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Comment by fizx | Hacker News Reader

Burning Man's been dying slowly since about 2018, so pre-Covid. When I say dying, I don't mean "getting mainstream & EDMified" like all the old Burners have complained about since forever. I mean, the mainstream has stopped taking interest, and increasing portions of the tickets are getting taken by internationals because its passé in the USA, but still on some people's travel bucket lists. This year was the first year in a while with extra tickets available, but the writing has been on the wall for a while.

I'm sure raving will come back in 20 years like most fashion.

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It's how all cool underground things go. Small groups build something new and awesome, new people come and join, the culture shifts, and at some point money is made, and the culture drifts off into a business. Very few places resist this, very few stay cool despite. The rave scene around Berlin is quite alright, but we learned to protect our safe spaces, and many will not mention details online anymore.

I wouldn't use Burning Man as a metric for the scene overall because among ravers Burning Man is considered to be one of the worst festivals.

How so? I saw a few vids about EDC and quite frankly it looked worse than tomorrowland (like, reminds me of mobile games patterns), quite the feat. Burning Man has a reputation, and it's definitely not a sharing economy to get there. I wouldn't fly half the globe to get there, I think it would be quite interesting though.

It’s more of an arts and community festival than a music event. There’s a smattering of respected DJs/producers each year and some good sets, but otherwise there’s a bunch of art cars roaming around thumping generic party music. Absolutely nothing against Donna summers, but I’m not shitting you when I say I heard her around a half a dozen times the first big party night, for instance. There is no curation there like a music festival.

That said, absolutely worth going to at least once, for everything else.

There are a couple of smaller burns here I have connections to, I like the participatory idea, as opposed to pure consumption like a holiday park. If burning man is (or was) like that I would find that pretty appealing. Not sure about August in the desert some 10000km away though : - D

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