There won’t be a Burning Man festival this year in Nevada, at least not physically.
Marian Goodell, the festival’s CEO, announced in a video statement Friday Burning Man would be virtual this year and take place in the multiverse because of the ongoing threat of coronavirus.
From the looks of it, a virtual Burning Man means a lot of live streaming dance and art exhibits, yoga classes and other forms of artistic training.
The annual nine-day festival would’ve taken place August 30 to September 7 in the temporarily constructed city known as Black Rock City, in the Black Rock Desert in northwestern Nevada.
The festival welcomes people from all over the world to experience eclectic costumes, art installations and musical performances and usually brings in crowds of about 80,000.
“At this point the likelihood of 80,000 people being able to gather safely this summer is extremely low,” the Burning Man website said.
Goodell said in her video she wasn’t announcing the cancellation of the festival.
“Burning Man is a culture, it’s a movement,” she said. “We are not by defined by one aspect of Burning Man, we’re defined by what we bring to Burning Man.”