Photo Credit: Kalaman
Even in its 40th year, Burning Man tickets are now in lower demand than those for Outside Lands, making it harder for resellers to turn a profit.
If you’ve followed Burning Man for the last several years, it should come as no surprise that this year—even in its 40th year—tickets did not sell out. The lack of demand also means that resellers are forced to offload inventory at a major loss in the weeks leading up to the main event.
In the past, when Burning Man tickets were highly sought after, many fans believed it was a bad-faith move to resell them for more than their original price. Now, resellers who were once derided for trying to turn a profit are posting unwanted tickets at steep losses—and festivalgoers aren’t sad about it. But it illustrates the larger problem at hand.
“Everybody’s broke right now,” said one reseller, who noted lingering concerns over another weather-related catastrophe, like the ones that have pummeled the festival during its previous two years. “It used to be so fucking hard to get a ticket. Now it’s hard to sell them.”
Live events across the globe have been scrapped or massively scaled down in the face of economic uncertainty, and it goes both ways: from the organizers and artists putting on the festival to the fans (and resellers) buying the tickets.
In Burning Man’s case, organizers say the ticket sales haven’t increased alongside operating expenses, forcing it to ask for donations to cover a struggling budget. But fans aren’t making up the difference on their end either.
One fan said she was prepared to lose about $1,000 on two tickets and a car pass after a family member’s medical issue led her to decide to stay home this year. While her situation isn’t the norm, she expressed curiosity as to how the organization will manage ticket sales in the future, particularly if fans get accustomed to these lower prices.
“Given the recent overabundance of tickets, people next year may decide not to buy tickets during the main sale, because they can reasonably expect to get cheaper resale tickets later,” she said. “If that happens, how does the org plan and finance everything?”
Ticket exchange groups on Facebook also noted significantly less activity than years past, which group administrators chalked up to fewer people having bought tickets at all. Those fewer sales led to Burning Man releasing a tranche of the lowest-priced tickets for people buying a bus seat to the desert, which ultimately undercut anyone who planned to resell a ticket.
Now, tickets on the resale market have been going for less than $500 online. Burning Man veterans say that “paying for the level of comfort that you want and can afford” usually requires about $1,000 for the average attendee, which includes tickets and accommodations for a week in the desert. For longtime fans of the festival, it’s well worth it.
But those who get accustomed to lower prices this year might be in for a surprise if things pick back up again next year. That is, if the lower demand for tickets over the last few years doesn’t lead Burning Man organizers to have to make some difficult decisions.