The Burning Man Project sent out their latest urgent fundraising email detailing a budget shortfall as high as $14 million, and longtime attendees are fuming that the organization keeps burning through so much money.
There’s no question that the annual arts bacchanalia Burning Man has had a rough go of things since the pandemic forced the cancellation of 2020 and 2021 events. The 2022 return saw reports of a fairly high number of COVID infections, which may have led to the market being flooded with extra tickets in 2023. Then in 2023, the severe rainstorms left the gates closed so people couldn’t leave. Come 2024, tickets did not sell out for the first time in 13 years, which delivered a real financial hit to the Burning Man Project.
As such, the Burning Man Project sent out an early November fundraising appeal seeking $20 million from their community. And now, barely five weeks later, they sent out yet another fundraising email Thursday detailing a $14 million deficit, and teasing that tickets may see a sharp price increase this year.
“Due to the ticket sales shortfall to Black Rock City in 2024, we found ourselves needing to make mission-aligned budget adjustments and raise the remaining deficit to the tune of approximately $10M,” Burning Man Project CEO Marian Goodell said in the email. “And today, with reductions as well as dollars raised from supporters, we're still about $14M short of where we ought to be.”
As far as ticket prices, she added, “Ticket details are still being ironed out, and today’s philanthropic support helps inform planning for the 2025 event.” In other words, if the donations from these now-multiple email solicitations do not materialize, ticket prices are likely going up.
But what’s infuriating many in the Burning Man community is that they don’t see much belt-tightening here. “The opposite of shrinking, we are also leaning into our role as a service provider,” Goodell wrote. “Burning Man Project is in service to a global cultural movement advancing a more creative, connected and thriving society.”
Many Burners see Burning Man as a week-long event in Nevada, and this “global cultural movement” business as being superfluous. Very pointedly, many full-time staffers were flown to a “Global Leadership Summit” in Estonia this past April at significant expense. In the eyes of many, the Project should focus on the week-long event, and abandon these budget-busting global aspirations, particularly in deficit times.
There’s also the accusation of administrative bloat. Burning Man’s website shows more than 110 year-round, full-time employees, which is certainly a lot for a one-week event. But there’s a lot of administrative focus on global outreach there, and a few head-scratching job titles like “Director of Philosophical Center” and “Director of Creative Initiatives.”
Some of those full-time employees’ pay raises have been quite generous, with the Reno Gazette Journal reporting in recent years of “some top staffers receiving more than $40,000 raises” in a single year.
It’s admittedly true that state and local Northern Nevada officials often treat Burning Man like an bottomless ATM, extracting ever-larger administrative and bureaucratic fees from the event. (When people see Chris Rock and Diplo going, you can see why they have that impression.) But maybe with all these Directors of Philosophical Centers, Burning Man’s budget crunch may be exacerbated by too much focus on costs that are irrelevant to the Nevada event for which it is known.
Burning Man has come a long way from its humble origins on SF’s Baker Beach. But with a 100-person staff sometimes going off on trips to Europe — while the organization asks for $20 million in donations — some might say it’s gone too far from those origins.
Image: @PGDynes via Twitter
