The iconic Burning Man festival is feared to be on its last legs, with demand for tickets at an all-time low just a week before the event begins.
Fed-up revelers fled Nevada’s Black Rock Desert last year after torrential rain turned the event into a muddy mess – and now it seems the magic has been lost.
Burning Man tickets are usually in hot demand but in an unprecedented move, the festival has released last-minute tickets.
While organizers behind the week-long festival, which has been known for drug usage and huge orgies, are making desperate attempts to sell tickets, a Facebook group is consumed with people trying to flick theirs off.
Prices start at $575 before taxes and fees, with vehicle passes costing around an additional $150. This time around, people are willing to sell them for below face value or the ‘best offer’ for the festival on August 25.
People like Graham Chapman found himself with an extra ticket after his partner could no longer make it to the festival, but he had no idea someone would offer him just $300 for the ticket he paid full price for.
‘It sucks, because I don’t have that disposable income to spare,’ Chapman told The San Francisco Standard.
‘It’s literally ticket-gouging, just from the buyer’s end. I just got the offer and I was like, “Eww, this is gross and skeezy and opportunistic”,’ he added.
Burning Man is famed for being an anti-capitalist festival – but many of its longtime revelers are now complaining of being bilked out of cash for tickets they bought at full price.
One person even offered him $200 for the ticket as he frustratingly responded to them with: ‘Decommodification goes both ways.’
According to the ’10 Principle of Burning Man,’ or the festival’s principles, decommodification ‘protects Burning Man culture from being leveraged to promote, support or market a person, product, company or any kind of commercial endeavor.’
Like Chapman, a mother and 20-year Burning Man veteran, also lost out on about $800 after turning to the Facebook group ‘Burning Man Tickets and Vehicle Pass Exchange’ to sell them.
‘Burning Man tickets are always a sh** show,’ Tess C. said about her mother’s selling experience.
‘Usually it’s stressful to make sure we have tickets. This year, it was stressful to get rid of them,’ she added.
An anonymous user posted to the online group about selling a general admission ticket for $575 and was immediately blasted by another member.
‘You’re going to eat that ticket if you’re selling it for twice as much as everyone else,’ they responded.
Martin Rauchbauer said he’s content with selling his extra ticket for $300, as long as someone else can enjoy the festival.
‘Of course it’s a bummer to lose money,’ Rauchbauer said. But Burning Man has been criticized for being elitist and unaffordable.
‘So whatever the reason is for this year’s lowered demand, I think it’s good that people that might not otherwise come may have the opportunity to go for the first time.’
Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley, a spokesperson for the Burning Man Project, told The San Francisco Standard that the organization was ‘adjusting 2024 ticket sales to reflect recent trends around the world that show last-minute ticket buying.’
DailyMail.com contacted the Burning Man Project for comment.
During last year’s festival, partygoers lashed out at each other after organizers begged those trying to leave the filthy encampment to have patience amid panic over water and food shortages.
Attendees were initially ordered not to leave after the exit roads were impassable following a half-inch of rain.
Those who opted to leave before the ‘the burn,’ in which the festival namesake effigy is set alight, waited in five-hour queues until they reached the open road.
People were urged to not attempt to walk from the festival, with celebrity attendees including Chris Rock, actor Austin Butler and DJ Diplo making their escape.
The festival also hit headlines last year following the death of attendee Leon Reece, 32, who was found unresponsive at the event.
People reported in October of last year that his death was an accident after ingesting cocaine and ecstasy.
Due to the heavy rain and muddy conditions, personnel were delayed in responding to a distress call for Reece, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
The festival contended with an intense heat wave and strong winds in 2022, which made the experience difficult for the ‘burners,’ as festival goers are known.
While a dust storm forced organizers to temporarily close entrances in 2018, with the event canceled altogether during the pandemic.
Tens of thousands travel to the remote area in northwest Nevada every year gathering in the temporary city to make art, dance, and enjoy community.
Burning Man aims to be an undefinable event, somewhere between a celebration of counterculture and a spiritual retreat.
The festival gets its name from its culminating event, the burning of a large wooden 40-foot sculpture called the Man on the penultimate night.
The gathering, which originated as a small function in 1986 on a San Francisco beach, has a budget of $45million and is attended by celebrities and social media influencers.
No financial transactions take place, with guests encouraged to barter to get what they need. Longtime Burning Man attendees complained the festival had been gentrified and ruined in recent years, before the 2024 slump in demand.