In 2009, Andrea Kerns told some friends that she wanted to go with them to Burning Man, the communal art gathering and spectacle held every summer in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. Her friends instead recommended what’s called a regional burn—a condensed, slightly less intense version of Burning Man, sanctioned by the gathering’s organizers and run according to the same basic principles.
“I told these friends, ‘I’ve been going to Bonnaroo for years!’ and they’re like, no, it’s not the same,” Kerns says. “Burning Man is such a monumental undertaking—to get there, the cost, the preparation. It’s nine days, so it’s not for the faint of heart or the easily offended or the emotionally unstable. They said I had to go to a regional first.”
That fall, Kerns—the marketing director at the International and also for EDM promoters Midnight Voyage Productions—attended Alchemy, the regional burn in North Georgia. It’s the biggest regional burn in the United States, with more than 3,000 participants every year.
“I was pretty overwhelmed by the sheer creativity and the openness of the people,” she says. “I decided that we need this in Tennessee. I don’t know what’s what, I don’t have any idea how to do it, but I want it in Tennessee and I’m German and I’m stubborn.”
That led to Serendipity, a regional Burning Man event in Morrison, Tenn., that Kerns helped establish in the spring of 2012. After parting ways with the other organizers, Kerns is now staging a second Tennessee burn closer to home. To the Moon will be held June 2-6 at Spirit Crossing, a 175-acre farm and festival ground near Sneedville.
“I was looking for a property to maybe do a Midnight Voyage outside event and came across this farm,” she says. “It’s perfect—it’s on half a mile of the Clinch riverfront and the owner does jam festivals and is super laid-back.”
Kerns plans To the Moon as a microcosm of the larger Burning Man, with art, music, fire performers—“fire hoops, fire poi, fire-breathing, fire-spitting, whatever,” she says—and, on Saturday, the burning of a giant effigy, one of the most emblematic Burning Man rituals. The event is capped at 500 burners, and Kerns says they’re close to selling out.
Serendipity, the state’s officially sanctioned regional burn, is still scheduled to take place this weekend. But Kerns has big ambitions for To the Moon. She’d like the organizing group to evolve into a nonprofit organization that can apply the Burning Man principles—self-reliance, decommodification, self-expression, and inclusion—to the surrounding communities in Knoxville and Sneedville.
“We’d like this to start local and go global,” she says. “I’ve been in the music business so long and now I want to create a party with a purpose, where you create something of lasting value. For instance, one lofty idea is that an event of this size would support purchasing endangered habitat of the same size as the footprint that it takes up. That’s where we want to tie in with nonprofit organizations that have already established themselves, working right there on the ground with local government and officials to protect endangered habitat, species, people.
“It’s all very lofty, but if you wait for everything to be perfect, it won’t happen. You have to start somewhere.”
After her 2009 trip to Alchemy, Kerns finally made it to the big Burning Man.
“It’s the most insane thing I’ve ever done,” she says. “I highly recommend it—and don’t, at the same time. It makes you think you’re not doing enough with your life—the sheer magnitude of it. It’s like life amplified.”
Senior Editor Matthew Everett manages the Knoxville Mercury's arts & entertainment section, including the comprehensive calendar section—Knoxville’s go-to guide for everything worth doing in the area. You can reach Matthew at matthew@knoxmercury.com.
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