Tag Archives: decommodifcation

Apr 5 2017

Sorry BMOrg, the Money Changers Are Already in the Temple.

By Terry Gotham

In 2006, out in the Deep Playa, about as far away from the Man as the man was from 10 & 2, there was this piece of art called Uchronia that we affectionately dubbed the “Belgian Waffle.” A massive installation by Belgian artists that we were quite sad never served breakfast. At night, it turned into de facto megaclub on playa cranking out some of the stompiest techno, trance and glitter house I’d ever heard. I found it to be a very interesting alternative to some of the American, non-fully electronicized camps that still played a mix of jazz, house, disco, alternative & live sounds. It was at times a dirty, intoxicated mess of fur coats and tekno music.

I had no idea that installation would be relevant as a metaphor 11 years later, after a Global Leadership Conference & insightful Burn.Life article on how the powers that be see the problems that plague Black Rock City.  People are finally realizing that the utopia they took such pride in building has become an unaffordable, elitist, mainstreamed event. The ticketing system, while a noble attempt at solving the “Burning Man is Full” problem that simply didn’t exist a decade ago, continues to frustrate long-time Burners & small/mid-size camps, the true bread and butter of Burning Man.

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Mar 4 2016

FCS Tries to Make Amends with Free Camp Placement Service

fcs_facebook-665x375

In the past couple of years there have been some mixed messages from BMOrg about Commodification Camps. On the one hand, Larry Harvey writes a big post saying “concierges are here to stay!”, and creates a theme based on rich patronage of the arts. On the other hand, the BJ says “concierges are banned!”, and singles out one organization in particular: Festivals Concierge Service.

They have just released a statement to the Burner community. emphasis ours

A Message to the Burning Man community

 

Dear Friends,

Dear Burners,

As the CEO of FCS – and a committed member of the BM community – I feel compelled to make a statement to the Burner community.

While I fully understand and support Burning Man’s discontent with plug-and-play camps and commodification, I feel there is a misconception about what we do (and do not do) for our clients at Burning Man. Further, I feel we have been unfairly singled out as a poster child for BM support services, as there are a number of other companies providing assistance to both participants and camps on the playa.

With FCS, our primary intention is to help shift the consciousness of our first-time Burner clients. We encourage them to truly embody the culture and spirit of Burning Man. We guide them through the philosophy of Burning Man, with particular focus on the 10 principles and the need to protect and foster the community. We do this because we are passionate and committed Burners ourselves, and we have seen the positive and life changing influence Burning Man can have on our clients; many leave the week with a profound shift in consciousness and seek more community experiences and opportunities to make positive change in the world. Many of the clients we help get to Burning Man return each year and we continue to assist them in their logistics and preparation for their Burn.

 

We have never – and will never – offer an all-inclusive Burning Man experience.

We have only facilitated travel and logistics for our clients. That’s it.

FCS offers:

 

  1. GUEST CAMP PLACEMENT

 

We help our clients to have the best possible Burning Man experience – and placement in the right camp is critical to this, as any experienced burner can attest.

We will now offer assistance with camp placement as a gift to the community; not just to our clients but also for any other Burner who may need this help.

No fee is charged for this service.

  1. ON-SITE SERVICES

 

We do not offer any on-site services. We do not hire Sherpas for our clients.

Services related to RVs and trailers are provided by our suppliers directly or by the camps. We contract only Burning Man Outside Services Program (OSS) selected partners, and our providers pay the various BLM and Burning Man taxes. This is common practice across Black Rock City.

  1. OFF-SITE SERVICES

 

All services that we provide prior to and post the event (e.g. costumes, transport, accommodation) cannot be considered as contributing to the commodification of Burning Man as they are provided outside of Black Rock City and are part of the overall experience for all burners.

Further, we deeply encourage our clients to limit those services to the basics necessity to survive on the Playa.

  1. TICKETS

 

We will no longer buy tickets on behalf of our clients.

We continue to encourage them to buy through the pre-sales and other BM tickets releases. We are not a ticket broker.

  1. ART SUPPORT

 

We encourage our clients to contribute to the community by directly assisting or building an art project or though sponsoring a project with financial contributions.

We guide our clients through this process and connect them with the projects that best fit their interests and budget.

  1. GIFTING

 

Gifting on the playa is an essential part of the culture at Burning Man. When working with our first-time Burners to encourage them to use their creativity to find their own personal gifts and embrace the spirit of unconditional gifting throughout the week – and hopefully this continues long after BM.

