RENO, Nev. (AP) — Talk about a hot ticket.
The annual Burning Man festival in Nevada’s desert may have become too popular for its own good.
The free spirits who moved the celebration from San Francisco to an ancient lake bed north of Reno two decades ago are being forced to ration tickets after a sellout crowd topped 50,000 last Labor Day weekend.
Mark Van Proyen, a department chairman at the San Francisco Art Institute, hasn’t missed the event in 16 years. But he says the change means an end to its founding principal of “radical inclusion” that welcomed everyone to the largest outdoor arts festival in North America.
Spokeswoman Marian Goodell says they’re determined to keep Burning Man’s spirit alive. She says it’s not so much a place as a state of mind.
