UPDATE: The March Open Sale of 10,000 tickets has been discontinued. Burning Man has determined that we must redistribute all remaining tickets to a subset of established teams, projects, and collaborations, in order to preserve the core of Black Rock City in 2012.
I have to be honest. I felt deep disappointment in this decision. Not because I didn’t want camps and art to thrive, but because I was eager to see the resourcefulness of our ilk. To see what we could do when adversity cast it’s lot at us. I was also hopeful for my many friends who were unlucky in the lottery and still had a viable chance to score a ticket. Now most are feeling that their dream of attaining a ticket has dissipated.
From my personal perspective, handing out the last remaining unsold tickets to established theme camps and artists, seemed to imply that there are some Burners who are more worthy on the Playa than others. I also felt that BMORG was tacitly promoting established theme camps and projects, as the necessary spectacle on the Playa, at the expense of many lesser known or undiscovered creative Playa expressions that are currently brewing by unknown Birgins and Solo Burners.
But then later, I realized that magical moments happen on the Playa and a lot of them do center around certain established camps and art cars and art. There’s also a comfort in seeing the familiar amongst all that zany craziness.
I understand the motive for the decision. I may not condone it, but it makes sense.
So I am resigned to what is. Yet, there is one thing I feel needs to be addressed in this situation:
It appears that a handful of people are to decide the fate of those tickets without community input.
Because, after all, those tickets were promised to first come first serve. To all of us, to anyone in the community who wanted to participate. These aren’t tickets that were originally set aside for camps, projects and artists. These are tickets that were promised to all and then taken away. (And I’m certain it was a wrenching decision for BMORG.)
Burning Man is not just BMORG. It’s us. We, as a community, are Burning Man. We should have a say, even if small, in how those tickets are distributed. I like the transparency and that BMORG has been gifting during this situation. They say they are listening to us. And it appears that they are, since the majority wanted tickets to go to camps and artists etc.
I want BMORG to know what camps and art are special to us. I want the Crowd favorites, the Peoples’ Choice to be recognized along with the other criteria BMORG is considering.
I spent some time looking for survey software that I could rig up for the next week or so and I plan to export and send the results to BMORG, hopefully, by way of Trilo or Alyssa Royce or anyone who can guarantee they will receive this info.
This survey will ask you to provide names of a specific camp, installation artist and art car that has profoundly affected you and you’d miss them if they weren’t on the Playa. Think hard on this. You only get one choice per category. Let’s make this short and sweet.
There is also a question regarding the limit of one ticket per person via STEP. If BMORG finds out that most of us with tickets or without would like those without to receive their original requested number of tickets then they might change single ticket stipulation. I think hoarding risk is one that folks are willing to take for the sake of fairness.
And finally, there is a small text box for you to write a few comments. I’m asking that you be willing to express yourself with tact and reserve rants for forums and blog comments. Please.

Please take time to complete this short survey and pass it along to all Burners, regardless if they are attending this year or not. Birgins are invited to take the survey, because there are important questions regarding tickets for the general community.
You will find the survey here:
http://yourplayavoice.com/ticket-sales/ ... f-tickets/
It is my hope to deliver an exported file of the data to BMORG by March 8. And it would be nice for them to have concentrated info instead of bits and pieces spread throughout the Social Net.
Thank you.