ePlaya

I was invited to participate in the directed sales that start Jan 30th. As a camp lead I was offered a certain number of spots. It seems that for each spot a person will be able to purchase 2 tickets, so if I have 3 spots, I can pretty much assume we will get 6 tickets. Am I right in this assumption? It will drastically change the list of people I invite and wanted to be sure before I screwed it up. Anyone out there have an answer?

I have no idea, and hopefully someone who does know will come along in the next day or two, but just in case you should have a backup plan.

Idea 1: Dish out the invites in such a way that it won't matter. I'm assuming that if you get to bring six people it would include the same core three plus three additional people? Why not give the invites to the core three who would get tickets regardless and instruct them to buy as many tickets as possible, distributing them as per your instructions after the fact. I'm guessing this would make things more complicated if you've got a married couple as two of the three who would obviously prefer to use a single invite between them if possible, but that's always an option as well. Give them both invites, instruct them to use one and forward the other if it's not needed to whoever the next-most core person is. This whole idea requires major trust at all stages, of course, so there is that.

Idea 2: Don't dish out the invites until the sale starts and test it yourself. It doesn't look like you have to pre-register for the directed sale. You could use one invite yourself right when the sale starts and send out the other two accordingly, distributing the ticket(s) you bought as needed if for some reason one or both of them aren't going to you/yours. Though you would need everyone who is potentially getting an invite pending the results of your test hanging out when the sale goes live...

Per the Directed Group Sale FAQ on the Ticket page:

Tickets and Vehicle Passes are limited to a maximum of two (2) per person.

which would mean that, yes, each invite may order up to two tickets

Thanks Eric. That is also how I read it but just wanted to be certain as a mistake would be rather disasterous. Do you know how many invites were given for the 15,000 tickets? If they gave 15,000 invites I could see the competition being pretty fierce if each person took 2.

raftin wrote:Thanks Eric. That is also how I read it but just wanted to be certain as a mistake would be rather disasterous. Do you know how many invites were given for the 15,000 tickets? If they gave 15,000 invites I could see the competition being pretty fierce if each person took 2.

I don't know (it's not information they give out), but it is a first-come, first-served sale, and I doubt that everyone who has an invite will get tickets. I highly recommend you let your people know not to wait.

That information is not published. Directed tickets are first come, first served, and will likely sell completely out (as they have in the past). Those who are unsuccessful in the directed sale will be able to register for the individual sale.

That is not how I read it at all. See below:
It does not say anything about spots. It specifically says I can invite a given number of participants.

2014 Directed Group Sale
You can invite up to xxx participants as part of the Burning Man Directed Group Sale.
Click the button below to access your invitee managment page.

I did indeed read it wrong. Each invite can purchase one or two tickets.....

Is there a limitation as to what you can do with your second ticket? I ask because as part of my camp I only need one, but I would like to buy a second ticket to gift to a friend. I doubt they will be able to part of my camp though. So can the tickets go to someone not in your camp? My camp leaders feel that this would count against the camp somehow.

Last year someone within my camp purchased two tickets on the directed ticket program and he ended up selling the extra ticket (for face value) to a person who was NOT part of our camp crew. The person that did that will not get an invite to stay in our camp or Village this year. The Directed Ticket Program is designed to aid in getting the key people for you camp or Village their tickets so they can be there for early set up or for strike or for whatever important task they have been assigned to. It is not to make certain your friends are covered.

[quote="Dustdevil"]Last year someone within my camp purchased two tickets on the directed ticket program and he ended up selling the extra ticket (for face value) to a person who was NOT part of our camp crew. The person that did that will not get an invite to stay in our camp or Village this year. The Directed Ticket Program is designed to aid in getting the key people for you camp or Village their tickets so they can be there for early set up or for strike or for whatever important task they have been assigned to. It is not to make certain your friends are covered.[/quote]
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+1

Thank you, that's why I'm asking before tickets go up for sale. I'll pursue finding some other way to gift a ticket.

Good call, it absolutely could count against your camp.

That's an interesting take on addressing DS ticketing.

