Burning Man launches ‘unprecedented’ ticket sale weeks before 2024 festival

Burning Man has launched an “unprecedented” ticket drive just weeks before its 2024 edition. 

In previous years, passes to the legendary Nevada desert event would no longer be available at this point, having sold out months in advance, sometimes within 30 minutes of going on sale. This year, however, it is still possible to buy a standard entry ticket two weeks out from the gathering, even without having pre-registered. Dubbed the OMG Sale, prices start at $575 plus taxes, with VIP options also available from $1,500 including drinks. 

Tickets are on sale here.

Burning Man, held at the sprawling, temporary, self-built metropolis of Black Rock City, runs from Sunday 25th August – Monday 2nd September 2024. This year’s theme, Curiouser & Curiouser, is a nod to Lewis Carrol’s surrealist children’s book, Alice In Wonderland, and will apparently celebrate the bizarre, absurd, and irrational. 

“Experiencing the awe, inspiration, creativity, and community of Burning Man in Black Rock City is the antidote to today’s societal division and polarisation,” said Marian Goodell, CEO of Burning Man Project, in a press release. 

“We are pleased to have fulfilled demand for our earlier sales and be in a position to offer greater access to more people as the event nears,” they added. “This ticket sale is an exciting opportunity to connect more people interested in Burning Man and the arts and culture.” 

News of the sale quickly spread online, with fans discussing what this could mean for the gathering, which has been under significant pressured recently. Criticisms levelled the event include the size of its crowd and impact on regional towns and cities, particularly the volume of roadside litter dumped by attendees en route home. Others argue that large numbers of high net worth individuals have altered the week-long festival, which was founded on principles of new, non-capitalist societal and economic models.

“Dang, this is unprecedented in all the years I’ve been going. I think this is 100% a positive, though. The burn could only stand to benefit from less people so I hope this carries over to next year too,” one user posted on a Reddit group dedicated to the festival. Another wrote: “Good, fewer people, better burn.” 

“I keep laughing at the doomers on here that moved the goalposts from ‘the event has lost its roots by the gross over popularity’ to ‘the event is losing it [sic] roots by the steady decline in popularity,” added another. 

Extreme weather and the Covid-19 pandemic have also caused major disruptions in the past, which may have slowed ticket sales this time round. Burning Man was cancelled altogether in 2020 and 2021, and 2023 saw around 70,000 people stranded at the site, Black Rock Playa, after heavy rainfall turned the ground into a swamp.

0.8 inches of water fell on the area in less than 24 hours, leaving some to walk five miles to the nearest road to hitchhike home. Storms also brought problems in 2022, and issues leaving the site on closing day saw some stuck in traffic for up to 12 hours, leading to concerns about vehicles running out of petrol with little-to-no chance of refuelling nearby.