I won’t try to say what Burning Man is, but it is not a music festival. This year, I was briefly at a hot spring 15 miles from Black Rock City (BRC), and I could still hear the throbbing, but it is not a music festival. There is music, dancing occurs, but it is not a music festival, and the organizers don’t want it to be one.

They don’t want people to think of Burning Man as a “venue.” A venue for well-known Djs. Such as Paul Oakenfold.

As reported in that ephemeral publication, BRC Weekly, if people think of Burning Man as a venue for someone they want to hear, they may go for the wrong reasons. “[T]hat person is less likely to be acculturated if they chase the music only,” says Marian Goodell, Burning Man’s Chief Engagement Officer.

If they’re not acculturated, they may fail to bring water and sunscreen and personal lighting, and steal bikes, and whine, and leave garbage in the portapotties, and get dehydrated and crawl out on the playa to die, and thus create annoying speedbumps. (I said that, Goodell didn’t.)

Also, Goodell says, if famous DJs are known to be coming to the event, people will scalp tickets. She refers to the possibility of tickets being snatched from the hands of true burners by “kids following Oakenfold (from Ibiza and Europe to Burning Man) just because they think he’s God’s gift to EDM culture.”

Oh money, money, money. (DJs who come to Burning Man play for free.)

Someone I know recently suggested that Burning Man would be even better without the sound camps (where the EDM is played). Another person pointed out that thousands of people love the sound camps, and their money is just as nice to have around as anybody else’s.

As a result of the horrible prospect of fans coming to Burning Man, the custom has been that sound camps don’t announce their lineups ahead of time, in case anybody cares. It’s okay for them to announce it a week or so before the event, because that’s really not enough time for most people to get a ticket, organize a camping situation, and get to a howling desert on the edge of nowhere.

This year a sound camp called White Ocean broke that unwritten rule by posting their lineup, including the illustrious Oakenfold, weeks early. People were furious. “[C]ommunity shit-storm” summarizes BRC Weekly’s Adrian Roberts, who also wrote the article “Burning Man 3.0: or, When did Burning Man get so douchey?”

Burning Man announced that they would now make it A Rule that you can’t do that. If you do, you can’t come back.

White Ocean apologized, profusely:

Dear Burners,

As you know, a few weeks ago the entire White Ocean line up went public, in a relatively big way. To add insult to injury, it also listed “Presenting” parties in the most un-Burner like fashion! We know that this greatly upset each and everyone of you, and for good reason! We agree, this is a huge failure, on our part! There’s no excuse!!! We apologize unreservedly and beg your forgiveness. Everything, that has to do with the original post and can be taken down, has been! We’re continuing efforts to clean up as much as possible, but the damage is done. Once again, we are deeply, deeply sorry!

We would like you to know, that this was not a deliberate, malicious act, on behalf of White Ocean camp. This action was taken by an outside party, non burner, who’s well meaning attempt to help out, ended up as this massive fuck up, by us at White Ocean. This gentleman, who was assisting us with artists, also took on doing some of the graphic design. As far as we were concerned, this material was to go on our website and Facebook, at the respectable 7-10 days before the Burn, and only to express our excitement of the impending musical experience we’ve been preparing as our gift. The gift from all of 120+ of us, who make up White Ocean 2014, without anyone “presenting” anything! When it was done, he proceeded to create and implement a full promotions campaign, as if he was working for some music festival, in Europe. That was his perception of Burning Man, an elaborately modified festival in the desert, that doesn’t sell beer. And what does every successful stage, at a festival, need?! The best promotions team possible! He happens to be part of such a team, and decided we really need a favor, to get the word out about the wonderful collection of artists, we have this year. Of course, we did educate him, in great detail, on the BM philosophy, principals and community. Seemingly he grasped the concept, especially the gifting economy. He did all the work, for us, over this year, absolutely free. He was trying to do us a solid, oblivious to the fact that he’s doing exactly the opposite. The fault is completely ours, at White Ocean, however! We take full responsibility! We did not understand what was happening until after! We were too busy building cool Playa stuff, and did not pay attention to the details! We did not ask the right questions or even properly review the final copy! The people that were billed as “Presenting”, had no idea they were doing anything of the kind, and are horrified. There’s absolutely no legitimate reason we allowed this to happen!

Once again, words cannot express the remorse, guilt and sorrow, we feel for offending and possibly damaging Burning Man and the Burner community, both of whom we love and cherish more than anything else!

We will do everything in our power, in the dust and beyond, to try to make things right. We know this will take a very long time, but we hope the community will give us a second chance, someday.

That’s a good apology. The explanation is helpful. They strike a decent balance between throwing the nameless, ignorant, “outside party” under the giant multi-colored mutant bus, and admitting that he was doing his best, for free, and they never looked at the final copy.

But it needs a ton of editing. Didn’t they learn anything? Even if it’s an anguished cry from the tormented collective heart, get someone to proofread it.