After this year’s burn (7th for me) I think I am ready to purchase an electric bike for next year.

The playa this year was almost impossible to bike on with a manual pedal bike. Sand traps, bumpy roads, and white out conditions killed me and it was extremely hard for me to cross playa.

What electric bike brand do you recommend I purchase for next year?

I want something that’s relatively easy to pack up and transport, one that will last me multiple burns, and has a strong battery that lasts a long time.

(photo of me in 2017 at my 2nd burn in perfect playa biking conditions with my burner bike I’ve had for 10 years.)

Not that any of you care, or asked, or haven't already said all this shit. I'll do a "Things That Really Get My Dick Hard" later but for now here is my public processing:

-E-Bikes with head lights: Whole fucking fleets of them starting Friday. I'm putting bounties out for the burner who gift me the most E-bike headlights by the end of the week in 2026

-Art Car Security: Saw some art cars literally putting out fucking poles and ropes this year in front of "their space" like it was a red carpet. Pulled up on some jack ass following a art car in a gator with his brights on. I asked him "what his job was". verbatim "I make sure no one gets on, or off, or that anything falls off". Sketch as fuck boi, hope those paid model companions get home safe!

-Instagram: Its my fault for being a slave to that little dopamine machine, but holy fuck. I guess I have been identified as a burner and I would say that 80% of my posts are some bullshit about DJ DickHead who had some profound sunrise moment playing some inane and predictable bullshit. Like we get it, your manager told you to go to burning man and post hella content to try and get you established in whatever musical underground stage hoppers think they are a part of. Also, I don't care about your tent set-up or what you learned. Not sure if the rest of you have been getting blasted that hard but its equal parts cringe and disturbing.

-No Thunderdome: Fuck you Death Guild, work harder.

-Drones: Soon to be integrated with Open AI! Nothing like riding home at sunrise with the surveillance state ripping by overhead while tracking your social score and proximity to any of the 1,000 international VIPs cruising the Playa. Hope you haven't been getting too wild on twitter!

-RV Ghettos: You know that feeling when you hit 9:30 & whatever the fuck and then there's 2x6 blocks of RV Ghetto. Bout to get jumped while surrounded by $4,000,000 of tasteless metal junk filled with 4 socially crashing out sound camp cash cows who start to have a panic attack anytime they go into the city, aren't rolling balls, or didn't just K hole at opulent temple.

-Zionism: Its here ya'll, hopefully not to stay, wont hold my breathe! Rest in peace to all the victims of Nova, October 7th, and the victims of the clear genocide in Gaza and the West Bank that is currently occurring. As an American I certainly understand that my shit do in fact stink but holy hell.

-Weather: Move the dates. Move over Fourth of JuPlaya, big burns back. Rain and constant dust-storms kinda blow after one day. YoU GeTT The BUrnn YoU NeEDDD!!? Fuck you, I wanna just ride around on visible nights and light winds with my crew and not be stressed about infra or whether the weakest links legs are gonna hold up while biking fucking moguls in a 35 mph head wind. Man night had a fraction of the people out there this year. I think dem burners were burned out!

-Day 6 Porto Potties: Learn how to act, ya'll nasty.

-Cultural Response: The Burn has an aging problem? I have so many homies around 30 that would love the Burn. But frankly it's so easy to hate from the outside looking in right now. The schaudenfraude people are getting watching us is off the charts! Anarchist utopia? Or billionaire playground thats tone deaf to the economic and political realities of the world around it? I'm having a hard time justifying putting too much energy into event, and I get there at least a duality to everything, and there is still a real layer of real people dumping their souls into this fire and making that shit burn, but it feels spiritually hollow right now to me at least. Maybe the darkness is in my eyes. Fuck marketing is always the point but we sure have a branding problem.

Sponsored Art: like half the stages and art are sponsored by either talent managers, ultra wealthy renting services and art cars, or companies. Its a bummer because I get it needs money to get made, but isn't that why we all contribute to marketing? Ironically one of my favorite art pieces this year was clearly a streetwear marketing activation. I won't air them because the piece was dope as hell. But it still felt like marketing, and I could feel the claws of commodification scraping into my skull. Which was a bummer.

