The annual Burning Man festival is in the news this week, more as a debacle than a celebration. Although I’ve never been, I’ve always associated Burning Man with concert festivals such as Lollapalooza, Warped, and the veritable but not forgotten HFStival. Turns out it was something else again.

The weeklong event—known for its art, communal activities and atmosphere, and burning of effigies—is held in a 7-square-mile temporary city on the Black Rock Desert playa. This is one of the flattest and driest places on Earth, and this year it saw nearly 3 months’ worth of precipitation over the course of 24 hours. Tropical Storm Hilary brought heavy rains to the Burning Man site, causing a gate closure for guests ahead of the festival’s start. The downpour almost immediately transformed the dry desert surface into mud. Most vehicles became trapped and officials urged attendees to shelter in place and conserve resources, while some made the hike (5 miles) to the nearest town. Traffic for the 72,000 people getting out of there was brutal to say the least. Reading these stories reminded me of a concert at what was then called Nissan Pavilion near the Bull Run battlefield in Virginia. The concert ended in a sudden downpour, and the drive for 20,000 people up the narrow road to Route 66 took longer than the concert itself.

Back to Burning Man. The event was founded with the best of intentions. According to https://burningman.org/about/10-principles/ these are the ten principles…

Radical inclusion, Gifting, Decommodification, Radical self-reliance, Radical self-expression, Communal effort, Civic responsibility, Leaving no trace, Participation, and Immediacy.

They sort of have the right idea. But it is increasingly expensive. A former work colleague was a somewhat regular attendee. Their first Burning Man was 2002, and back then it cost around $40 a ticket. The last year they went was 2016, and the cost exceeded $400 a ticket. Now it’s at least $700 + a car fee. Way too much for a spot in the desert. And my colleague noted that in 2016, they waited 8 hours in line to get in, along with 3 hours in line to leave a day early. Brutal indeed.

So where did Burning Man go wrong? First of all, there is logistics. Burning Man erects a temporary town in the Nevada desert. Supply lines and an infrastructure need to be put in place. Something the organizers did not count on was climate change. Rain in the desert? Check. Aside from the logistical challenges that arise from planning large events, and the possibility of external emergencies, there also is the risk of festivals failing because of poor management.

Burning Man will likely go on next year, as will so many annual events.

Confession time – I haven’t been involved with organizing such a large and complex event as Burning Man. But I’ve organized tons of events involving hundreds of attendees, coordinated tens of thousands of flights and reservations, been on countless site visits, trusted untold number of vendors and partners, and spent hours anticipating/countering anything that could possibly go wrong. Something always does. It is how you respond that makes the difference.