grounds will not be ready before the end of 2016. Opening day could be years away.

Fly Ranch represents a massive undertaking by the nonprofit, which has broadened its programming beyond the festival over the years. Burners Without Borders is a grassroots initiative that helps solve community issues through creativity, and the Youth Education Spaceship gives Bay Area kids hands-on experience in the arts and technology.

The new property may require a dedicated governing body that schedules and democratizes work space, and ensures the land is taken care of.

Unless organizers plan to keep Fly Ranch afloat on the generosity of donors, they will likely have to introduce some sort of membership infrastructure.

One thing's for sure. This is one undertaking that won't vanish at the end of a week.

Join the conversation about this story »

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On nice days, Apple plans to open the 25-foot high doors at the back of its new "global flagship" store in San Francisco, letting customers bask in a sunny public plaza while they get their iPhones and Macs fixed. 

In the center of that plaza is a sculpture called "Love," by San Francisco-based artist Laura Kimpton. You can't miss it from Apple's new "Genius Grove," which is replacing the traditional Genius Bar. The 10-foot high rainbow letters really stick out. 

To any "burners" visiting the store the sculpture might look familiar — because Kimpton's been making large word art at the annual Burning Man festival in Black Rock, Nevada, for years. 

"Apple and Hyatt are having conversations with me, so these very large organizations are no longer scared of Burning Man. It's an art festival," Kimpton told Business Insider. 

Here's the story of how a piece of San Francisco outsider art found a place at Apple's most important store in years.

Born on the playa

Kimpton first went to Burning Man, the multi-day desert festival known for its mix of artists, nudists and partiers, in 2002 and it blew her mind. 

The next year she returned to create large scale art. "It had like fourteen things on fire, a projected flame of methanol and propane and a crew of sixty people," Kimpton said. "But after three years of doing that, I just thought I needed to come up with a simpler concept."

She settled on big words. First, she made a 10-foot high sculpture that said "MOM." 

"I thought that people at Burning Man would be mad at me that I reminded them of their mom. Instead it was the complete opposite. People were like 'oh I'm so happy I saw MOM, I just decided to cut it back a little bit and not party so hard,'" Kimpton said. 

The next year she decided to make a giant "LOVE" sculpture — and although she thought it was a little "too obvious," the rest of the Burners loved it. " And now every time Burning Man is represented in a magazine they use the word 'love,'" Kimpton said.  

Since then, she's done several commissions for large words sculptures — but the new rainbow-colored Love at Union Square is arguably the most high-profile yet. 

"Big words are everywhere now, it's so funny and I've been doing it for ten years. I've never seen it in a gallery situation, but big words are in every place on TV," Kimpton said. 

Enter Apple 

As the Apple press release about the Union Square store notes, Hyatt Hotels originally commissioned the piece. 

Apple says that a key part of of its new "global flagship" concept is that it integrates public spaces into the store. And the courtyard between the store and the Hyatt next door was perfect. 

Before Apple got involved, Hyatt came to Kimpton and wanted to commission some art from native San Francisco artists. "We were talking about an idea and we're like 'wow, what if we did a rainbow Love' in San Francisco," Kimpton said. 

"We chose rainbow because San Francisco is the city of love, and acceptance of loving whomever you want to," Kimpton said.

Apple got involved in January — just months before the store officially opened this past May. Kimpton was thrilled, partially because she uses Apple products to help create her art. 

"Apple believes that the courtyard is where you're going to be able to meet with the geniuses in outdoor areas so you're not stressed," Kimpton explained. "So for Apple to accept art from Hyatt was a little conflicted in the beginning, but they also thought it was really good for them too, and they also thought it was beautiful, so it ended up being a wonderful conversation."

Apple ended up paying a rush fee so that the 10-foot high sculpture would be done and installed by opening day. 

Even from inside the Apple Store, the Love sculpture is hard to miss. There's a hedge around it so discourage people from climbing on the sculpture, but looking on Facebook and Instagram, people are already climbing over all of it — just like people did on the "playa," or the desert where Burning Man takes place. 

You might be able to take the art out of Burning Man, but you can't extricate the Burning Man from the art. 

"I've got to tell you, I knew people would go crazy over words, but I never knew they would go this crazy," Kimpton said. 

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Burning Man, the wild, dusty arts and culture festival that takes over the Nevada desert at the end of each summer, has become a cultural phenomenon since it began in San Francisco in 1986.

