The Person Who Died At Burning Man Has Been Identified Amid Festival ‘Exodus’
After an unusual downpour and stormy weather left thousands of festival goers stranded, the news of the Burning Man death sent shockwaves—as well as a slew of misinformation—across social media.
What started in the 1980s as a ritual bonfire on the summer solstice has turned into an annual festival (though the founders reject that term and instead use “community and global culture movement”) in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, attracting more than 70,000 attendees each year. A temporary city is constructed by revelers and the event culminates in the burning of a large wooden effigy known as “The Man”. As the site describes: “We don’t book acts or provide entertainment. What happens here is up to you! There is no corporate sponsorship. You are entering a ‘de-commodified’ space where participants value who you are, not what you have. There are no spectators! You are expected to participate, collaborate, be inclusive, creative, connective and clean up after yourself.”
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Usually, attendees are warned about the risk of dehydration in the remote, parched location but 2023’s installment brought extraordinarily heavy rains, turning the temporary city into a mud pit and stranding most of the crowd, who were told to conserve food, water and fuel, and to shelter in place. “We have come here knowing this is a place where we bring everything we need to survive,” the organization said in a statement. “It is because of this that we are all well-prepared for a weather event like this.” After the chaos subsided and the “exodus” began on Monday, September 4, 2023, police officials confirmed that one attendee had died. Here’s what we know about the Burning Man death.
The Burning Man death
The Burning Man death was confirmed by Pershing County and his identity was later identified as Leon Reece. The 32-year-old was found unresponsive at approximately 6:24 PM on September 1, 2023, with no cause of death immediately apparent. Investigators previously stated that Reece’s death appeared unrelated to the weekend’s weather, but the stormy conditions delayed efforts to send help.
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“Pershing County dispatch received a call regarding a male subject who was on the ground and unresponsive at the Burning Man Festival and medical personnel were administering CPR to the male,” Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen said in a statement on September 3, 2023.
“Due to the unusual rain event happening on the Playa, access to the area and investigative efforts were delayed. Upon the arrival of Pershing County Sheriff’s Office Deputies, the doctor at the Festival had already pronounced the male subject, later identified as Leon Reece, a 32-year-old male, deceased.” An investigation and toxicology report are underway.
Rumors of deaths at the festival circulated on social media—“A couple people didn’t make it,” one Burning Man attendee said in a now-viral video after the flood—before Reece’s passing was reported. There was also a hoax that Ebola was spreading among the stranded crowd.
The main event, the burning of The Man effigy, was delayed from Sunday September 3 to the following night due to poor weather—more than half an inch fell on the Friday night, causing flooding and foot-deep mud.
After the first dumping, the Bureau of Land Management released a statement saying that Burning Man entry was closed for good and all still heading inbound would not be permitted to enter. “Officials from BLM and the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office have closed ingress to the Burning Man event effective immediately and for the remainder of the event. Participants inbound for the event should turn around and head home. Rain over the last 24 hours has created a situation that required a full stop of vehicle movement on the playa. More rain is expected over the next few days and conditions are not expected to improve enough to allow vehicles to enter the playa.”
Burning Man attendees must adhere to the 10 Principles of Burning Man “not as a dictate of how people should be and act, but as a reflection of the community’s ethos and culture as it had organically developed since the event’s inception,” co-founder Larry Harvey wrote in 2004.
These principles include:
Radical Inclusion
Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.
Gifting
Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.
Decommodification
In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.
Radical Self-reliance
Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on their inner resources.
Radical Self-expression
Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.
Communal Effort
Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.
Civic Responsibility
We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.
Leaving No Trace
Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.
Participation
Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.
Immediacy
Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.
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