I'm curious if there's a contingency of providers/hobbyists out on the playa.

Not my cup of tea but this is wehat it is...

I lived in NM so I know what you're talking about.  This is something different.  It's a festival of radical-self expression and art on a playa in northern Nevada.  It's a week long, always in the same place, always around Labor Day.  There's a massive website devoted to it.  It draws about 60,000 people, making it one of the larger cities in Nevada, if only for one week a year.

Burning of 'Old Man Gloom' where people write down the things that bring them heartache and attach it to the monstrosity that they eventually set fire to and watch it burn while it moans in agony in the spirit of the Catholic faith?

Nah! I'll kick it here 40 miles south and drink my face off as usual!

Im not going but I LOVE and live for this kind of stuff! I went to the last Woodstock in '99 and that was AWESOME!! 3 days of rock concerts and having a HELL of an awesome time!

I always wanted to go.

Always wanted to go.  Now I have another incentive.