ePlaya

So after the anxiety and forgotten frustration that was yesterday's Main Sale, I can't help but wonder now why after a two-year hiatus Burning Man tickets are harder to get than ever and less tickets are available for sale than many years prior. Is this some grand experiment in economics now? Is the event trying to reign in the wild growth ever since I first attended in 2003? I honestly have no idea and in some ways the accounting seems rather untransparent, which is maybe what bothers me more. Perhaps if my camp didn't fall apart during the COVID-19 hiatus I might have been able to get into on the Stewards Sale, but that's water under the bridge at this point.

Considering all the fundraising and soliciting of support from the Community to help BMorg weather the pandemic, its confusing that the tickets pools available for sale in 2022 appear nowhere near the 78,000 total population of the last event (2019). What's up with that? I can't be the only one that did the math...

FOMO Sale: 8000 tickets
Stewards Sale: 35000 tickets
Low Income: 5000 tickets
Main Sale: 10000 tickets
OMG Sale: 3000 tickets
Invitations to the Future Sale: unknown
TOTAL known tickets available for sale: 61000 tickets.

Please correct me if am wrong. Is there a simple explanation that I am missing as well? I recognize that there are some free/volunteer tickets out there for DPW, etc, but assuming that's say a thousand more...that still only pushes it up to 62000. So unless there are 16000 Invitations to the Future Sale out there (possible I guess)....that's remains below the the agreed population cap of 80,000, and I just don't understand why after TWO YEARS of us waiting patiently to return to our home-away-from-home the obstacles to attend are taller than ever. Many of us applauded efforts to reign in turnkey and for-profit camps, but frankly I find the way these tickets sales always seem to go as completely bewildering. As such, the opaque decisions on sales in light of sky high demand further seems like the antithesis of everything the event strives to be. Guess I'll hold out hope for another unannounced sale or that STEP will be more viable option than years past (<1% in 2019); but honestly I need time to plan attending so increasing the OMG sale allocation isn't going to help me out much nor do I feel like it does much for those traveling from afar since they too have logistics to sort out. Sorry to vent, I'm just having flashbacks to many, many years of ticket sale troubles.

So that 79,000 is the population limit, not the ticket limit.

This is speculation, but the gap of 18,000 people may include:

• Substantial numbers of BM-org-bureaucracy/gift/comp'ed tickets for people involved in art projects, etc. that are distributed directly, not necessarily through the DGS system (I don't know how this works these days).
• Non-event-ticket passes for services, emergency crews, police, etc. Maybe anyone in the event area counts?
• Free tickets allocated to children.
• Margins for "non-event-actors" like stowaways and people sneaking in, even though they are not ticketed.
• Extra tickets that get reserved once the above are mostly known and released into the OMG or other sales.

The population. I heard another theory on that. It’s not tickets, it’s bodies. LEOs and toilet pumpers and staff, a lot of non ticketed bodies make up the population. This would explain 2019 ticket holders waiting at gate for other people to exit before being allowed in. I’m hoping there will not be a pool of tickets for drivers to deliver all those rvs. I would consider that as a possibly new ticketed dept. volunteer class.

My take away from yesterday: Having a more secure way of getting a ticket is now a two or three year process that if it takes only three years, you will be lucky then as well.

1.You start a camp
or
2.You build expensive huge art and carry that liability
or
3. You find a way into a group that does 1, or 2. And gets steward tickets.
or
4. Volunteer 20 hrs.plus. Hope they accept you. and maybe get a chance at a ticket next year, or the year after?

First, you will need tickets for a couple years to get the ball rolling. The hunting and begging isn’t as fun and friendly and easy as the people with tickets are saying. That power dynamic is tricky, and difficult, I found. I took for granted the years where I was offered tickets. I should have been preparing for being able to attend on my own agency and building that foundation.

Minor corrections needed

FOMO was 4000
Invitation to the future is 1000

need to add 1500 for BXB

The BORG has disclosed in court cases that there are approximately 10,000 tickets allocated to staff and departments. The Rangers and ESD are big departments. The Conclave gets tickets. Art project tickets. You can look at the list of departments, it is actually amazing the number is not more than 10,000 for departments. There are also government and local officials who the BORG tours around so we can be reapproved, tribal officials and members, all the random three letter agency people, and so forth.

While it is fun to speculate which is a form of spectate, it does not impact the experience of the burn.

It might not impact your burn, but over at the BRCCP we have an agenda to further.

Don't be so quick to dismiss, this speculation and suspicion is exactly the kind of thing that can foment into the necessary righteous indignation to at the very least inspire a fun cocktail, if not a full on revolution of class politics in Black Rock City.

The lumpen proletariat will not be successful at overthrowing the BORG queen. The placement spies and culture police have struck fear into the hearts of the oligarch camps. There is no more on-playa delivery of their land yachts. The BORG has already won in establishing the hive mind of 10 principles throughout the burnerverse. The plan for Superfly Esalen and the board cemetery is proceeding. The last piece of the puzzle will be gaining ownership of Hualapai from the BLM as surplus land and reopening the Gerlach hot springs swim park. Any time now Gerlach is going to be Marin-Jackson-Woodside. Resistance is futile.

I wish I shared your cynicism. Guess I'll settle for a cocktail instead.

I attended a presentation by Level, the head of Placement, last week. He said the population of Burning Man 2022 will still be the same as 2019, even though they cut the main sale by 10,000. That is because they are holding back 10,000 tickets and aren't sure how to allocate them, so they can adjust based on the situation.

I think possible uses for those 10,000 would be either just putting more tickets into the OMG sale than usual, or finding some kind of R.I.D.E. initiative thing that needs tickets, or using them for Stewards tickets for NEW camps (which they are still feeling out).

The org has also been known to slip tickets into STEP quietly.

From what I understand from Level no decisions have been made.

If you are still looking for tickets after the main sale, definitely don't hesitate to try for OMG and STEP.

Thats some good insider info spolsky, thanks. Stewards tickets for new camps would be a step in the right direction as far as cultural directing setting or whatever it is that they're calling it. More ways for people to get tickets without having to ingratiate themselves to existing groups/camps/cliques is good.

Holding back 10,000 tickets is the first explanation I have seen that makes the numbers work. I think doing that is nuts (and incredibly frustrating) but leaves a glimmer of hope for more tickets showing up somewhere accessible. But I am still pissed that the BOD is pushing everyone to be part of a Theme camp. Art would be a great avenue, but location and circumstances makes that a very limited opportunity.

There was also this mention from a post that tickets would be held back to be released later in the year:

New for 2022: over the spring and summer, several thousand tickets will be dedicated to Community Action & Initiatives. These tickets are being set aside to support a wide group of amazing people and projects focused on important work in the areas of environmental sustainability and diversifying our community to nourish its vibrance and ensure its continued evolution.

As mentioned above, I also recall hearing that tickets may also be allocated to promoting new camps as well. Maybe it's a means to offset the nepotistic effects of the DGS sale.