Platanillo, Costa Rica | March 19 – 23, 2026
The third annual Bliss Burn returned March 19–23 to The Garden in Platanillo, Costa Rica, an intimate conscious campout where full production and programming are present but secondary to connection and co-creation. In contrast to the sprawling jungle venue — nearly 33 acres nestled along a flowing river in the mountains less than an hour northeast of the Pacific — nothing feels distant. Over the course of a long weekend, paths cross and recross until coincidence starts to feel suspicious, like some invisible hand nudging people into each other’s atmosphere. By its third year, the growth feels deliberate and fine-tuned, guided by a kind of venue feng shui. The property opens wide, people disperse across it, and somewhere in that sprawl, a quiet current takes hold.
That current showed up before we even arrived. On the drive in, we passed a girl with a dusty backpack standing along the road at a small mercadito in the middle of nowhere, a surreal anomaly with the unmistakable look of someone seeking their bliss or their burn, let fate decide. I had the feeling she was heading in the same direction, but we had already passed and kept driving. Too late to turn around, or at least that’s what I told myself. The feeling lingered until I saw her inside the commissary. I was relieved that she had made it, but the feeling that I had missed a moment lingered.
A couple days later, we saw a man on the roadside with gear and a long fire staff that made his destination obvious. This time we stopped. He was a tico — a local — a fire performer, and jewelry artist, grateful and effortlessly present. He told us he performed with a skull on his face, and we immediately recognized him from Envision — the dancer with flickering flames wrapping around the broken bones he collected from these hallowed grounds and repurposed into a mask, his body bending through the heat, and his eyes locked in a trance-inducing stare. Later that night, we found him again before he stepped into the flame like a moving ignition point in the dark. The universe had offered a redo and waited to see if we’d take it.
Unfolding this year under the theme Cavalia Mágica, the shape of Bliss Burn revealed itself across the weekend, percolating, hiding, and reappearing. Traversing the lush landscape felt spontaneous, yet guided without instruction, like we were a roaming band of horses true to the name. People drifted, gathered, disappeared, then reemerged somewhere unexpected. We learned the layout by moving through it.
Coming out of Envision a couple weeks earlier, the shift in scale was immediately clear. Hundreds of people rather than thousands, two main stages rather than many, and everything within reach creates a different kind of awareness. Faces become familiar quickly, and conversations pick up instead of restarting. The space allows you to exist inside the gathering rather than pass through it. The irony is that it also makes the experience feel far too short.
From the moment we arrived Thursday afternoon, after passing over the tiny suspension bridge straight out of Indiana Jones, there was a recognizable charge in the air — something I’ve only experienced at Burning Man, Desert Hearts, and the early years of Lightning in a Bottle. A shared willingness moves through the crowd, and people show up ready to build and to participate in whatever is taking shape around them.
That mindset carries into the deeper intention behind the event. In speaking with the co-creators, the philosophy around the effigy came into clearer focus. The center of the ritual isn’t aimed at a single figure like it is at Burning Man. It isn’t about burning “the Man.” The language that kept surfacing was about dismantling the System, the structures that dictate how people relate, produce, consume, and disconnect. The pyramid stands in for that, the opposite side of the coin, literally reflected on U.S. currency, yet larger, heavier, and harder to ignore. For a few days, Bliss Burn operates like a temporary override, a space where creativity and connection take precedence over transaction and expectation.
You could see it, too. The musicians carried their own gravitational pull. Honduran producer Shavalien opened our Thursday night with a shamanic tribal set at the Bliss stage like a summoning, drums and textures threading through the jungle air like something ancient waking up. Friday drifted into otherworldly territory at Elev8, where Apothecary — musician, photographer, and full-spectrum creator — delivered a handcrafted psy set, each layer and transition pulling you further inward.
