ePlaya

I want to keep this as a separate discussion from the Main Sale Discussion Thread.

So who am I? I'm a newbie, hopefully, a virgin burner this year, but who knows?
Please be aware that I'm not trying to blame the Organisation itself, but the Community because WE REMAIN SILENT for more than one year. Here's the problem. I've been invited by Cyberia Camp this year (i'm honestly grateful for them). So, i've been hyped through the day of the Main Sale that i'll be successful purchasing the ticket with no problems, but, bummer, i was not.

So, as far as i understand correctly, by the time of the Main Sale the Burning Man Org was aware of how many camps it will host this year with the actual number of people each camp can fit. This isn't a complex math, the Burning Man Org knew how many tickets camps needed for sure. Let's not forget about free campers, we can actually count the number of free campers BMC can fit (the difference between total number minus sum size of the camps, what else?).

Here's the most frustrating part of my open speech. the Burning Man Org made the sale process totally corrupted because they allowed purchasing tickets for the scams. Just go to the eBay or Amazon and see how many tickets they sell out that for X5 face-value price at the bare minimum. the Burning Man Org nearly took away the chance of the attendance from the people who want to create and consume the art at the Playa in favour of the scams. Uhh... This is not the first year this happens, it's not new to the community and the Burning Man Org. But nothing was done, unfortunately, WE REMAIN SILENT.

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Great, i've made it through the frustration and disappointment i feel. Now, this is exact time for me to explain what should the Burning Man Org do.
Following the same logic i've described above, the Burning Man Org MUST issue tickets for the camps it accepts. What does it give to the Community? Well, camps will eliminate the number of scams. Since most of the camps to application reviews, they can decide whether a person deserves a ticket. But at this moment, the only fortune defines whether you deserve a ticket even if you've been accepted by the camp. Why camps in the first place? Because you, the Burning Man Org, accepted them, so please accept people accepted into the camp!


What about free-campers? Like i said before, do the same lottery for free campers, because being a free camper is an easy thing, you are being responsible for yourself, but being a part of the camp is more about the responsibility and volunteering for the camp.


So, here's what the Burning Man Org should do for the next year to be more respectful for people who want to attend and be disrespectful for scams:
1. Define and confirm the camp you're going to stick with on your BMC account. Get a confirmation from the camp organizers.
2. Ensure that all camp(s) attendees get a ticket. In case if someone is not able to attend the camp for some reason, the ticket stays inside the camp because each camp has a huge number of applications not being accepted because of the limits by the number of the attendees.
3. Do the Main Sale for free campers. BMR Org should take the responsibility for organizing the FreeCamp village and rule the tickets inside the village. Make scams regret being scams!
4. Get rid of OMG Sale. Start STEP just right after the Main Sale, let people do ad-hoc tickets exchange.



I'm not kind of sorry for what i've said here. Honestly, i consider myself as the voice of people who I know and don't, the voice of people who weren't able to get the ticket during the main sale because of the awful sale process i've seen so far.

Thank you for being with me through this reading.
Kind regards and hopefully see you on the Playa,
Denis Makogon

You’ve got no idea what you’re taking about.
And what’s “BMC” stand for?
Or “BMR”?


Why should everyone who joins a camp be guaranteed a ticket? Fuck them. Most of them, like yourself, aren’t real burners.
They’re just people who don’t want to pull their own weight and look to some camp to provide infrastructure for them because they’re not self sufficient.
Enough for the key players so the art or camp get built, yes. Every yahoo who signs up because they don’t want to take care of themselves? Hell no.

These people are what’s wrong with Burning Man and why it’s not nearly as cool as it used to be.
Radical self reliance? Ha. That’s become a joke.

Captain Goddammit wrote:You’ve got no idea what you’re taking about.
And what’s “BMC” stand for?
Or “BMR”?

Sorry, I've meant Burning Man Org. And thank you for the most verbose reply ever.

Thank you for walking in knowing not a god damn thing about it and pretending you know how it should work.

The ratio of tickets to people who want tickets is what it is. A system that doesn't disappoint 30 or 40 thousand people isn't possible to design. I'd like an affordable Super Bowl ticket, but the NFL ain't listening to me either.

