Burning Man APIburningman.org ↗
Access Black Rock City event info, ticketing, playa schedules, camp and art listings, global events, and news from burningman.org via 11 structured endpoints.
What is the Burning Man API?
The Burning Man API exposes 11 endpoints covering the full breadth of burningman.org content: BRC annual festival details, ticket sale listings, playa event/camp/art schedules pulled from the BRC archive, global event search, and news from the Burning Man Journal. The get_playa_events endpoint alone lets you query historical records by year, data type (events, camps, art), and paginate through thousands of entries from the Black Rock City archive.
No input parameters required.
curl -X GET 'https://api.parse.bot/scraper/08f4dd1d-3c02-4694-b65f-c7716173a99a/get_brc_event_info' \ -H 'X-API-Key: $PARSE_API_KEY'
Typed, relational, agent-ready
A generated client with real types, enums, and the links between objects — the structure a flat JSON response can't carry. Autocompletes in your editor and reads cleanly to coding agents.
- Fully typed · autocompletes
- Objects link to objects
- Typed errors & pagination
Typed Python client. Set up the SDK in your uv project, then pull this API’s typed client:
uv add parse-sdk uv run parse init uv run parse add --marketplace burningman-org-api
uv run parse add --marketplace pulls a pinned snapshot of this canonical API — it won’t change underneath you. To customize it, subscribe and swap to your own copy.
"""
Burning Man API - Usage Example
Get your API key from: https://parse.bot/settings
"""
from parse_apis.burning_man_api import BurningMan, PlayaDataType, EventNotFound
client = BurningMan()
# Search for global events related to art
for event in client.globalevents.search(query="art", limit=3):
print(event.title, event.date, event.link)
# Drill into one event for full details
event = client.globalevents.search(query="art", limit=1).first()
if event:
detail = event.detail()
print(detail.title, detail.start_date, detail.timezone)
# List recent news from the Burning Man Journal
for article in client.newsarticles.list(limit=3):
print(article.title, article.date, article.link)
# Get playa art installations from 2024
for item in client.playaitems.list(year="2024", data_type=PlayaDataType.ART, limit=3):
print(item.name, item.uid, item.category)
# Get the current year's theme
theme = client.pagecontents.get_theme()
print(theme.title, theme.url)
# Handle a missing event gracefully
try:
bad_event = client.globalevents.search(query="nonexistent_xyz", limit=1).first()
if bad_event:
bad_event.detail()
except EventNotFound as exc:
print(f"Event not found: {exc.event_id}")
print("exercised: globalevents.search / event.detail / newsarticles.list / playaitems.list / pagecontents.get_theme")
Retrieve main Black Rock City annual festival information including dates, theme, and general description from the official BRC page. Returns the page title, canonical URL, a text summary (truncated to 1000 characters), and the full HTML content.
No input parameters required.
{
"type": "object",
"fields": {
"url": "string, canonical URL of the BRC page",
"title": "string, page title",
"summary": "string, text content truncated to 1000 characters",
"full_content_html": "string, full HTML content of the page"
},
"sample": {
"data": {
"url": "https://burningman.org/black-rock-city/black-rock-city-2026/",
"title": "Black Rock City 2026",
"summary": "Black Rock City 2026: Axis Mundi...",
"full_content_html": "<div>...</div>"
},
"status": "success"
}
}About the Burning Man API
BRC Event Info and Ticketing
get_brc_event_info returns the canonical URL, page title, a 1000-character summary, and full HTML for the main Black Rock City festival page. get_upcoming_important_dates pulls the structured list of key pre-event dates from the BRC 2026 page, returning each entry as a string with its date and description. get_ticketing_information returns the ticketing page URL plus an array of sale objects, each with a name and description, covering every ticket sale or program listed on the official ticketing page.