Dustdevil wrote:Last year someone within my camp purchased two tickets on the directed ticket program and he ended up selling the extra ticket (for face value) to a person who was NOT part of our camp crew. The person that did that will not get an invite to stay in our camp or Village this year. The Directed Ticket Program is designed to aid in getting the key people for you camp or Village their tickets so they can be there for early set up or for strike or for whatever important task they have been assigned to. It is not to make certain your friends are covered.

In case anyone thought I was condoning abusing the DS ticketing this is what I mean by that Dustdevil's camp has an interesting take on addressing DS ticketing.

I think it is interesting to remove people from camp for that. As I said, I think it is an interesting take of addressing DS ticketing. I know of a number of camps that do not have a similar protocol. There are a number of camps on playa that do not have a system for DS ticketing or EA passes as well all know.

You may have seen folks riding by your camp during setup looking for an open bar or those that have stopped by your camp to find out 'when you're opening.' Hopefully not too many folks thought I meant that it was kosher to scoop up all the tickets made available to core members of camps. I was simply stating that that was an interesting take on addressing abuse of a system, that is all.

I was very surprised to see that the DS invite allowed purchase of two tickets. It seems the best way to prevent abuse would be to remove temptation and limit to one ticket per person. This wouldn't stop car pass speculation, though.

Maybe it is the lack of sleep, but this honestly baffles me. Why be unsure of exactly how many total tickets will be ordered when you could allot a precise number to camps? Then you could give out exactly as many DS invites as planned, which would eliminate the "run on the bank" competitive feeling as well. The time to purchase DS tickets could still be limited, so anybody who did not get theirs in time would be freeing that ticket back into the main sale, or else providing for a possible second round of directed ticketing.

Can anybody hazard a guess at some possible reasoning for why two tickets are available in DS and not one per invitation? The only thing I can think of is paying for tickets: perhaps some more affluent people are buying the second ticket for their less able camp mates? Or maybe so many people decide whether or not to come on the basis of whether they can secure their partners a ticket?

I feel like I must be missing something.

I'm hoping they calculated the number of tickets a camp needed then divided by 2 for that camps allotment.

That way each person buying 2 tickets would make sense.

But I don't know.

Not everyone in my Village is purchasing two tickets, though they have the option. In fact our Village, which has over 350 people, left at least 13% of the possible ticket sales on the table. And that is assuming that everyone purchases the two tickets allotted. The two reasons stated in the previous post make the most sense. People going with their partners, people purchasing a ticket for a person who does not have the money at this time, but will in the future. Perhaps it is also a test to see which camps or villages will take all that are allotted and who leaves some on the table. Maybe all of the above.
We do make it very clear that if you can no longer use your DS ticket, it should be sold to someone within the Village who will be able to contribute. I actually track these things and we have had those who have sold their DS tickets outside of our group. Needless to say, they will be camping elsewhere this year.

@BoyScoutGirl - whether it's lack of sleep or not, your sense of outrage or surprise is misplaced. Limit of two tickets is not new, that's been a part of the program since it's inception. If I had to take a guess (and this is just me guessing), it's to accommodate significant others. Sometimes an essential member of a camp or project's setup and operation has an SO that is not also a member of that project's core/essential team.

I don't see it as that much of a risk, to be honest. Camp/project leaders that have been invited have already demonstrated that their group makes a significant (and responsible) contribution to the playa, and would have a vested interest in doing the right thing and doling out invitations to their responsible core members.

@FIGJAM - it's relatively impossible to forecast. Not every camp even needs to use all its invites (sometimes essential campmates can't buy or commit early, plans change, etc), and not every person who's invited is purchasing two tickets. If everyone who could potentially purchase planned to buy two tickets, I imagine it would sell out pretty quick. If they planned it for the max, that would mean significantly reducing the number of projects that were invited, as well as the number of invitations that each project that was able to participate. It would also mean that the sale could drag on for a while (what if an invitee didn't buy for a week or two), or leftovers, or other junk to deal with. This method has worked well, gives a good number of groups an early crack at tickets without there being leftovers, and anyone who wasn't able to get tickets will be able to participate in the main sale.

trilobyte wrote:your sense of outrage or surprise is misplaced........it's to accommodate significant others.
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Well said.Nearly every"core" camper of ours has a partner they live or travel with.They will need to buy two otherwise they may decide it's not worth it.There goes an important contributer who you have counted on for years.