Every year we get many "lone ticketing geniuses" who have a plan to make it perfect.

The organizers of the event have a huge amount of proprietary data on ticketing. Likely the demand in the open sales is 2-3x the supply, maybe more. The supply of DGS is probably about half the demand. The DGS is well designed. Rumor is that there are about 10K infrastructure volunteers and staff - rangers, ESD, etc. With 32500 DGS tickets, and about 1000 camps that's more than 22 DGS per placed camp (on average, not minimum.)

The Captain is right, the camp you signed up for on the Internet is in the $500-700 class of plug and play with about 100 campers providing water, food, showers and even garbage removal. That's a theoretical $50K camp budget. It's simply a scaled down version of the $1000+ plug and play camps that add shelter - RV, Shiftpods, yurts, outfits, tickets, more sherpas and fancier food.

The plug and play-type burners can always wait for the resale of the $990 tickets on the secondary market.

Denis. Search old posts. You are totally in the dark. (Talking out of your posterior.) Go there by yourself. Do your research. Come prepared for rain, wind and fire. Bring an event. Not just some mardi gras beads. Make giant art. Volunteer 3 or 4 shifts in a department. Then come back here next year and we'll talk. Right now you are way off base.

Whoop-dee-fucking-doo, a person got accepted into a camp! Why should "free campers" get the shaft compared to people who have merely been accepted into a camp? At least they're probably setting up their own shit.

Being accepted into a camp is about the lowest, most useless "qualification" one can tout above merely obtaining a ticket in the first place.

What guarantees that a camp-accepted person does anything (useful) at all? Such a person could be some clueless joiner whose only claim to fame is, you know, blathering about how tickets should be prioritized for people who belong to a camp. Even that would be better than some of the uselessness, or even negative impact, that camp-connected people represent.

The ticketing system is already set up to provide tickets to camps and their citizens that are (supposedly) necessary for the camp to function. It's called the Directed Group Sale program. Everyone else -- which evidently includes you -- is left to the mercy of the main sale.

I cannot figure out what he is ranting about.

Come April 4, the $1,200 tickets will be available and he can purchase up to two tickets and one vehicle pass.

These tickets will be available up to a few days before the event. These tickets have never sold out.

Some folks will just use any excuse to complain.

denismakogon wrote:So, i've been hyped through the day of the Main Sale that i'll be successful purchasing the ticket with no problems, but, bummer, i was not.

The problem is not the org, or the ticket sales, but that the camp you joined blatantly lied to you and built up your hopes.

Our federal permit tells the org how many people are allowed to attend, and that's a hard & fast number. It doesn't matter how many people want to go, or how many camps promise people they'll be able to - once the population cap is reached, it's done. The event is full. There is no way to make ~70,000 tickets stretch to fit the 150,000+ people who want to attend (a number that just grows every year) - especially when that 70,000 has to include all the employees & volunteers that are required to make the city run (fire, health, DPW, etc).

I sometimes hate this time of year.

LOLs Read the post and smelled the fuel of flame throwers in the air.

My first year I missed the main sale but I did what was needed to find a ticket/VP at face price. Did it take some work? Yup! Lots of time, lots of effort! The last two years, including this one, I was lucky in the Main Sale. I attribute it to Karma & the effort I put in the first year. Scroll back through my posts in '16. I lived on this forum, Reddit, FB, My Regional the entire summer.

BM will always have more buyers than tickets, its just a simple fact. And if you really want to go without putting in the work, there is always the $1200 tickets on sale up to the event if memory serves.

So yea, this time of year posts like yours pops up. There are a few on Reddit right now too. Think of it this way. You're running an event that has sold out for the last several years. It will continue to sell out for the foreseeable future. You've tried various things related to ticketing with varied success. Finally you ended up with what it is. Is it perfect? No. But is it high on the priority list of running an event this size? Probably not.

You can stand and be heard if you feel the need. But the effort would be better spent getting a ticket. That is if you really want to go.

Everyone with a new ticket plan is usually someone who didn't get one. Their "ticket plan" is assuredly a way for them to get a ticket, no? In reality, more people want to go than there are tickets.

