Party All The Time

Burning Man as you know it won't happen this year, due to the pandemic, but there will still be a festival -- just with way less dust and fun ... probably.

Organizers of the annual art phenomenon held in the Nevada desert announced Friday they were pulling the plug to avoid a possible COVID-19 outbreak. The event, scheduled for Aug. 30 to Sept. 7, isn't being postponed -- a la Coachella -- but instead will move online.

The Burning Man camp -- built and torn down each year in the middle of nowhere -- is known as Black Rock City, and the organizers say they're gonna try to create a Virtual BRC, but they admit ... "We’re not sure how it’s going to come out; it will likely be messy and awkward with mistakes. It will also likely be engaging, connective, and fun."

So, the good news is you won't leave the event covered in 2 inches of dirt. The bad news is you won't leave covered 2 inches of dirt. BTW, last year they had 70,000 attendees.

The organizers say they will offer full refunds to anyone who's already purchased tickets, which cost $475 to $1400. However, they're asking anyone who can afford it to donate their ticket price to The Burning Man Project ... in order to keep the festival alive for the next year.

We think they're speaking directly to past attendees like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and, yes ... even Jeff Bezos has done Burning Man.

Well, this ain't exactly the model form of social distancing ... but ya won't hear us complain!!!

Paulina Gretzky and Dustin Johnson's sister-in-law got in some bikini dancing during their self-isolation time Thursday ... and the views are pretty spectacular.

It seems the two were boating in the Florida sun when they fired up their phone cams to participate in the latest viral TikTok trend.

"Social distancing with my sista," said Paulina, who was rockin' the tiny blue bathing suit.

Of course, we had to cut the audio (legal reasons!!!) ... but you've heard the Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage" song before, and you've had to have seen this dance by now.

It's unclear how long we'll all be in quarantine for ... but it's clips like these that are helping our eyes get through it.

Coronavirus isn't stopping people from getting their party on -- they're just doing it in front of computer screens at home now. Welcome to 2020.

Due to multiple state-wide stay-at-home orders, the online event planning biz is seeing a massive spike in engagement for all sorts of get-togethers ... some more adult-friendly than others.

Evite made its name peddling online invitations, but has since become a go-to destination for online events. The company says it's seen a 1,130% increase in events tagged "virtual party" in the last year ... but it believes the lion's share of the boost has come in the last month.

We're told their biggest categories of online get-togethers of late include birthdays, cocktail parties and happy hours -- with average group sizes between 15 to 20.

Paperless Post -- another event planning company -- says in the past 12 days, virtual party events have jumped to 48% of their total biz. It used to be less than 1% ... so that's a clear quarantine-related shift.

As a result, PP's shifted to offer way more online invitation options -- for kids' birthday parties, game nights, book clubs, dance parties, brunch ... all the party possibilities.

Pretty amazing how quickly society adjusted. We've heard of workout groups, baby showers and even charity galas ... all moving to the online realm.

As you'd expect, in-person event planning is down, but not dead. We're told traditional invites for big stuff, mostly weddings, are still ordered -- but by and large event planners are marketing for online biz now.

Evolve or die.

Australians and Floridians ... one in the same. Who knew???

The coronavirus global pandemic is serious enough to force Australia to close its borders for the next 6 months, but the country's beaches are still open for biz ... and apparently not big on social distancing.

World-famous Bondi Beach -- where, it's highly relevant, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson were hanging days before testing positive for COVID-19 -- still has hundreds of people enjoying the surf, sun and sand.

While CDC guidelines call for gatherings of 10 or less in the U.S., Australia has banned outdoor gatherings of 500 people.

Australian Prime Minister just announced the 6-month ban on all visitors, so it would seem the Aussies are taking the outbreak very seriously. At last count, they have 756 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 7 deaths.

Of course, the sand here in Florida has been alarmingly packed all week as spring break festivities ignored the health crisis -- and the state's governor refused to close the beaches.

However, Miami-Dade County made the call Thursday to shut down its beaches. That didn't stop at least one jackass from attempting to catch some rays on Miami Beach.

Not for long though ... cops quickly slapped the cuffs on him (bad tan lines, bro) for trespassing.

And, the band played on -- FL Gov. Ron DeSantis is digging in his heels, refusing to close beaches to block huge gatherings during the coronavirus outbreak ... despite alarming new CDC info.

You've seen the images of packed beaches in Clearwater, Panama Beach City and other Gulf Coast locations. Clearly, spring break is marching on, undaunted in the Sunshine State ... and many critics are pointing the finger at Gov. DeSantis.

So far, he's only said the state would enforce CDC's suggestion to keep parties under 10 people -- but anyone with eyes can see, cops are having a tough time getting partying kids to toe that line.

Ironically, the Governor's stance flies in the face of some other CDC data -- the fact they're now seeing more and more patients in their 30s, 40s and 50s suffering severe COVID-19 symptoms ... many in critical care.

