sage_ wrote:call me a cynic, but my first thought was that the OP has the tickets and is trying to lure in some desperate burner soul YEARNING to get dusty.
wonder how many PMs he got?
Very astute, Sage! Often when someone asks a question instead of simply coming right out and making a statement, they have an agenda in there somewhere. I wondered how long it would take for someone to be skeptical about my motives. And while I applaud skepticism, cynicism isn't necessary. My motives were to illicit some comments regarding the attitudes, participation and contribution of burners who "yearned" to get dusty and struggled to get there, compared with those who simply "came along for the ride" because it was convenient and they were offered a ticket. I have heard speculations that there is a concentration of tickets in the hands of burners who over-registered to hedge their bets by having friends and family buy extra tickets. Consequently, some of these extra tickets will not be returned to STEP, but will be offered to casual acquaintances who were not really motivated to attend the event in the first place, but will now go along to see what all the hype is about. I am curious how we, the community, think this might affect the burn. But the despicable ogre of scalping raises it's ugly head in this case, making a simple comparison impossible. Just because someone paid a scalper more money for a ticket does not mean they are more motivated and dedicated, just as getting a ticket the easy way does not imply low motivation or lack of participation.
So maybe my question is whether we value one type of burner more than another, and I don't really want to go there. Same question with options 3 and 4; is a camp crew member more important than anyone else? Is an artist more deserving of a ticket than anyone else?
And I do have an agenda, as well as my own ticket. I just need another ticket for a crew member, so I asked this friend who has tickets but isn't going...