The fat lady hasnt sung yet.. and it isnt dead.. but I do think its evolving... it has to..

not sure of the specifics but it has something to do with energy and inertia it started to change the minute it was born..

Larry's Annual Fundraiser will be moved to Las Vegas with two performances nightly?

I'm walking barefoot to X-Day www.subgenius.com/newdevivals.html

They have MUCH better rules than the uptight fucks at Burningdork. www.subgenius.com/bigfist/f...Donts.html

Burning Man will most deffinately evolve. All things do, especially communities.
I predict that there will be Burning Man prodigies - not immitations, but smaller events that will spring up in the spirit of an evolving tribe, small regional evnets and campout festivals will begin to happen as a result of the ecomonmic hardhips that we are enduring. Burners will want the connection, but won't be able to travel.
Last year I posted about how difficult it is for teachers to go to Black Rock City in Labor Day Week becasue it happens durring the first week or two of the new school year. This is a critical time for establishing an important bond and flow in a new class - which is a community expereince, and has many of the same psychological dynamics that play out at the Burn (on the psyclogical level of community building and bonding, along with the radical self relaince that shcools demand on students through the traditional educational modalities,) So I for one would really appreciate something cropping up earlier in the summer that was a little less financially drining - and a little closer to home.

Most Burners are already part of a 'camp' which is a small cellular community within the larger one - so there's a strat for keeping BM alive, and even giving birth to samller more local incarantion.

Sure it wouldn't be the same! Yet it has potential to be something in a similar spirit with a new incarnation.

<< If Burning Man is over (which I don't think it is) >>

I don't think it is either, but this is a fascinating question. I think, what with the economic "downturn" (polite euphemism for "Second Great Depression"), they'll be a lot more local activity. I go to a lot of events here in LA and there's no end of new folks. What could happen is the Burn itself might contract for a year or three.

<< is the counter culture in the bay area what really died? And the changes to Burning Man are just a symptom of that death? >>

Likely so. In any event, Burning Man has been *far* from being an SF event for quite a while now.

Are you suggesting that the changes to BMan are specifically related to the changes in counter culture of SF? I would think that with 40-50K people attending, the ebbs and flows of the festival from year to year would be a bit beyond the direct influence of a single city on the globe.. Might be interesting to see the stats of where attendees come from throughout the world...