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Ticket Hell [Updates]
Did you get your tickets in the Individual Sale? Or did you miss out, like 60,000 other dejected Burners? According to BMOrg, 80,000 Burners registered for the sale. It sold out in about 80 minutes. I...
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“Emotional Rollercoaster from Hell”
BMOrg’s latest post on ticketing does nothing to quell doubts about the motivations behind Ticket Hell. Taking us on an emotional roller coaster from hell, and generating and focusing a massive amount...
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Lie, Cheat, and Steal Your Way To Burning Man
Image: Simon Davison/Flickr (Creative Commons) “Usually people are hacking to steal things…these people were hacking just to get a chance to spend $400 to get a ticket” 89.3 KPCC radio did an interview...
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Concierges At Burning Man: Now Made Official [Updates]
There was a bit of an uproar last year when we shared that Festivals Concierge Service were making money from Burning Man. Well, it seems they’ve read the rules and done their best to comply with them...
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The Cult of Narcissistic Personality
Image: “Meeting the Borg Queen” by Eddi Van W/Flickr (Creative Commons) Big thanks to our reader Nomad, for this guest post. He has shared many of his thoughts about this topic in comments over the...
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From Canvas Cubes to Containers
Business Insider has yet another “the rich are taking over Burning Man” story, this time focusing on a company that will deliver a ready-made “Container Camp” for you on the Playa. Who needs Radical...
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Founded On Fire Magick
Fest300 has just published a lengthy interview with Burning Man Founder Crimson Rose. Are they the new Voices of Burning Man? The article is very interesting and I encourage you to read it in its...
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Is This The New New Thing?
Larry’s expression when Kucinich asks “what about your humanity?” I have just stumbled across youtube.com/burningman. Sure, there have always been plenty of YouTube videos about Burning Man – earning...
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Traffic Man 2015: Entry Pain For Thousands
Traffic this year appears to have been among the worst ever. From Voices of Burning Man: We are experiencing significant traffic delays due to slow vehicles on Highway 447. Estimated delays are up to 8...
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Vegas Halloween Parade Cancelled by Burning Man Attache
For the last 5 years, tens of thousands of residents of Las Vegas have enjoyed the annual Halloween Parade. This has featured Burner art cars like Dancetronauts Strip Ship, and has been linked to a...
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BURNILEAKS: Asking for Gifting, 2015 Edition
Last Christmas, in a story All We Want for Chri$tma$ is Your Money, we covered BMOrg’s poor timing in putting their hand out asking Burners to cough up more to fund their global gabfest. It’s a busy...
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Art Cars: Now Chosen by Curators
Image: M & R Photography, Flickr (Creative Commons) Over at eplaya, Trilobyte has posted the new rules for Mutant Vehicles. Have a cool art car? That’s no longer enough. In order to bring it, the...
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Art Budget Shenanigans [Update]
A Burning Man artist has responded to my request for feedback in yesterday’s post Follow the Money, with a most interesting tale. From Anonymous Burner: BMHQ Artists meeting, May 2015 This picture...
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Tickets 2016: What Really Happened
Image: Dan Rademacher | Wikimedia Commons CC BY 2.0 At first, it seemed like things were going very smoothly this year. I logged on in the Pre-Sale, got straight through, got 2 tickets and a vehicle...
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What’s Up With Low-Income Tickets This Year?
A reader just sent me this. I have no answers, but it’s very well written, and I think they raise some puzzling questions. Hence, a guest post from Anonymous Impecunious. Any ideas, Burners? Just more...
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False Amber Alerts Imprison Thousands: 17 year old Missed Curfew, Gate Closed...
Image: Reddit Burning Man was shut down twice when Burners wanted to leave, due to minors that could not be located by their parents. The first Amber alert happened after The Man burn, shutting the...
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Thought Police: Don’t Call It A Festival
Yet another preachy Burnier-Than-Thou post at the BJ telling Burners they’re doing it wrong. For all the things that Burning Man certainly is, one that mindful Burners will vigilantly note that...
