ePlaya

Apologies for the delay in getting this posted. At the tail end of January, Burning Man finally shared partial 2025 ticketing information on the Burning Man Tickets web site, which you can find right here.

While you can find all the available information at the other end of that link, let me summarize it.

Newer burners may not know this, but up until 2013 Burning Man had tiered ticket pricing. Typically it was 3 tiers, with limited numbers of the lowest two tiers, and Burning Man asked the community to pay what it can. If you had the means to buy a higher priced ticket, that would leave one more lower-tier ticket for those with less means. Of course, the lower tiers always sold out, and usually quickly, but many did what they could to help if they chose to.

In 2025, Burning Man is returning to tiered ticket pricing. This time, there are 6 tiers. $550, $650, $750, $950, $1,500 and $3,000. Nobody at BMHQ has pulled me aside or explained anything, but I see the additional tiers as a nod to the FOMO sale that Burning Man has been running pretty successfully over the last decade or so. And just like the tiered ticket sales of yesteryear, there will be limited numbers of tickets at the two lowest ticket tiers in the public sales. They will probably sell out, and usually quickly. If you had the means to buy a higher priced ticket, it will leave one more lower-tier ticket for those with less means.

Vehicle passes are $150 each.

The Today sale (which has been previously known as the FOMO sale) starts THIS WEDNESDAY!!!! This is a public sale. Registration is open right now through tomorrow at noon PDT 11 February. As long as you are registered for that sale, you can participate in it.

The invitation-only Stewards Sale, for artists, theme camp builders and mutant vehicle builders (stewards of Burning Man culture, if you will), happens soon. Team leaders should be hearing from their contacts at ARTery, Placement, and the Department of Mutant Vehicles about the maximum number of tickets their group can get in this sale. A window will open up from 21 Feb to 28 Feb for the team leader to allocate those tickets to members of that group, and then the Stewards sale will take place from noon PDT on 5 March to 8 March. In this smaller sale, there will be limited numbers of the lowest ticket tier, but there will be enough tier two tickets.

The Tomorrow Sale (which has previously been known as the Main sale) is tbd. This is a public sale.

The Ticket Aid Program opens up for applications on 19th February. Burners in need with qualifying applications will be able to purchase a non-transferable ticket at $225 and a vehicle pass at $75. Approved applicants will receive a direct link to where they can purchase their ticket beginning in late May. Applications are reviewed in the order in which they are received and approved on a rolling basis. More info on Ticket Aid can be found here.

STEP, the Secure Ticket Exchange Program opens on 30 April. Details have not yet been finalized.

The OMG Sale will happen in 2025. This is a public sale. Registration for that late season sale will be from 21 to 28 July, and the OMG Sale starts at noon PST on 30 July.

In addition, there are a couple interesting new ticketing programs for 2025.

The Renaissance Champion Program is a new program that taps connectors to invite networks, inspired groups, and collectives to bring their magic to Black Rock City. This program is designed specifically to invite groups — from international crews to creative collectives, friend groups to first-time Burners — particularly those who always felt the call to Burning Man but never thought it was possible for them. If you are part of a group that is interested, click here to fill out a form to express interest.

The new Resilience Program provides access to Black Rock City 2025 for individuals who have been severely impacted either by a natural disaster or geopolitical conflict. A limited number of $550 and gift tickets have been set aside for this program. The application program begins on 19 February (same day as the Ticket Aid Program). More details will be published soon, but you can click here to visit the FAQ page for more info.

Taking my admin hat off for this, and speaking personally and unofficially.

As of this writing, we do not know how many total tickets will be offered for sale in 2025. We also do not know the breakdown of the available tickets in any given ticket sale, or at any given ticket tier. And as mentioned above, we do not yet know when the Tomorrow sale will take place, and a few other details are still tbd.

Uncertainty can be a bummer and uncertainty can be stressful. On the plus side, a good deal of useful information has been made available, and it should give most if not all of us enough information to start making ticket plans.

I have no inside information on when the Tomorrow sale will take place. However, the Main sale has typically happened in April, with a limited window for pre-registration to that sale. It could be a little later, or it could be a little sooner. I do expect that once those details are locked down and confirmed, Burning Man will be posting it on the Ticketing Info page, and blasting it all over social media.