—

With love,

Antoine Sepulchre

CEO / Founder

Burners on Reddit weren’t exactly jumping on the offer.

What should we do with members of the community who acknowledge the error of their ways, amend them and try to gift something decent as an apology? Should we publicly shame them, hate them, persecute them – all in the name of Radical Inclusion? Or should we accept the apology, and move on with having a good time?

Here’s the email that BRC Boss Charlie Dolman sent to theme camp organizers and mutant vehicle owners:

From: Placement 
Date: Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 3:28 PM
Subject: Festivals Concierge Services (FCS) & Burning Man 2016

Dear Theme Camp/Mutant Vehicle producers –

Last year, a company called Festivals Concierge Services (FCS) advertised concierge camping and travel package services at the Burning Man event. We informed FCS it was not permitted to operate at our event and published a blog post (http://journal.burningman.org/2015/05/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/kicking-concierge-caboose-in-black-rock-city) to notify participants. Although FCS denied it would be providing services, its CEO (Antoine Sepulchre) and another employee (Florence Defort) were found to be doing exactly that, which led to their citation by BLM and eviction from the 2015 Burning Man event for unpermitted commercial activities. We also learned FCS made deals with a small number theme camps to host FCS clients for a price.

Although we have already informed FCS it will not be permitted to provide services to Black Rock City in 2016, we understand the company has begun marketing Burning Man travel packages again and contacting air carriers and OSS vendors. The FCS website claims the company “collaborates with Burning Man Outside Services Program selected partners.” We have let established OSS providers know that providing services to concierge companies like FCS will subject their OSS contracts to cancellation, as these companies directly circumvent the principles underlying the OSS program.

If you, or your OSS provider, are contacted by any representative of FCS or anyone identifying themselves as an FCS client, we ask that you please let us know. In keeping with Burning Man’s Ten Principles, we do not want theme camps or mutant vehicle owners to support concierge camping or travel package services. That includes hosting FCS clients or providing services like access to mutant vehicles. Collaborating with FCS could certainly compromise your good standing with Burning Man, including access to directed group tickets, placement, and mutant vehicle licensing.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions you might have regarding the policy outlined in this message. We can be reached by email at 

Sincerely,

Charlie Dolman
Event Operations Director
Burning Man

If you want to ban concierges, then ban concierges. Singling out one company, and turning a blind eye to the dozens of others, is not Civic Responsibility.

Here’s Larry’s big post on Concierge Culture.

Scan Burning Man’s Ten Principles, and you will not find radical equality among them. This is because our city has always been a place where old and young, and rich and poor, can live on common ground. The word for this is fellowship, as in the fellowship of a club or lodge whose members, however diverse, are united by common values and a sense of shared experience. But common ground is not a level playing field, and should not be interpreted as mandating equal living conditions.

This issue of equality almost amounts to a straw man. I do not believe that most people would want to live in a city that is the equivalent of a Marxist State, a place in which the prying eyes of envious neighbors are forever trained upon one.

Here’s the current BJ series on how the correct model for the arts is wealthy patrons like in the days of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Here’s how a corporation is selling an all-inclusive Burning Man package tour experience, which is the exception that proves the rule.

BMOrg are trying to expand the airport, with bigger planes bringing in an additional 1000 passengers per day.

We want wealthy patrons, paying $1299 per ticket…but they can’t bring sherpas or pay people off-Playa to shop and pack for them? Or they can – as long as they have sufficient Borg points that the rules no longer apply?

 

Feb 3 2016

Burning Man Tickets: $1500 [Updates]

 

Image: Thomas Tomaso, Facebook

Image: Thomas Tomaso, Facebook

The shenanigans have ended. As we predicted, once the dust has settled from all the propaganda histrionics, BMOrg have raised ticket prices yet again. The 9% Live Entertainment Tax will be passed on to Burners – unless a miracle happens and Nevada rules that the “Burning Man tax” was never meant to apply to Burning Man.

We haven’t yet received a response from the Nevada Department of Taxation to our inquiry. We had hoped to resolve this matter before selling tickets so that participants would not have to pay the tax, but the state is taking longer than we expected to issue an opinion. Unfortunately, this means we will have to collect the tax at the time of purchase, as per the law. At 9% a pop, this amounts to an additional $34 for each $390 ticket (if the tax is found not to apply after ticket sales commence, we will issue a refund for the 9% collected)

[Source]

BMOrg have created a new “class” of tickets for 1000 Super-Elite VIP patrons. These VIP tickets are a staggering $1200 each – which is actually $1299  including vehicle pass and handling fees. The 42% of Burners who live in California may have to pay double tax on their tickets – 7.5% sales tax plus the 9% Live Entertainment Tax. This will add almost $200 to the ticket price, for a total of $1497 per ticket.