As for the tickets you see on ebay and elsewhere, usually those sellers do not have tickets in hand, they are scammers not scalpers, and will do anything so they can get your cash. Or they do anything to get their hands on a face value ticket to resell, but it isn't any easier for them than it is for one of us. Now and then a real ticket may go this route, but honestly, I have never once heard anyone admit that's how they got one.

Every year there are threads with people making suggestions for how to fix the "broken" ticket process. This is the absolute worst one I've ever read. I'm not joining some stupid f*cking camp just so I can go to the event. I camp with my friends and family. We do our own thing. We are self-reliant. We bring out all of our own shit and clean up after ourselves. We contribute to the city and the citizens. We bring in all of our own shit and pack out MORE than what we bring in. Some tourist who joins a camp doesn't deserve tickets more than we do just because some dumb camp said they have space to accommodate them. OP is completely clueless.

To echo EGAZ's point on contribution Karma. I put in the work for my camp and for the city. I create on my own without relying on some camp I found on the interwebs to lay the foundation for me. Playa karma has come through three years in a row by way of rewarding me with tickets during the main sale. Hopefully I didn't jinx my odds of getting tickets next year... but I'm three for three... so.....

Isnt getting the ticket also part of the challenge?

Letting off steam by making up a perfect equal chance system

Scammers will (should) not be able to sell any tickets above the Art donation tickets ($1200) as long as those are available.

Oh man, I had to recover my password just so I can come in and say, "Holy shit, buddy." The day we make camps like yours a ticket priority so virgin burners in plug and plays can be guaranteed a ticket, I will light our bar on fire, turn my back, and walk right over that orange mesh fence. I hope you get a ticket and camp by yourself for your first year just so you can understand what a broken event it would be without the awesome campless fuckos just doing their own thing, or without all the beautiful unregistered camps that consistently bring the goods. Rabble rabble rabble...

The vehicle pass is silly, especially if you’re car-camping or have an RV with a noisy generator!

Don’t trucks of equipment need them, is it possible to buy 2 tickets and 3 passes at the Group sale? I wonder how many people opt out of getting a VP?

I opted out because after trying several times to get a ticket and pass I thought I should focus on the ticket and worry about the pass later but not too much later because I want to avoid will-call.

I won’t feel guilty buying a VP from Stubhub for twice the price.

The ticket process is Byzantine - but it still has bugs even though the Burning Man Organization has had years to perfect it.

Last Tuesday for the Main sale, I was able to log in a few minutes before noon. I watched the count down - and then at noon - I entered to the Queue. Much to my surprise, I got through the Queue very quickly - within three minutes, at which time I received a message stating "You are almost there"- but when I tried to actually buy tickets my "promo code" was rejected. I didn't even know I had a "promo code" - but I quickly figured out that the promo code is the unique combination of letters and numbers that was included in the URL that I received when I registered to buy tickets. - I tried hitting the back button, and entering the promo code manually, but each time it was rejected. After a few minutes, the link to buy tickets disappeared. - I started the process over but by this time, the Queue was long and tickets were sold out before I could buy.

My guess is that ticketfly's clock was not synchronized with Burning Man's clock, and that this the reason my Promo code was rejected.

I have written to the person in charge of ticket sales, about this problem, but have received no response.

666isMONEY wrote:The vehicle pass is silly, especially if you’re car-camping or have an RV with a noisy generator!

Don’t trucks of equipment need them, is it possible to buy 2 tickets and 3 passes at the Group sale? I wonder how many people opt out of getting a VP?

I opted out because after trying several times to get a ticket and pass I thought I should focus on the ticket and worry about the pass later but not too much later because I want to avoid will-call.

I won’t feel guilty buying a VP from Stubhub for twice the price.

Just hang out here, where vehicle passes do appear around July or August. I've given them away in the past, although this year, I won't have a spare. But they do happen, don't given up hope this early. StubHub is a web of lies. Just don't.

IMHO the ticketing process is not that bad. I am fairly new to BM and ePlaya but have purchased many tickets in the past from various sites for concerts, sporting events, etc.

