It seems like there's a fair bit of weight given to monetary concerns after each movement/DEMF event - stories of Derrick May hitting his folks up for cash, contractors threatening to walk out and so on...
>From reading reports, it's apparent that so far the organisers have had to make Herculean struggles to get the event going each year, and perhaps that's part of the whole event - perhaps the struggle is as important as the event itself, or synonymous with it in some esoteric artistic way. It seems to me that the two quickest routes to a less stressful breakeven are sponsorship or charging on the door. I can understand immediately the ethical concerns with sponsorship, but are the organisers so idealistic that they wouldn't ask for even five bucks on the door? Hell, if they're that keen to not charge for an event they could just make it really easy to sneak in (ie not have fences or security solely to keep out intruders) so that the only people who pay are those who feel obliged to do so from their own personal moral standpoint. That seems like a bit more of a pragmatic approach than having donation boxes full of half-eaten cheeseburgers. I'm sure that even if they did that they'd at least generate enough revenue from ticket sales to cover the logistical costs of doing so - at least then they'd still have that seemingly important struggle to contend with! all IMHO, naturally.
