[bigiain]

I heard about it from a friend in '96, read that article in '97, attended first time in '98. There were already people saying "Man, this thing has sold out. You shoulda been here back when it was good, before there were, like, 7,000 people here most of who don't know 'the principles' the event is based on..."

Pretty much every year between then and when I last went (in '14) there were new rules which people claimed "ruined the evnt forever!!!" - in '99 Steve couldn't run The Drive-By Shooting Gallery again because they banned guns. Erin's camp stopped being allowed to use theirliquid fuelled flamethrowers in around '03 or '04. The Lawrence Livermore Labs guys got told they couldn't bring their big lasers out and paint animations on the mountain range in '10 or so... But at the same time, there was always some amazing new thing to see. I don't regret any of my trips out there. I still plan to get back there again one day.