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Comment by throwayay4929 | Hacker News Reader

Is Burning Man fun? I got the rather cynical impression that it's mostly very well off tech people and even better off finance/political people.

Not trying to be flippant, genuinely curious if my impression is based on reality or am I making things up.

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I've been twice and I really enjoyed myself.

Tech, finance, and political people definitely don't make up close to the majority. You'd get sort of laughed at if you tried networking earnestly about like tech stocks or LLMs. Generally I don't prefer socializing with techie types from SF, the folks I met at Burning Man were nothing of the sort.

It's mostly just adults who really like dressing up, building stuff, and staying up really late dancing and partying.

This is exactly the right answer for people asking about BM on hacker news. 100% agreed

How long did it take you to leave (get out) at the end? I've heard they often have massive backups in the exit line.

It depends what time you try to exodus. If you wait until the end, it's 50k+ people trying to leave a campground at the same time.

You can also stay an extra day. Help clean up and leave with zero traffic. I’ve done it myself.

Can you just smoke weed, enjoy the music and not talk to anybody? Is that sort of experience possible?

You can, but a big part of the marvel is in walking around (er, biking) and seeing the spectacle. If it's your first year, that's your job: be the audience.

Smoking weed is iffy; lots of federal cops out here looking for it, since pot is still illegal on federal lands.

Just chilling and doing your own thing is certainly doable.

Every sort of experience is possible.

You could spend the entire week high as a kite, biking around and just looking at everything without talking to anyone, though the vast majority of the community are people you probably would enjoy interacting with. I find most burners thoughtful, compassionate, playful, caring, etc.

What I suspect would happen is you'd start out this way ^, but then you'd gradually discover that the community is great and interactions with people are pretty fun actually. Part of the experience is the opportunity to get outside of your normal baseline personality if you want. You can be anyone for a week. Most people don't even want to talk about their lives off the playa.

Culture changes on the weekend, when you get a lot of "partiers" just for the man and temple burn. There are a bit more irresponsible and inconsiderate people then, but not enough to ruin the overall community vibe.

Sure, but you can do that at home too.

Earth is home.

I've been a dozen or so times, dating back to 1994.

It's changed over the years - price has gone up, scale has gone up, and rules have become more strict. Not surprising when there are 70k people instead of 3k. Some people (fairly) don't like these changes. And some people like to badmouth things they've never experienced.

It's still the best party going on anywhere in the world that week. Most people you meet are not in tech. The crazy art pieces (most of which are interactive) are like nothing you will find anywhere else. It's definitely fun.

I stopped going regularly because it's a big expense and time commitment and I wanted to allocate my limited budget of both to other adventures. But if you haven't been, you should go.

I should add - if you want the "old school burning man experience" without big crowds and big expense, go to the exact same place for 4th of Juplaya. The art is smaller but still present; there are people who either got fed up with the bureaucracy, or are field-trialing their projects. You can go to the hot springs and explore the hills. Good place for dirt bikes, if you have them.

It's great both ways.

> It's still the best party going on anywhere in the world that week.

That's a bold claim, but maybe it's true :D

It's absolutely true. When you're there, there is no doubt it is absolutely the best place to be as far as party and creativity goes. That being said, it depends on what you're looking for in life. But the energy, time and investment that people put into this thing is absolutely mad. It doesn't compare to anything else that exists in the world, not even by a factor of 1:10. It's just insane.

And there are also honestly very few countries that 1/ would let this happen without intervening, 2/ even have such a wide open space to make this happen for 70k people with just desert everywhere in all directions.

Whilst I don't think you're necessarily wrong, I would suggest Fusion festival in Germany to come close in terms of scale and dedication.

Yes but it’s a festival; with food vendors etc right? Very different from a city that builds itself from the ground.

Yes, there are food vendors and professional DJs etc, so it's not the same. But it's similar in the sense of dedication, creativity and DIY spirit.

