Everyone has a budget for Burning Man, of course, or at least almost everyone. Burning Man is not really ideal as an extremely inexpensive vacation, but how cheap can you reasonably go for? Note that this doesn't include options for volunteering and potentially being rewarded for very hard work. I plan to add details on that option later.
Fixed Costs
There are some costs involved with going to Burning Man that you must either incur yourself or find someone to cover them for you, barring extreme exceptions that are definitely not recommended. The two main ones are:
There are some costs involved with going to Burning Man that you must either incur yourself or find someone to cover them for you, barring extreme exceptions that are definitely not recommended. The two main ones are:
- A ticket.
- Transportation to and from the playa.
Tickets to Burning Man are somewhat pricey - $380 is the base. There is, however, an option to get a Low Income Ticket, for $190, but they are limited in number and hard to get ahold of. You need to apply and there are far more applications submitted than there are tickets. Do not try sneaking in. Seriously. The people at the gate search all vehicles for stowaways and just forget about traipsing through the desert to try and fence-jump. The fences are being watched, and at night law enforcement has night-vision equipment. You won't manage it and you're going to be awfully unhappy when you get caught. People have gone as far as to wrap themselves up in carpets to get snuck in, and while no doubt a few make it, most won't. Worse - if the vehicle you're in gets caught smuggling you in, everybody in the vehicle is going to have their ticket destroyed and they will all be turned back to Reno. Don't be the asshole that ruins Burning Man for your friends. Transportation can be as cheap as a friend who brings you, or may include a ticket on the Burner Express bus, or perhaps a rented vehicle. Some people have even ridden bicycles to Burning Man but if you're considering that you better think long and hard on that plan. It's 123 miles from Reno to Black Rock City. That's 123 miles of riding with no shoulder most of the time and potentially in some pretty damn hot weather, presumably dragging a lot of weight in terms of a small trailer or giant backpack. |
As a potential fence-jumper, you will look approximately 10x more ridiculous when you're apprehended and arrested. Why did you think paper swords could stop bullets again? Put down the drugs, hippy.
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Maximal Cheapness - NOT Recommended
If you simply want to survive, you can do Burning Man beyond the cost of a ticket even cheaper than you could go camping in the desert by yourself for a week. However, in order to do so, you have to accept that:
What do you need to bring in a Maximal Cheapness scenario?
If you simply want to survive, you can do Burning Man beyond the cost of a ticket even cheaper than you could go camping in the desert by yourself for a week. However, in order to do so, you have to accept that:
- You're the person making other people support you on your and their beloved week in the desert. Not cool. Radical self-reliance is an important principle primarily to prevent this as far as I'm concerned.
- You may end up hungry/thirsty/miserable/tired.
What do you need to bring in a Maximal Cheapness scenario?
- Enough clothing to survive night-time. It gets cold. Sometimes as cold as freezing, though that cold is rare. Do not underestimate this. If you've not been to the desert before, understand that deserts are often very hot in the day and cold at night.
- A dust mask, even just a bandana. This is non-negotiable for your own safety.
- Goggles to protect your eyes from the dust. Again, non-negotiable or you may literally be unable to see in a duststorm.
- Lights for yourself for night time. You need to have some kind of illumination so that people on bikes or art cars can see you to avoid you at night, and you're also almost certainly going to want a headlamp or flashlight of some kind.
- A way to carry water with you. Yes, it might not be water you brought, but you need to have some way to hydrate while you're out and about.
- A willingness to be a complete moocher because you haven't brought your own tent, food, or even water.
You will survive in this situation because Burners won't let you die, but you won't make any friends. Well, you might if you're a young and attractive female willing to trade with sexual favors, but you know what that makes you right? No, not THAT, you prude. Get your mind back in the gutter. It makes you a sparklepony. Don't be a sparklepony.
More seriously, in this maximal cheapness scenario you're sleeping wherever you can (there are lots of hammocks, cushions, couches in the public areas of various camps), but you're also not changing clothes and you're surviving on what food you can find that's being given away or that you can beg for. Same with water. You can go a whole week without eating if you have to, but water is another issue. Nobody is going to be happy to feed you water regularly, and I, for instance, would tell you to go fuck yourself unless you had one hell of a convincing story as to why you didn't have enough water for yourself. I better hear that rampaging Nazi witches came for you and the only way you could get rid of them was to dump all your water on their heads to make them melt. Any situation that rates less than that and my sympathy level for you is going to be low. I'm pretty sure I speak for most Burners here. I love to share things with people at Burning Man. I do not love to rescue people from their own stupidity or unwillingness to prepare. |
No idea if she's a sparklepony or not, but her costume is fun.