It moved to the Black Rock Desert in 1990, and attendance has grown exponentially since then — last year's event boasted an estimated attendance of 70,000. Burning Man 2016, which begins August 28, is expected to be equally huge. 

Though the festival has gained a reputation for its party culture, one of Burning Man's mainstays is the incredible artwork that festival goers can find while wandering around. Teams spend months and even years designing, preparing, and raising funds for their projects. From elaborate temples to massive structures to illuminated domes, Burning Man is an architectural feast for the eyes. 

Take a look at the stunning works of design and construction that have been created through the years. 

Temple of Stars (2004)

Big Rig Jig (2007)

Basura Sagrada (2008)

Every year thousands of people travel to California's Mojave desert for a post-apocalyptic party. Wasteland Weekend is a MAd MAx fan event with live music, gladiator-style fighting, a car show, and fire stunts.

Video courtesy of Wastleand Weekend video crew

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In late June, 1986, Larry Harvey and Jerry James joined a handful of friends on San Francisco's Baker Beach in search of radical self-expression. They didn't come empty-handed.

Earlier that day, Harvey and James had collected scrap wood and built an eight-foot statue of a man. Later that night, the two hoisted it up and set it on fire. A crowd of 20 formed to watch it burn. Little did they know that a 30-year tradition had just been born.

Today, Burning Man draws more than 60,000 people to Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Over the course of a dusty, freewheeling week in late August, the festival celebrates notions of self-expression, civic responsibility, and art.

This year's Burning Man will be held from August 28 to September 5. Here's a look back at how one of the world's most surreal, iconic festivals came to be.

SEE ALSO: 20 insane structures built at Burning Man

For the first three years of Burning Man, the festival was held on San Francisco's Baker Beach. By 1989, however, Golden Gate Park Police had learned of the event and prohibited any actual burning. The event was a fire hazard, they said.

In 1990, Harvey and James decided to relocate to the second-largest and flattest piece of land in the US: Nevada's Black Rock Desert. At first, people didn't really know what to do once they got there. Some found hot springs. Others played music. But by the end, the 40-foot statue still burned.

By 1997, the secret of Burning Man was out. Wired called it the "New American Holiday" and CNN dubbed it "the world's most dangerous art festival."

This year's Burning Man — the wild annual festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert — will start on August 28.

During the festival, a temporary, self-sustaining community pops up in the desert, free of the constraints and expectations of daily life. One of the main spectacles at Burning Man are the outlandish, elaborate and zany sculptures, structures and art installations that attendees create there. Many are intentionally destroyed at the end of the festival, since part of Burning Man's mission is to leave no trace, but some have left the desert and are installed in other locations around the world.

We've rounded up 20 of the most stunning works from past festivals. Check them out below.

SEE ALSO: An inside look at Burning Man's 30-year evolution from beach bonfire to international mega-event

Bliss Dance by Marco Cochrane (2010)

After debuting at Burning Man 2010, the 40-foot-tall sculpture moved to San Francisco's Treasure Island and then permanently to The Park Las Vegas, an outdoor area on the strip, in 2015.

The Prairie Wind Chapel by Robert Hoehn and Wind Tribe (2015)

This airy temple featured a Victorian reed organ and two wood and metal pipe organs.

R-Evolution by Marco Cochrane (2015)

Constructed of steel rods and balls covered in stainless-steel mesh, and lots of LEDs, R-Evolution was a 48-foot-tall sculpture of a woman. It was part of a series by Chochrane that also included the Bliss Dance sculpture shown earlier.

Every year, over 65,000 people gather for Burning Man, the wild, weeklong festival in the middle of Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Since Burning Man began in 1986, its ever-growing number of participants have abided by its founding principles, which include "radical self-reliance,""radical self-expression," and "leave no trace."

As part of the festivities, teams of artists work together to build huge, intricate temples from reclaimed wood. At the end of the week, as part of Burning Man's "leave no trace" rule, they set them ablaze. 

Sculptor David Best and his crew started this tradition in 2000, designing the temples until 2007 and again in 2014. Since then, other architects and artists have made their own creations. At this year's Burning Man, which starts August 28, Best will return to build a new temple.

Check out some of the most incredible temples that have been created over the years — before they were burned down.

SEE ALSO: 20 of the most incredible works of Burning Man art ever made

The Temple of Tears by David Best and Temple Crew (2001)

Temple of Stars by David Best and the Temple Crew (2004)

Basura Sagrada by Shrine Tucker and the Basura Sagrada Collaboratory (2008)