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BMIR Radio Off The Air
Image: Mark Gunderson Some Burners are disappointed that they can’t get pumped up for the Burn by listening to their favorite radio station, BMIR. Here’s why: Tune in FM 94.5 on the Playa, bmir.org or...
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Shadow Banning: It’s Not Just Conservatives
Shadow Banning is in the news this week, with Silicon Valley tech giants Google (YouTube), Facebook, LinkedIn, and Apple all kicking Alex Jones off their platforms in a simultaneous multi-platform...
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“13 Times More Dangerous Than Returning From Active Combat”
Salon has done an excellent piece on the epidemic of suicides amongst Burning Man workers. There is a great deal of concern about the high frequency of depression and suicide among Black Rock City LLC...
View ArticleBURNILEAKS: Bullying the Burners [Updates]
The post-Burning Man headaches for BMOrg continue to mount. If you believe in karma or physics, then you understand that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you threaten legal...
View ArticleExploring the Other: 2014 Edition
Burning Man requires its Regional Events to have transparent financials, donate to their charities, and obtain a license to use their trademarks. For themselves, the requirements are not so strict....
View ArticleSafari Camps Play Burner Bingo
Just when you think the stories about Commodification Camp Caravancicle couldn’t get any worse, we get this leak from the Facebook group Sherpa Liberation Front. It seems $13,000 can buy you a room in...
View ArticleBURNILEAKS: Workers Want Rights
Thanks to Anonymous Burner for bringing this to our attention. Burning Man Worker Rights List of Grievances READ THIS FIRST (yes you) In August 2014, members of DPW upper management, referred to as...
View ArticleEmbattled Burners Ask Community for Support
[Update 10/1/14]: please help with the modest amount they are raising to mount a defense. Napalm Dragon, who is being sued by BMOrg who never registered their trademark in Canada, has asked for help on...
View ArticleGet Your Timeshare Slot In The Sultan
If this is a troll, it’s the most elaborate one I’ve ever seen. It’s either real, or an ironic “seeding of the market” like the AirBnB listings. They can put the brochures in the Souk and test the...
View ArticleBurning Man Introduces Censorship [Updates]
Did you know Burning Man has implemented a censorship policy? Me neither…until I fell victim to it this weekend. Does BMOrg really want to get feedback from the community, and listen to our concerns?...
View ArticleThe Great BMOrg Cash-Out of 2010-2017, $35-47 Million: an Updated Estimate
A guest post from our reader A Balanced Perspective, updating his post earlier this year. The BMOrg Cash Out of 2010-2017, $35-$47 Million, an Updated Estimate by A Balanced Perspective I penned The...
View ArticleBurning Man’s Gift Economy and its Effect on Mainstream Society [Update]
Festpop has an article by Karli Jaenike about how Burning Man is changing the world. I’m re-blogging it here so we can then discuss it. Emphasis ours. re-blogged from FestPop It’s no secret that most...
View ArticleBackstage Flare-Up at SF Decom [Update]
Fire dancers are not all warm and fuzzy. It sounds like some shit went down backstage at last weekend’s officially sanctioned Decompression party in San Francisco – an assault, or nearly one. The Black...
View ArticleTurkey Answers, But Silence On Commodification Scalper Tickets [Poll Added]
BMOrg have published a blog post “How Turnkey Camps Get Placed”. They persist with trying to re-frame the issue with semantics – we prefer Commodification Camps to this Turkey camps idea that BMOrg are...
View ArticleBMOrg Continues to Cover for Commodification Camps
Will Chase has added to the chorus of Commodification Camp justifications we’ve been hearing from BMOrg, with a post saying “what’s all the fuss about? Nothing to see here, move along”: Virgins and...
View ArticleBMOrg Speaks to Address Community Concerns
Will Chase, BMOrg’s Minister of Propaganda, has made a statement in response to the community’s concerns about Commodification Camps. He wants us to know that he’s listening. And he told his bosses the...
