Top Asshats of 2025

[FlyingMonkey]

Since it's looking like the BORG has abandoned everything that made Burning Man a cultural phenomena and next year will either be more expensive or have corporate sponsors, I'd like to start this list early and nominate Marian Goodell for this prestigious award.

Her own words convey a complete lack of accountability for the financial predicament that the event faces, much less any thought for the principals that brought our community together. When she hinted at corporate sponsorships if they don't get enough donations (donations from the people already spending money on the event and making it great) she lost me and my desire to participate in future burns.

I will not donate and I will save myself around $5K next year by choosing to no longer participate as long as she is running the show.

For the sake of the event she needs to be replaced. For the sake of all the other Burning Man projects the event must be prioritized above all else as none of them will exist without the event.

I wouldn't attack her salary if she was competent at her job but she clearly is not. Maybe a (Successful) CEO of a non-profit in CA should make that much. I bet they NEVER request camps to "Take a year off" again Great fucking idea. Even then, I don't see ticket sales rebounding significantly any time soon. She obviously didn't learn anything from COVID and not having the event for 2 years.

So whats your plan Marian? Can you keep it alive???

I look forward to seeing everyone at the 2026 Renegade Burn.




Simon, I don't always agree with you but your response to her blog post was spot on. I may have to take you off my Plonk list nowhttps://journal.burningman.org/2024/10/ ... t-1-303453

[Skuzzy61]

Why wait until 2026 for the Renegade Burn? Let's do it in 2025!

[Simon of the Playa]

Since it's looking like the BORG has abandoned everything that made Burning Man a cultural phenomena and next year will either be more expensive or have corporate sponsors, I'd like to start this list early and nominate Marian Goodell for this prestigious award.

Her own words convey a complete lack of accountability for the financial predicament that the event faces, much less any thought for the principals that brought our community together. When she hinted at corporate sponsorships if they don't get enough donations (donations from the people already spending money on the event and making it great) she lost me and my desire to participate in future burns.

I will not donate and I will save myself around $5K next year by choosing to no longer participate as long as she is running the show.

For the sake of the event she needs to be replaced. For the sake of all the other Burning Man projects the event must be prioritized above all else as none of them will exist without the event.

I wouldn't attack her salary if she was competent at her job but she clearly is not. Maybe a (Successful) CEO of a non-profit in CA should make that much. I bet they NEVER request camps to "Take a year off" again Great fucking idea. Even then, I don't see ticket sales rebounding significantly any time soon. She obviously didn't learn anything from COVID and not having the event for 2 years.

So whats your plan Marian? Can you keep it alive???

I look forward to seeing everyone at the 2026 Renegade Burn.




Simon, I don't always agree with you but your response to her blog post was spot on. I may have to take you off my Plonk list nowhttps://journal.burningman.org/2024/10/ ... t-1-303453

That Is NOT me but someone pretending to be me.


you can put me back on the plonk list

[Simon of the Playa]

IMG_7508.jpeg

this is me.

[some seeing eye]

Since it's looking like the BORG has abandoned everything that made Burning Man a cultural phenomena and next year will either be more expensive or have corporate sponsors, I'd like to start this list early and nominate Marian Goodell for this prestigious award.

Her own words convey a complete lack of accountability for the financial predicament that the event faces, much less any thought for the principals that brought our community together. When she hinted at corporate sponsorships if they don't get enough donations (donations from the people already spending money on the event and making it great) she lost me and my desire to participate in future burns.

I will not donate and I will save myself around $5K next year by choosing to no longer participate as long as she is running the show.

For the sake of the event she needs to be replaced. For the sake of all the other Burning Man projects the event must be prioritized above all else as none of them will exist without the event.

I wouldn't attack her salary if she was competent at her job but she clearly is not. Maybe a (Successful) CEO of a non-profit in CA should make that much. I bet they NEVER request camps to "Take a year off" again Great fucking idea. Even then, I don't see ticket sales rebounding significantly any time soon. She obviously didn't learn anything from COVID and not having the event for 2 years.

So whats your plan Marian? Can you keep it alive???

I look forward to seeing everyone at the 2026 Renegade Burn.




