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'Burning Man' Festival Cancelled Again, Goes Virtual For a Second Year (npr.org) 61

Posted by EditorDavid from the leaving-no-trace dept.
"There are simply too many points of uncertainty for us to move forward with confidence right now," explains a FAQ addressing this year's cancellation for the annual Burning Man festival.

"The physical, psychic, and emotional impacts of this pandemic are real and the recovery from this experience will happen at different rates of speed," organizers said in an announcement. "This is the time to gather with our friends, crews, families and communities..." They also argued that in an abstract sense, "Burning Man is happening right NOW, all around you," urging people to create experiences, opportunities and connection at the local level. (Their suggestions include planning to join a mass "Burn Night" livestreaming event on September 4, or preparing for "Virtual Burning Man" from August 21 to September 5, 2021.)

Last year's virtual event drew 165,000 participants, reports NPR, adding that this year's cancellation of a mass real-world gathering "has put many people in the event's host community at ease." Wary of a trend of rising coronavirus cases in some parts of the region, Washoe County's district health officer Kevin Dick said "the right call was made," in order to lower the risk of spreading infection.
And SFist also notes the festival's "Invitation to the Future" program "where $2,500 buys you a reservation to buy tickets whenever they do announce the event — but that $2,500 does not get you a ticket." "This is a reservation that will guarantee someone the ability to purchase a regular priced ticket for the next two editions of Black Rock City," the Burning Man Project communications team says in an email to SFist...

Per the fine print of this arrangement, there will be only 1,000 of these $2,500 reservations that are essentially tickets to buy tickets... "It's going very well!," Burning Man's communications team tells us. "We're so grateful for our generous community. As of this writing, we have only a few hundred left...."

Burning Man has to get creative, and maybe perks for big spenders is an acceptable one-time trade-off to ensure its ongoing solvency. The project has gone nearly two years since its last infusion of direct ticket revenue, and the permits and attorney fees necessary to pull off this event on federal land have not gotten any cheaper despite the pandemic.
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'Burning Man' Festival Cancelled Again, Goes Virtual For a Second Year More

'Burning Man' Festival Cancelled Again, Goes Virtual For a Second Year

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  • Remember when (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Burning Man was a big counter culture gathering? Pepperidge Farm remembers. Now you have celebrities showing up in million dollar motorhomes.

    • When it was a free event held on Baker Beach in SF it really was.

    • Re:Remember when (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quintessencesluglord ( 652360 ) on Saturday May 01, 2021 @10:14PM (#61337216)

      The primary means of maintaining the status quo is co-opting whatever is at the fringes, making it docile and controlled.

      I have suspicions this is (in part) why capitalism is so successful. You can sell Marx t-shirts to would-be revolutionaries and they have lost before they even started.

      • The primary means of maintaining the status quo is co-opting whatever is at the fringes, making it docile and controlled.

        See also: Southwest, South By; Film Festival, Sundance.

      • I have suspicions this is (in part) why capitalism is so successful. You can sell Marx t-shirts to would-be revolutionaries and they have lost before they even started.

        Well, to be fair, the would-be revolutionaries placed orders with us for the rope to hang us with, so there's that ...

    • The celebrities who schedule it as a photo-op in between Ohmigawwwwd Coa-chella and the Vans® Warped Tour Presented by Cingular Wireless® are bad enough, but even worse is the particular crowd they draw, absolute barnacles who personify all the empty performative aspects of hippies without any of the sex or spontaneity. It's basically Bohemian Grove for tech douchebags.

    • I'd say it probably jumped the shark when they made a Malcolm in the Middle episode about it. As for me, I live in Florida where it regularly gets hot enough that you'll have a religious experience from heatstroke, just walking out to your car. I can't imagine why anyone would pay money to experience it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      The burning man I remember wouldn't let "the man" tell them they couldn't have a festival.

      • The burning man you remember is long, long dead.

        It jumped the shark when it got overrun with cops.

        Going to burning man is a sign of holding on to things way too long.

        What is needed is smaller, distributed burning man festivals. The current venue is hostile to freedom.

        • There are plenty of regional burns of various sizes already.

