Business | Burnt out

From Coachella to Burning Man, festivals are having a bad year

Tickets are no longer selling out

Festival goers stand in the rain at Leeds Festival in 2023
Cruel summerPhotograph: Getty Images

Regular attendees at Burning Man, an annual week-long festival in the Nevada desert, normally scramble to buy tickets. This year they are scrambling to sell them. The gathering of hippies and billionaires, which begins on August 25th, has failed to sell out for the first time since 2010. Tickets with a face value of $575 are being flogged on the secondary market at less than half-price.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Burnt out”

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