Burning Man In A Warehouse: What It’s Like Going To City Of Gods

My invitation to City of Gods — a two-night Halloween music and art festival that creates a Burning Man-esque wonderland out of a couple Industry City warehouses — came with an ominous caveat: “We have traditionally not allowed the media to attend. This is the first year we are changing that policy.” As I shuffled through Brooklyn’s cobblestoned streets trying to find the entrance on Oct. 26, I took note of its expanse. Through the holes of my dollar-store mask, I realized this wasn’t your typical costume ball — it was a world of its own.

City of Gods, now in its sixth year, comes from the imaginations of Bushwick nightlife authority House of Yes and Zero, known for their tight-lipped parties among the EDM crowd. House of Yes’ Jacqui Rabkin tells me it took nearly a month to transform the massive industrial space into a fastidiously mapped-out and eclectic environment for nearly 7,000 partygoers. Feeling the evening’s windy 49-degree temps, I decided to forego coat check and stepped out into the courtyard connecting its dual warehouse spaces, suddenly surrounded by a sea of astronauts, Greek gods, vampires, Mario characters, and fur-wearing Beetlejuices. On the walls of surrounding buildings, trippy neon-colored projections flashed above one of its seven stages, where a crowd had already amassed to gyrate alongside the throbbing, techno- and house-leaning DJ. (The fest famously keeps its music lineup top-secret to encourage discovery.)

I wandered into one room, dubbed The Sanctuary, where distressed fabric hung over a collage of mirrors behind a stage filled with fake candles. A shirtless man in a top hat spouted meditative and grounding musings while attendees seated on pillows listened attentively and burned sage. Across the room was a series of ever-changing psychedelic projections and skeletal paintings crafted and curated by art-scene legends Alex and Allyson Grey.

Immediately, I realized it would be impossible to see everything before the night ended at 5 a.m. Thankfully, I got a quick tour from Rabkin (sporting a fabulous feathered mohawk), who explained how each room was a collaborative labor of love with respected Burning Man camps and art collectives, creating unique music, vibes, and experiences. Fittingly, rainbow unicorns, gummy-bear walls, and trailer-park garb decorated LGBTQ+ camp Glamc*cks’ space, while fair games, doughnut-making demonstrations, and flash tattoos lived in the Clown Cult’s room, where I won a selfie with an artsy clown.

A woman dressed as Medusa told her friends, “It’s sin o’clock,” as we ascended the stairs into the Playa Jazz Cafe, where a live band performed hybrid tunes accompanied by burlesque dancers. After watching a performer skillfully climb a stripper pole to thundering applause, we passed a bounce house, a Prohibition-slash-vampire-themed art exhibition, and a line of guests waiting to climb onto tables. “There’s service tops here if you want to get spanked or anything,” Jacqui said, casually.

We took refuge in a quiet room decorated with a gigantic Día de los Muertos ofrenda dreamed up by House of Yes’ bar manager and honoring those lost in the nightlife community. Later, a priest would do a performance-art ceremony there — just one of the many blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments of the evening. Thanks to its sprawling map, I discovered a handful of tiny spaces like this, only accessible by wandering and following lines that seemingly materialized and disappeared out of nowhere. Against all odds, I found an entirely new stage at 2 a.m., where a coterie of glowing, hip-shaking dancers moved confidently, as if they knew this was the best spot all along.

As the night cooled down, I passed a s’more-making station, a tent where attendees received massages via fabric-covered waxers and polishers, and a sensory room adorned with jellyfish. A girl dressed as the Bed-Stuy aquarium walked by as the music outdoors took a Bollywood turn, and a man in a crossing-guard costume yelled at a Soprano. Before leaving, I peeked into the Mayan Warrior space, where a gigantic octopus hung from the ceiling amid technicolor lights and, below, inflated robots danced on stilts. At this point, the fog machines had upped their ante, the shimmies were harder, the beat drops were louder, and the crowd looked less like a dance floor and more like an indistinguishable sea of connection.