Dude, check Kumbh Mela before making outrageous statements. 70k is a family meeting in backyard in comparison.

I get it, you dig it passionately and all the power to you, but a bit of modesty and/or world experience would only serve you well.

A large religious gathering is not my idea of a good time. It might be yours, that's fine. But these are not similar things.

You're being needlessly condenscending, while _also_ not getting the point. Double negative points.

Burning Man is ...... what you make of it.

The last time I went, there was this dude in a camp next to where I was camped. The entire week I was there, I only saw him sitting and drinking; he was totally hammered the entire 7 days and didn't go anwhere (AFAICT). That really saddened me: he could have done the same back home wherever he had come from; what's the point of coming to BM if you're going to just sit in one place and get drunk?

I really wanted to take it all in, so I stayed away from drinking or smoking, and had a great time! There is so much to see, so many creative people to interact with. You can end up having a deep conversation on just about any topic under the sky with random people. I ended up chatting with this Physics graduate student about, of all things, quarks (an area of specialty for him). He ended up patiently explaining various things to me, as if we were long-lost friends.

My recommendation: jump in with both feet in the spirit of contribution and cooperation. Have fun, respect boundaries, contribute however you can.

Haven't went myself either, but I've heard from some people that the smaller Burning Man spin-offs retain more of the original vibe and are often cheaper even when you include costs of travel. A lot of people come to AfrikaBurn from all over the world, for example.

That being said, the very nature of the event involves spending thousands of dollars to live in the desert for a week. So the audience is obviously mostly people who have the money to do so.

"That being said, the very nature of the event involves spending thousands of dollars to live in the desert for a week. So the audience is obviously mostly people who have the money to do so."

It depends what standard you need, but I have been to (way smaller) desert gatherings where people with no money came. (Not as remote, though, possible to walk there with a tent). But as far as I know, the main thing you need for burning man is a van and water, or know someone who has one.

You dont need a van. You just need to be comfortable at being uncomfortable.

Yes, tickets are expensive. Yes you need to bring survival stuff like water and food. Yes you will be underslept most likely. But it will be worth it.

> the main thing you need for burning man is a van and water

And $1000 tickets :P

A fully equipped van is also not exactly a cheap thing to own or rent.

I'm under the impression that paying for tickets is not exactly frowned on but isn't the respectable path either. The alternative being to do something awesome at a regional burn and get recruited by an established camp, which comes with free tickets.

I have no idea how common this is. I just know somebody offered free tickets for me and my crew if I joined his camp with my contraption at the big burn.

I like the idea, decommodification being one of the principles and all, but I didn't go because I didn't have time to fix some issues that I deemed critical.

It is fun, but in a miserable (hot, dusty, muddy) kind of way. You hear a lot about such rich/out of touch folks, but with 60 thousand people there, they can't all be do-nothing rich people. Someone has to set up all the art and volunteer to help burn down the buildings, and those folks are the most interesting by far. Go there to see all the cool fire art and ask the folks who make it how they did it, what was difficult, other projects they've worked on, etc. better yet, bring your own art or volunteer your labor on another art project. You'll have an amazing time, and see plenty of genuinely interesting folks, as well as contraptions you've never imagined. But beware it takes a lot of effort to participate.

Yeah. I helped build the temple last couple of years. I highly recommend it.

For what it’s worth one of my coworkers has been going for over 20 years and he still loves it. Most people giving you an opinion formed it by reading comments on social media.

I’d encourage you to talk to people that have actually been if you want to have an informed opinion. I don’t know shit about it since my n=1 sample size, but he’s someone who’s opinion I trust so I’d personally probably check it out if I was inclined.

Talking to people with experience might not contradict the internet opinion. I am active in a subculture with a number of people who have been, some multiple times. People who have seen it in the 1990s or early millennium and then later feel that it has declined. People who only went later feel rather let down and assume it was better in the now-distant past.