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And that doesn't even begin to touch on the issue of any extras that are popular while there, including:
Listen, please just don't come in this case unless you have friends who have committed to taking care of you, because otherwise you're probably going to be a burden on people who didn't sign up to provide for you. Radical self-reliance does not mean showing up and begging for supplies.
- Costumes. Not necessary of course, but pretty fun to have. One solution here is to go find the camps that will help outfit you for the playa, for free (of course). There are no links to give you, but you can read the guide to the event you'll get when you arrive and you'll see entries for camps that will make you look fabulous. You might also check out Salvation army or cheap used clothing stores. Go for outrageous color combos and you'll fit right in.
- Booze. You can certainly find low-quality (and occasionally higher-quality) booze for free by wandering around on the playa. Make sure to bring your own cup.
- Other 'stuff'. Generally, forget about it. Nobody wants to give you, the potentially undercover cop that they don't know, illegal stuff. And you probably don't want to take it from someone you don't know.
- A sense of shame.
Listen, please just don't come in this case unless you have friends who have committed to taking care of you, because otherwise you're probably going to be a burden on people who didn't sign up to provide for you. Radical self-reliance does not mean showing up and begging for supplies.
Reasonably Inexpensive
This is more aimed at the normal person who wants to have some basic level of comfort, and it'll cost you somewhere between probably $100 and $500 more than your basic fixed expenses depending on what you can borrow vs. buy. Your major expenses beyond your ticket and transportation are:
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- Shade. Unless you don't mind waking up soon after the sun comes up and turns your tent into an oven, you need shade over it. A somewhat cheap option ($80 or $90) is aluminet, which will let you sleep until 10:30 am or so typically. I use aluminet on my tent, and you can read about it here. Another and better option is of course parking your tent under somebody else's shade structure! One thing that might seem tempting are the very cheap 10x10 pop-up shade structures. Without exception though, there's a reason they're cheap: They aren't sturdy. If you do use one, please make sure you really anchor it strongly to the playa with multiple guy wires and deeply-driven stakes/rebar.
- Water. 1.5 gallons per person per day to be safe. Extra if you plan on showering, but if you're going super-light you probably won't shower.
- Food. You have to eat, presumably, in your normal life, so food doesn't have to be any more expensive here than normally. You will almost definitely eat less food on the playa than you normally do though. The heat, the atmosphere, and for some people the substances, work together to banish hunger. Don't let your body fool itself though - you need to eat out there. Very inexpensive options that require no equipment to prepare include things like energy bars and, for as long as you can get them to last, fruit or vegetables.
If you add a simple small propane stove and a single pot, you can cook all sorts of things out there though. Anything that works by being boiled in a bag. Stews, curries, jambalaya, meatballs in sauce, pasta dishes, etc etc. Just cook them before you get to the playa, put them in a sealed bag, boil them on the playa, and eat out of the bag itself.
Vargaso, a Burner on the ePlaya forums, suggested you could get away with just buying a box or two of instant oatmeal for breakfasts (very cheap), make a giant pasta salad with some meat or tofu in it for protein that should last you the whole week for lunches (very cheap), and then check out Mountain House freeze-dried meals on Amazon in bulk (fairly cheap). This may not sound sufficient but remember: You will almost certainly be less hungry and eat less on the playa than you do back in the default world. - A cooler. You'll need it to keep your food chilled and to have chilled beverages. Not strictly necessary depending on what food you bring, but it's nice. You'll be able to fill up on ice again at Arctica too, but bring cash. Keep in mind that there's a reasonably strong inverse relationship between how cheap your cooler is and how long things will stay cold in it. The cheaper the cooler, the more often you'll have to refill it with ice generally-speaking. On the Food and Water page, there's some specific advice around coolers.
- Booze. Unless you don't drink, you're going to want some. I don't need to tell you what booze you can afford though. There's plenty given away out there, but it's generally low quality. Your mileage may vary!
Finally, just remember: If you're coming to Burning Man for luxury, you're in the wrong place. There are about a billion vacations you could take that are more amenable to luxury. Come to Black Rock City for the people, for the art, for the music, for the epic desert environment, but don't come because you want to be pampered or taken care of.
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