Several have committed about the clocks not being synced up with Ticketfly, I “think” what is happening is there is a 90 to 120 sec delay in the randomizing of the waiting room to give those that log in right at 12:00 time to get in the waiting room. Then all of those that are waiting are randomized into a que and ticketing starts with top of que and works way down to all tickets are sold.

This gives everyone an equal chance! The chance is then a function of how many tickets are available vs how many are in the waiting room/que. This of course “assumes” there is no monkey business in randomizing the waiting room!

So the usual thing happened. OP comes in with the "great idea" (that benefits him). He gets lit up by people who have experience with this, having seen it time and time again. OP gets butthurt and stops commenting. I mean come on! You couldn't have responded a couple more times so we could pound you even more? Too bad as I was enjoying it.

We should be grateful to the OP. This is a throwback to the old days here.

Hold on....Let's not be too judgemental..... Cyberia camp rent's RV's !

Verbatim from their website: "..... fully stocked with bedding, linens, towels, cooking set, paperware, red cups, plastic ware....... event your trailer will be picked up from the playa and you will not need to be present."

Now if that's not contributing & providing a much needed service I don't know what is .

That’s called fucking up Burning Man.
What the event needs to remain the awesome event it was is NO services. It shouldn’t be easy.
The more of that commerxh stuff that gets added the more watered down it all gets.

And what's up with that 2 lane road leading up to the playa?

Lonesomebri wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 11, 2018 9:48 pm

And what's up with that 2 lane road leading up to the playa?

We could pave it with tears.

Love this thread! As a virgin burner that has spent the last 8 months or so doing research, trying to figure out best practices, planning the trek out to BM and gathering supplies for a solo burn, it's nice to know that going into the void with nothing more than I can pack in is valued!

Captain Goddammit wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 29, 2018 2:40 pm

You’ve got no idea what you’re taking about.
And what’s “BMC” stand for?
Or “BMR”?


Why should everyone who joins a camp be guaranteed a ticket? Fuck them. Most of them, like yourself, aren’t real burners.

Hey it's not like you're setting a high standard for Burning Man principles. Doesn't Burning Man have a principle about welcoming strangers? You've done right royal disservice to that.

This Eplaya was born as a good idea, but people here (and on other forums) become complete a-holes as soon as any outsider criticizes the rules of the event. It's like dude can you at least consider another person's argument and give people the benefit of the doubt or do you just need to put people down regardless? And it seems to be monopolized by a handful of old schoolers. So basically it's run a bit like a gerontocratic dictatorship. So much for radical self-expression.....

Breakstasy wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:10 am

Captain Goddammit wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 29, 2018 2:40 pm

You’ve got no idea what you’re taking about.
And what’s “BMC” stand for?
Or “BMR”?


Why should everyone who joins a camp be guaranteed a ticket? Fuck them. Most of them, like yourself, aren’t real burners.

Hey it's not like you're setting a high standard for Burning Man principles. Doesn't Burning Man have a principle about welcoming strangers? You've done right royal disservice to that.

This Eplaya was born as a good idea, but people here (and on other forums) become complete a-holes as soon as any outsider criticizes the rules of the event. It's like dude can you at least consider another person's argument and give people the benefit of the doubt or do you just need to put people down regardless? And it seems to be monopolized by a handful of old schoolers. So basically it's run a bit like a gerontocratic dictatorship. So much for radical self-expression.....

Every year there is someone who posts the ticket idea which would have netted them tickets. This particular one is of less merit than usual. It truly would encourage people to join plug n plays as a means to get tickets. We know this. We have seen it. This idea is not going to gain traction, and there are reasons for it.

The Ten Principles happened in 2003. While I respect them to some degree, my roots are in the wilder days; as I am very much one of the jaded old burners. Our welcoming of a stranger is to make sure they don't die in the dust, to give everyone a shot at survival and participation. Eplaya is not the playa, never has been. Your interpretation of welcoming the stranger is obviously different than the Captain's. His is neither soft nor pretty, and that's okay.

Easy on the ageism there. Once we are all covered in dust, that sort of goes away. You'll see.