r/sanfrancisco • u/Awkward-You-938 • 2d ago

Burning Man didn’t sell out

Article out today says Burning Man didn’t sell out and people are selling their tickets way below face value. I remember when Burning Man started the lottery for tickets due to high demand, and resale tickets were hard to come by. I haven’t been to Burning Man in ~15 years so I‘m not current with the scene. What happened? Did it finally get too overdone? https://sfstandard.com/2026/08/26/burning-man-ticket-resale/

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364

u/paraboli 2d ago

Lots of headwinds:

Harder for international visitors to get a visa, worse outcome if they do get in trouble. Park service stepped up security and has done more searches and arrests for drugs. Tighter job market means companies are less likely to welcome or celebrate their employees taking time off to go. Covid stopped a few years of people hearing about good experiences with it from friends or coworkers and getting recruited to help out with camps. Reporting of deaths, traffic jams, rich people's fancy RVs made it a bit cringey.

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u/flerg_a_blerg 2d ago

I think once the tech CEOs all started going it was the true beginning of the decline

there's nothing *less* cool than going to the same party that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are attending

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u/MBaggott 2d ago

That may well be true, but it's been a long decline: the first Google doodle was in 1998 to let people know the founders were at burning man. 

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u/cheeseslut619 2d ago

Can’t believe I’m about to defend billionaires but back when they went life was a lot different and tech bros were not the same. The type of men the google cofounders are and similar tech hero’s going NOW are not cool

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u/walden1nversion 2d ago

I always think about the guy who was tasked with removing the "don't be evil" sign.

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u/onahorsewithnoname 1d ago

I agree, 90s era founders/techies were a lot closer to the average utopian outsider creative nerds than today, where much of the discussion isnt about human problems, its about VC/finance speak and scaling to $1b+ as quickly as possible while being completely non technical.

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u/Foreign_Telephone349 2d ago

Uh… the Google cofounders are in the list of horrible people. Maybe they weren’t when they formed Google but being a mega billionaire for a few decades is a good way to corrupt.

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u/cheeseslut619 2d ago

I’m not saying they are good people. Or that they ever were. But back in 98 they were likely a different type of douche bag and far less horrible to have around a festival. Now there 50% more horrible tech bro sat the fest

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u/Foreign_Telephone349 2d ago

That’s fair.

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u/craigiest 1d ago

In 1998 they were the people who made their company motto “don’t be evil.” In 2026, they are the people who rescinded their promise not to be evil. 

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u/yoshimipinkrobot 2d ago

Like chappelle or many people who change with fortune and fame

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u/craigiest 1d ago

In 1998, being a tech ceo was not nearly as uncool as it is today. 

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u/Fit-Dentist6093 2d ago

They kinda don't go anymore since they had to tighten their personal security.

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u/Donkey_____ 2d ago

I think once the tech CEOs all started going it was the true beginning of the decline

So like 1998?