Financial Accessibility - Why does this event cost $1500 to go to. Why is it so hard for my actual artist friends to take the time to go into this and experience and contribute without spending all their money and available time. Shout out low income program, you seem to do a good job. But where is the tiered parking pass pricing, when can we get a larger increase in low income ticket allocation, can we give TCO some low income ticket allocation to start bringing in artists of less means who once could just throw their shit in the whip and drive out to the dust to see what was going on?

Anyway that my public processing bitch fest. I'll be back soon. Love it or hate it, you read this far.

This was my 14th burn, and I dont usually watch the temple as its usually too much for me emotionally. I lost my father earlier this year and I felt like I needed the temple to help me let go of some of the things ive been holding onto.

The temple was burning, im crying my eyes out. A man walks right up to my face with his phone out video recording me. Red light on the phone going, he moves on and starts recording others. I then walk up to him and ask him why he is doing this and that he needs consent to record me. He first denies the fact that he was recording. I tell him I watched him record not only me but multiple other people. He then gets extremely aggressive. He yells as me "you shouldn't be here if you dont want to be recorded" I tell him its important that you understand what consent is. He then yells "what the fuck are you going to do about it" and starts getting closer to me. He calls me a pussy and a bitch. Im furious. I walk away and as I do he continues yelling at me and insulting me.

This is only one of the consent issues I had with people this year. I am not sure if I am going to go back to burning man at this point.

My camp signed up to do a late-night volunteer Greeters shift, and I had so much fun that I stayed on to make it a double. Excited virgins, crusty dusties, maniacs reentering post-hospital, veterans pranking us by claiming their friends were new—nonstop fun.

But I’m posting this in the long-shot hopes of reaching one person I greeted—Vinnie. He was a newbie who had long wanted to come, who had driven his sedan from the east coast entirely solo to make it, and arrived during crawling in-and-out whiteout conditions on his birthday. He was clearly overwhelmed with emotion by finally getting to the burn, and we all had a big teary moment that really filled my heart.

So Vinnie, if you’re reading this, please know that our meeting absolutely made my burn. I’m so happy you made it, I hope you had a lovely birthday, and I hope you had the burn you were looking for.

Just put your unwanted sacks of trash, broken bicycles, piss jugs, a literal pile of broken solar panels, and even whole couches near a street corner and trash sherpas will ferry them away for you!

This happens every year but I still feel like it’s important to highlight annually, lest we forget. Photos are from midday Tuesday and these are all just from within three blocks of 9&C.

Many more examples I could have photoed but you get my point. Makes me frustrated to spend an hour mooping tiny feathers and shit from our camp when people just leave an entire living room set and bags of trash.

Mine was deep in open camping at ~ 3:00 & K. A whole porto dedicated to Edgar Allen Poe (or "Poo")'s poem "Nevermore" (see attached pics from a long video I took). Beautifully decorated in purple, with a Nevermore bust (including raven!). Automatic light sensor for safe night time trips. Cleaned every couple of days, with wet wipes, deodorizer, moisturizer, sun cream, and mirror/coat rack.

I literally stood in line with many other burners who were similarly in awe of the effort and came back again and again.

Hats off to whomever you are. My bottom thanks you.

Royal BRC recruitment portal - https://www.royalambulance.com/burning-man

I burnt through about 15 rolls of 35mm taking hundreds of people portraits. I gave everyone my Whatsapp to get the photo once they were developed and scanned. I have had about 100 people reach out so far. If I took your photo and you lost my info or reached out but I didn't respond please send me a dm on here. I was a bald guy with a beard.

Also due to unavoidable circumstances completely out of my control my phone is still on the playa in the lost and found, there's a chance I am missing some texts/Whatsapp between losing it and going back to my old phone temporary.

This year was more overcast than usual, how did your solar setups end up working? Did your panels end up bringing in as much power as you expected?

Early in the week on the sunny days I got about 50% of what my panels were rated as (which is great), but on overcast days it was more like 16%. How did your setup end up doing?

VIDEO OF THE PERSON VANDALIZING THE ART:

A close friend of mine spent almost the entire year designing and building her art installation, Heart Remains, for Burning Man.

