Burning Man isn’t really a festival, and you’ll likely have a bad time if you approach it that way.
replyMany people seem to think it’s some hippy Woodstock or Coachella-esque event, but It’s more like an anarcho-punk temporary city, where your survival is in your own hands.
American media loves to bash it, and Instagram influencers love to flaunt that they went, but it’s most certainly not for everybody.
I don’t recommend going unless you do your research and really want to go.
I’d also encourage any first-timers to go solo their first year.
Like most (counter-) cultural phenomena, you should have seen it ten or twenty years ago when it was an authentic experience, before they sold out and became commercial. Joking of course, but it's true. It's a gentrified shadow of its former glory.
replyIt's not a music festival like the ones you listed for starters, and while those are like an all-inclusive resort in that you just show up with money, Burning Man is more like camping in that you take everything there (and back).
replyNova Rock is mostly camping on and inhaling dry dirt, camping in and being covered in mud, not going to the toilet for 2-3 days, and eating canned food. But I hear you.
replyAs an Austrian living in the Bay Area and on my fourth burn and having been to Novarock and the Donauinselfest: it is very much not the same. BM is less a music festival than an immersive experience. For self-reliant folks, it is a delight. For others, hell. Try it out, see what it is for yourself.
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