The Burning Man Festival is a hard sell this year.
The annual raucous weeklong immersion in debauchery held in Nevada’s Black Rock desert usually sells out quickly, sometimes in minutes, but days ahead of its Aug. 25 opening, there are still tickets to be had, according to The Guardian.
This is the first year since 2011 the festival has not sold out, Alysia Dynamik, executive director of the Generator, a maker space in Reno, said.
Burning Man has had a rocky few years. It was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19.
In 2022, record-setting heat fried the allure of days spent on the desert. In 2023, massive rains turned the playa around the Burning Man site into miles of impassable mud, leaving many who attended stranded for days.
“The last few years have been tough for weather and being able to properly plan,” Kaden Sinclair, president of the Idaho Burners Alliance.
“The rain last year got a lot of people freaked out about it,” Dynamik said.
Sinclair said the issue goes beyond weather.
“With food and housing making more immediate concerns a priority, many are choosing to skip a year or two in order to solidify their living situation,” Sinclair said.
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Although Burning Man tickets are $575, the cost of attendance can be far higher.
“Many of us greatly enjoy bringing large art. That is almost entirely self-funded and can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Sinclair said.
Dave Carr, owner of Kimono Dave’s in San Francisco – which usually sees a sales spike for Burning Man – said this year has seen slower sales, according to CBS.
“Sales have been down this year period,” Carr said.
“For anyone that does anything that I do, for anything related to festival culture has been down. Major music festivals around the country have been struggling, canceling or postponing,” he said.
According to Billboard, the Coachella Music Festival sold about 80 percent of its tickets this year.
“Most of the feedback I get is: ‘I needed a year off,’” Marian Goodell, the chief executive of the Burning Man Project, which sponsors the festival, said, according to The New York Times.
“The other feedback I get is the economy; being laid off; the cost to not just buy a ticket, but to get yourself there; the cost of fuel; the cost to be away from your job,” she said.
