Leaving the playa is the only way to conduct business in this commercial-free zone. Cell-phone coverage and internet access are very limited, and there’s no commerce whatsoever. The mini-countercultural civilization survives on gift giving; even bartering is not allowed.

But if no cash changes hands on the playa, it certainly does ahead of time. Going to Burning Man is not cheap, with presale tickets starting at $195 and going up to $350 at the gate. Plus, attendees have a massive preparation list: food, water, tents, sleeping bags, glow-in-the-dark anything, bikes, and goggles and dust masks for surviving the dust storms. And more and more participants are stepping up the experience with decked-out R.V.’s and luxury camps equipped with extensive high-tech elements and semipermanent buildings.

James Okura, who runs his own art-production company, sets up an air-conditioned fake-fur-lined tent and tunnel system he calls the Geisha House. “We provide chilled sake in an office watercooler and Japanese snacks. Our motto is ‘You are your own geisha.’ ”

“People have definitely stepped it up for luxury,” says a hedge fund trader in his thirties, who’s going this year with some heavy hitters in media and finance. “This will be my first year going in an R.V.: The Four Seasons version of Burning Man.”

Newbies are in for an exercise in surviving in a very noncompetitive, open atmosphere—attributes that are exactly the opposite of the Wall Street and hedge fund worlds. It’s not for everyone.

“The Wall Street crowd at Burning Man is very small,” says the hedge fund trader. “I would not encourage anyone I work with to go. I see how people are in this business, and I would not trust them to engage the experience as it should be engaged.” He went for the first time in 2001 with friends from San Francisco.

The trader is afraid the playa will be polluted with what he refers to as the “aggressive indulgence that is part and parcel of New York City, particularly of those in high-powered, high-paying jobs.”

Such people may have the wrong idea about the festival. “People think it’s a big drug-sex thing out there when it’s really, really not,” the trader says. “It couldn’t be farther from the truth.”

Celebrities such as Sting, Courtney Cox, and Robin Williams have been known to go in previous years, but there are no V.I.P.’s at Burning Man, and that’s part of its appeal. “The Burning Man spirit,” says the trader. “I’ve seen it overwhelm people out there. If everybody went once, the world would be a cooler place.”