Athena Demos

Athena Demos has been coming home to the playa since 1999. A South Texas ranch kid turned Los Angeles community builder, she produced LA Decompression for 15 years and grew it from 800 participants to 8,000. For most of that time she was Burning Man’s Regional Contact for Los Angeles.

Athena is co-founder and CEO of Big Rock Creative and BurnerSphere, an official virtual Burning Man experience created in collaboration with Burning Man Project. Through BurnerSphere she practices what she calls story living: inviting people into the culture, not just showing it to them. BurnerSphere won Experience of the Year (The Poly) from the Academy of Immersive Arts and Sciences in 2025. BurnerSphere, then known as BRCvr, and Athena were both featured in HBO’s The Man Will Burn.

Come take a stroll in the digital dust.