Burning Man participants, also known as Burners, are coming in from all over the world to northern Nevada for the annual Burning Man festival, but before they hit the Black Rock Desert playa they're snagging some extra supplies from local grocery stores.
Brian Viera, the owner of the Grocery Outlet on Kietzke Lane said many Burners come into the stores with giant coolers.
“They're getting all the same stuff lots of juices lots of beer and wine, right? And lots of water those are the big main items and the food they want like crackers and things that are sustainable on shelves,” Viera said.
With the sudden influx of people, Viera planned well so they wouldn't run out of supplies at the store.
“We planned for it so we’re in pretty good shape, it’s almost like planning for a holiday so we order up for it, so we make sure we have a lot of products,” he said.
We ran into a Burner from Austin Texas, Alan Vantoai, who goes by the name "Full-time" while he and his group were making their last run for food.
“You have to get everything you plan to live on for essentially a week, some of the stuff the camp is providing centrally so we have one meal a day the camp is providing everything else outside of that we need to provide so we’re keeping it basic with fruit meat rice and some snacks,” Vantoai said.
But every Burner prepares a little different than one another.
Steve Katelman, a Burner from Omaha Nebraska told us what he's bringing to the Playa.
“Eating grilled cheese sandwiches so I got four loaves of bread and a lot of cheese,” Katelman said. “We’re making snow cones... champaign snow cones, so I think we got 140 cases of champagne in this trailer. We’re bringing hopefully enough but if we don’t bring enough, we are camping next to a camp that specializes in extra waters.”
Besides food, Burners are also trying to prep their living spaces for the Playa.
“For example we have painters tape to seal up any small parts make sure the interior is protected from the dust, put down carpenter flooring, plastic wrap over stuff were not going to use, reflective foils over the widows to reflect from the sun and keep it dark and cool in the RV which is important when it’s hot out on the Playa.” Vantoai said.
Vantoai also told us that you can never start planning too early. In some cases, the earlier the preparation especially for big camps, the better.
“We’ve been planning for around 3 months, some people plan for longer, there are people who dedicate a major part of their lives year-round for this, but in our case 3 months for the camp and for the RV and our personal stuff it ramped up gradually over the last month and a half to 2 months," Vantoi said.
