hi OP! This question might be worth x-posting to /r/BurningMan/ to get the attention a broader audience. FYI: this sub has a "20-year rule" against the discussion of current events, so respondents would be permitted to discuss the development of Burning Man only up to 1994. While that would indeed cover the origins and even the move to the Black Rock Desert, it would exclude subsequent development, when one might say that Burning Man really became "a thing".