Feature Photo: Duncan Rawlinson
As COVID-19 takes down festivals and large-scale events around the world, Burning Man has continued to hold its ground and refrain from cancelling their annual event. However, their future is still up in the air, and it seems like they may be leaning towards cancelling, too.
Just yesterday, they shared a blog post in which they announced the official postponement of their main ticket sale. Though originally slated to happen on April 8th, the event has cancelled this date with no new date set.
The blog post reads:
As you all know, there’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty right now. Given that reality, we believe the prudent next step is to postpone our upcoming ticket sale. Registration for the “Main Sale” was scheduled to begin April 1, and the sale was set to take place April 8. Effective today, we are postponing the Main Sale registration and the Main Sale. We are going to gather more information over the coming weeks so that we can make a more informed decision. We have not yet set an alternative date for the registration and sale.
One thing to keep in mind is that Directed Group Sale tickets have already been purchased by theme camp organizers and participants – the sale happened back in February. Unfortunately, Burning Man Project’s refund policy for those tickets is now unclear. They are currently “exploring every possible option for offering refunds if the 2020 event is canceled.”
With the massive amount of funds required to plan Burning Man – truly a year-round endeavor – offering refunds to all participants that purchased DGS tickets may have a detrimental impact to the organization.
Needless to say, there’s much uncertainty around whether this year’s event will happen. You can keep an eye on more Burning Man updates here.