Aggregated Information for Arrival, During, and Exodus

[Sergeant Sweetleaf]

Hi Everyone,

Just wrapped up my first Burn and still cannot put into words what it meant to me. Thankful to all the welcoming Burners that made it perfect.

My friends and I were fortunate to arrive Wednesday morning with absolutely no wait for entry. We all know what the exodus was like. I am preparing a list for future Burning Man events to help certain things flow better. My goal is to know the proper social media and technology channels to monitor so we can reduce the probability of trying to enter and exit BM during heavy traffic times.

First, has anyone with the BM organization thought about graphing the traffic reports from the last several years to identify typical times of light traffic?

What social media feeds and MURS channels are best to monitor to plan arrival and departure times?
Anyone know if it is best to leave the morning after The Man burns but before the Temple?
Any other things we should do to better understand the situation?
What is best to monitor during the Burn to know what is going on, if fellow Burner assistance is needed, etc.?

(We stayed for both Burns. They were both incredibly moving. For my first Burn, I don't regret staying then having to deal with the traffic.)

I appreciate everyone's input.

Sergeant SweetLeaf

PS: when I get more time, maybe this weekend, will post a thread with my thoughts on the first Burn. Incredible. Life-changing.

[AntiM]

Mod Note: moved to Philosophical Center, which is a better fit.

Ah, Exodus is unique each year. You can compile all the data you like, but a single wreck on 447, a lost child, a sudden rain shower, and BAM! Gate is closed, or traffic backed up, and every carefully tracked timeline is moot. Light traffic? We depart about the same time each year, usually on Monday, and have had the experience of breezing to the pavement, or waiting over ten hours, backed up into the city. The minute someone posts "light" times, everyone decides to go then, and surprise, heavy traffic. Currently, our best average has been six hours to the pavement.

Used to be right after the Temple burn was ideal. Now lots of people shoot for that, and it has become one of the worst times to go.

You can't outsmart Exodus, it is too random. Gate and BMIR radio can only give an overall picture, and do not keep up consistently with changes. Not everyone is going to have access to MURS/social media, so that is marginally helpful. Nice ideas, but in practicality, not that helpful.

I'd rather educate people on how to do a zipper merge in the Exodus lanes, and how to secure loads when departing (straps, people, not gravity or stretchy bungee cords).

[Simon of the Playa]

another puppy chewing the sofa.





glad you had a good burn.





don't pee on the rug in your excitement.

[666isMONEY]

Must be easy to graph since all tickets are optically read:
How many people show up only for the weekend and has that number changed much over the years?

[some seeing eye]

That information is proprietary. But it is disclosed to the government, which has various open records laws.

[Ano]

The guaranteed way to avoid Exodus is to either leave early (estimated time: before man burns) or leave late (Tuesday afternoon). Even then, Tuesday Morning had a 3 hour wait this year somehow, and the gate did shut for a period of time post Man-Burn adding a bit of complications.

If you have somewhere to be, give yourself greater than 24 hours to get there. I've been hit by cars while working exodus because they had a flight in four hours and google maps told them they could make it to Reno in two from the Playa so why have they waited six hours in a line that isn't moving I must be an idiot.

Really, it's gonna be different every year. I bet one year the worst time for exodus will be during the Man Burn. It's totally random and up in the air and makes no sense.

I've worked the same exodus shift for years now, and at that same time every year I've seen the wait time range from 10 hours to 10 minutes.

[motskyroonmatick]

I thought early Tuesday was going to be a several hour wait due to the amount of people still in the city Monday night. Getting to the pavement at 8:30 am there had been no wait. There was obviously a higher volume of traffic on gate road behind us though. The only constant I have ever found with entry and exit times is in general the earlier you get to the city before event open and the later you leave after event close the better off you are.

[FIGJAM]

Exactly!!!

I left camp at 5:15 Tuesday morning, and was at the Fernley Loves TS by 7:30 AM.

No waits and no traffic!!!

[Eric]

What social media feeds and MURS channels are best to monitor to plan arrival and departure times?

For arrival just plan to get there after Gate opens - there is no "best" time (unless you don't want to come until Friday afternoon and miss the whole week). You will be 99.9999% guaranteed to spend time in line during arrival, and there is no way to know if it will be 1 hour or 24 (though the longer ones only happen if it rains or if there is a severe white-out).

For Exodus: your best resource is the Burning Man Traffic twitter feed (@bmantraffic or https://twitter.com/bmantraffic), but it only works if you have access to twitter or the internet - good for AT&T users, not so good for everyone else. Otherwise Gate radio (95.1 FM) will give you fairly accurate info, updated every hour I believe. We leave on Tuesday around noon now, we went from Center Camp to pavement in 37 minutes, and were in Reno in the early afternoon.