David Katzenberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg at Burning Man - Publicity - S 2016
Courtesy of David KatzenbergShabbat dinner may not be the first thing to spring to mind when Burning Man is mentioned, but it was one of the highlights during the father-son bonding time experienced by Jeffrey and David Katzenberg at this year’s fest.
The two made the trek to Black Rock City, along with more than 70,000 other “Burners,” as the annual counterculture festival celebrated a milestone 30th year from Aug. 28 to Sept. 5. It was the second year in a row that the Katzenbergs attended Burning Man together; David has been three times in total. Their Shabbat dinner took place Sept. 2, and David describes it as “massive.”
“Anyone and everyone is welcome,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter of the hospitality of their camp, known as Merkabah. “We hosted nearly 700 people this year. Everyone in our camp equally contributes their time, energy and resources to making the Shabbat dinner work.”
David, 33, who tied the knot earlier this year with Stellina Bickers, shared a photo of his famous father, 65, on Instagram looking incognito in Burning Man-required attire of oversize goggles, a hat and a bandana tied around his face to cope with the ever-present dust storms in the Nevada desert.
Jeffrey — who bade goodbye to his staff on Aug. 22 when NBCUniversal’s $3.8 billion deal to buy DWA closed and now serves as chairman of DreamWorks New Media and a consultant to NBCU parent company Comcast — isn’t the first mogul to attend Burning Man. Other top execs who have traveled to the temporary metropolis filled with wild costumes, art installations and, yes, some drug use, include Elon Musk, Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and iHeartMedia chairman Bob Pittman. Meanwhile, it was directly back to work for David, who is producing the remake of Stephen King’s It, now shooting.
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