Burning Man is in 9 days. Why are there nonetheless tickets on sale?
The August desert festival, which brings over 70,000 individuals to Black Rock Metropolis, Nevada for eight days, has had a few of the world’s wealthiest in attendance over time, together with Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk. The occasion has bought out yearly since 2011 — usually within minutes of ticket sale home windows opening up.
This yr, although, gross sales of Burning Man’s $575-plus tickets are slower. Potential attendees may nonetheless buy tickets on-line on the time of writing, and ticket resellers reported that they were facing losses of a number of hundred {dollars} once they tried to promote tickets they now not needed.
So what has modified? Two years of surprising climate and difficult financial situations may have slowed demand for the pageant this yr.
Rainbow over muddy Burning Man pageant grounds in September 2023. Photograph by David Crane/Image Alliance through Getty Photos
In 2023, Burning Man attendees faced rain and mud that left them stranded, flooded some camps, and shut down personal airspace utilized by rich visitors. When roads had been protected sufficient to journey, pageant attendees confronted a five-hour traffic jam as they tried to depart.
Associated: Video: Over 70,000 People Trapped at Burning Man Amid Flooding, Leading to Disastrous ‘Mass Exodus’
In 2022, temperatures rose above 100 levels Fahrenheit within the space, the highest in history for the area, prompting some visitors to stay inside the shelter they delivered to the pageant.
The occasion may additionally pose a major value for visitors. Although there are discounted $225 tickets out there for limited-income contributors, attendees must pay to get to the pageant and gas their autos. They face extra prices in the event that they need to transport artwork.
Rising inflation additionally means greater residing prices, which may take precedence over attending the pageant.
“With meals and housing making extra instant issues a precedence, many are selecting to skip a yr or two with a purpose to solidify their residing state of affairs,” Kaden Sinclair, president of the Idaho Burners Alliance, informed The Guardian.
Attendance remains to be more likely to be above 70,000 individuals this yr, Marian Goodell, Burning Man Challenge chief government, informed the New York Times.
Burning Man was the place the place Google co-founders Larry Web page and Sergey Brin tested Eric Schmidt for the CEO place in 2001, after a yr of looking for candidates.
“Eric was . . . the one one who went to Burning Man,” Brin said at the time. “We thought [that] was an vital criterion.”
Schmidt bought the job and served as Google CEO for a decade, till 2011.