Attention Aussie punters planning to head to next year’s Burning Man festival or Electric Daisy Carnival – your tickets could be about to get a whole lot more expensive. For that, you can thank the US state of Nevada, who’ve just passed a controversial new tax on live entertainment, which could result in a 9% hike on tickets to each event.
According to Bloomberg, the new bill, which is set to come into effect later this year, will likely affect ticket prices for both festivals in 2016, including a 9 percent extra charge on tickets, which already cost about $US400 a pop.
Producers of the long-running out-of-this-world Black Rock Desert music festival, Burning Man, have described the move as “misguided”, telling the BBC they’re still considering whether or not to pass the tax on to festivalgoers.
“Burning Man is a non-profit organisation that spends more than $11m in Nevada, has vendor contracts with local businesses and is a strong supporter of arts around the state,” its spokesperson vented to the British media outlet.
“Burning Man participants contribute more than $40m annually to the Nevada economy – they pay their fair share of sales and gas taxes, and they are tremendously supportive of local businesses,” he added.
Electric Daisy organisers, meanwhile, have hinted that the future of their event could be under threat, thanks to the new tax.
“Even though EDC will not be impacted this year, this tax increase could force us to operate at a loss in the future,” Jennifer Forkish from Electric Daisy producers, Insomniac, told the BBC.
She’s also described the new laws as “extremely detrimental to our industry, one that generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for local and state governments”.
The new tax is the result of state lawmakers getting rid of loopholes in Nevada’s previously existing live entertainment tax, which had, until now, allowed festivals like Burning Man and Electric Daisy to escape any government-mandated fees.
The exact dollar value that punters will be out of pocket because of the new tax is not yet known.
Watch: Drone’s View Of Burning Man 2014
