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Burning Man tickets haven’t sold out for the first time since 2011. Here’s why.
Burning Man’s allure appears to be fading with festival goers, as tickets are still available ahead of its August 25 kickoff. It’s the first time since 2011 that the event hasn’t sold out long before its opening day.
Bad weather at the desert event during the past two years appears to be slowing Burning Man ticket sales for this year’s festival, which runs from Aug. 25 to Sept. 2.
After Burning Man attendees endured extreme heat in 2022, followed by heavy rain and muddy conditions in 2023, many would-be “Burners,” as festival attendees are called, are staying home this year. Economic factors could be at play too, given that tickets for the Black Rock City, Nevada, event sell for $575 a pop, and some consumers may be cutting back on spending after years of elevated inflation.
Tickets are still available directly through the organizer for the typically sold-out event, plus they’re hitting resale sites at roughly half their price. The Burning Man Project, the non-profit that runs the festival, is hosting an “OMG Ticket Sale” on its website, selling last-minute entries even for guests who didn’t pre-register, which is a usual requirement to attend.
This year, Burning Man is selling 3,000 tickets for $575 each, plus 1,500 vehicle passes for $150. Those who decide they want to attend last minute can also scour resale sites such as StubHub for even cheaper entry.
One resale listing advertises a pair of general admission tickets for $268 each, while another lists two tickets for $279 each.
Last-minute Burning Man ticket sales
Founded in 1986 in San Francisco, Burning Man moved to the desert in 1990. In recent years, the event has typically drawn around 80,000 people, according to the organization. It has sold out each year since 2011, according to The Guardian.
Burning Man chief executive Marian Goodell this week told the New York Times that organizers decide how many tickets to sell each year, and that “when the demand is lower, we simply turn the faucet back on.”
“By opening the OMG Sale to everyone, including those who did not register, and selling tickets for instant gratification at outlets in San Francisco and Reno, we are creating the opportunity for this to ‘be the year’ people interested in creativity, innovation, and culture make it to Black Rock City,” Burning Man associate director of communications Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.
He added that the decision to hold a last-minute ticket sale also reflects “recent trends around the world that show last minute ticket buying, and continuing to sell tickets until the maximum Black Rock City population count is reached, encourages immediacy and makes it easy for more people to immerse themselves at the heart of the global Burning Man cultural movement.”
Goodell added in a statement that the sale “is an exciting opportunity to connect more people interested in Burning Man and the arts and culture.”
What happened last year?
Last year’s extreme weather conditions could be turning people off from attending this year. In 2023, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office closed the main road to the festival’s entrance, leaving attendees stranded at the site for days. They were instructed to conserve resources while they waited for road conditions to improve.
And in 2022, temperatures rose to above 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the course of the festival.
Music festivals Coachella and Lollapalooza have similarly struggled with ticket sales this year, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times, suggesting that economic considerations could be at play.
Ticket prices make up just part of the cost of attending Burning Man. After factoring in flights, vehicle passes, costumes and other supplies, attendees say they spend thousands to partake in the revelry.
In recent years, Burning Man has attracted a greater share of high-income earners, with 35% of attendees earning between $100,000 to $299,999 in 2023, up from 21% in 2015, demographic data shows. Meanwhile, there’s been a sharp decrease in those who earn less than $50,000 a year attending, according to the same data.
But there are signs even wealthier Americans are starting to curb their spending, which could be contributing to weaker-than-usual Burning Man ticket sales this year. A survey published in June from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found one-third of people earning over $150,000 said they were worried about making ends meet over the next six months.
Lower kimono sales
Businesses that cater to Burning Man celebrants also say they’re feeling the pinch. David Carr, owner of San Francisco apparel store Kimono Dave, said the shop typically makes 40% of all its sales during the week leading up to Burning Man, according to the San Francisco Standard.
This year, though, that might not be the case.
“This whole year has been a struggle,” Carr told the news outlet. “I’ve just seen a massive slip, personally, but also from the people around me.”
Strapped into the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour, three NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut returned to Earth early Friday, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico to close out an extended 235-day expedition to the International Space Station.
After a high-speed re-entry above Central America and a steep descent to the Gulf, Crew 8 commander Matthew Dominick, co-pilot Michael Barratt, astronaut Jeanette Epps and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin settled to a gentle, on-target splashdown south of Pensacola, Florida, at 3:29 a.m. EDT.
NASA TV
A SpaceX team stationed nearby was on the scene within minutes to stabilize the capsule, make sure no toxic propellant fumes were present and then to haul it aboard a nearby recovery ship where NASA flight surgeons and support personnel were standing by to carry the returning station fliers out of the crew cabin.
