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Though Burning Man may not be everyone’s model of simple living, bicycles are the main forms of transportation at the event; it offers many attendees their first exposure to a bike-based city. There aren’t many other multi-day festivals where biking is as practical and necessary, but many daytime urban music festivals are bike-accessible. Helping attendees arrive by bike is beneficial for organizers, as cycling relieves traffic congestion on local roads and reduces the need to find more parking spaces for cars, which is good for relations with local neighborhoods. At the Vancouver Folk Fest, monitored parking is available for several hundred bikes. A $1 fee is charged and donated to the festival.

To encourage people to bike to festivals, savvy organizers should suggest cycling to the event in their program guide and on their website, offer maps of local bike routes, partner with local advocacy groups to get the word out and offer discounts to those who arrive by bike.