Yup. And it exploded outward to the point that its influence can be directly seen in miniburns, and indirectly seen in renaissance/fantasy faires and furry campouts (like Feral! or Wild Nights) pretty much throughout the continent at this point.

Burning Man used to be a counter culture event. People setting off explosives and doing whatever they want in the middle of the desert. Now celebrities show up in their million dollar motor homes.

> You sold out, man.

> Your counterculture went mainstream and you cashed in. Now the money is gone, and so are the people. It's over.

This. The festival that celebrated counter-capitalism, has now been infected by it.

Just saw a video from a couple outlining their expenses for a week at BM, keeping in mind you’re in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Over five thousand dollars to rent your way though BM, is NOT what one would define as anti-capitalist.

You can go to the UK instead and enjoy "Gurning Man"!

If you're feeling really adventurous, you could try gurning on the Isle of Mann.

> You sold out, man.

> Your counterculture went mainstream and you cashed in. Now the money is gone, and so are the people. It's over.

Not even remotely true.

Burning man changed it's campsite rules, making it difficult for people to come and camp as a group. They changed the a ticket lottery to favor individuals and not groups, so that not everyone in your campsite might be able to get a ticket.

They did this with the best of intentions, people realized that only a subset of their campsite friends would be able to get a ticket and so everyone decided not to go under those rules.

BM was having growth issues (ie - far more people wanted to go than they had permission from the BLM), tried to change the rules to with the best of intentions, and as a result implemented a system that discouraged groups.

If they go back to the previous rules, Burning Man would be wildly popular again.

Not 10 minutes after this Slashdot article posted, I received the following E-mail from Maid Marian:

> Support Black Rock City & Beyond

> Hi,

> If you’re getting this email it’s because you've probably had a ticket to Burning Man in the last 20 years.

> Either Burning Man is still a huge part of your life, you F **#$% ing hate Burning Man, or maybe you’re ambivalent. Wherever you land, it’s probably been just as impactful for you as it has been for many of us.

> What started for me in 1995 at the edge of a dry lakebed — where a tall man wearing a bedsheet and holding a plastic flamingo told me to "drive 12 miles to a black mountain and then left until you see five pointy things" — has evolved from a bunch of weirdos with guns into a global institution reimagining and reinventing what the world could be like if we did things a little bit differently.

> Burning Man now is a worldwide cultural phenomenon that, since 1986, has been built and experienced by nearly a million people, both in Black Rock City and at more than 80 annual official events around the world. You may be one of those people. Whether or not you come to Black Rock City regularly, you are part of the community and we value the ways you have contributed to make Burning Man happen. Thank you.

> It’s a little-known fact that revenue from tickets does not support the cultural movement that Burning Man has become. We do not want to raise ticket prices. In the name of Radical Inclusion, we actually prefer to lower them. But, the fact of the matter is that the cost to produce Black Rock City in 2023 was $749 per participant while the main sale ticket price was $575. You can read more about this inflection point and the reduced ticket sales in 2024 and how this has forced a much larger fundraising goal to keep operations going. Or explore the summary financial information going back 10 years to see how the higher-priced tickets have been subsidizing the event for some time, and how the drop in those sales threatens Burning Man.

> The plan for 2025 and beyond is to flip the script. It’s time to think about the most Burning Man way to close this gap.

> No, we won't go towards corporate sponsorship, additional RV fees or merchandise sales. Instead, we will turn to the community and invite participation and support to help fill the gap. Yes, we have reduced the number of regular year-round employees on staff, and we’re diving into the budget to trim what is already a lean and tight Black Rock City infrastructure and nonprofit management. But that alone isn’t enough.

> Now is the time to ensure that Burning Man can persist into the future — not just as an annual event in the desert, but as a cultural institution that will be here decades from now, empowering future generations to reimagine the world they live in.

> I would certainly prefer that our focus be solely on pushing the edge, rather than having to raise money all the time. But as we continue to provide containers for the future to be prototyped, we operate in the context of the default world, and that requires ongoing charitable support year after year to keep this thing going.