Despite two hours of exercise per day throughout their stay in orbit, returning station astronauts need about a month or more to regain their “land legs” after months in the weightless environment of space.
As such, Dominick, Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin were expected to be carried out of the Crew Dragon and placed on stretchers before being rolled inside the ship for initial medical checks and calls to family and friends. All four appeared in good spirits, smiling and waving as they were rolled inside.
Mission duration was 235 days three hours and 35 minutes, during which the spacecraft circled the globe 3,776 times covering 100 million miles since launch from the Kennedy Space Center on March 3.
NASA
The crew originally expected to return to Earth in September. But the flight slipped into early October in the wake of a decision to delay the launch of their Crew 9 replacements because of problems with Boeing’s Starliner crew ferry ship.
NASA eventually ruled out bringing Starliner commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and co-pilot Sunita Williams back to Earth aboard the Boeing spacecraft. Instead, the Starliner came down without its crew on September 7 and Crew 9 was launched with just two passengers — Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexander Gobrunov — on Sept. 28.
That freed up two seats aboard the Crew Dragon for Wilmore and Williams to use when they come home next February with Hague and Gorbunov.
Sorting all that out pushed the Crew 8 departure into October. NASA and SpaceX then were repeatedly held up by high winds and rough seas at the approved splashdown sites, much of it related to hurricanes Helene and Milton.
But this week, conditions in the Gulf finally met NASA’s safety guidelines and the crew was cleared to undock and head for home.
With Crew 8 safely back on Earth, the Crew 9 crew will board their own Crew Dragon capsule early Sunday, Nov. 3, undock from the Harmony module’s forward port and then redock at its space-facing port.
The next day, an ISS-bound SpaceX cargo ship is scheduled for launch from the Kennedy Space Center. After an automated rendezvous, the ship will dock at the just vacated forward port on Nov. 5, election day in the United States.
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A 15-year-old boy was charged Thursday with murder in the shooting deaths of his parents and three of his siblings at a home in Fall City, Washington, according to court documents obtained by CBS News.
The teen, whose name is being withheld because he is a juvenile, was charged with five counts of aggravated murder in the slayings of his parents, Mark and Sarah Humiston, two brothers, ages 9 and 13, and his 7-year-old sister, per King County court records.
He was also charged with one count of attempted murder for shooting and wounding his 11-year-old sister, the documents read.
That girl was in “satisfactory condition” at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, hospital spokesperson Susan Gregg told the Associated Press Tuesday.
Autopsies performed by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that all five victims died of gunshot wounds. The handgun used in the shooting was believed to belong to the victim’s father, the court records state.
According to the charging documents, just before 5 a.m. Monday, the suspect called 911 with a false story in which he claimed that his 13-year-old brother “just shot my whole family and committed suicide too” at the family’s home in Fall City, which is a community located near Seattle.
However, at about the same time as that call, 911 dispatchers received a second call from a neighbor who lives about a quarter-mile away. That neighbor said the suspect’s 11-year-old sister had ran to his house and was bleeding from what appeared to be a gunshot wound, the documents said.
The girl said her entire family had been fatally shot and identified her 15-year-old brother as the shooter. The girl told dispatchers she was also shot by her brother and “then described holding her breath and playing dead,” the documents read. The girl later told detectives that she had escaped through a bedroom window.
Deputies responded to the Humiston home, where they found the suspect in the driveway and took him into custody, court records show. The five victims were found dead inside the home.
In a hospital interview with detectives later that day, the suspect’s surviving sister said that she identified the firearm used in the shooting as “her father’s silver Glock handgun,” court documents state.
She said that her father kept the pistol in a small lockbox that “he would sometimes put by the front door so he could bring it to work,” the documents read. She told detectives that the suspect was “the only one who knew the combination to the Glock lockbox.”
Investigators determined that the suspect “systematically murdered” his parents and siblings and “then staged the scene prior to the arrival of first responders to make it appear” that the murders had been committed by his 11-year-old brother, documents read.
The court documents did not speculate on a motive.
The suspect is scheduled to be arraigned Friday afternoon. The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said in a news release Thursday that the suspect is in custody at the Clark Child and Family Justice Center, which is a juvenile facility.
The teen is currently being charged as a juvenile, and prosecutors said a judge will determine whether his case “will be moved to adult court.”
In a statement Tuesday, public defenders representing the suspect said that “our client is a 15-year-old boy who enjoys mountain biking and fishing and has no criminal history.”
