Burning Man tickets flood the market for LESS than $575 face value after nightmarish 2022 conditions, tech firings and influx of influencers turned longtime attendees sour

Tickets for this year’s Burning Man are selling at hefty discounts as longtime fans of the desert festival express their frustration for a number of reasons.

Burning Man runs from August 27 to September 4 in the temporary Black Rock City, built in the desert near Gerlach, Nevada, and tickets normally cost $575, on top of the $150 parking ticket.

But as of Friday, resellers were offering tickets starting at $139, with parking tickets marked down to $105, as an apparent glut of unwanted tickets hit the market.

According to SFGateit’s not unusual to see a surge in ticket sales on resale channels in the days leading up to Burning Man – but the hefty discounts on offer this year seem unusual.

Longtime “Burners,” as the contestants are called, told the outlet that a number of factors are discouraging attendance this year, including weather conditions, recent tech layoffs and an influx of influencers and “annoying” electronic music at the festival.

A huge queue of cars follows last year’s festival, when some Burners said they had to wait up to 12 hours to leave the event

Last year was also the first Burning Man after a two-year pandemic hiatus, and attendance soared to an all-time high as fans flocked back to the event.

Since many Burners like to take years off between attending, the pandemic hiatus may have reset the cycle and labeled 2023 an off-year.

Several Burners also reported concerns about the weather, after last year’s event suffered temperatures as high as 103F, and strong winds blew across the festival, piling up dunes that made travel by bike difficult.

“Last year’s Burn was hot and hard, which is part of the trendline Earth is on,” Longtime Burner Linda Williamson told SFGate.

Williamson first attended Burning Man in 1997 but won’t be going back this year, citing a logistical nightmare last year that resulted in a 10-hour traffic jam trying to return to civilization after the event.

“You have to spend a whole day on the process to get to the curb,” Williamson said. “I’d like to be able to go, but I’d also like to be able to leave.”

Last year, some Burners reported waiting as long as 12 hours to get away from camp, and photos from the event show monstrous traffic jams stretching across the desert.

Last year was the first Burning Man after a two-year pandemic hiatus, and attendances soared to an all-time high as fans flocked back to the event

Paris Hilton was featured on Burning Man last year. Since many Burners like to take years off between attending, the pandemic break may have reset the cycle and caused 2023 to be an off-year

Burners selling their tickets also cited financial concerns as a reason for pulling out this year, following widespread layoffs in the tech sector

According to the San Francisco standardBurners selling their tickets also cited financial concerns as a reason for pulling out this year.

Burning Man has longstanding ties to the Bay Area and its tech industry — in fact, the event was first held on a San Francisco beach in the 1980s, when it began as a small bonfire ceremony for the summer solstice.

The tech industry has been hit hard by layoffs in recent months, with more than 227,000 tech workers laid off worldwide this year, according to tracking site Layoffs.fyi.

Burner’s other complaints include an influx of social media influencers at the event, which some say goes against Burning Man’s “no spectators” mandate, which requires all attendees to participate and contribute in some way.

Some are also annoyed by the proliferation of loud, pulsating electronic music at Burning Man, turning the experiential art encounter into something more like a rave.

Yet Burners have lamented for decades that the festival has lost its soul and is not what it used to be.

At the 2011 replay of the event, longtime attendee Brian Doherty noted in an AP interview that the literal lawlessness that had characterized Burning Man’s early years in the Nevada desert has been tamed.

For example, he noted that Burning Man no longer offered “drive-by shooting ranges.”