I have seen some silly conspiracy-theory posting and even a few news articles online about how Burning Man is switching to a dynamic pricing model, a la Ticketmaster. That is nonsense talk from scare-mongers and people seeking more traffic to their posts and pages. From a purely technical perspective, Ticketmaster's dreaded dynamic pricing model is a sophisticated (and expensive) piece of software that monitors event sales in real-time, and adjusts the ticket price based on how fast the event is selling and how much supply remains. Veteran concert-goers who've suffered the pains of popular Ticketmaster on-sales can tell you stories about how tickets that should have been sold at prices from $150-$450 wound up being listed on Ticketmaster's site, directly from them (and the artist who signed off on dynamic pricing)... being offered for $1,850 or more. As many of you know from Burning Man Journal posts and fundraising emails, Burning Man had a shortfall last year that has resulted in some belt-tightening. Even if they wanted to (which they don't), they couldn't afford to buy or build a dynamic pricing system and go through the kinds of rigorous testing that would be needed to have it ready for this year's event. Tiered pricing is not a dynamic pricing system, not by a long shot.

Burning Man has been pretty open and upfront about how they lost money last year, and they state in this year's ticket announcement that the cost-per-participant of producing Burning Man in 2023 was $749. I do not have any inside information, but I suspect that Burning Man is planning on looking at the results of the Today Sale very closely. If they do some solid business at the higher ticket tiers (which represent the price tiers when they had the FOMO sale in the past), that would mean that they could offer more of the below-cost lower tiered tickets in the Tomorrow Sale. If fewer people are willing or able to purchase at the higher pricing tiers, it will mean fewer lower tiered tickets.

I hope that info helps!

I am very pleased to announce that more information has been posted regarding the Tomorrow Sale.

The Tomorrow Sale (previously known as the Main Sale) will take place on Wednesday, 30 April at noon PDT

In order to participate in the sale, you must register between 21 April and 29 April. As with other sales, tickets will be sold in pricing tiers of: $550, $650, $750, $950, $1,500 and $3,000 (plus taxes, fees, shipping, etc). There are a limited number of tickets available at each price. Burning Man has not specified the total number available in the sale, nor the numbers available in any particular ticket tier. An unspecified number of vehicle passes will also be available at $150 each. Maximum of two tickets and one vehicle pass per purchase.

BRAND NEW for 2025, is the option to purchase via interest-free payment plans. Payment plans are limited to three payments over three months. More information on the interest-free payment plans can be found here.

I'm hoping Bmorg gets the clue after last year (currently doesn't look like it). A person could get multiple tickets for less then half price in August. Attendance was down by what 32% from the previous year? There are other Event /Fests that are in competition. The "It" crowd considers BM to be so "yesterday". LOL. Actually I'm glad the "influencers" and the "Gramer's" have bailed.
I may snag a ticket in main sale, or wait till August. Multiple "Depends" , " and /or/if " statements.

Attendance was down last year, but I do not believe it's been down by anywhere near that much. FOMO tickets were down by a number in that range, but that represents a relatively small percentage of total event tickets. There is a possibility of below-face tickets in the weeks running up to the event, but there is also a possibility of fairly robust demand, and that the only available tickets later in the season are at higher tier ticket prices.

Burning Man was affected by what's been happening in the event industry (more on that in a bit), as well as coming off of a pretty significant bad weather year in 2023. For most years since the rise of photos and videos of the event on social media sites, demand for the event is driven in part by photos (as well as stories) from the prior year's event. 2011 was the first year the event actually sold out (which itself drove a big increase in demand) and then the weather was very nearly perfect, temps were great and there were very few dust storms (plus a very viral video). The resulting surge in demand for tickets in 2012 caused a bit of a crisis, and Burning Man has literally pegged the meter and sold every ticket they had every year through 2023. The 2023 event sold fully out, but with pretty severe weather risks the bottom fell out of the late season after-market.

Back to the subject of what's been happening in the event industry. For more than a solid decade, demand has been through the roof for experiential events, and there seemed to be a neverending stream of new festivals, events getting bigger, and things getting much more expensive. The trend continued for a while post-pandemic, but somewhere between spiraling costs in the wake of pandemic and supply chain, the glut of events, and a few other economic factors... demand softened significantly. Several big events failed, others took the year off or went on indefinite hiatus, others merged. 2024 was brutal for the festival and events industry.

So far, 2025 has been showing signs of promise. Some of the middle and lower tier events have continued to struggle or consolidate, but I think those events and groups were already struggling for other reasons or simply did not have as strong a reputation for great experiences. Events with a solid reputation or who have been putting together great experiences have had successful events or solid ticket sales for their coming events.

And of course, 2024 was a much better weather year than 2023. Despite claims that influencers and heavy social media users bailing on Burning Man, there were a lot of influencers and social media users posting heavily during and after the 2024 event. The previous year's weather and social media posting has typically had a fair amount of influence on demand for a given season. Time will tell how the Tomorrow (Main) Sale goes, and how ticket prices will shake out in the after-market.