To find out more about the biggest party in the desert, our reporter Julia Ritchey chatted with Reno's only dedicated Burning Man reporter, Jenny Kane, of the Reno Gazette-Journal.

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Attendance at this year's festival will mirror last year's, says Kane, but there will be a new way to get there and back.

"They have a new Burner air shuttle," she says. "They're trying to fill up the planes, which will leave from the Reno-Tahoe International Airport and go straight to the playa."

Charter flights are nothing new, but this is the first service run directly by Burning Man.

This year also marks the 30th anniversary of the festival, whose history Kane recently wrote about.

"It started in 1986 on Baker Beach outside of San Francisco," says Kane. "It didn'tlarge-scale artworks that take months and months to construct and assemble out on the playa. Kane says one locally made piece this year, called the Space Whale, is especially compelling.

"Their fins are going to be up in the air; it's going to look like it's swimming through the desert," she says. "The light is going to be gorgeous because the whales are going to be made of stained glass."

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