About 7,000 of the 70,000 or so ‘burners,’ who attended the Burning Man festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert over the weekend started their journey home on Monday through Reno-Tahoe International Airport.
Another 10,000 or so festival goers are expected to head home via RNO on Tuesday.
To help make the transition from the playa to the plane as smooth as possible, Reno-Tahoe International added extra customer service staff, extra trash bins, therapy dogs and a Burner bike collection area.
The local Kiwanis Club cleans up and refurbishes the discarded bikes that were used at the fesival and distributes them to kids in the community.
Because dust from the playa can muck up the airport baggage system, Burners are asked to put their luggage into bins and/or big plastic bags.
“The day went extremely well,” said airport spokesman Brian Kulpin on Monday evening, “Stores and restaurants were full of Burners getting their first taste again of modern civilization. And airport custodial staff did a phenomenal job keeping up with the Playa dust and the exodus from the desert.”
Did you attend the Burning Man festival this year? Please share a photo.
Thanks for visiting Stuck at the Airport. Subscribe to get daily travel tidbits. And follow me on Twitter at @hbaskas and Instagram.