Anchors for Burning Man Art Sculpture Installation

American Earth Anchors’ patented Penetrators have been used successfully at Burning Man for many years to secure art installations. Penetrator anchors are easy to install into the playa’s hardpan surface and they’re easy to remove as well with minimal impact to the playa. Made of heat-treated aluminum, Penetrator anchors are heavy-duty, yet lightweight.

The desired load capacity for your structure will determine which size anchor you’ll need, and installation methods will vary by anchor size. The most common power tool used for Penetrator installation is an impact wrench, but the anchors can be installed by hand with ratchet wrench and steel pipe for leverage.

One of our customers told us that PE46s came up in a Burning Man art support engineering call. They mentioned they'd done pull tests at 8,000 pounds on the playa with PE46 anchors, and that because of that, they rate them at 4,000 pounds to give a safety factor. They mentioned they're more resilient to shear than the auger + post-style anchors the org uses for wires. They also said to expect to have to finish the drive-in with a bar/wrench vs. an impact driver. Special thanks to this customer for the feedback!