Oh, it's darn near the end of summer again, and you all know what that means. 

It's time for the pretentious and preposterous to gather together in the Nevada desert once more for that annual self-indulgent, primoridal bacchanal known as: 

BURNING MAN

Yes, kiddies - that legendary gathering of the wealthy, the well-to-do, and their sycophantic hangers-on. Who litter the desert with refuse, drug paraphernalia, condoms, and obscure, pseudo-intellectual works of "art" which can mostly only be appreciated by the stoned or the supercilious. Much of the art, like the Burning Man sculpture itself, are meant to be ever-so-fleeting - temporary flights of whimsy that dissipate in the heady glow of being surrounded by like individuals who claim to revere thought, creativity, the planet, community, and a good toke.

So lofty, so airily overweening, so wrapped in a warm cocoon of "you can't be one of US." #SpecialFlowers

...From the start Burning Man existed as a rejection of materialism and commerce, and a celebration of self-expression, communal living and collective responsibility – but in 2004 Harvey solidified those ideals into Burning Man's 10 Guiding Principles, which include radical inclusion, decommodification (no logos are allowed), gifting and leaving no trace.

There are games, there are amusements - it's glamping for the cool kids and tech bros who have the time and money to indulge themselves safely without having to worry about the hazardous downsides of true camping—an entire cadre of Liver Eatin' Johnson larpers in $500K+ motorhomes.

"...A tough environment. Building tents. Riding your bike for hours..."

Burning Man essentials #19 : Prepare yourself mentally & physically 🚴🧘🏽‍♂️🪷#burningman #burningmanvideos #burningmanessentials pic.twitter.com/f1M530W9ir

— replicah.eth (@re_plicah) August 18, 2024

Just like walking a trapline and skinning varmints.

This sweet young thing whipped up a little video about her "first Burn" as they fondly call the event.

It's also big, BIG money. They get 70,000+ people (77K last year) to drive out to the middle of nowhere and most of them are extremely well-heeled. This isn't a roadside KOA. Entrance is not cheap ($730 with a vehicle), nor are some of the accommodations if you don't bring your own Coleman tent. And, of course, no one does because none of these people would be caught dead in such a bourgeoise rig.

...As the cost to attend has gone up, attendees have become more affluent. The census shows that in 2023, 61% of those attending came from households with income over $100,000 (and 17.5% from ones earning over $300,000).

Perish the thought.

It's also a boon for the local economy and the San Francisco purveyors who equip Burners as they head out of town for the party.

...When its founders first burned a man in effigy on a San Francisco beach in 1986, Burning Man may have been about getting back to basics, but over the years, the reality of the event has shifted from the well-kept secret of artists and adventurers, to a frivolous gathering of ultra-rich tech bros and their friends, to a gone-mainstream clusterfuck overrun by new burners seeking new experiences. Though Burning Man certainly hasn’t grown as fast as other similar outsized cultural projects, the population of Black Rock City has ballooned since its first forays into the public consciousness, from 80 people at its first Black Rock City outing in 1990 to 35,000 people in 2004 to 80,000 in 2023.

And the cost of that gathering is enormous. In 2014, journalist Nick Bilton described luxury campsites springing up to house 100 people at the cost of $25,000 a spot, and that was nearly a decade ago. In 2019, the festival finally banned one ostentatious campsite that charged attendees $100,000 for access to a two-bedroom air-conditioned suite with a minibar. Although commerce at the event is banned and organizers maintain they’ve rarely broken even because costs are so high, Burning Man is a cash cow; the nonprofit organization that runs the fest claimed $46 million in annual revenue in 2019. After canceling the festival in 2020 and 2021, the event has struggled to return to pre-pandemic profits, but the economy around it has continued to grow. Some estimates have claimed the fest generates upward of $60 million for the local economy.

Last year's festival got off to a rocky start. Local cops moved climate protestors off of the highway and were none too delicate in doing so. 

#FeelingzWereHurt  (NSFW language)

Al Gore climate students tried to block the road to Burning Man.

It did not end well for the left-wing lawbreakers.https://t.co/CRGgAlSPj9

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) August 28, 2023

Which is really sort of ironic as these nature revelers are all deep into the climate hustle themselves...until it interferes with vacation plans.

