Lessons for creative cities from Burning Man: How organizations can sustain and disseminate a creative context

I argue that collectivities and organizations - groups with goals and formalized structures - are crucial to supporting the development and spread of a creative context connecting individuals and groups. To identify the organizational conditions for realizing creative potential, I use a multi-year study of the organization behind Burning Man, an annual weeklong event devoted to the arts and community, and other collectivities and organizations that have adapted Burning Man principles and organizing practices in other localities. I first discuss how the Burning Man organizational form codified value and practices that relax boundaries on creative potential. I then show how with Burning Man's support, collectivities have adapted this form to their localities, coordinating with organizations and individuals, some of whom have no prior experience with Burning Man's values and practices. These Burning Man offshoots not only enact a creative context locally but also institutionalize unfamiliar ways of creating this context. By studying how organizations coordinate efforts and relations that sustain a creative context, we can understand how localities can stimulate creative potential.

► Collectivities and organizations are crucial to supporting the development and spread of a creative context connecting individuals. ► The Burning Man organizational form codified value and practices that relax boundaries upon creative potential and thus encourage creativity. ► Burning Man offshoots not only enact a creative context locally but also institutionalize unfamiliar ways of creating this context. ► By studying how organizations coordinate a creative context, we can understand how localities can stimulate creative potential.