It’s no doubt different, I’m just saying that we should always be suspicious of hearsay from individuals who are relaying this info through a game of social media telephone.

People hate it, people enjoy it, you probably just have to experience it for yourself if you really want to know what it’s like. And second best is looking for accounts of people that have been.

Things are quite literally better than they have ever been in almost every facet of life, yet the golden age is perpetually behind us

My son goes to small Burning Man events in New York and has a great time, these are really affordable in terms of admission, travel, etc. I've met the campers on the last day when my son was packing up and it seemed like a great scene.

I was at a different kind of retreat which in some sense opened a portal to "another world" for a week and I'd say the regional Burning Man events were controversial in that circle. Like some people went to them and thought they were great, other people went to them and picketed the access road to protest their perception that the events were a wasteful use of fossil fuels. Here's an article about similar protests at the main event

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/28/burning-man-...

Definitely not fun. I discourage everyone from going. There is absolutely no weird hijinks or chicanery, mind-altering substances, colorful costumes, or gigantic interactive sculptures. Some people claim you can join communal camps and work on a project together but I've never seen it. Don't know where people got the idea that there's random free food and booze. Nobody interesting to talk to, nothing to do, and worst of all, the view is terrible. I don't know why people keep going.

It was better next year anyway.

It is what you make of it, you can just consume or take a creative role, but once the price/attendance ballooned ~20 yrs ago, they kinda changed their audience. You might have a local group that does similar things if you want to get a taste without such a large commitment.

No don’t go, it sucks! It’s dusty and hot!

There's a hot spring under the ocean off the coast of Steep Ravine in Stinson Beach. It emerges for like 6h at a time - twice a month - for low tide.

People who were young and adventurous before there was an internet have been going for decades. They intentionally leave bad reviews on places like Maps and Yelp to try to dissuade new people from crowding it.

I feel like there’s a non-zero chance you’re getting downvoted because HN doesn’t understand sarcastic burner humor.

It's funny because his argumentis self-defeating. It's people that make it what it is.

It's participants that make it what it is, and not everyone participates. Quite a lot that come are purely spectators.

> sarcastic burner humor.

Give me a break...

Actually if I must be literal it’s a pretty big part of the culture out there. The playa is rife is with inside jokes that lately revolve around people telling you to have a terrible time, or saying there’s absolutely nothing at some place with a wink. Discovery and resilience is the point.

And sure, there’s a bit of old guard/new guard here, where the new guard is a bit softer about it. Personally, it was never my favorite aspect, but dismissing it says more about you than me.

I co-founded Burning Man. The festival has lost its soul

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49494151

The cool kids went to Wasteland Weekend as of a few years ago. Don't know what the cool place is now.

> Is Burning Man fun? I got the rather cynical impression that it's mostly very well off tech people and even better off finance/political people.

Why not both?

Well off tech people can have fun too. In fact, the wealthier, the more fun the event can be, because it means more ability to do cool stuff, be generous, and avoid trouble. As for tech people, an event that attracts tech people does not make it a tech event. For instance, tech people tend to enjoy metal music, and you are going to find a lot of tech people in metal festivals, but there, music is what bring people together, not tech.

It’s what you make of it and who you surround yourself with.

Some people treat it like a music festival and chase DJs the whole week. Some people immerse themselves in the rest of the culture.

The demographics have definitely been skewing wealthier over time, but it’s still around 50% under $100k income and 10% over $300,000 according to the (admittedly unscientific) census.

https://blackrockcitycensus.org/sociodemo

My friend went in order to network with tech people and now has met some people pretty high up, some of whom are funding his angel round for his startup. Make of that what you will.

That's a terrible use of burning man and against the ethos of it. It makes me sad to know that even worked.

You get what you curate. If the maintainers of Burning Man wanted to, they could ban those sorts of people from coming. But until then, expect that people will continue to do such things as my friend (and to be fair to him, he went half for the music and experience too, but he didn't willfully ignore the networking opportunities either, both can be true).

show me how to blend "radical self expression" with "carefully curated guest list" and make it work.

