Internal documents detail plans for potential 2021 Burning Man with at least 60,000 revelers
While Burning Man has been cautious to formally announce a 2021 event, internal documents from the Bureau of Land Management reveal that the organization has been working with federal and state officials to plan a 69,000-person event since October.
Both Burning Man Project and the BLM agreed to work together to strive for a safe and secure event this summer as more citizens get vaccinated and state officials begin to roll back measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, according to the Reno Gazette Journal, part of the Paste BN Network.
"This year will be difficult to plan due to COVID-19 and safety concerns. As a team we will have disagreements, but we can and will plan for a safe enjoyable event for 2021," said Nevada BLM Chief of Staff Tim Shannon in an internal meeting in December.
More than 100 documents obtained by the Reno Gazette Journal through a public records request show that the two parties have been collaborating in recent months to prepare for contracting hurdles and restructuring needs as they ready the Black Rock Desert for the return of Black Rock City.
Keep reading: Burning Man changes name of 2021 theme due to 'colonial history' of phrase
"As (Burning Man Project) looks forward to 2021, with a laser focus on public health and safety, there are many questions left to answer, and some that may only be possible to answer over time as we move through the planning process," said Marnee Benson, director of government affairs for the Project, in a December letter to the BLM. "As we always do, we will encounter unanticipated issues on the ground."
While the BLM turned over more than 160 records in response to the Reno Gazette Journal's public records request, the federal agency withheld portions of the nearly 800 pages of information, including Burning Man's specific plans to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Burning Man did not respond to requests for comment last week. A final decision on whether the event will actually take place is expected by May, according to an online post by Burning Man Project in February. If it comes together, it would occur Aug. 29 to Sept. 6, according to the Project's website.
Setting aside differences
Burning Man and BLM representatives have been holding virtual, weekly meetings since early this year.
They agreed largely to keep the details of the meetings under wraps, according to one meeting log which stressed "what is discussed in these meetings is not to be shared with other entities: news sources, other applicants, public inquiries."
Both the BLM and Burning Man Project agreed to move forward with caution and under a memorandum of understanding, which binds neither entity to an event but provides more flexibility as pandemic circumstances change.
While the two entities have a contentious history wrought with lawsuits over the past decade, both BLM officials and Burning Man representatives explicitly stated that they would do their best to get along and not discuss anything outside the 2021 event to avoid any potentially litigious matters.
Burning Man Project has repeatedly sued the BLM and has appealed millions in costs associated with the agency's handling of past Burning Man events. The Project additionally sued the BLM last year after the federal agency tried to release financial data about Burning Man, data that Burning Man Project argues is proprietary and not public record.
"We won’t go there," said Shannon, the BLM's Nevada chief of staff, in the internal December meeting.
Setting differences aside, staff have been in talks about how to pull the event off smoothly.
For instance, organizers are looking at how to address "high contact points" such as the box office and gate, where participants pass through a ticketing process. There are no other points of sale at Burning Man other than Center Camp and Artica, where coffee and ice are sold respectively. The funds are donated to regional groups such as the school in Gerlach.
Read more: Burning Man 2021 might happen, but smaller and with a vaccination requirement
The groups also have been discussing whether to have unprecedented sanitary measures such as trash bins on site, according to documents. Typically, participants are encouraged to "leave no trace" and take care of their own trash.
Safety measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus might also include proof of vaccination, rapid onsite testing, antibody verification, and/or negative test verification, according to a statement from Burning Man organizers in February.
In years past, Burning Man Project has enlisted medical personnel to volunteer at first aid stations placed throughout the event. Since 2015, it also has hired CrowdRx to operate an onsite hospital facility.
60,000 or nothing
Although state officials have cracked down on large gatherings in Nevada, special events are making a comeback in 2021. Few are as massive as Burning Man, which is a major economic driver for Northern Nevada.
Typically, the event, held in the Black Rock Desert, attracts about 80,000 people, almost all of whom travel through Reno or one of the surrounding communities to get to the remote desert destination.
While downsized, the event will hardly be a boutique Burning Man. CEO Marian Goodell told BLM representatives at a December meeting that this year's event had to have at least 60,000 participants to break even financially, according to internal documents.
While there was no indication of concern about the population size in the records, BLM officials did express concern about the population count in internal meetings. Keeping tabs on the number of people on the playa has been an issue in the past since the methods of counting attendees, volunteers and staff have been unreliable at times. The sheer number of revelers in the desert can have an impact on allocating resources for the safety and security of those on site, as well as the impact on the natural environment and regional infrastructure.