Playa Schedules, Camps, and Art
get_playa_events is the most data-dense endpoint. It accepts a year parameter (e.g. '2024', '2023'), a data_type of 'events', 'camps', or 'art', plus limit and offset for pagination. It returns a total count of available records and a results array whose object structure varies by data type — event schedules, camp listings, and art installations each carry different fields. Data is sourced from the BRC S3 archive, so historical years are accessible.
Global Events and Site Search
search_global_events accepts optional query, page, and limit parameters and returns a total count plus an array of event objects with id, title, date, link, and description_snippet. Pass an id from those results to get_global_event_detail to retrieve the full event object including meta (dates, timezone, venue, organizer), rendered title, and rendered HTML content. search_site queries the entire Burning Man Project website and returns up to 10 results per query, each with id, url, type, title, and subtype — subtypes include 'page', 'tribe_events', and 'podcast'.
News, Volunteering, and Mutant Vehicles
get_news_and_stories returns paginated post summaries from the Burning Man Journal, each with id, ISO date, link, title, and an HTML excerpt. get_brc_theme returns the full text of the annual theme article. get_volunteering_info and get_mutant_vehicles_info each return the canonical URL, page title, and full text content for their respective pages — covering volunteer onboarding and the DMV art car application process.
The Burning Man API is a managed, monitored endpoint for burningman.org — not a raw scraper you maintain. Every endpoint is automatically health-checked on a schedule, and when burningman.org changes and a check fails, the API is automatically queued for repair and re-verified. It is built to keep working as the site underneath it changes.
This isn't an official burningman.org API — it's an independent, maintained REST wrapper over public data. Where the source has no official API (or only a limited one), Parse gives you a stable contract over a source that never promised one, and keeps it current. Need a new endpoint or field? You can revise it yourself in plain English and the agent rebuilds it against the live site in minutes — contributing the change back to the shared API is free.
Will this API break when the source site changes?+
Is this an official API from the source site?+
Can I fix or extend this API myself if I need a new endpoint or field?+
What happens if I call an endpoint that has an issue?+
- Build a countdown dashboard that surfaces BRC dates and ticket sale windows from
get_upcoming_important_datesandget_ticketing_information. - Archive and compare Black Rock City camp listings year-over-year using
get_playa_eventswithdata_type='camps'across multiple years. - Power an art installation discovery tool using
get_playa_eventswithdata_type='art'to surface BRC art projects by year. - Aggregate regional Burning Man event listings into a local-events app using
search_global_eventsfiltered by keyword andget_global_event_detailfor full metadata. - Monitor the Burning Man Journal for new posts using
get_news_and_storieswith pagination to detect newly published articles. - Build a DMV application guide that pulls current Department of Mutant Vehicles requirements and process details from
get_mutant_vehicles_info. - Index the Burning Man site for a custom search experience using
search_siteresults filtered bysubtypeto distinguish pages, events, and podcasts.
| Tier | Price | Credits/month | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 100 | 5 req/min |
| Hobby | $30/mo | 1,000 | 20 req/min |
| Developer | $100/mo | 5,000 | 100 req/min |
One credit = one API call regardless of which marketplace API you call. Exceeding the rate limit returns a 429 response. Authenticate with the X-API-Key header.
Does Burning Man have an official developer API?+
What does `get_playa_events` actually return, and how do the results differ by `data_type`?+
year, a total record count, the data_type you requested, and a results array. The fields inside each result object vary: 'events' entries carry schedule and event metadata, 'camps' entries carry camp listing fields, and 'art' entries carry art installation fields. The structure for each type reflects what the BRC archive stores for that category.How detailed is the event metadata from `get_global_event_detail`?+
meta object with dates, timezone, venue, and organizer information, plus rendered title and content HTML. The id required as input comes from search_global_events results.Does the API cover individual participant or ticket-holder account data?+
Is there an endpoint for BRC maps, placement data, or GPS coordinates for camps and art?+
get_playa_events, but those result objects do not include coordinate or placement fields. You can fork this API on Parse and revise it to add an endpoint that targets placement or map data if it becomes publicly available from the BRC archive.