AfterBurn report: MicroBurn 2025

Written by John Woods (Co Director and Site Liaison)

Name of event – MicroBurn
Event website address – microburn.org
The first year this event took place – 2014
Start date of this year’s event – 11th September 2025
Duration of this year’s event (in days) – 5 days
Type of event – Campout
Number of years at the current location – 10
State or Province event takes place in – Powys
Country event takes place in – Wales

Name of event entity – (legal entity or individual(s) who hold the bank account and sign the
contracts) MicroBurn
Type of entity (Non-Profit, LLC, S-Corp, Individual, Other) – Limited by Guarantee company

ATTENDEES & TICKETS

Total attendees this year – 182
Minors (under 18 years of age) in attendance for any part of the event – Yes
Ticket tiers offered – Full Price, Low Income and Childrens, free carer ticket
Directed tickets offered – Yes for Leads and Directors

PARTICIPATION

Number of team leads on the event production team – 36
Approximate number of production volunteers – 154
Total estimated volunteer hours – 750
Number of theme camps – 7
Number of art projects – 8
Estimated number of performing artists – 20
Total number of mutant vehicles – 0
Total number of burns – Two (Temple and Effigy burns)
Total Number of Scheduled Events – 50

TECHNOLOGY

Tools used for pre event planning- Google Docs, Zoom, Mattermost

Ticketing system- Quickets

GRANTS AND FINANCIAL REPORT

How funds raised from the event were used to benefit the community  – Art Grants and Supporting attendance at ELS

Gross ticket sales for this year –18,200 USD

Total cash art grants and décor spend – 685 USD
Total number of art grants given this year – 5
Link to publicly posted fully detailed 2024 MicroBurn financial report – here

What are the top three challenges your event faces?

1. This is the first year we did not sell out which meant our ticket sales only just covered the event costs. Not a problem as such as we have a surplus in the bank but something to consider this year.

2. We did not have all volunteer slots filled which is always a problem due to the amount of volunteers needed with only a small pool of attendees.

3. This year the directors took the decision to not have a communal kitchen and provide ticket sales to provide food. This was because we did not believe we were covered legally to provide such a service as an organisation. This caused some upset amongst the community but we did encourage and support a community kitchen project at Microburn instead which went well.