I always considered Garbicz a very commercial festival even from the very beginning. The ticket was expensive, food was included, all infrastructure already built and you party and leave without much thought at all. The people also had little regard for the beautiful nature and lake - A pretty typical techno festival catering for the Berlin clubscene.

Burns usually are completely different. Yeah Burning Man is super commercial now, but smaller more obscure burns happen all over the world, including Europe. They run on participant preparation and donation, these still embody what Burning Man was originally about

There was a sentence early on in the article, “San Francisco has always been a place people came to re-create themselves — running from something, running toward something exciting and unknown, going as far as they could for a shot at a new life.” although I think the tense there should probably be more “used to be” than “has always been” thanks to the same gentrification influence. I feel like much of California has had the same thing happen to it. When I first went to Los Angeles in 1986, it seemed a magical place with so much potential, but the expense and population growth over the last 40 years makes it nearly unrecognizable compared to the place I lived in then (I moved back to Chicago 15 years ago so it’s in the past).

When you read about people coming to California in the 60s and 70s (and somewhat in the 80s), it had that same magical quality that Burning Man had in the early years and has suffered the same kinds of changes. I wonder what the 2026 equivalent of going to California is now, if such a thing even exists or can exist.

> fun/artsy people create fun environments, fun environments attract others who genuinely appreciate fun/artsy but are professionals themselves, professionals attract other professionals but shallower with more money.

This. The tourist:creator ratio increases until the organization begins to cater to tourists.

The two things Burning Man should have built into its culture were (1) if you don't create personally then you're not welcome (ostensibly, but normalized flying into catered theme camps is so far past the gross line...) & (2) continual mutation (fuck the Principles; burns should each be updating their own every year).

SF got rich and then succumbed to the same human faults they used to mock.

Yep. These sorts of evens are better when they have a predetermined end date. Closing down sale, never to be repeated.

Then the organisers can regroup and start something new.

Rather than the inevitable alternative of morphing in to something unintended, undesired.

Better to reminisce about good old days rather than the decay.

That's a huge amount even in San Francisco. Sometimes I'm shocked what working in big tech does to people's ideas about what a normal annual salary is.

Burning Man is a once a year event. Being a c level for that is not comparable to being c level for a lot of other even non profit orgs not to even mention for profit orgs

I think you've picked the wrong target here.

Worth reading Dustin's personal account of his Burning Man experience: https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/radical-inclusion-vs-radical-self... (bear in mind this was written 13 years ago, I'm not sure Dustin would agree with everything stated, but the broad strokes feel correct.)

That post also explains Zuck's attendance. Zuck is not a Burner, it was a one-off visit encouraged by Dustin. Personally I think it was inconsequential in the long run but good for Zuck to have seen it.

The criticism you're raising about money being thrown at the event is broadly valid, but it does not at all apply to how Dustin approached it, IMO. Dustin did precisely what you are suggesting he didn't - slept in a tent, literally cooked and served grilled cheese sandwiches.

(Context: I was in the camp/village, attended 10 years 2009-2018, back once in 2025, have done a lot of playa art... and I also broadly agree with John Law's take.)

I work at a financial company and around 2019, the break room had a magazine called “Meetings” with a front-page article about how burning man and sxsw are the next big thing in corporate culture.

I think this is where my head goes when I think of the event: a large portion of the attendees have gone from community members to customers.

What are you talking 'corporate' - there are no corporate sponsors, and people having been coming in with their big camp A/C rvs for 25 years at least.

There's an airport there for 30 years - people have been flying airplanes and helicoptors forever.

Bartering is not a thing at the burn. It intended to be a gift-based event.

Rainbow Gathering is barter-based.

> Heck Zuckerberg took a helicopter there one year.

The vast majority of the people I knew who flew in weren’t rich like Zuck, they just liked flying. It’s the only way to get a wristband that allows you to come and go at will (i.e. to run logistics for a camp) and avoid exodus if you had to leave that day.

15 years ago no one gave a damn about the rich people going to burning man. They were isolated in their camps. We were much more concerned with keeping our Sparkle Ponies alive.

It’s funny the way having money and participating in something “the easy way” removes the coolness / authenticity from the experience.

And funny enough, John Law himself has basically been saying the same thing since the late '90s. He's been shaking his fist at this particular cloud for over twenty-five years, so I'm not sure why an opinion piece like this is even noteworthy at this point.