For some people the Authentic Self they bring, is a capitalist in a suit.

Just ban tech bros, not everyone's self expression is equally valid.

yes, being rich makes being self sufficient much much easier :) But there a lots of less well of people and it depends on your definition of "fun". But with right crew and right mood enchanters it can be a blast. But mostly you get what you put in. If you expect to be entertained so this is not the right place.

Techies/wealthy people remain a minority, not a majority. In fact, if you tell someone you're in tech, expect to be booed/slightly shamed; as it's the type of people a lot of regular burners have a judgment against. But again, nobody's gonna ask you what you do at Burning Man. And if they do, just say "I'm alive." That's gonna fit the culture.

What I'll say is you'll definitely see an influx of more superficial/wealthy people coming for the last 3 days. Rich shallow people who don't care about the Burning Man spirit and just want to come for the final party, they don't bother to come for the whole week, they just rent an expensive RV for the last few days.

If you do go, go for the whole week, and you'll get to experience the real burning man in the first few days.

They're the fringes, along with the increasingly large contingent of tourists/festies/sparkle ponies. The majority are actual burners and they are a wild and unorthodox bunch. Look up the 10 Principles if you want to understand the actual culture

https://burningman.org/about-us/10-principles/ -- "Decommodification" is the most important one to keep in mind, particularly with this audience, as I imagine some here would have trouble not trying to productify/commodify everything

I remember asking a friend what makes Burning Man (BM) interesting, and he said "it's a glimpse of a fundamentally different economy." He was talking about how everything is organized around gifts rather than exchange. AFAICT that is still very much true. Most (all?) interactions do not involve money. E.g. at BM you can walk to a tent and get a drink and there's no expectation to pay for it. But of course the whole system only works when everyone agrees to be mutually generous. Sure, people use money to bring all the stuff into BM and to get themselves to BM so it's easy to write it off as fake, but nonetheless I can see how even a week demonstrating a fundamentally different social structure could be quite a profound experience. BM is still on my bucket list because of what my friend said.

I'm pretty involved in my local regionals. I'm part of DPW at one and I've operated propane fueled flame effects a couple times. I'm throwing my quinceanera at a small unsanctioned regional close to my birthday.

That whole 'money-less' gifting thing makes for a very nice party. It has nothing to do with real economics. The vast majority of people at burns are able bodied, have above average practical skills and are right in the age group where you'd expect folks to be competent to work.

Gifting drinks, cordoning roads, making sure port-o-potties are functional and clean, making a silly art piece and shirtcocking among a few thousand people for a week or so has little to do with maintaining infrastructure, education, healthcare and the logistics to keep billions of people, including children, the disabled and the elderly, fed and housed all the time.

> Most (all?) interactions do not involve money.

I think we can still buy ice, but I don't think we can buy coffee anymore. Coffee was a fun excuse to go to center camp every afternoon.

Coffee going away was a sad time. I had a tradition of getting some from Center Camp in the wee hours of the morning on overnight volunteer shifts.

I have X:RA flashbacks now...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_Rh3PbnAdw

If you can make it to Burning Man, then your life is what you make it. And if that's true, then it could be fun.

>it's mostly very well off tech people

well you're here at hacker news

I can confidently say that burning man is fun.

What type of fun it ends up being for you is the question - the fun scale: https://kellycordes.com/2009/11/02/the-fun-scale/

In my experience, Burning Man is all 3 types of fun at the same time.

If you actually look at the statistics the income distribution is not much different than the US.

The well off narrative makes it an interesting news story. There is no news story about how burning man has the same income distribution as the US.

I have wanted to go since 1996 but never have. When I was younger, being on the east coast always made it so very remote.

Now with age I wouldn't even want to go to some weekend festivals I went to as a kid let alone burning man.

