Unburnlievable!

You heard me, poutine. 

Can you believe it? No. You can't believe it. Believe what? No Burning Man this year. It's cancelled and I-huh? Burning Man? It's a big, week-long event held in the Nevada desert every year? Tens of thousands of people in hundred degree weather doing all kinds of-huh? Ok, yes, drugs, but other things too. There's art, music, poutine. I go every year and you usually have to hear about it 'round September when I come back. Although we're actually not supposed to think of it as cancelled.

Defined by what we
bring to...so a pillory? 

According to Marian Goodell, the event's CEO:

"...I'm not here to tell you we're cancelling Burning Man. No. Burning Man is a culture. It's a movement. We are not defined by one aspect of Burning Man. We are defined by what we bring to Burning Man."

-Marian Goodell, Burning Man CEO

not cancelling Burning Man, 

but not not cancelling it either

Anyway, it's off this year for the first time since it began in 1986. So big deal, right? A bunch of weirdos can't have their big weirdo party. Who cares?

It's as if eighty thousand EDM fans suddenly cried
out in terror and were then suddenly silenced. 

Ok, third worst.

And that's fair. Ish. I mean, the deeper importance to attendees not withstanding, it is basically a big party and putting thousands and thousands of people in one place with no running water, two and a half hours from the closest hospital when we're who knows how far way from a vaccine seems like a terrible idea wrapped in folly. And let's be real, Burning Man being cancelled is hardly the worst thing happening in the world right now. For most of us. For others, it's a definitely a runner up to the worst thing happening in the world right now.

Pictured: you, bailing out
of this while you still can.

I'm referring to the two hundred staff members of the Burning Man Organization, the non-profit that puts this on every year. Here, let me explain through armchair math which, if you don't care, I'd bail out now. You will almost certainly not find this as interesting as I do. Still there? Wow. Ok. So the event is capped at eighty thousand tickets. Of those, fifty thousand were sold a couple months ago in the first round. The remaining forty thousand would have been sold this month.

Six months ago, a pandemic seemed about
as likely as a Mothra attack, but here we are.

When you buy tickets, you agree to certain things like how responsible they're not if you die at the event and how non-refundable the tickets are. Even in the event of a global pandemic. No, really, that specific eventuality was added late last year before all this happened. So legally they don't have to give anyone their money back, but they are anyway because they're good people and we're mid-economic meltdown. Ok, but the event's off, so why not give everyone their money back? Well Mr. or Ms. Smarty Pants, I had the same thought, but then I consulted the inter-net.

Pictured: NASA scientists, seen here
trying to calculate rent in San Francisco.

The problem is that ticket sales make up 90% of the Org's (who again, are a non-profit) income which in addition to buying things things like seventeen hundred porta potties and, I don't know, a forty-foot wooden man we set on fire every year for some reason, also pays those two hundred staff members' salaries. Sure, the Org no longer has to build a temporary city in the middle of nowhere, but they have a responsibility to their staff. A staff and an organization that's based in San Francisco and holy shit, the rent in San Francisco.

I'm not saying don't patronize these
businesses, I'm just saying don't pay
$500 for a furry vest. Just don't.

They're asking those who can afford to do so to donate some or all of the ticket refund back to keep the Org afloat, but how many people can do that right now, and if it'll be enough are kind of open questions. The Org says in their official announcement that this is still going to mean layoffs and salary reductions for the staff and that sucks. As it's going to suck for the tiny towns just outside the event who sell attendees things like gas, food, ice, and overpriced yoga pants with LED's sewn in from vendors on the way in.

Anyway, it's going to be weird not going this year. I've been ten times. Ten. I've even made you sit through the photos which...sorry. But whatever, not going really is no big deal. A mild disappointment compared to what this means for the Org's staff and nothing compared to everything else people are going through right now. So yeah, I'll take weird any day.

Look, I love it too, but if we're being honest with ourselves,
fire-spitting metal octopi aren't essential services...