Burning Man has “lost its soul” says co-founder

John Law claimed that said the Burning Man of today is "barely recognisable" from the original countercultural iteration in an essay for the San Francisco Standard.

The co-founder of Burning Man has hit out at the Disneyfication of the US festival, suggesting it has "lost its anarchist soul" and become a "commercialised escape hatch" for the wealthy.

In an essay for the San Francisco Standard published on Saturday (29th August), John Law – who co-founded the iconic Black Rock Desert gathering back in 1990 – said the Burning Man of today is "barely recognisable" from the original countercultural iteration, and revealed he hasn't attended since 1996.

For years after I left, I avoided talking about Burning Man – I’d moved on to other things. But people keep asking, so here’s what I’ll say: What it became makes me a little sad," he said, going on to describe the festival as an "immersive spectacle built for the consumption of Western elites and the middle-class creatives who service them.

He went on to describe it as a "fabulous Disneyland for the well-heeled" which presents itself "as a serious artistic enterprise grounded in philosophical principles.

He went on to highlight the increasing presence of luxury camping and facilities such as private chefs and stylists available on site.

You can fly in on a chartered plane. It’s become a commercialised escape hatch – a week when anyone with enough money can leave their real life behind entirely," he added.

In the article, Law maps out the anarchist roots of Burning Man, which can be traced back to transgressive, anti-authoritarian art-prank networks such as the Cacophony Society and Suicide Club and was conceived as an adventurous playground for artists and free thinkers to roam.

He blames the internet for the festival's considerable expansion from roughly 70 attendees in its first year – who camped in sleeping bags on the desert floor – to 25,000 revellers in 1999, and for the Silicon Valley takeover.

This year's edition, which is currently taking place, is expected to attract around 70,000 people.

What had begun as a strange desert expedition became the vacation of choice – and eventually something close to a required pilgrimage – for the emerging Silicon Valley elite," he wrote.

The captains of the new internet economy – Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos – adopted the event as their own.

Law's criticisms seemed to resonate on Reddit, with several users in the Burning Man community agreeing that the festival has been heading down an increasingly commercial route and straying from its anarchist roots for some time.

Burning Man has been plagued by several issues and controversies in recent years, including the new tiered ticket pricing model introduced in 2025 – which was criticised for its lack of transparency – and major traffic delays caused by dust storms and high winds.

Last year, an ongoing homicide investigation was launched following the death of 37-year-old Vadim Kruglov at Burning Man, while another attendee was electrocuted and airlifted from the site.

Earlier this year, HBO aired afour-part Burning Man documentary series, The Man Will Burn, which is available to stream on HBO Max.