Vehicle passes have increased in price too: now $80. BMOrg claim the vehicle pass program as a huge success, because it used to be 12.8% of participants arriving in a car by themselves, and now it’s down to 10%. Interesting that they are using this statistic, instead of vehicle numbers. Is the goal to get vehicles off the road, or to stop people arriving by themselves?

They have also hiked the price of 5,000 pre-sale tickets to $1000 each – well, $990, but you get the picture.

Regular tickets remain at $390 (plus taxes, $12 mailing charge and $7 handling fee). Half of the regular tickets (25,000, and 13,000 vehicle passes) go to those selected by BMOrg to be in the World’s Biggest Guest List – the Directed Group Sale

There will be 6000 tickets at $190, for the Low Income program and staff.

 

[Update 3/13/16 6:46pm]

Now that the sale has happened, we know a $7 “handling fee” is applied to each individual ticket and vehicle pass. Really, each ticket costs $7 more than the listed price. Rather misleading and deceptive conduct, if you ask me. Here is an update revenue calculation, including the Nevada Live Entertainment Tax also.

Screenshot 2016-03-13 18.45.44

 

Burning Man’s event revenue in 2014 was $30,679,219.

This statement from the Tickets page is a little confusing:

A 9% Nevada Live Entertainment Tax will be added to the price of all tickets and $3 of the $7 per ticket service fee. Will Call delivery is the only method subject to this tax, but the $12 fee will be inclusive so additional tax will not be charged to you for this option.

So if you get the ticket mailed to you, you don’t pay the tax? Or you have to pay an extra $3 if you go to Will Call, which is in Nevada? Are BMOrg saying they are going to cover the $3 extra tax component of a Will Call sale?

Registration for the Pre-Sale opens February 10, and the first sale takes place at noon on Wednesday, February 17.

 

[Update 2/4/16 7:55am]

I’ve been trying to confirm if the California sales tax applies, and if so is it just the $1200 or the whole transaction (including the Vehicle Pass, $19 processing charges, and Live Entertainment Tax), without any real success either way. Perhaps someone with expertise in this area can confirm whether or not CA sales tax applies to event tickets sold over the Internet via a CA web site to CA customers by CA corp Ticketfly on behalf of NV corporation Black Rock City LLC that licenses the Burning Man name from CA private corporation Decommodification LLC and distributes 100% of its profits to tax-exempt CA parent company The Burning Man Project.

I note that back in 2012, when this ticket lottery system began, the VIP price tier was $390 (and there were no vehicle passes). In 4 short years this has gone to $1200, and the cheapest ticket has gone from $229 (2011, ticket plus handling) to $489 (2016, ticket plus handling plus vehicle pass) – an increase of 113%.

Does this mean that by 2020, VIP tickets will be $10,000 and regular tickets will be $1,000?

In the same time frame the population of the city has grown 25%. BMOrg have added another $7-8 million per year in revenues, as well as being able to save millions on taxes; the city is still the same, portapotties, roads, signs, The Man, Gate, Exodus, Center Camp, First Camp, Media Mecca. Maybe there’s a couple hundred more portapotties, but otherwise it’s hard to see where this extra money has all gone to make the Burning Man event better for the Burners who have to create it.

 

[Update 2/4/16 12:06pm]

Here’s some data from tracking the secondary market prices on Stubhub in 2015.

Screenshot 2016-02-04 12.06.24

 

[Update 2/4/16 3:18pm][

Thanks to A Balanced Perspective for picking up on this point.

The revenue from these ticket sales will let us keep prices the same for everyone else. The 1,000 tickets sold at $1,200 each will raise $1.2 million. So what does Burning Man do with $1.2 million? Last year we issued $1.2 million in grants directly to artists through Black Rock City Honoraria. Add to that an additional $1.8 million in support services, and the 2015 BRC art budget topped $3 million. Again, you can learn all about Burning Man’s budget and expenses in our Form 990 and Annual Report.

They have managed to link “$1.2 million in grants directly to artists” to “$1.2 million of Medici patronage tickets being sold”.

It is hard to say if this statement is true or not, since we only just got the 2014 numbers. In 2014 total art grants were $911.955. Did they increase from this to $3 million? We probably won’t know for another year, but I call bullshit.