By Saturday, the energy tightened and expanded. Costa Rica-based Pink Mammoth artist Zach Walker brought a soulful melodic sound that uplifted the dancefloor, New Mexico-born global house experience creator SWAYLÓ was joined by Chrystee Brinegar‘s gorgeous live vocals, and a San Fran favorite, Sage Farris showcased a welcoming deep house set, while Bliss Burn residents Nacho DJ, Flip, Segatto, and RaQuel Star anchored the night with homegrown authority. Bliss Burn co-founder Nacho DJ’s set in particular resonated even stronger than his set at Envision. He spoke about acting as a conduit, pulling sounds and influences from Southern California and beyond into Costa Rica, and even shouting out Lou E. Bagels for shaping much of his sonic palette.
Beyond the Bliss stage, the Elev8 space expanded the gathering into something more dimensional. Anchored by a new stretch tent and an upgraded sound system by Lantern Sound Design housed in unique wood-encased works of art commisioned by none other than Apothecary, the stage held a steady presence throughout the weekend. Around it, an entire village formed — four tipis aligned with the elements and directions, each offering its own portal into experience.
Beginning with the opening ceremony, the days featured workshops on topics like authentic relating and communication, while movement practices blurred the lines between dance and dialogue. Morning cacao ceremonies and breathwork melted into ecstatic dance and tarot readings. By Sunday, the premiere performance of Flow State Dance Company and a theatrical adaptation of Momo — a story about time thieves and a girl who disrupts them — brought everything into a surreal, almost prophetic close. The entire space operated like a parallel dimension. As the gathering continues to grow, the Bliss stage feels poised for the same kind of sonic evolution already taking shape at Elev8.
Art revealed itself the same way. Tucked into the landscape stood “Held in Becoming” by Briana Hill and lead designer Armando Severiano, a towering wooden goddess constructed from repurposed materials, holding a disco ball like a heart suspended in time. The piece carried a quiet gravity. Built from a deeply personal process of shedding and reconstruction, the installation embodied the space between who you were and who you’re becoming. What made it resonate even more was how it came to life in a mere five days through community collaboration and the willingness to be witnessed in the middle of transformation rather than at the end of it.
And I’d be remiss to leave out the Teatro del Cosmos parked along the river — a puppet theater art car originally built for Envision. This time-warp caravan became one of the most unexpected anchors of the daytime. At Envision, it was an interactive playground — kids climbing through it, puppeteering from small windows, “DJing” on fake decks while real music pulsed from somewhere hidden behind the curtain. At Bliss Burn, those plans dissolved when the puppeteers got sick and couldn’t make it, but the structure and spirit held. The concept endured, settling into the riverbank as a stage in its own right — a gathering point for those pushing the renegade moment well past sunset.
The scale of what’s being built here is ambitious, especially relative to the size of the team holding it together. That challenge shows itself in flashes, though it sits alongside a long list of things that land exactly right.
Our decision to stay off-property proved to be more of a nuisance than a luxury. Coordinating travel, watching the clock, and eventually dealing with a flat tire bent the weekend into a shape we hadn’t planned for. Missing the final day and the effigy burn due to safety concerns on the long rocky dirt roads created an absence that still lingers.
The real substance of a campout like this lives in the in-between, the late-night drift, the early morning stillness, exploring theme camps, the moments and conversations that emerge when nothing is scheduled. Staying off-site creates distance from those moments and you only understand the weight of that distance after the fact.
That realization circled back to a phrase I kept hearing throughout our time in Costa Rica: Pura Vida. Easy to say, harder to live. Somewhere between the missed ride, the second chance, the flat tire, and the time we did have inside the Burn, it settled into something real. Accept what’s in front of you, find the joy already available, be grateful for the lessons, and let go of the version of the experience you thought you were supposed to have.
The land reinforces that lesson whether you ask for it or not. The jungle hums, the river runs calm and constant, and sound travels in strange ways at night, reverberating through trees and returning from unexpected angles. Time loosens and things land differently.
By the time we left, nothing wrapped itself up cleanly. No final punctuation — just a lingering awareness that the experience wasn’t meant to resolve. It was meant to be lived in pieces. The road out felt clearer than the road in.
