Welcome to ePlaya!
Burning Man is a festival of sculptors and visual artists.
There are burners in NY:
https://regionals.burningman.org/region ... /new-york/ who do fun things year around and can advise on planning your Nevada adventure. They probably have excellent happy hours, apartment parties and potlucks.
It's never too early to work on costumes and make a packing list.
Burning Man Black Rock City is a wilderness camping trip. So if you are not used to that, maybe there are some camping trip experiences, with friends or with burners, you can engage between now and August.