Burning Man is a Festival (And There's Nothing Wrong With That)

"Burning Man is not a festival."

Really? Really? Folks sound a bit silly saying that.

Is it a commercial music festival? No. (Though way too many attendees increasingly treat it like one.)
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But it's most certainly a festival, which is a very broad term encompassing everything from religion-based festivals like Diwali or Easter to traditional harvest festivals to art festivals to Cannes to the EDCs and Coachellas of the world, to to winter festivals, Greek festivals, comedy festivals, camel festivals, hell, there's even a festival about throwing tomatoes at each other in Spain called La Tomatina.

Virtually every single community in the world has had festivals, going back to the dawn of civilization and likely further. Today, some are commercial, many aren't. Some are all about organizers providing entertainment, some are about the attendees doing it themselves. Many aren't about entertainment at all, and don't have overall organizers. Point is, there is a huge range of festivals, and many look very little like others. It's an extremely broad word.
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Burning Man has been called a festival by the BM Project/Burning Man Organization for 30+ years, even if they decided to make an attempt to consistently rebrand it as 'not a festival' awhile back. I'll let their own material speak for itself on that front though.

The next four I pulled from their website on June 7, 2024.

And sure, they've also written articles about how they're "not a festival" on their website, That's their attempt at branding, but it's not like they used the word festival for so long and in so many places accidentally. They know it's a festival. Everybody knows it's a festival. 

It's not the same kind of festival as Coachella or Tomorrowland are (aka commercial music festivals), however, which is what I think the Org is trying to get across. But just because a pug and a german shepherd are very different types of dogs doesn't mean they're not both dogs.

How do others refer to Burning Man?

I ask because the meanings of words are ultimately based on how we as humans collectively use them. Let's see how Burning Man is generally referred to:

The New York Times (sourcing a video from Reuters)

The Guardian

The BBC

NPR

CNN

The New Yorker

NBC News

A random set of academic papers on Burning Man, from the BM website.

From the Amazon description of the book 'Radical Ritual - How Burning Man Changed The World.'

From the Smithsonian's website, at whose Renwick Gallery Burning Man held an art exhibit a few years ago.

Yeah. Most of the world just calls it what it is.

So don't be culty. If Elon Musk said, "Teslas are no longer going to be called cars, now they're hypervehicles" everyone but some of his cultier fans would roll their eyes and continue calling them cars (or SUVs or trucks) because that's what they are and cultiness is cringey. 

​Burning Man is my favorite festival, in any case, and I look forward to participating for my 13th time this year. See you in the dust!