Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index

Burning Flipside

Burning Flipside (or Flipside) is an annual alternative arts and perfomance festival staged in Dripping Springs, Texas near Austin. Modeled on and loosely associated with Burning Man, Flipside is one of several Regional burns around the USA.

Burning Flipside was started in 1998 by Burning Man participants from Texas. Lasting five days during the Memorial Day weekend, it is significantly smaller than Burning Man, with about 600 attendees in 2003, compared to about 30,000 attendees for Burning Man. Attendees build a temporary city called Pyropolis; most of the structures in this city are destroyed at the end of the event.

Many of the core values of Burning Flipside are borrowed from Burning Man, and the same short, memorable terms are used for them, namely:

Theme camps -- groups of participants who build a structure or area for public entertainment with an underlying theme -- and fire art are popular.

Flipside has some differences from Burning Man. One touchstone is comparison with frontside -- the mainstream culture and social milieu which Flipside is a reaction to. In addition, Flipside's location is in a private camp area in the wooded, grassy Texas Hill Country, compared to the flat Black Rock Desert of Burning Man, reducing the stark, otherworldly feeling as well as the possibility of large-scale fire art.

External Links