Census Results Published

This year more than 11,000 Burners completed Burning Man’s surveys. The Census has been going since 2001, the brainchild of Burning Man founder Maid Marian. Burning Man have decided to publish the 2011 results now. Here’s what the Peninsula Press had to say:

The crowd is often stereotyped as anarchists, fire-lovers or drugged-out hippies who wear crazy costumes or nothing at all. More than a decade of Black Rock City census surveys conducted by festival participants, including newly released data from 2011, paint a much more complex picture.

The results show that all ages attend the festival — from babies to the elderly — and that typically more than half of participants who take the survey hold at least a bachelor’s degree. The most popular careers are in the computer and technology industries.

Men (54 percent) slightly edged out women (46 percent) at Burning Man in 2011. (Data from 2012 is not yet available). But the number of participants who identify themselves as female has been steadily growing; it was 34 percent in 2001, the first year of the survey.

One of the more interesting revelations: According to the 2011 survey results, nearly 16 percent of participants have lied or somewhat lied about attending the annual festival because they were ashamed.

via Burning Man census reveals surprising demographics at the desert festival « Culture & Features « Peninsula Press.

Here’s some further coverage of this story from LA Weekly.