ePlaya

Because of the delays in getting today's JRS out the door, this article on Mashable has been posted before you got to read it for yourself in the ticket announcement. Burning Man is changing ticketing providers for 2014 tickets - partnering with Ticketfly to handle tickets for this year's event.

I don't want to get into bashing on InTicketing too much (they're good people doing a difficult and thankless job), but longtime burners can certainly attest to some of the challenges and struggles that we've had over the years. I'm cautiously optimistic, and though I think there's no way to avoid servers from responding slowly when they're getting hammered with tens of thousands of simultaneous requests - I'm hopeful that we can avoid some of the bigger headaches.

It's been over an hour, and InTicketing hasn't been bashed! Oh well, it would only be a rehash of so many ticket threads.
(I don't have a dog in this fight, so don't take this post as trying to stir up trouble.)

What surprised me the most of all was the decision to go back to "first-come, first-served" rather than the lottery system. I felt the lottery greatly reduced stress for me, but then I was a "winner."

I guess Ticketfly convinced the BMORG they've got the chops to handle the incoming flood of would-be 2014 burners. Perhaps this influenced the decision not to do a lottery? </rampant speculation>

They didn't do a lottery last year, either. I thought that was a dumb decision, one time I was in favor of an autocratic saying "We will do this this way." I was able to buy a ticket last year, but it was a good thing that I had a day off.

theCryptofishist wrote:They didn't do a lottery last year, either.

D'oh! You're absolutely right. I was late to the game last year and forgot this.

BoyScoutGirl wrote: I guess Ticketfly convinced the BMORG they've got the chops to handle the incoming flood of would-be 2014 burners. Perhaps this influenced the decision not to do a lottery? </rampant speculation>

Well, I'm sure the population here will be up to the task of crucifying them if they don't.

Well... is certainly can not be any worse.

Hallelujah! That is all.

Does the provider change mean the system won't go down the second tickets go online, or will we still need to clear our schedules to land a ticket?

A high demand event going on sale is always cause for servers to get crushed - even the biggest ticket providers in the world have a hard time keeping up when a popular event goes on sale. I feel pretty confident that Ticketfly will do great things, but I also expect that it will be mayhem when tickets go on sale.

Heh. I kinda feel sorry for their IT guys. They're gonna get POUNDED on the 26th.

We'll see if they got the cajones to handle the ticket slaughter.....