More: Burning Man announces 2021 theme. Will there be an event? Decision coming by end of May
The BLM and Burning Man Project will not be alone in making the final call on whether Burning Man is a go this year.
State agencies, including the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services, are also reviewing event plans to ensure they meet COVID-19 health and safety guidelines. State health officials gave Burning Man their blessing to begin planning late last year, according to emails reviewed by the Reno Gazette Journal.
"Burning Man was given the green light to begin the discussion from the COVID-19 Task Force," said Teresa Hayes, environmental health program manager for the state's Division of Public and Behavioral Health, in an email to BLM officials.
Money matters
Burning Man Project staff noted that costs of holding a smaller event will not necessarily translate to smaller bills for the organization.
Burning Man organizers stressed last year that the organization was in dire straits financially and said the 2021 event, and the organization's future, were potentially in peril.
The San Francisco-nonprofit started the pandemic with about $10 million in rainy day funds and additionally received a $2.7 million paycheck protection program loan from the Small Business Administration.
Appealing to Burning Man's passionate following, organizers asked their constituents to donate their 2020 ticket purchases back to the organization if they were able. Burners donated about $3 million in ticket revenue. The organization received an additional $3 million in major gifts.
The BLM last year said that the millions in income they receive from the Burning Man permit, the largest special recreation permit in the nation, would not necessarily be missed in 2020 since most of the income goes toward covering the BLM's costs for managing the event.
In its current state, Goodell said in internal meetings that the organization could front $50,000 to the BLM for the first stages of planning, but anything more than $500,000 before April would be cause for concern.
If the organization does move forward with Black Rock City in 2021, registration for tickets could begin as early as April with sales taking place in May. The Project has not yet detailed a refund policy for tickets should they go on sale this year.
Others not so lucky
While the BLM and Burning Man Project may not always get along, the arts festival does seem to have the agency's favor in some regards.
Burning Man wasn't the only desert arts festival permit applicant in recent months. In early March, the BLM outright denied the permit application for another group, Everywhen, which wanted to hold a smaller scale event several weeks before Burning Man.
"With Burning Man being as large as it is, the plan is written so that they consume most of the available resources, leaving little available for other events to take place on the playa," said Everywhen cofounder Mathew Gilbuena in an email to the Reno Gazette Journal. "The Everywhen Project has hit a glass ceiling when it comes to dealing with private citizen-government relations."
Everywhen, a newly registered Nevada nonprofit and first-time permit applicant, had been working with the BLM since fall 2020 to host a 25,000-person event similar in nature to Burning Man.
Gilbuena said the BLM seemed keen on the event until early March, when BLM officials' tone entirely changed.
"I really wish I understood what happened on the BLM side," said Gilbuena. "Everything was good to go. We have a team of 170, many with decades of experience throwing playa events. We knew what we were doing. Damn shame."
The event would have been an eight-day ticketed arts festival in late July, early August.
The BLM since September had been helping Everywhen to tailor its application so that it would be able to host a viable event, and even suggested that the organizers increase their population size to 25,000 from 15,000, according to Gilbuena.
While officials initially offered eight law enforcement officers to staff the event, the BLM rescinded that offer later, Gilbuena said.
BLM officials didn't offer details as to why they rejected Everywhen's permit application other than there were "multiple reasons" including but not limited to staffing limitations and the need for an environmental analysis. Everywhen is entitled to apply again, BLM spokeswoman Heather O'Hanlon said in an email to the Reno Gazette Journal.
Everywhen still wants to coordinate a more formal, non-Burning Man event in the Black Rock Desert in the future. They formed a government relations team, which contains a "squad of legal experts" to win over the BLM, but Gilbuena expects that will take two to three years.
In the meantime, the Everywhen crew may take their celebration to another location on their shortlist of other "promising locations." Given the size of the other scouted locations, the attendance will likely be closer to 2,000 to 5,000 people.
Future of Fly Ranch: Burning Man releases top development proposals for wetland property
One of the locations is "a lot closer to the Reno area than Black Rock Desert," said Gilbuena, but it's not the playa, he added.
While some critics on social media have called Everywhen a "copycat" Burning Man festival, Gilbuena has defended the smaller group and noted that many of them are ex-Burners who just want to create a more grassroots event.
"We’ve learned a lesson on the accessibility of our public lands to coordinated groups," said Gilbuena. "We just don’t know what happened in the back channels."
Jenny Kane covers arts and culture in Northern Nevada, as well as the dynamic relationship between the state and the growing Burning Man community. She also covers the state's burgeoning cannabis industry (Check out her podcast, the Potcast, on iTunes.) Support her work in Reno by subscribing to RGJ.com right here.