View Article“$50,000 for a Perch on Burning Man’s Billionaire’s Row”
Earlier today, I went to check out Fest300. It’s a web site with 6 staff, as well as a crowd-sourced content element, created by Chip Conley – a hotelier who is AirBnB’s head of Global Hospitality and...
View ArticleWords To Soothe The Savage Beast
Yesterday morning I got an email from BMOrg CEO Maid Marian. She asked: Do you monitor our blog so that you see whatever is put up immediately as it is put up? Or would you like me to send you the …...
View ArticleArt Versus Money
At the end of last month, BMOrg breathlessly announced all kinds of exciting news. They said: (shhhh, just between you and us …) we’re working on a really really BIG project that will serve to tell the...
View ArticleBMOrg’s Next Response [Updates]
They’re listening. They’ve been listening for months. Their response? Continuing to send their volunteers out online to cop the heat from the Burner community. Now it’s the turn of Caveat Magister....
View ArticleDear Burning Man…
A guest post from our reader Sandstorm. The email he’s responding to is shared at the end of this post. Like many members of the Burning Man community I’ve spent the past 2+ months feeling justifiably...
View Article2013 Charity Results Released [Update]
Last weekend, Burning Man Arts – the new organization that is a merger between two of the non-profits in BMOrg’s empire, Black Rock Arts Foundation and the Burning Man Project – threw its Eighth...
View ArticleBMOrg Hath Spoken
Finally, more than a quarter of a year after the last week-long Burning Man event ended, BMOrg has given some official answers to the many concerns raised by the community in the wake of Caravansary....
View Article“Failure!”– Tananbaum Gets Called Out by BM Director
A couple of days ago, BMOrg finally posted their response to the many concerns raised by our community after this year’s event. You can read our analysis here: BMOrg Hath Spoken. Many Burners felt that...
View ArticleWhat’s In A Name?
Burning Man. What is it? A rave in the desert? An arts festival? A Temporary Autonomous Zone? An experiment in new ways of living together as a community, relying on each other to survive, without the...
View ArticleAll We Want For Chri$tma$ Is Your Money [Update]
Remember Burning Man? That unique experimental city, free from the commodification of commercial transactions? Well, now that the owners have transferred it into a complicated corporate combination of...
View ArticleRadical Sherpa Reliance
A look inside BMP Director Chip Conley’s ultra-luxury “top of the pyramid” camp, Maslowtopia. It’s based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and being the highest version of yourself you can be. Looks like...
View ArticleBMOrg Asks For A Gift AGAIN
As if we don’t have anything better to do with our money at Christmas time. Anyone else get one of these? It’s not even a week since the last Jackrabbit arrived, begging us to give them money....
View ArticleLicensed to Sell
I just got off the phone with David Freiberg at the BLM’s Black Rock Field Office, who said he’s a fan of this site. He is going to track down the 2014 list of vendors who were granted a Special …...
View ArticleDoes Commodification Matter?
If you think Burning Man is just a big party in the desert, then no – it doesn’t matter. Who cares? Just go and have fun. Avoid articles critical of BMOrg’s management, just pretend everything is...
View ArticleBURNILEAKS: Commodification Camp Employment Email
If you’ve had enough of all the Commodification Camp controversy, don’t bother reading this post. For those who still care… Thanks to Anonymous Burner for leaking this email that was sent to workers...
View ArticleThings Were So Quaint, Back In The Day
Just stumbled upon this story from 2003. It’s the perfect example of how social engineering of Burners can start with a prank, and be passed off as ironic, and then quickly become the new normal....
View ArticleBurning Mansplainers Savaged as “No Burners” Trends on Dating Apps
Cate Twining-Ward just wrote a scathing and hilarious “Modern Love” op-ed in the New York Times Style section. Cate talks about a range of dating experiences involving Burning Man enthusiasts, for...
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