FWIW, for a lot of us, the magic is still there. Most of the city exists outside of the shiny Instagram influencers that seem to dominate the narrative. We're still there being gross and building shit for the joy of it with our friends.

He also neglected to mention that Larry Harvey attended up through his death, afaik. Or how deeply affected the city was the year Larry died.

Or that the man design was done for so long by a close collaborator of Larry’s. And that the man base has been frequently spectacular both on fire and not.

The historical perspective and old photos are great but I’m not much for the conclusion. I would be willing to bet the title and byline are editorialized by the publisher.

You can still go out there with not much, be new and participate and just smile at some famous or not person also on their way back from the Portos.

There is a lot of money involved, no doubt and there is a lot of bullshit too, like art cars that do fundraisers and take volunteer contributions only to remain largely private vessels for a particular crew, a few celebs etc.

And there’s a lot to not like about the org or how art grants are handled, it’s a big system it has the exploits and nepotism that might infect anything scaled and offering power.

But if you go and do not look closely and just give in small ways none of that would likely be visible to you.

You could have the time of your life. Or not. Which I think suggests the opportunity for adventure and chaos still remains at that thing in the desert.

it’s still the city. the org might be run in a lame way but any time you get too involved in something you see another layer of politics and favoritism and helping friends out that just seems wrong. most people going aren’t at that level and it’s fine. you’ll still have a good time (if you want to)

Festivals have changed. People want high speed internet, good food, professional security and not having to put up their own tent.

It was better next year.

i went 95-2000 then got cajoled back in 2012. It sucks now. It actually sucks now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Steen#Career

From the narrative on Wikipedia, it looks more like she was fired not because she hid the truth, but because she was indeed attending Burning Man and the producers didn't like the idea: "committed to naked drugging in the desert" as opposed to misleading anyone. If she'd told the truth, it'd probably have the same result.

Zoinks I mangled that. Late edit:

I've known this for awhile, since at least 2020. Specifically when they told a documentarian he could film and then threatened litigation if he released his film — after he had already shot it. He had to painstakingly blur literally all Burning Man footage except for the guy he's following around.

Yep. Las Vegas used to have a soul. Not anymore.

And yet, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for the founder of something to share his opinions on why he thinks it’s no longer the thing he created.

Both things can be true.

Indeed. It's hard to draw a specific line, but it's been over a decade.

Blackrock used to be pretty wild-west (I was going before Burning Man started), pretty scary stuff at times (a friend once did something silly and hurt himself badly, Clinton was doing something in Reno, the SS heard about it, thought it was nearby and MiB showed up looking hot and bothered in their suits), over time the BLM realised that they needed to police the area a bit more and things got toned down (doesn't help that BM situates itself across multiple law enforcement jurisdictions, these days there's a surfeit of police)

I mean, if they relinquish their ownership of the plane and joined in with some sort of council that determined how to manage such assets I bet everyone claiming to be an anarchist would be fine with it. Anarchy as a political ideology doesn't mean no rules, it means no rulers.

> If a bunch of people want to go to the desert with no cell phone service and just do their thing, why do we care?

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/burnin...

> ...and life would be better if more people had the ability to do their own flavors of Burning Man.

I'm biased and a bit amusingly jaded because I left the US many years ago and have been living overseas for a long time, so take my next paragraph with that context.

Have you been to a Mexican ranchero wedding that lasts several days? Enjoyed a weekend BBQ in a Filipino province? Been invited by a bunch of 60 and 70-somethings in a small town in Vietnam who don't speak English to sing karaoke with them?

Enjoying life doesn't have to be a monumental, once-a-year event, and it shouldn't be.

I looked a bit into the author. His friend unfortunately died at Burning Man in 1996, as did two other people. Since then, he left and has been an advocate for shutting down Burning Man. They fought over the name for 10 years after that.

Regional burns are a thing, and they're pretty awesome.

Burning Man is also a quintessential example of "what if we just did a cool thing?" - a philosophy that more of us need to try following.

Quite right but it would be nice if the kids would invent their own things instead of whining about how expensive doing "boomer things" is nowadays!

Where are your modern alternative festis or something else? Where is the the modern counter culture? What on earth is a counter culture nowadays?

Its fucking doom scrolling shite that my peers dump on you!

I don't quite agree, there's a lot of small things that don't get big / are shitty enough on their own. Agreed with the rest though.

only a matter of time until it's "burning man proudly presented by palantir"

Worse than rolling coal? Worse than golf courses? Worse than cruiselines?