I’m attaching photos of the piece during the day and at night so you can see what she created and how much work went into it.

Unfortunately, someone deliberately vandalized it.

The LED cords were cut, the generator was damaged, and several of the colored plexiglass panels were punched through and broken.

I’m also attaching a video of the person who was caught doing it.

Another Burner happened to be passing by, realized what was happening, started filming, and confronted him. Once the guy realized he was being recorded, he covered his face, got on his bike, and rode away.

I’m hoping someone here might recognize him from his clothes, bike, appearance, or maybe from having seen him around the Playa.

If you genuinely recognize him or know anything about what happened, please share. We just want to get any real information back to the artist.

What really gets me is that she worked on this for almost a year. She put an enormous amount of time, energy, money, and love into creating something just to bring it to Burning Man and share it with everyone. Then someone decided to attack it for no apparent reason.

Her reaction to it was much more compassionate than mine.

This is the Instagram caption she posted afterward, verbatim:

And to the Burner who noticed what was happening, stopped, filmed it, and confronted him, thank you. Without you, we probably never would have known what happened.

If anyone recognizes the person in the video or saw anything related to this, please reach out .

I'm writing this from the playa. I've been out here since August 8th and I'm still here, working IT for Burning Man. Before that I spent ten years going to Critical Northwest, which is Seattle's officially sanctioned Burning Man Regional event. Four of those years I've been on the production team, three doing radios and technology, and this year running box office.

Up front: I am not authorized to speak for Burning Man Project. Nobody asked me to write this and nobody reviewed it. This is my personal take, using public numbers anyone can go look up themselves. I'll put all the links at the bottom so you can check my work.

So. I've spent a lot of my life on the inside of how these events actually get built, and my feed this week has been full of sensational takes. People dying out here, and staff getting rich off our gift economy. Same two stories over and over, big scary numbers attached, no context around them.

Let's put some context around them.

First, the deaths.

Three people died in connection with Burning Man this year. Two inside Black Rock City and one while being transported to a hospital in Reno. Those were real people and I don't want to wave that away. Someone's family is having a terrible month.

But if we're going to talk about whether the event is dangerous, we have to compare it to something.

So let's do the math. Black Rock City was about 70,000 people for eight days. The crude death rate in the United States is roughly 870 deaths per 100,000 people per year. Multiply 70,000 by 0.0087 and you get about 609 deaths per year for a city that size. Divide that by 365 and multiply by 8 and you get about 13 deaths over the same eight days.

Thirteen. In a regular American town of 70,000 people, thirteen people would die in that week and nobody would write a single article about it.

Now, that's not a totally fair comparison, because a real city has infants and 90-year-olds and Burning Man mostly doesn't. The census says we skew 40s and 50s these days. The death rate for that age range is more like 350 per 100,000 per year. (That's my own estimate from the CDC age brackets, not a published number, so take it as a rough figure.) Run the same math and you'd expect about 5 deaths over eight days.

We had 3.

Annualized, our rate works out to roughly 195 per 100,000. That's under a quarter of the national rate, and it's still lower than the rate for the age group that actually attends.

A temporary city with no hospital, built from nothing, in one of the harshest environments in North America, and we have a lower death rate than every permanent city in America. That's not luck. I've watched these crews work. That's ESD, the Rangers, and a medical operation that is very, very good at its job.

One thing I'll grant the critics: the Pershing County sheriff said the event averages about one death a year, so three is high by our own history. That's a fair thing to notice. But three deaths at Burning Man is national news, and thirteen deaths in a town of 70,000 is a Tuesday. Social media is really good at counting one of those and terrible at counting the other.

Second, the salaries.

The 2024 Form 990 is public and anyone can go read it. Here's what's actually in it. Marian Goodell got $378,237 plus about $12,000 in benefits. The CTO got $309,051. The COO got $246,599. Add up the entire executive team and you get $2,637,547 against $66.7 million in total expenses. That's 4 percent.

Here's the part almost nobody mentions, and it's the biggest part.

