Burning Man Tries to Cope with Cash [festival rakes in $10M]

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 8/19/07 | Justin Berton

[TFFKAMM]

Inside the Alamo Square apartment of Larry Harvey, the co-founder and impresario of Burning Man, there is a wooden statuette of Ganesh, the Hindu deity known for his patronage of arts and science.

The expensive artifact was part of a splurge Harvey allowed himself three years ago, when he finally was able to redecorate his rental apartment and turn it from the paper-infested swamp he'd lived in for the past 22 years to the elegant bachelor pad it is today, adorned with Far Eastern decor and inhabited by a man who, by his own definition, has done well for himself.

Harvey, 59, politely declined to share how much he paid for the item. "If I tell you," Harvey said, "they'll think me rich."

Appearing rich has become a problem for Harvey and his 21-year-old counterculture arts festival. This Labor Day weekend, Burning Man is expected to generate $10 million in revenue from 45,000 ticket-buying customers, each of whom will pay $195 to $280 for entrance to a patch of Nevada desert called Black Rock City. And Harvey's ex-partner is suing him for either a cut of the festival's worth or an agreement to turn over the Burning Man trademark "to the public domain." In art circles and around the blogosphere, Burners are asking: Is this famously anti-monetary event getting ruined by too much cash?

[GladesGuru]

“why is mr counter culter charging 200 bucks a head for burning man?”

Because he can?

[Charlespg]

Weej wrote: $10,000,000 in revenue and this is a counter-culture event??? Please spare me. A buddy of mine is loading up his Ultra custom Airstream RV along with 10,000 pieces of carefully selected "barter" items so that he doesn't have to want for anything during the event. What a load of BOGUS, self-serving, self-deluding CRAP! The biggest problem is that the "hipsters" are so deeply in denial that they can't even see that the emperor is nekkid and that they are only lining the pockets of the capitalists and the lawyers.

AHHHH!! Capitalism Run Away Run Away

[Grunthor]

“Burning Man Tries to Cope with Cash”

If I was burning, I’d be more concerened about that than money.

[stevio]

I haven’t seen that episode, but my wife and I have become real fans as of late. I think it’s because it parallels our family, only on steroids.