Since 2002, the Black Rock City (BRC) Census has collected valuable data from Burners that allow us to better understand the makeup of our population on playa. It also lets us track changes in our demographics, expenditures, behaviors, and attitudes from year to year. In 2023, more than 160 hard-working and dedicated volunteers completed more than 543 shifts to support the Census team in collecting data from randomly-selected participants entering the event through Gate Road, the Burner Express buses, and the Black Rock City airport.
Data from the random sample are manually entered by our volunteers on playa, and are used to statistically adjust the results of the post-event BRC Census online survey to represent the population of BRC citizens more accurately. If you attended Burning Man in 2023 and were one of the 7,712 Burners who completed the 2023 BRC Census online survey, thank you for gifting us your data!
2023 Preliminary Results
Our random sample comprises responses from Burners who consented to completing a short eight-question Census survey form with demographic questions collected on playa. Results from this random sample are considered preliminary, and will be validated by the results of the 2023 online survey in a full data report that will be updated in 2024.
As shown in our data dissemination sheet above, the preliminary random sample results indicate the following:
- There were approximately 12% more males (55%) than females (43%) on playa this year. 2% of respondents indicated they identified as “fluid/both/no gender.”
- Virgins (participants who had never been to Black Rock City before) were estimated to represent 40% of the random sample population (this percentage may be overstated and is subject to change upon data validation), while 19% had attended only one past Burn, 20% had attended two to four past Burns, and the rest (21%) had attended five or more Burns (not including Regional Events).
- Only 12% of the random sample population were 29 years or younger, the most common (45%) age range was 30-39, a quarter (25%) were within the 40-49 age group, about 11% were within the 50-59 age group, and the rest (7%) were 60 years or older.
- Approximately 83% of randomly sampled BRC citizens reside in the US, including a large majority from California (43%), about 5% from Nevada, and 34% from other states. International Burners visited BRC from Canada (3%) and other countries (14%).
- From a racial and ethnic diversity standpoint, the preliminary data showed a breakdown of 66% White, 10% Hispanic, 7% Asian, 2% Black, and 10% representing other races or ethnicities. The complete data, including follow-up questions about whether Burners identify as people of color, will be available in the full population analysis in 2024.
Compared to last year (2022), it would seem that 2023 participants had similar gender and age distributions, as well as a comparable distribution in place of residence outside of Black Rock City. These observations will be validated upon full analysis of the 2023 Black Rock City Census online survey results.
We hope you enjoyed this preliminary sneak peek of our 2023 Census data, and keep an eye out for our full data report that will be updated in 2024! If you’re curious about previous years’ population analyses, head over to the Census Archive page for more.
Cover image of Census team vehicles in front of the Temple, 2023 (Photo by Ashley Strange)
Great feedback for reference of actual stats on attendees and their experience. I enjoyed the photos as well.
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Thank you for sharing this pre-lim info
Thank everyone for ALL the HARD work.
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Please keep working on diversity.
It might be interesting to to breakdown percentage of musicians, visual artist, dancers, culinary artist, medical, bike repair, etc….
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Diversity of minds is more important than what people look like or where they come from.
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Thanks for the results. Technically, you don’t have a random sample since it was self-selected and therefore your error estimates are not valid. For it to be a random sample, you would have had to select participants randomly and then followed up with those that didn’t respond initially to improve its representative quality. But, some information is better than none-and it takes a lot of work!
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Right? Veterans and people from Nevada are grumpy and don’t have time for this nonsense, so are certainly under counted.
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Very few people decline random sampling which is conducted on gate road as people arrive. Feel free to come volunteer.
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Indeed, but I can think of some confounding factors given what I think I know (i.e. DIsclaimer! Disclaimer!) of the random sample survery:
– non english speakers may be less likely to say yes
– time of day/choice of day may influence geographic demographics (I worked 5 like 5 gate graves in a row and never saw y’all out there.)
That said: love the BRC census. Data FTW. Rah! Go team!
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Thank you for sharing this info, looking forward to the full report.
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Great photos, Strange! I’m wondering what your vantage point was.
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Super interesting pre-report
Awaiting for the full one
Thanks a lot for Everybody involved, working continuously and unbelievable 2023 BM !
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Thank you for all your hard work !!
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40% Burgin and ~60% 1 burn or fewer, explains a lot of the panic during the rain this year…
Thank you Census team!!
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THANK YOU CENSUS!! Once settled, please consider plotting data over time…suggests this 17-time Burner eager to see trends. (and DOH, you’re likely all over it ;)
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This embryonic burner (planning stages for first burn in 2024) hopes to be a 17-year veteran! What you’ve seen across the years must be amazing!
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