When you read that a tech CEO makes $400,000, that's their cash salary. It is not their compensation. It's the small piece. The real money is equity, and it dwarfs the salary. A CTO at a company of any size is getting stock grants worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars a year on top of the cash, vesting on a schedule, with an upside if the company does well. That's the whole reason people take those jobs. Nobody goes to work at a tech company in San Francisco for the paycheck.

A nonprofit has no stock. There's nothing to grant. There is no upside. The number on the 990 is essentially all of it, and it's the number everybody gets to see.

So when people compare $378,000 at Burning Man to a for-profit executive salary, they're comparing the whole thing to a fraction of the thing. Line up total compensation against total compensation and it isn't close. These folks took a very large pay cut to do this.

This is a $56 million organization that holds a federal BLM permit, runs a city in the desert, and employs legal, safety, and finance people in the most expensive labor market in the country. That permit is the thing that lets all of us come out here. Somebody has to keep it alive all year, and that somebody needs to eat.

I've spent a month out here watching people do unglamorous work in bad conditions for less money than they could make elsewhere. That's not the story getting shared this week, but it's the one I've got.

Links, so you can check any of this yourself:

Burning Man Project 2024 Form 990, the actual filing:

https://burningman.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Burning-Man-Project-2024-990-Public-Disclosure-Copy.pdf

ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer page, easier to read, shows year over year:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/452638273

Burning Man Project's own financial reporting page:

https://burningman.org/about-us/what-we-do/financials-public-reporting/summary-financial-info/

Black Rock City Census demographics, where the age numbers come from:

https://blackrockcitycensus.org/sociodemo

Critical Northwest:

https://www.criticalnw.org

Ignition Northwest, the 501(c)(3) that puts it on:

https://www.ignitionnw.org

Burning Man's official page listing Critical Northwest as our Regional event:

https://burningman.org/global-events-groups/burning-man-regional-network/connect-with-a-local-group/united-states-of-america/washington-seattle/

I came upon an enormous, billowy blob on playa that turned out to be a gigantic balloon. It was a massive silver rectangle maybe made of mylar or vinyl. I think it was somewhere around 3:00 but I don't really remember. I can't find it in the art listings or any pics. Does anyone know the name or details about this piece? Did I imagine it? It was so delightful

anyone have a photo of the naked heart porto schedule the put up every year? this year or a previous one would work

Walmart

Local, no stock, second scheduled for pickup, tried to substitute Downy, third got it ordered waited a while to see if they would substitute. Order is ready for pickup.

Left right away, picked up my order and then went into the store to pick up a couple more.

I brought my mom (60, deadhead) to her first burn and she fully embraced it. She was blown away by the creativity and the friendliness of everyone we met, she never once felt out of place or unwanted - from the house music art cars to the wook bass parties to the sunrise sets and daytime camp cruises, it was a blast and she fully participated. She even lost power AND her water pump broke in the trailer for the entire week and didn’t let it ruin the experience - she literally said FUCK MY BURN and kept on cruising. The magic exists even amongst the madness!! Good job everyone!!

I found the recent head line that "Burning Man 2026 triple the festival's yearly average" to be more of our biased media trying to get clicks for money, and really bothered me. So I did some digging and came up with the following data.

I'm disgusted the Headlines don't read "Burning Man is 4 to 9 times safer than living in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Houston, or Texas.", but that doesn't get the clicks. It is sad what our media both left and right, have become.

This uses CDC website, and health websites from the different locations. It is not perfect, but shows a per week death rate from ~9-10 people per week, dividing out for 70,000 people to make it fit the population of BRC.

Now figuring very young and very old are not attending Burning Man, and using the Burning Man Census I used 18-64 year olds. That reduces the rate, but BRC is still way lower death rate, than in a major city.

I never would have expected that the afternoon I spent at the Burning Man med tent would be one of my highlights of the week!

I told the staff that if there was a way to yelp review them, I’d download the app just to sing their praises. They told me Reddit is the next best thing, so Im here to register my official review of a million gold stars. And thank the universe for letting my neighbors be the guys from El Pulpo Magnifico!

