Barnorama All Fun In The Barn
About 4,000 people have flooded California’s Mojave Desert for the annual post-apocalyptic festival called Wasteland Weekend, and the pics looks out of this world. The festival, which was inspired by the Mad Max film series, is unlike most desert parties because it requires all attendees to be in costume. Yes, even staff members and journalists. The idea is to create a full-immersion effect, making everyone feel like they’re inside a Mad Max universe.
This year, the event ran from September 25thto September 29th., and included a number of themed distractions from the real world. There were live bands, DJs, car cruises, costume contests, a film festival, a post-apocalyptic swimsuit competition, Thunderdome battles, and much, much more.
“We’re going to pull out all the stops for our tenth year celebration,” Wasteland co-founder and event director Jared Butler said in a press release. “It’s amazing that we’ve been able to have this home-grown post-apocalyptic fantasy world last this long. It took a lot of hard work and dedication by our whole community and we want to celebrate that.”
The event has sold five years in a row, and another sellout is pretty much inevitable. “Wasteland is run by a small staff and an army of volunteers. We want those volunteers to grow their skills with the event, so that our staffing and infrastructure never get overwhelmed by the size of the population,” Butler said. Wasteland Weekend art director and Chief of Operations, Adam Chilson, added: “When we grow
at a reasonable pace, it means veteran attendees always outnumber the newcomers. It helps the event keep the feeling of being one big returning family.”
