An economic business boost from Burning Man, airport record high travel

RENO, Nev. (KOLO) – Thousands of Burners travel through the Reno-Tahoe Airport around this time of year. “20,000 passengers is what we had on Sunday, August 25. That’s more than what you see on Christmas and Thanksgiving, our really busy holidays so that was a lot of passengers that we had.”

Setting a record, but the Airport says they are handling the rush well. “We just experienced our busiest travel day in 20 years. Despite that, we actually had really smooth operations. The benefit of it is that we are able to see those projections ahead of time. We can staff up, our airline partners can staff up and so can the TSA. We’re prepared for this and also it is not our first rodeo with Burning Man. We were really prepared this year.”

Burners will spend money at nearby hotels, casinos and businesses. Particularly clothing stores like Junkee Clothing Exchange, which provides Burning Man costumes and accessories.

“The theme this year was Curiouser & Curiouser. It was Alice and Wonderland theme and that’s totally up our alley because we are a costume shop year around.”

Junkee’s will increase its staff and modify its inventory to match the Burning Man theme.

“We did a lot of mad hatters, Cheshire cats, things like that and just classic burner wear, mad max vibe and boho flowy.”

This is Junkee’s first time handling the high demand of Burning Man at their new location. “We have more parking and more room in here. We were even busier this year than last just for those two reasons alone. We put a sign at the airport, parked the Junkee van at the old location and put “We moved”. I don’t think anyone missed us this year.”

Burning Man ends on Monday, September 2 and the airport is expecting an increase in travelers and dirt.

“We are going to have booties that you can put on your shoes at some of the entrances. I know that sounds super silly but we want to make sure we don’t have all that dust. Our custodians work around the clock to make sure this airport stays clean. Not everyone is coming from Burning Man so we want to give everyone that experience when they come to RNO. So just try and stay as clean as possible when you come through.”

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