          I was lucky enough to go the the last one ore covid (frost burn), I haven't been to black rock, but the regional burns are pretty great.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by leptons ( 891340 )
          >The burning man you remember is long, long dead.
          >It jumped the shark when it got overrun with cops.
          >Going to burning man is a sign of holding on to things way too long.
          >What is needed is smaller, distributed burning man festivals. The current venue is hostile to freedom.

          Burning Man has always been, and always will be, what you make it.

          So right here you're telling us that you are unable to make it awesome, so instead you just call it bad to make yourself feel better. Stay home, we don't n

  • Just build a pillow and blanket fort (Score:5, Funny)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Saturday May 01, 2021 @09:50PM (#61337190)

    in your living room.

    Invite some friends over (if you have all been vaccinated) have a lot of drinks.

    Play some tunes, have some (whatever floats your boat)

    Throw a bunch of sand over yourselves.

    Instant "Burning Man"

    I am surprised there aren't some NFT rewards for paying for something that doesn't exist though.

  • They also argued that in an abstract sense, "Burning Man is happening right NOW, all around you,"

    ...is the friends we made along the way... O_o

  • Almost everyone, if not everyone, who goes to burning man is an authoritarian, selfish, tribalist, and arrogant jerk. I knew little about burning man .. and up until maybe the mid 2000s, thought burning man was a gathering of people who told the authority to F off. I thought that was an interesting idea. Fuck rules and all that. But then I found out that burning man fools are mad at *other* authorities, not the concept of authority or rules itself. In fact most of the rules that matter, they adopt. They hav

    • We want our chaos to be well-scripted and orderly, dammit!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JBMcB ( 73720 )

      Almost everyone, if not everyone, who goes to burning man is an authoritarian, selfish, tribalist, and arrogant jerk.

      You must know a lot of people who go there. Or you're making assumptions based on clickbait articles. One of the two.

      I treat burning man like I treat Starbucks, never been there .. never going.

      Oh, that explains it.

  • Some things can be done "virtually", but a desert gathering of thousands of people isn't one of them. How sad to even attempt to do it online.

    The entire fucking point is to be there, be weird, and physically participate.

    It reminds of a Joan Rivers joke: "One time I couldn't afford an operation, so my doctor touched up the x-rays for half the price."

  • And SFist also notes the festival's "Invitation to the Future" program "where $2,500 buys you a reservation to buy tickets whenever they do announce the event â" but that $2,500 does not get you a ticket."
  • I am an old boomer, white, male, lifetime I.T. career, liberal northeasterner, so you can safely disregard this comment. I have camped in a tent at Burning Man twice in the past eight years. It is an experience unlike most. If you have not been there: 1. You are not qualified to express an opinion. 2. If your opinion is based upon your experience with people you have met who have been there, you are still ignorant.

    • Oh, piss off.

      I've been more than your twice, camped in a tent every time, and did so before the ticketpocolypse year gave BMORG the excuse to triple the price. (When you include the "add on" car fee... which really isn't an "add-on" you have an option about. You're not going to pedal a bicycle out that road with everything you need to survive in the desert for a week, after all.) and throw down all the other new roadblocks to going. Yes, "directed group sales" to the BM elites, and the "burner profiles" t

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by lxrslh ( 652069 )
        This "Oh piss off ... blah..blah.blah" rant does not address either of the two points stated above and mistakenly attributes opinions not stated. It rather sounds like a "My burn was better than your burn" and "it was better before" harangues, both points of which might be more appropriate responses to other posts in this thread. Upon further reflection, the rant might be an example of the reasons why some people have no appreciation for burners.

        • Although radical inclusion is supposed to be a BM principle, there are many that absolutely should not go, and they should keep ranting against it, and continue to castigate it.

          Having been there a dozen times, I'll tell you that like most who buy into a philosophy, I'll let them pass by, because it means more tickets for those that enjoy the experience.

          The armchair sabre rattlers, stuck to their gaming consoles contingent aren't going to be happy where there's no electricity, precious little Internet, no ru

  • On the last night, everyone has to set their computer on fire.

  • COVID-19 mini Burning Man (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    We're not missing out even with COVID-19. Everyone has already been holding their own mini burning man called "gender reveal parties"

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