I think if you are young and really want to go you have to seize the moment. The moment might not come again and not because you can't but because you won't.

I heard The Man is smaller this year.

Fun is what you make it, and fun is often a personality based thing. The fun people have a blast and the boring people stay bored.

I don't think we can divide things into clean 'fun' and 'not fun' buckets. It totally depends on what things you find fun.

There are SO MANY THINGS that other people love that I find miserable, and I know there are things that I find are amazing that other people would never want to do.

My buddy called me yesterday just before he got into the playa so I could cover a sound tech gig for him. He's not "wealthy" by most folks' standards.

He is a tech guy, though.

But he keeps having to go to oil production facilities on site in Wyoming to maintain IT infra. It pays okay but it's not the kind of stuff I would do now that I'm mostly able to retire into audio/music work and the minimal amount of festival EMT/ free clinic volunteer stuff I do.

He's a genuine and kind person and has spent a lot of time doing nice things for folks because he likes doing those things. For instance, he was running the makerlab here in the sticks for a couple of years. He got the American legion hall setup so there is now a space for local artists to play.

That's how I know him, at least.

There are a lot of folks in this world who've gotten to some degree of comfortability some way or other, usually some combination of "the old fashioned way" (my parents passed on and left me their IRA) or the more usual way of working for several decades at some tedious skill that pays well in some circumstances.

Folks like my buddy have made a rational decision to just "kind of do whatever"; he has what he needs, he's not super old, and if you've managed to secure a spot out in the middle of nowhere and figure out not-too-annoying-but-inexpensive ways of maintaining that lifestyle, then a lot of options open up.

According to him, he brings a lot of generator equipment and tools (including a welder) and spends his time out there fixing stuff for folks or maintaining stuff like the poorly-configured mesh network equipment other, similarly minded nerds bring out. He troubleshoots folks' generators or vehicles.

Does that sound fun?

It sounds fun to me, to just go somewhere and help folks when I can.

Even if a lot of those folks are spun, or dumb, or party people trying to social climb or whatever. I am certain that given the fame and the proxemity to SF-style wealth there are plenty of well off folks trying to party with folks while networking, but I am equally certain that there are a whole rainbow of other ways that folks are being out there.

I don't like being at events that large, so that rules it out for me, in the same way that I have spent a lot of time at Kerrville Folk Fest but have avoided the Rainbow Gathering.

And to be clear, he's going to a party and it's an easy place to find "unique" substances or people to have fun with.

But I do see how there has to be some amount of community there, given how many folks are going to be with people and not just be tourists.

I am likely projecting to a small degree, but my impression is that largely that's the vibe out there, folks enjoying doing things because they find them satisfying rather than because they can monetize the behavior somehow.

Maybe that satisfaction is dressing up fancy and doing many days worth of drugs. Maybe that is running a bar for strangers, maybe that's making art for other folks to enjoy, maybe it's fixing busted bicycles, maybe it's getting a generator running again.

Having been "involved" with a certain amount of off grid raves and other kinds of gatherings, that's my general understanding of that culture. I'd assume it is in play out there as well.

I haven't been in about 10 years, but yes it's incredibly fun. What you see on social medial is not a representation of the majority of attendees, but it is expensive to attend, especially if you need to travel for it.

I’ve been going for a decade. There are some of those because they have the disposable income and job freedom to go but it’s not something you think about because no one talks about work or networking there

I've had a great experience every time I've gone.

If your impression is from social media, you will mainly be seeing those who love posting themselves on social media.

>Is Burning Man fun? I got the rather cynical impression that it's mostly very well off tech people and even better off finance/political people.

not sure what answer you expect to get here, on the forum hosted by the most noteworthy VC firm in silicon valley. the people why say burning man sucks now will usually say it sucks because of the ycombinator types

I'm not sure why people really really really want it to be that so they can have a simple reason to hate on it. I'm sure there are fancy people there having a fancy time... but it's 80,000 people and probably 79,000 of them are not millionaires and billionaires. Just friendly weirdos being living in the desert for a week.

