BURN2 Official Opening

Saturday, October 20th, was the official opening for BURN2 2012. Yesterday I wrote about the history of “Burning Man” and Second Life’s “Burning Life” a bit. But my quest to understand the Second Life Burner movement has just begun.

I was ready to learn, so within minutes of BURN2’s opening, I poured in with at least 100 other peeps in the first wave. I intended to methodically move from campsite to campsite, exploring each Burner’s contribution.

Day 1 BURN2 @ Second Life by Yordie Sands 2012 — The sun had already gone down and I was a bit overwhelmed
as people scurried by, seemingly knowing where they were going.
So I gathered my wits and headed over to the BURN2 Coffee Spot.

I went to the BURN2 Coffee Spot, hoping I’d find some peeps interested in chatting about history and stuff. But everyone was heading for entertainment venues. I know this because the map showed avatars clustered in key locations. Nonetheless, I was set on being methodical, so I headed East toward the highway and Black Rock City. In a short while I came to the highway leading to Reno, Nevada. Now I felt at home.

For me, I like to know where I am, well, unless I’m enjoying being lost. Anyway, this sense of place helped me feel what visitors must go through to get here. ((Ok, I guess I was just role-playing actually arriving in the desert by car, so kinda play along with me maybe on that.))

For awhile, as I wandered, I was blissful in the knowledge that I have the whole week to explore and engage the visitors, but so far I was just wandering and hanging out. And then I recalled how fast time goes during the week, so I picked up the pace.

First, I wanted to give readers a Second Life landmark to drop them into the BURN2 welcome area. And just as I was wondering where that was I heard, Brigit Ranger shout: ” Welcome to Burn2 2012! Just follow the green arrows up the road to get to the festival!”

For the remainder of the day, I found my way across all six sims. I didn’t stop at every site but I got a very good feel for all the things I would want to focus on as the week progressed. Following are some photos from my visit and at the end there’s an introduction to the Guru Guru Stage, a most amazing place that will have to be experienced to really see.

It was getting to be late in the evening, maybe 8pm SLT (Second Life Time, aka PST). I had seen huge crowds on the map all day, up in the northeastern region of BURN2. I knew there was some kind of big stage up there and so I headed over. And there it is! It is a huge building, structure called Guru Guru Stage and it is the latest masterwork of SL builder Mikati Slade.

Day 1 BURN22 @ Second Life by Yordie Sands 2012 — This is the Guru Guru Stage by Mikati Slade.
And there is a stage tucked inside there somewhere,
but this is a machine, a giant, wonderous machine.

This structure is vast and complex with many rotating parts running both clockwise and counterclockwise. As I cammed around the structure, I began to fall into its spell. This was not really a building setup for a stage, it was a machine where someone had somehow set up a stage inside. It is like a merry-go-round on steroids. I’ll say this again, you really must visit this structure and use your camera to explore it to experience what Mikati Slade has done.

For more of my photos, visit Yordie Sands on Flickr, there’s even a cameo photo of me dancing (my backside actually) in the disco. For more information, visit BURN2 Org’s website.

So far, I can’t really say I’m a Burner but I’ll continue to try. There are only seven days more to explore BURN2, see you there!