> You already know we're not a normal nonprofit — we never wanted to be “normal.” But we are a nonprofit and to keep doing what we do, we need your help.

> F-*&$ commercial sponsorship! \/

> Contribute today so we can:

> Prototype new ways of living, working and being together

> Support art and artists through grants

> Get Black Rock City off fossil fuels

> Nurture Burning Man culture around the world

> Capture the DNA of what we are doing to hand off to the next generation

> Get funky and bring more cacophony of chaos

> We are moments away from announcing the Black Rock City 2025 t

[1]Read the rest of this comment...

[1] https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23506007&cid=64910535

I'm confused here. This is an event that everyone brings their own stuff to, is held on Federal land... why is so much money needed for it? There are other events like Wasteland Weekend that have a different, less hippie vibe, but don't seem to have the issues that BM does. It doesn't that that much money to draw out spots in the desert for people to park at, provide security, and get some events going. When I read about stuff like the Solar Womp (which is from a number of years back), and BM having a l

Yup, i was in western Arizona near Kingman when Burningman was about to start and thought i could drive to Burningman, got online looking for Buringman info and seen the high cost of admission and parking and the exorbitant prices killed that idea

Burning man began as a counter-culture event and turned into exactly what it was supposed to protesting. Reminds me of that quote from Batman: You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

I thought Burning Man was a hippy, alternative culture sort of thing.

I thought exactly the same thing, if I were ever to go I assume I'd just show up on a flaming chariot or something, and camp wherever.

I mean how do they even check for tickets?? It looked like chaos driving in from all the pictures I've ever seen.

Only the early tickets cost that much. The general sales are more somewhere in the $500 range. Though truth be told to do BM right and not be a mooching sparkle pony you're probably going to be spending several grand to get there and setup camp be it a tent or rented RV depending on how far away you live. I considered going before and renting a small RV the ticket cost, vehicle pass, rv rent, fuel to drive from the east cost, and other supplies for the week i estimated in the $5-8K ballpark range. Not excep

Anarchy works really well for one person, it's kind of workable for two... but by the time you get to larger groups, if you don't have organization and authority you're asking for trouble.

Of course, once you have organization and authority, you'll get people trying to claim the top spot and rip everyone under them off.

> I thought the cost of burning man was to physically get yourself into the desert and be outfitted with enough stuff to survive on or trade, and hopefully get back home. plus the cost of all the weird or crazy crap you need to show off how crazy you are. I was not aware that land rent was so expensive to in the desert. "Sir your ticket says Lot 5A, but this is 3B. what are you trying to pull here? ahy?" Apparently my understanding of Burning Man was all wrong. or a decade behind.

1993 Attendance/Cost: 1,000/$40

2023 Attendance/Cost: 70,000+/$575

There’s growing pains, and then there’s dealing with the unmitigated nightmare of your event turning into a Superbowl-sized clusterfuck filled with rich attention whores mining for clout while glamping in the desert, blissfully unaware of the original point of it all.

I always though it was kind of odd that Burning Man was even as popular as it was. Participating was pretty expensive if you weren't relatively close to the event location, and as you said, visitors had to arrive equipped to deal with spending several days in the middle of a damn uninhabited desert of all places. It was never anything I was particularly interested in, because I already live in a miserably hot climate and that's not my idea of a vacation.

Plus, I want my vacation spots to have modern infras

> The moment they had a CEO position they should have seen they were no longer what they stood for.

LOL you don't have a clue about your history. CEO is nothing more than a leader. Every event needs a leadership, and virtually every long running event with that kind of turnover and planning requirements has a professional organisation orchestrating it from the top. When you run long enough leadership changes and new people need to be employed. What do you call those people in the job ad? Cuddly Decision Daddy? Tsar of the Flame? or just CEO.

The first CEO position was formalised in the 90s. They've had a C

> The fact that during covid an unofficial burn was done on the site for little money shows that the BMORG is the issue here. They've gotten too greedy.

5,000 people at an unofficial (COVID) burn vs. 75,000 people at an official one.

Last time the event was that small was damn near 20 years ago. Perhaps we do the math before assuming.