I never thought I'd be the sort of person to go to Burning Man, and this is my first year off since I started going nearly a decade ago.

I started by going to a regional burn (or what some people call a "ten principles event") because a girlfriend had a bunch of friends that wanted to go. I had always been a bit in awe of the art and such from BM itself, but weary of the drugs/party culture (I was a nerd that made the annual trip to San Diego Comic-Con, PAX, etc) and didn't think it'd be my scene.

Without going down an entire rabbit hole: it changed the entire trajectory of my life. I've made the best friends I've ever had and now spend a good chunk of my time working on large art projects, helping run a theme camp, and being involved in this group of weirdos year round.

A few years of being involved locally made the desert seem like an inevitability, and when I finally went, it wasn't the life changing experience everyone told me it'd be: because it already was, even without me being there. But it did quickly become one of my favorite places in world.

My honest advice? If you're anywhere near a Burning Man regional event, find a way to get involved and check that out first. I think that's a great way to see if you vibe with the culture around the event, and it'll give you a sense of whether trekking out to the desert is a good fit.

Also, as an aside on the wealthy tech/finance front: one of the first camps I shacked up with was mostly a bunch of blue collar types who liked to work hard, with two retired grandmother-type figures who helped run camp logistics. Tech money (including mine) certainly helps fund things (because the city is expensive to build), but at least in the scene I run in, the tech types are not the majority, and sure don't act like your typical tech bros.

the other perspective is that its the crowd that has gotten all their dopamine and serotonin fixes all around the world and choose to do this

people don’t generally say what they do for capitalism there, so it doesn’t matter about the performative social standings after disclosing, its fun af

there are no guard rails, at least compared to other events. it is only strict compared to its former self.

It has always been a challenging but highly rewarding experience for me. It is what you make of it - if you choose to be cynical about "very well off tech people", that's all you'll see. But Burning Man is multitudes. For me, it's about witnessing pure human creativity and playfulness. Your first time out on the playa at night will likely be one of those lifetime memories you'll appreciate having.

It’s a bunch of tech bros pretending to be counterculture while hanging out with Grover Norquist, Elon Musk, and Eric Schmidt.

If you want to hang out with those people it will be fun for you, but be honest with yourself about what it really is.

Have you been?

How many out of 80k do you think are hanging out with a political operative and two billionaires?

Technically, all of them ;-)

I guess that means by living in Seattle, I also technically hang out with Bill Gates. Neat. ;)

Is Burning Man fun? I got the rather cynical impression that it's mostly very well off tech people and even better off finance/political people.

You're not far off.

Burning Man is like Coachella, SxSW, and San Francisco, itself.

It used to be cool, and interesting, and counter-culture.

But then it got overrun by tech people and grifters and assorted wannabes who think they can buy their way to coolness, when that's something that can only come from within.

It’s inevitable cool and interesting things will evolve, and the people there early will bemoan how it used to be cooler.

https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/...

It’s inevitable cool and interesting things will evolve, and the people there early will bemoan how it used to be cooler.

No, it's not inevitable. Burning Man is just making excuses for selling out.

Look at how high school kids dress these days. The cool kids today style themselves much the same way as the cool kids did back in the 2000's, the 1980's, the 1950's, and to some extent even back to the 1930's.

Blue jeans and white t-shirts. Concert shirts. Doc Martins. The infamous "little black dress." Dorm room posters and pin-ups. Even hair styles. Some things are "classic" and always cool. Burning Man isn't one of them.

I feel like you are just listing things you think are cool. I don't think everyone finds those things you listed cool.

Fair. My less cynical take is Burning Man made the choice that what they had created should be experienced by lots of people, even at the expense of it being a little less cool or counter-culture.

Personally I think the world is a little better off by it going somewhat mainstream.

They should rename it Jumping Shark.

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