Burning Man began as a bonfire ritual on the summer solstice in 1986 when Larry Harvey, Jerry James, and a few friends met on Baker Beach in San Francisco and burned an 8ft tall wooden man as well as a smaller wooden dog. Harvey has described his inspiration for burning these effigies as a spontaneous act of "radical self-expression". The event did have earlier roots though. Sculptor Mary Grauberger, a friend of Harvey's Janet Lohr, held solstice bonfire gatherings on Baker Beach for several years prior to 1986, some of which Harvey attended. When Grauberger stopped organizing it, Harvey "picked up the torch", and ran with it.

From the first burn in 1986 until 1989, harvey and friends continued to conduct a yearly gathering on baker beach. The attendance of the festival had grown to 100 individuals in 1990 as the man grew to a height of 40 feet, it was in this year that burning man founders created black rock city, the more contemporary and widely understood form of the festival. The festival moved from baker beach to a dry, dusty lakebed in northern nevada, usa, known as black rock desert, or la playa to festival goers. Due to this shift in space, the event took on a new life with greater space for mobility and platform for expression. Black Rock City was created by the gathering and its founders as a dadaist temporary city, a community existing only once a year in the period of seven days before labor day weekend, and it is still recreated in this location today.

The first themed camp at burning man arose in 1993, however, it was not until 1996 that burning man organizers announced a central concept - Hell. However, themes are never a rule as participants are encouraged to enrich the artistic community whether or not their contribution be directly related to this encompassing idea.

In 2011, for the first time in the 25 year history of burning man, the festival sold out. On 29 august 2011, 50,000 individuals moved their lives to their plot of land in black rock city, the desert utopia that Garrett help to orchestrate for a week of total creation. The entirely temporary black rock city. During the time of the festival, black rock city is the tenth largest urban area in nevada, USA coming in just behind carson city, nevada, USA at 52,457.