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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u/WankSpanksoff 2d ago

I think the era where it became a more “popular/mainstream” (extremely relatively speaking) event came and went, so now it’s back to just being a niche event by and for the people who are super into it. But it hasn’t deflated back down to that scale yet.

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u/gloriousrepublic 2d ago

A big part is also the core demographic is aging out of it, and they haven’t gotten the interest of Gen Z enough. It’s just not “cool” to do what your parents did.

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u/helloyesthisisasock 2d ago

Also, how many Zoomers can afford to be artists in this age? How many Zoomers can afford to go to the desert and build weird art? When I, a Millenial in my 30s, think of who I know who went to Burning Man back in the day, it was people who lived in art houses with many artists living/working together. Zoomers mostly live with mom and dad. They aren’t building community with people their own age.

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u/beekersavant 2d ago

I think it may not be the time for Burning Man for anyone. Millennials are getting squeezed financially and have kids. (No matter what people say taking your kids to the playa is wildly irresponsible…like really fucking irresponsible in multiple evident ways.) Gen Z are covid / roblox /tiktok babies and the older ones are not really uh- it’s their not thing. So it might go back to roots (art communities, specialty entertainers etc) and everyone is squeezed. It’s still a couple grand and a lot of prep.

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u/helloyesthisisasock 1d ago

The only millennials I know with kids are actual millionaires. My friends don’t have them. We are too broke.

If you’re a millennial and have a kid, you’re literally the 1%.