BLM wants $1 mil. Burning Man VIP compound
By Jenny Kane, Reno Gazette-Journal
U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials are asking Burning Man organizers to provide “excessive” comforts such as flushing toilets, washers and dryers, and vanity mirrors in a compound for high-level government officials staying in Black Rock City.
A Burning Man spokesman estimated the compound would cost the event more than $1 million, bringing its 2015 permit fees to about $5 million. The renderings of the compound obtained by the RGJ also show various accommodations set aside for VIP visitors but don’t indicate who the visiting dignitaries will be.
The request, unprecedented in Burning Man’s history, has turned into a point of contention as organizers negotiate with the agency for their annual permit to stage the event in the Black Rock Desert. No permit has been issued for this year’s event, which runs Aug. 30 to Sept. 7. Typically permits are issued in early August.
Burning Man has refused to comply with the BLM’s request, which the federal agency submitted on June 1, according to Burning Man spokesman Jim Graham.
This is going to be good. Release the hounds Smithers.
The overlords only want what is their due.
Keep the government out! This is a free expression event in Nevada not Oceania (1984),
TahoeAdvocate. Lets say I want to have 75000 people party in your backyard. Would you want input into how the affair is conducted?
If they put in on private property there is no issue with BLM.
But, flush toilets? Nobody at BLM should be above a pit toilet. The idea they would ask for it is more disturbing to me than asking a hugely rich event to provide them.
So much for “blending in”!
Hazard…I think the BLM is getting pushed so politicians and corporate execs can come and get ‘inspired’ by semi-naked people getting sweaty and dusty. There goes the neighborhood….’Security cameras and ‘private shows’ come next, soon to followed by’corporate burner costumes’, official gear, pay per view live streaming of psilocybin mud orgies on the Playboy Channel with a Google-glass option.
Too hip for me.
The event has been wildly successful for many moons…. The BLM is throwing a wrench into the mix to possibly try and get a bigger piece of the pie in fees but want a comfort zone to observe from such that of an ivory tower-ugh !
Not since the pigs moved back into the farmer’s house has there been such an example of privilege for the bureaucrats…
Simply because they don’t see how this would be perceived is the worst part. Maybe they can build their towers out of locally sourced ivory.
Burning man jumped the shark about 7 years ago. The real burners moved on long ago to festivals you’ve never heard of. Uncle Sam at burning man. They just don’t get it.
The BLM parking lot in Carson City sure looks like a great place for a protest.
Does anyone see any irony in this?
Shameless bureaucratic shakedown!
But it’s nothing new. I know of Tahoe concesssionares that have had to cater, beyond the rent they pay, to the ‘special needs’ of they’re bureaucratic overseers.
Move burning man to San francisco keep the freaks out and the cattle in!
Look At This, how about we keep Burning Man and it’s “freaks” and send Street Vibrations and it’s thugs packing? Burning Man generates between $55 and $60 million in revenue to northern Nevada every year, without ever a gunfight with deaths like what happened During Street Vibrations some years back.
And please tell us just how YOU have been negatively impacted by those Burning Man “freaks”.
And unlike Cliven Bundy, those “freaks” pay their bill to the BLM EVERY year!