...But the downside of that economic boost is a climate nightmare: a staggering 100,000 tons of carbon emissions annually, not to mention a growing noise pollution problem and an increasingly obnoxious number of private jets that ratchet the carbon footprint ever higher. Then there’s the huge cleanup afterward, which continues to require more resources as the event strays further and further from its “leave no trace” mantra.

And as for experiencing nature in all its glory as part of a communal gathering, these green believers don't seem to be as intent on living by their own rules when it feels like the, well, Nevada desert in the dead of summer outside the tent.

...For the past 20 years, Alameda resident Marisa Lenhardt has led the Death Guild Thunderdome camp, one of the better-known desert camps specializing in concocting gothic (but friendly) cage fights. She said that it was “incredibly unusual” for the festival not to sell out by this point, and attributed this year’s low attendance to extreme weather events over the last two years and soaring ticket prices, which are at least $780 for entry to the festival with a vehicle.

“There are huge climate changes and finances are f*ckin’ real,” Lenhardt said by phone. “Several people have told me they won’t come back without something air-conditioned.”

The hypocrisy is stunning. Like finding yourself in Nicaragua's jungle on an expedition and lamenting people only speak Spanish - what are the odds that camping in the desert would be hot?

These are our best and brightest, remember.

Although after last year's festival descended into a rainy, muddy, desperate-to-escape debacle, you'd have a hard time proving it. 

9 hour 14 lane traffic jam after burning man festival in nevada (2023) pic.twitter.com/S0ra9OFXoy

— 🌕 (@alilmoonn) August 19, 2024

They didn't know it could rain in the desert either, I guess. Not many had brought sufficient supplies in case something went awry, and why should they have?

Burning Man is a mess. Upward of 60,000 people are literally stuck in mud and have been ordered to stay put.

Food and water running low. pic.twitter.com/HKRZSwkTCY

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) September 2, 2023

Festivalgoers paid for a party, not the weather they got and the goo they trudged through.

This year, the forecast for the weather is clear, but ticket sales are looking cloudy. Whatever they're blaming - extreme weather events or the economy - people aren't forking over the cash. 

Burning Man, the annual desert bacchanal that last year became a mud-soaked quagmire, has released a last-minute pool of around 3,000 tickets in response to sagging sales. Attendance has faltered post-pandemic due to extreme weather events, from heatwaves to flooding, which last Labor Day Weekend sent many burners, including comedian Chris Rock and DJ Diplo, fleeing from the Nevada desert.

While it’s not unusual for a pool of tickets to be released in the weeks before festivities, the festival’s organizers have usually required those who want last-minute tickets to pre-register earlier in the year. Organizers have also reopened their ticket aid program, giving people access to lower-priced $220 tickets, to encourage newcomers and returning burners who were turned off by their experience last year. 

Those who snapped bunches up in the early rush to try to scalp those usually tough-to-get tickets later? They're getting burned badly.

Demand for tickets at Burning Man — the notorious Nevada desert festival beloved by Silicon Valley elites — has cooled, with the event failing to sell out for the first time in years.

The festival usually attracts artists, activists and revellers, known as Burners, to a sprawling stretch of the Black Rock Desert for a week of uninhibited celebration.

Free love and drugs are said to be warmly embraced among the hedonistic crowd and each year reports of an “Orgy Dome” raise eyebrows among those unfamiliar with the festival’s excesses.

I'm not sure if organizers looked around before setting prices and crowd expectations, but Silicon Valley has had a rough year of it. From thousands upon thousands of tech workers at all levels losing their jobs to companies leaving the Bay area and taking those salaries with them to the failure of a number of tech-related Silicon banks.

...The 44,900 tech layoffs in the Bay Area consist of about 10,300 job cuts in 2022, nearly 21,600 layoffs in 2023 and about 13,000 staffing reductions by the high-tech sector during the first half of 2024, according to the WARN letters on file with the state EDD.

Have they seen downtown San Francisco lately, or is it too dangerous for them to go anymore?

I don't know that I'd blame the weather for their little party losing its glow. 

But bubble people rarely have an inkling of the world outside their privileged sphere until life turns off the a/c and they find it's a desert.