The hottest accessory at this year’s Burning Man isn’t the designer drug du jour — it’s an AARP card.
Some 60,000 people pilgrimage annually to the festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, which runs through Sept. 3. It’s a libertine carnival where attendees let their freak flags fly: There are orgy tents, “Mad Max”-like parades, elaborate costumes and plenty of illicit substances.
But none of that is stopping Burners from bringing their parents.
“[My daughter] said, ‘If anyone offers you something to drink, don’t take it,’ ” said Jill, a 64-year-old lawyer from Washington, DC, who is accompanying her 32-year-old daughter this year. (She declined to give her full name for professional reasons.)
“It’s reverse mentoring,” Jill added. “She doesn’t want me to accidentally take drugs.”
Anneke Jong, a 34-year-old startup COO from Williamsburg, said she’s thrilled to share the experience with her mom, Elyse DeBelser. The 65-year-old has been planning her costume — which she describes as “robot dire wolf” — for months, fashioning a chest plate out of old lacrosse pads, with deer horns screwed into the shoulders and a wolf’s-head hat.
“This is literally a dream come true,” DeBelser said while at this year’s festival. “Being here with my daughter is such a peak experience.”
Dana Pollock, right, with her dad Hunter Pollock and daughter at Burning Man.Millennial Dana Pollock said the average age of festival-goers “tends to be 33 or 34” but she’ll be bringing up the curve with her dad, Hunter, 62.
“My friends can’t believe it,” said the East Village entrepreneur, 27. “People think it’s [just] some weird party with orgies. But after going last year for the first time, I realized how much my dad would love it. He’s very open-minded, positive, curious and a believer in all that is good in humanity.”
Her father particularly likes the fact that Burning Man is anti-materialistic. Attendees eschew money and instead exchange gifts — from foot rubs to jewelry trinkets — for food and services. (They must bring in everything they need to survive in the desert.)
Hunter is going for a “mountain man/early man” costume theme, Dana Pollock said. As for her, she’ll adopt a more demure look than she had last year.
“I wouldn’t wear the sheer top with nipple pasties [again],” she said. “I’ll protect my modesty a bit more because he’ll be there.”
Hunter’s wife just has one concern about him heading to the party.
“At my age, I think she’s worried I’ll do something physical that could hurt me,” he admitted.
Michael Beneville with his mother Mary Hamilton at Burning Man in 2016.The perils of old age didn’t deter Mary Hamilton, 75, when she went to Burning Man two years ago with her son.
“I had a knee replacement six months before,” said the grandmother of two, who struggles with rheumatoid arthritis and got around the desert on a motorized tricycle. “I’m not your spryest, but [Burning Man] took years off my age.”
A self-described “LL Bean [wearer] and conservative person who’s not some hip granny,” Hamilton let her inner hippie shine.
‘People think it’s [just] some weird party with orgies. But after going last year for the first time, I realized how much my dad would love it.’
“I’d see her holding court in front of 20- and 30-year-olds asking about her life and her stories,” said her son, Michael Beneville, 48, who runs his own design studio and lives in the Flatiron district.
“I felt valued for my age [rather] than just an old lady looking in,” Hamilton added.
Some of her new Burner friends even visited her in the hospital after a later surgery.
Joan Ehrmann, now 82, went with her East Village-based daughter, Abby, to Burning Man four years ago, but that was enough for her.
On the plane ride to the playa, the grandmother of four chatted with, as she recalled, a “beautiful woman who introduced herself as Colleen.” Upon landing, Colleen morphed into a scantily clad dominatrix who said her “playa name is Chainsaw.”
“Just having been to Burning Man is definitely street cred,” said Ehrmann, who admitted her friends back home in Marin County, Calif., were incredulous of her experience.
“But once is enough for me.”
