Burning Man 2025 was a challenging year for a lot of camps – including ours! We had been planning to celebrate our last year as Brainy Bar and debut the Atomic Octopus installation, but mother nature had other plans for us all. On the evening of 27 August, hours before the gates were to open, a terrible dust storm descended on Black Rock City. Even though our structures were not all complete and secured, everything seemed to be holding. Then we took a direct hit from a dust devil. The desert tornado pushed down on our front-of-house with incredible force, causing the structure to crumple. That’s when we realised we’d need an occo repair for the damage.
Nearly a year later, that is still a difficult image to look at. Our deepest sympathies to all the camps and solo campers who experienced it. In the aftermath, what we truly faced was the necessity of completing repair work on Occo, also known as an occo repair. The irony is that we had just finished assembling the Atomic Octopus installation, and were about to put the finishing touches on camp before the gates opened at midnight.
We Can Rebuild It
Thankfully, we survived. Like so many other burners, we were able to pivot. When it came to restoring our camp, repair of Occo was a must; that’s why we focused on the occo repair and quickly brought our front of house back up and running within a day or two.
We Can Make It Better!
The above image is what things looked like when we got things put back together. One piece of our Occo, on the far right side in the image, was broken in two. Fortunately we were able to fix it in the field, but we knew we wanted to fix the tip of the tentacle for 2026. This week, we finished the part that involved repairing the Occo, essentially completing our occo repair! You can see being held in the image below (with bike rack pieces drying in the background).
The narrative that we are choosing to believe is that when we summoned the mighty Atomic Octopus from beneath the surface of the black rock desert, we must have done something to anger it. For the mighty mechanical beast cast its gaze upon Black Rock City and did not like what it saw. As a result, it unleashed a terrible devastation on the city. In any case, occo repair was just the first step towards restoring harmony with the desert.
For 2026, we are attempting to appease the Atomic Octopus by posting and sharing as much octopus content as we can. Not only in the form of posting about the camp, but also an Occo The Day series of posts. We invite everyone to join in their own way, either by posting octopus content (atomic, steampunk or otherwise) on their pages, or as comments on our posts. Together, we can ensure better weather for Burning Man 2026! And with each occo repair, our camp grows stronger for the next adventure.
