What’s this about no money and gifting (aka Decommodification)?

Where the Sheep Sleep is a no-commerce event. This means that nothing will be sold during the event, and you aren’t allowed to sell things when you’re there. We encourage you to explore the principles of a commerce-free system, and to gift away to your heart’s content.

Decommodification also protects Burning Man culture from being leveraged to promote, support or market a person, product, company or any kind of commercial endeavor. In essence: creating a camp with the goal of turning a profit, using a camp to financially benefit another individual or organization, or otherwise exploiting Burning Man culture, events, imagery, or intellectual property to promote a company, event, project, or product is out of alignment with the ethos of the event and culture. Moreover, it degrades the quality of our shared experience when people treat each other as economic actors rather than as authentic humans.