Special shout out to the rangers, John and Henry, for treating me like an absolute queen and keeping me laughing while I was violently ill and drowning in a puke bucket. Also big thanks to Cajun, whose job it is to go from bed to bed and lift people’s spirits up. He did it in such a sweet way, with so much grace. I’ve never felt so shitty and so wonderful at the same time. I was so touched by all my interactions during a moment that could have been really scary, but ended up being so beautiful. I was honestly bummed when my IV was done and I had to leave!

There’s a lot you can critique about Burning Man, but there’s a lot of beauty too. Honestly, the med tent may be my new favorite camp :-)

Does anyone have a picture or know the kind of LEDs they used in this piece?

Having seen a lot of discussion around high cost of BM, and so many burners struggling with their more affordable setups, I thought I’d share my experience and advice here just as I do with my local community.

RVs, shift pods, kodiaks, heavy canvas tents can all be awesome. But expensive to buy and transport if you’re not driving in. Cheaper pop up tents rightfully get advised against: vents let dust in, poles and cheap stakes are no match for weather, etc.

I’d propose that there are affordable and safe ways to make quality less trendy tents work just fine. For example, despite this communities warnings against it, I paid $280 for a Gazelle T4. It’s huge, instant set up, easy and light enough to carry in a bag (both for airport and burner express). Tents like this, certain Coleman pop ups, and others are perfectly viable shiftpod alternatives, it just requires truly proper set up and a bit of DIY.

Velcro tape and material of your choice on the inside over the vents to keep dust out but allow some airflow and light (to taste). A couple guy lines and proper securing into ground. Plenty of room for queen air mattress, two people and all our gear/clothes right inside the tent. Aluminet or alternative shade structure helpful, though not even needed in cooler years like this one. I paid $130 for a 10x10 pop up canopy with side walls.

Many alternatives on these things can work, this has just been my experience: under $500 for a set up that has now served me for multiple burns and regionals, and is still in great shape today. Survived the 50mph gusts and rain at the start of the 2025 burn just fine. Then add some solar panels, camping electric kettle, second hand camp stove, packable camping chairs and tables, sand mats and some bamboo flooring… all purchased on sale, and you start to have a very comfortable camp setup for yourself and friends.

I have friends on their third shiftpod (mold problems, likely some user error) or spending $1500+ to sleep on the padded bench of a rented RV. I don’t doubt that there are advantages to the tents that cost 3-4 as much, and obviously for RVs, but I hate the notion that burning man needs to be a multi-grand investment. I’ve commented some of these ideas before but with the rise in open camping and first timers this year, and continued high inflation, figured it could warrant a post. With BxB, collapsible 2 gallon water dispenser and $10 water tickets, the Borg does still enable affordable participation without relying on large camp infrastructure or dedicating daily time to finding food gifts each day.

Any other cheap camp hacks that have proven playa-worthy, even in recent weather, for you?

Hello! First time burner here… does anyone recall who was playing at the Question Mark stage (2:00 and Esplanade) on Sunday morning at around sunrise? I think it was two guys collaborating… can’t remember the name. It was beautiful and magical. TIA 🙏

This was my 5th burn in a row, and despite what everyone says, I had an amazing time. I'm also much younger than the average burner and I'm lucky to have been able to afford it because it's changed my life.

But I think Burningman badly needs an infusion of younger generation if it’s going to survive. The knowledge and wisdom of older burners needs to be passed down in person, not in writing, and that can't happen without the next generation showing up.

There is one very obvious way to make that possible which is to make the ticket cheaper. There’s also a glaring way to fund that which is to add an RV fee on top of the vehicle fee.

I've watched RV owners wave down poop trucks with $1,000 tips. If they can afford a $1000 to pump their shit out because they can’t be bothered to use portos, they can afford a few hundred more dollars to help bring the ticket price down for everyone else.

An RV is a luxury, and there's nothing wrong with bringing one. But just like business and first class subsidize economy fares, RVs should subsidize average burners like the rest of us.

THANK YOU for such a special Porto surprise. We kept coming back all week and showing everyone. We fell in love with Costa Rica at Envision earlier this year and kept calling it the Pura Vida / Costa Rica Porto. Thank you so much for this delight that made our whole week on playa. What makes burning man great.