Simon, I don't always agree with you but your response to her blog post was spot on. I may have to take you off my Plonk list nowhttps://journal.burningman.org/2024/10/ ... t-1-303453

BRC is a project with at least a year timeline. So starting in January there are several tasks per week per employee. In the pandemic they spent a lot of time documenting tasks and dates on the time line and assigning them to staff positions. The about 100 named full time year around staff positions and maybe 100 more manage over 30 departments, about 9000 department staff who get department tickets, and 10000+ more department volunteers.

A big early task is negotiating with and paying the ticket vendor and getting the burner profiles linked to the ticket vendor software and the STEP system. They have to negotiate with 50-100 vendors and get contracts in place. They have to update the BLM SRP, the operations plan, and the fees. They have to negotiate with LEO, and a big expense is LEO off-playa housing at Bruno's. They have to set up about 1000 DPW, GPE, Box Office and other short term contracts with all the tax stuff. They have to process and manage Placement.

Everyone on staff is going to be flexed into all that work, including those with fluffy titles.

They try to start the year with at least $15-20 million in the bank. They started with $9 million going into 2024. It may be they had extra expenses from the rain emergency response. We all survived.

On the income side an educated wild ass guess is the planned income schedule would have been

FOMO $5 million short
February $7 million (actual 2 million)

All the rest of the sales $3 million short and late in arriving
March $19 million
April $10 million
June $.5 million +
July $1.5 million
August $2 million
Gate sales ?

They are not set up to lay off staff between January and the end of October because everyone has multiple tasks. They did about 2 layoffs/retirements in November 2024. The previous CFO and the chief legal counsel are out.

On the vendor and BLM side, they negotiate hard, in particular they have done well keeping medical costs down. They have a sole source problem with the portos, so that is hard to negotiate down. All the vendors have higher labor and supply chain costs because of inflation. The courts ruled in favor of the BLM on limiting cost negotiation.

The people who are saying "I'm entitled to my party," and "cut Regionals, Fly Ranch, and Burners Without Burners" expenses, that is probably about $1-2 million. The Regionals, Fly Ranch, and Burners Without Burners allow the BORG to keep it's tax exempt status, which in turn allows people who itemize deductions to make charitable contributions.

Camps are having problems on dues vs expenses and either cutting or going bankrupt.

The board is cutting where they can to bring expenses and revenue into line. The large donors would demand it. It may take more than a year to do that. I think I read somewhere BORG spends about $20 million on low paid short term DPW, GPE, and Box Office contracts. You can visit the DPW & GPE bars this year on playa and explain your cuts to their departments.

TL:DR it is very hard to cut costs between January and November, and they don't have any experience doing it. They started 2024 over 14 million short on cash, and fell behind about 8 million on ticket revenues.

To those complaining about transparency - all this is from public disclosures.

If you want to worry about something, I would worry about finding a ticket vendor.

[Popeye]

Well said SSE.
A lot of the FB comments are knee jerk responses from people who have no idea what is actually going on and why.
The reduction in participants has more to do with the rain and the national economy than anything else.

[Skuzzy61]

Sooooo,...it sounds like the event is being crushed under its own weight. At least, that is what I read into what SSE said.

[Token]

… The Regionals, Fly Ranch, and Burners Without Burners allow the BORG to keep its tax exempt status, which in turn allows people who itemize deductions to make charitable contributions…

Slick slip that one.

BTW, this whole “allows them to keep their nonprofit status” … is there a citation for that from the BORG or anyone official? Smells fishy.

[FlyingMonkey]

Since it's looking like the BORG has abandoned everything that made Burning Man a cultural phenomena and next year will either be more expensive or have corporate sponsors, I'd like to start this list early and nominate Marian Goodell for this prestigious award.

Her own words convey a complete lack of accountability for the financial predicament that the event faces, much less any thought for the principals that brought our community together. When she hinted at corporate sponsorships if they don't get enough donations (donations from the people already spending money on the event and making it great) she lost me and my desire to participate in future burns.

I will not donate and I will save myself around $5K next year by choosing to no longer participate as long as she is running the show.

