Burning Man is becoming a midlife fever dream.
At this time of year, the festival, which draws tens of thousands of attendees to the Nevada desert in search of spiritual enlightenment, creativity and a disconnection from the outside world, is losing appeal, significantly among people in their 20s, according to attendance figures released this summer.
That decline has been so pronounced that attendees in their 40s and 50s, part of a generation that helped establish Burning Man as a cultural phenomenon, have overtaken 20-somethings in attendance.
In 2014, nearly one-third of festivalgoers were in their 20s, but in 2025 the total fell to about 10 percent.
People in their 30s continue to make up the highest number of attendees.
Overall attendance has also slipped from its peak in 2019, when about 80,000 people flocked to the event.
The attendance data, collected by a group of volunteers at the festival and via an online survey, has helped paint a portrait of the average ticket holder, known as a Burner.
It also reflects the festival’s evolution, from its inception in 1986 as a small gathering of friends on a San Francisco beach to burn an eight-foot wooden man to a sprawling production associated with celebrities, tech titans, long lines and glamping.
That metamorphosis has alienated some people with early connections to Burning Man, including John Law, one of the event’s founders.
Writing in The San Francisco Standard on Aug. 29, Mr. Law bemoaned what the festival had become, describing it as unrecognizable.
“Burning Man has lost its anarchist soul,” Mr. Law wrote. “Today’s event is a massive, kaleidoscopic extravaganza for the senses — a phantasmagoric, immersive spectacle built for the consumption of Western elites and the middle-class creatives who service them.”
This year’s festival began on Aug. 30 and runs until Sept. 7 in Black Rock City, the name of the site on federal lands where the annual celebration of arts and music takes place. The desert venue is referred to as the playa.
Organizers of the festival, which frames itself as a movement, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday about attendance trends or Mr. Law’s criticism of the event.
In 2025, more than 30 percent of the Burners earned over $150,000 a year — and 11 percent had incomes of at least $300,000, according to the data.
A decade ago, 11 percent of attendees earned over $150,000, though it is unclear whether the figures were adjusted for inflation.
The cost of attending Burning Man, which counts Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos as past attendees, can reach thousands of dollars.
“It’s just sort of like a crazy ‘Mad Max’ meets Vegas meets ‘Alice in Wonderland,’” Mr. Musk said in a 2013 conversation with the actor Rainn Wilson about his admiration for Burning Man.
For the first time this year, the reality television star and entrepreneur Bethenny Frankel is attending Burning Man, documenting her journey aboard a private plane and luxury accommodations in a recreational vehicle via social media.
Individual ticket prices for this year’s festival range from $550 to $3,000, according to the event’s website, which noted that reduced-price tickets were available to applicants with limited income or those meeting other unspecified criteria.
Mr. Law suggested that Burning Man had become like Disneyland.
“You can buy into luxury camps with private chefs and have a stylist curate your outfits,” he wrote. “You can fly in on a chartered plane. It’s become a commercialized escape hatch — a week when anyone with enough money can leave their real life behind entirely.”
The post As It Ages, Burning Man Enters a Midlife Crisis, Data Shows appeared first on New York Times.