It all comes back to the original plan to encourage theme camps to be able to plan and ultimately set up on The Playa.If myself and others have to scramble and spend time finding tickets the energy for the building of the camp would certainly suffer.With end result eventually an abandonment of this expensive hobby.The Powers know the value of theme camps.It can certainly argued that they are why there is heavy ticket demand in the first place.

Gosh... I'm geting happier by the second that I don't have a partner!

I keed.. I keed... Kinda!

trilobyte wrote:@BoyScoutGirl - whether it's lack of sleep or not, your sense of outrage or surprise is misplaced.

Actually, it's not: even if this is the way it has been done since the Paleozoic and I am the last burner on the face of the planet to learn it, I still have every right to be surprised at discovering a bit of information new to me, if that information was unexpected.

I was trying to express my honest confusion and the thought process I went through when I learned about this aspect of the DS tickets. I was looking forward to and am grateful to read other burners' thoughts, especially those familiar with DS. Seeing as I have thus far gone to the burn by myself, I guess I underestimated the stress that must arise when one partner has a ticket and another does not. Regardless, I don't see how limiting to one ticket would prevent pairs of people from buying them: just give one invite to each and then you are assured of who it goes to, not counting any resale. Is it that most couples only have one credit card between them? Or maybe to avoid the credit card fee twice? That is certainly something we can agree is a good idea!

Seeing as we have limited data, most of us can only speculate. I am not trying to tell the folks with all the data, the experience, and the bigger picture how to do their jobs. I am just an until-recently ignorant burner asking for help in understanding. Speculation is not outrage. Neither is confusion, nor curiosity.

I'm sorry that you don't follow, understand, or agree with the way the program is designed or whatever the decision makers' thought processes were that went into it, but it's still old news on a process that was established in the past and remains unchanged for the 2014 burn. You're absolutely correct in that speculation is not outrage, but going on for a number of paragraphs to question the thought process behind the two ticket limit reads like it to me. You're certainly welcome to be outraged if you like, this board has tons of posts from people who are outraged about anything from the low income program to vehicle passes to feathers to turnkey camping to the temple to <insert thing to be outraged about here>. I'd still read it as somewhat misplaced, in the same sense I would if someone walked into a bar and started ranting about a bad call made by a referee at a sportsball game from last season.

The truly wonderful thing, to me, of the 2 tickets per invite rule is that it allows entry to those who live off the grid, who don't have a credit card, can't get time off to sit on line or might for some reason not want to be "profiled." These are characteristics of some very valuable Burners, and I am very happy, when I can, to assure such folks an opportunity to contribute.

BoyScoutGirl wrote:I was very surprised to see that the DS invite allowed purchase of two tickets. It seems the best way to prevent abuse would be to remove temptation and limit to one ticket per person. This wouldn't stop car pass speculation, though.

I feel like I must be missing something.

Remember that the result is still the same: there is an upper limit on the number of paired purchases available. A smart camp will coordinate their purchases so that everyone who needs/wants one in the camp will pair up with another person to maximize the number of tickets that can be purchased. That's what the camp I'm in communications with is doing (I'm not getting one through DS).

In that light, the pairing functionally saves $25 in additional shipping charges per pair of tickets that would be required if everyone got them individually. The camp coordinators can assign a pair to an actual couple, or just pair off people to maximize utilization.

I guess rather than failing to think of one key line of reasoning, I missed a several things. No surprise there!

In summary, pairing ought to reduce various fees and give more people access to tickets. Even if it introduces uncertainty into the exact number of tickets ordered, it doesn't change the maximum number, so really it's a strictly bounded uncertainty.

If most tickets are bought in pairs, I bet it greatly reduces traffic to the ticket sales web portal.