Fyre Festival

• This year’s Burning Man Festival in Nevada has been washed out and 70,000 attendees are stuck in the mud.
• A large number of people are temporarily stuck at Burning Man and there are issues with emergency vehicle access.
• While it’s been reported a man has died at the festival, organisers say it was “unrelated to the weather”.

What is Burning Man?

• Burning Man has been held at the same time of year in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert since 1991.
• It has generally been at a hot and dry period, perfect for an outdoor festival.

Rain stops play

• In 2022, rain also led to the cancellation of the Splendour in the Grass Festival at Byron Bay.
• Going back to 1839, the Eglinton Tournament in Scotland, a medieval re-enactment event, was cancelled due to rain, with its grandstand collapsing and a reported 100,000 spectators stranded.
• Summer rain is a problem due to its unpredictability, intensity and the rapid runoff from baked soils.

Other problems for festivals

• The major problem for most festivals is not external shocks like rain, but rather deficiencies in management.
• The limited research we have indicates that many festivals have a short life-span and there is a high rate of failure.
• It is far more common to see short runs of a few years, one-offs, announced festivals that do not occur, re-branding of troubled events or changed venues and even cities.

The nature of events

• It is perhaps not widely appreciated that events like festivals have a very different nature to other forms of economic activity.
• The products – whether cars or chocolate bars – have to conform to the same specifications and perform or taste the same.
• Rain at Burning Man was not a “freak” weather event – it needed to be planned for.