Burning Man sandstorm: Video of traffic going to the music festival amid extreme weather reports goes viral

After the 2025 Burning Man Festival kicked off on Sunday, August 24, a video of the traffic heading in that direction was posted on X by @FearedBuck and has since gone viral.

The traffic to get into Burning Man 2025 is insane pic.twitter.com/enY2FTml0g

— FearBuck (@FearedBuck) August 26, 2025

With over 139K views and 1.6K likes, the video has attracted the netizens' attention, with some of them commenting about the changing nuances of Burning Man's celebration:

"burning man used to be about art and freedom now it's just rich tech bros larping as spiritual nomads in $200K rvs" - commented an X user.

"Half of the tickets were bought with klarna" - added another.

"Maybe it's because I am getting older, but there's pretty much nothing on earth I would sit through that traffic jam to get into" - wrote a third netizen.

Meanwhile, others expressed their disappointment at the traffic:

"Why does everything about burning man look miserable?" - questioned a fourth user.

"Why are people still going to Burning Man when they could just stay home and smell bad for free?!" - replied a fifth netizen.

"The fact it's in the middle of nowhere and there's still traffic..." - commented a sixth one.

For the unversed, the 2025 Burning Man festival is taking place between August 24 and September 1.

​A wild sandstorm has upended camps at the Burning Man festival

Before its beginning on Sunday, the Burning Man festival had to announce a temporary halt because of a strong sandstorm, which upended multiple tents, reducing the visibility of the entire area to near zero.

The Guardian reports that the dust storm from Saturday evening not only damaged the campsites but also caused multiple injuries and travel delays of over eight hours. In addition to the festival gates, the Black Rock City airport also had to be shut down temporarily, and was reopened on Monday, August 25.

Many festival attendees who had arrived earlier for the event saw their tents and structures "being ripped and torn down by the wind speeds even though we buttoned everything down as best as we could."

The weather conditions remained similar on Sunday morning, when the NWS issued another wind and dust advisory. Later in the night, the festival organizers urged people to secure their structures and belongings and not to drive.

They also shared a statement regarding the traffic delays in the wake of the sandstorm:

"Due to variable weather conditions over the past few days, wait times from the 8-mile playa entrance on County Route 34 to the Gate are expected to range 6-8 hours today, but could change with the weather."

Despite a visible improvement in Nevada's weather conditions, organizers have also warned festivalgoers about this week's forecast, telling them that the weather is expected to be unstable for two more days.

NBC News had previously reported that over 70,000 people were expected to attend the Burning Man festival this year. Whether or not the difficult weather conditions at the venue impact its potential turnout remains to be seen.