We don't know if DeSantis ever watched "Jaws," but sure seems like he's a big fan of Vaughn ... the Amityville Mayor who kept the beaches open for 4th of July.

That worked out well.

Zac Brown is torn up over the pandemic ... he's broken up over temporarily saying goodbye to his stock-in-trade, and he's outraged that young people are hangin' out in beaches and other places.

Zac was emotional as he explained how he had to pull the plug on touring ... something all artists are now dealing with.  He says he'll figure out a way of making music, but for now, the only concern is coronavirus and keeping it from spreading as much as possible.

Speaking of spreading it ... Zac launched on all the very dim young folks on the beach in Miami and other places. Spring Break has to take a backseat to the virus.

BTW ... the CDC now says young people are getting sick -- some critically ill -- just like older people, so Zac's message is sound ... and even life-saving.

A man from Norway just won the massive Iditarod dog sled race in Alaska ... and was cheered by a roaring, freezing crowd that clearly doesn't give a crap about coronavirus.

Thomas Waerner -- along with his 10 incredible pooches -- crossed the finish line of the great Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race  Wednesday morning in Nome, Alaska after 9 days of hard sledding.

The Iditarod is a grueling competition -- where mushers must cross roughly 1,000 miles of frozen tundra with a team of 10 sled dogs. Crazy stuff.

When Waerner crossed the finished line, he immediately thanked his lead dogs -- K2 and Bark -- and gave his doggies a victory snack.

"This is awesome,'' Waerner said ... "This is something special.''

But, the icy event is now taking TONS of heat after fans refused to heed the coronavirus warnings. There was no social distancing, just partying.

In fact, people were packed together in bars and hotels and at the finish line -- exactly what health experts say we're NOT supposed to be doing right now.

Coronavirus isn't having nearly the same impact on our neighbors to the South -- namely, Mexico -- and as such, one company is cool with shipping college kids off for Spring Break.

A rep for STS Travel -- a touring company that sells vacation and party packages -- tells TMZ ... it does NOT have any plans to cancel scheduled trips for the time being. Instead, they're moving forward ... despite a majority of their customers pulling the plug themselves.

When we spoke to STS on Monday, they said about 1,500 students were already in places like Cabo San Lucas, Cancun and Nassau -- and just 10% of their clientele from that batch had canceled over coronavirus. Now, about a week later, and right before they ship out another group this weekend, they're telling us a vast majority of customers are calling to cancel their Spring Break packages. Makes sense ... lot's changed in the past few days.

In any case, whether they're canceling now or later ... STS says none of these young bucks are automatically entitled to cash refunds, at least not outright. They tell us they are trying to reschedule people for trips down the line, but it sounds like they're hesitant to give everyone's money back. STS is putting some of that burden on the hotels and airlines they partner with, telling us some of those companies are offering credit to the kids.

It's a weird situation for sure -- STS says it's already got a bunch of people down in these tropical destinations who are supposed to be flying back soon, so they're not gonna hold up those travel arrangements, or halt those already set to take place in the coming days.

Besides that, Mexico itself is one of the few countries that's caught flak of late for allegedly taking a somewhat lackadaisical approach to the coronavirus -- with the government there allowing certain public events to move forward and not implementing hard bans like here.

There aren't nearly as many confirmed cases in Mexico yet, so it seems Americans -- and this company who'll sponsor them -- are trying to get in their last licks while they still can. And, hey, flights are dirt cheap right now ... even if it doesn't look all that poppin' this year.

Cleveland Browns linebacker Mack Wilson wasn't too concerned about "social distancing" this weekend -- dude turned up at a St. Patricks's Day party this weekend ... and posted the footage on social media!

Despite the growing coronavirus pandemic, the 22-year-old hit up Twin Peaks (it's a sports-bar restaurant) in Montgomery Alabama on Saturday night where he got his drink and his dance on with a bunch of friends.

Of course, health officials have been saying to STOP LARGE GATHERINGS as a matter of public health ... but Wilson didn't heed the warning. Hopefully, Wilson and all of his friends are okay ... but people, BE CAREFUL!!!

Jamie Foxx isn't about to let a little thing like the coronavirus stop him from interacting with his loyal fans ... that said, he's also NOT not going to wash up after touching 'em.

The renaissance man was at the Sunset Room in Hollywood for entertainment promoter and entrepreneur Dave Brown's 50th birthday party, where Jamie was standing next to the man of the hour when his and Kanye's song "Gold Digger" came blaring through the speakers.

Of course, Jamie got on the mic for a bit -- but celeb publicist Domenick Nati caught the funniest thing on video right afterward ... JF's apparent germophobia in full flex.

Watch ... Jamie seems to reach out to someone right below him in the front row and grabs a hold of them for a sec. They stay touching for a moment before Jamie pulls back and almost immediately turns to his buddy right next to him for a favor -- a safety sterile-squirt.

Jamie's pal had a mini bottle of hand sanitizer on him -- a rare commodity these days -- and hooked his homie up with a little dab. Jamie spread it around all over ... up, down and around town.