For the sake of the event she needs to be replaced. For the sake of all the other Burning Man projects the event must be prioritized above all else as none of them will exist without the event.

I wouldn't attack her salary if she was competent at her job but she clearly is not. Maybe a (Successful) CEO of a non-profit in CA should make that much. I bet they NEVER request camps to "Take a year off" again Great fucking idea. Even then, I don't see ticket sales rebounding significantly any time soon. She obviously didn't learn anything from COVID and not having the event for 2 years.

So whats your plan Marian? Can you keep it alive???

I look forward to seeing everyone at the 2026 Renegade Burn.




Simon, I don't always agree with you but your response to her blog post was spot on. I may have to take you off my Plonk list nowhttps://journal.burningman.org/2024/10/ ... t-1-303453

BRC is a project with at least a year timeline. So starting in January there are several tasks per week per employee. In the pandemic they spent a lot of time documenting tasks and dates on the time line and assigning them to staff positions. The about 100 named full time year around staff positions and maybe 100 more manage over 30 departments, about 9000 department staff who get department tickets, and 10000+ more department volunteers.

A big early task is negotiating with and paying the ticket vendor and getting the burner profiles linked to the ticket vendor software and the STEP system. They have to negotiate with 50-100 vendors and get contracts in place. They have to update the BLM SRP, the operations plan, and the fees. They have to negotiate with LEO, and a big expense is LEO off-playa housing at Bruno's. They have to set up about 1000 DPW, GPE, Box Office and other short term contracts with all the tax stuff. They have to process and manage Placement.

Everyone on staff is going to be flexed into all that work, including those with fluffy titles.

They try to start the year with at least $15-20 million in the bank. They started with $9 million going into 2024. It may be they had extra expenses from the rain emergency response. We all survived.

On the income side an educated wild ass guess is the planned income schedule would have been

FOMO $5 million short
February $7 million (actual 2 million)

All the rest of the sales $3 million short and late in arriving
March $19 million
April $10 million
June $.5 million +
July $1.5 million
August $2 million
Gate sales ?

They are not set up to lay off staff between January and the end of October because everyone has multiple tasks. They did about 2 layoffs/retirements in November 2024. The previous CFO and the chief legal counsel are out.

On the vendor and BLM side, they negotiate hard, in particular they have done well keeping medical costs down. They have a sole source problem with the portos, so that is hard to negotiate down. All the vendors have higher labor and supply chain costs because of inflation. The courts ruled in favor of the BLM on limiting cost negotiation.

The people who are saying "I'm entitled to my party," and "cut Regionals, Fly Ranch, and Burners Without Burners" expenses, that is probably about $1-2 million. The Regionals, Fly Ranch, and Burners Without Burners allow the BORG to keep it's tax exempt status, which in turn allows people who itemize deductions to make charitable contributions.

Camps are having problems on dues vs expenses and either cutting or going bankrupt.

The board is cutting where they can to bring expenses and revenue into line. The large donors would demand it. It may take more than a year to do that. I think I read somewhere BORG spends about $20 million on low paid short term DPW, GPE, and Box Office contracts. You can visit the DPW & GPE bars this year on playa and explain your cuts to their departments.

TL:DR it is very hard to cut costs between January and November, and they don't have any experience doing it. They started 2024 over 14 million short on cash, and fell behind about 8 million on ticket revenues.

To those complaining about transparency - all this is from public disclosures.

If you want to worry about something, I would worry about finding a ticket vendor.

All I'm saying, and I think others agree, is that they need to fund the next years event 1st. Maybe have a healthy reserve as well. After that they should see what else they can fund. The very thought of accepting corporate sponsorship says a lot about the Borgs mindset. Without the actual event the other projects do not exist.

It seems very clear to me that the Borg no longer supports the ethos that attracted me in the 1st place 12 years ago. I know the death spiral started long before then but that is my experience. TBH I think it's changed enough that I won't miss going and can spend my time and money on other pursuits. I recently found a love of boondocking in Utah. I think I'll put $5,000 in to my truck & gear instead of going to Burning Man next year. It's a personal decision for everyone and each of us will have to weigh what we value most.