Burning Man first moved from San Francisco to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert in 1990.
The event began in 1986 when Larry Harvey and Jerry James built and burned a wooden figure on Baker Beach in San Francisco. It continued there for several years, but a dispute with local authorities prevented the organizers from holding the 1990 burn on the beach.
The event was relocated to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, where the open playa provided a much larger setting. That move transformed Burning Man from a small beach gathering into a large temporary community centered on art, participation, self-expression, and the annual burning of the Man.
Burning Man later developed the temporary settlement called Black Rock City. Although many people associate the festival exclusively with Nevada, its origin was a San Francisco beach ritual, and 1990 marks the crucial transition between those two settings.