Will Call sucked real bad

[tatonka]

Got in in two hours Sun night, directed to will call for my Step ticket. 6and 1/2 hr wait . Just before I got my ticket it started raining , was then told to wait in will call parking. Later that Mon night we got to get in line for the search and was in at dusk. Was up from 7:00 am Sun to 9:00 pm Mon

[Joeln]

Wow Tatonka you got double hammered.
It was good to see you at the M&G!

[tatonka]

Wow Tatonka you got double hammered.
It was good to see you at the M&G!

Nice meetin you also

[Thecatman]

If things were that bad, which I'm not doubting, how was parking for the will call? Motor homes, busses, rv trailers and the like.

[tatonka]

If things were that bad, which I'm not doubting, how was parking for the will call? Motor homes, busses, rv trailers and the like.

They would have you follow a lead veh , and put you way out away from will call. A very long walk , I went back to get my coat once ( a nice english lass saved my spot ) and I pull my rigg up closer

[darkfred62]

Remember the so-called "tards" at TSA are paid. If two of the people who were supposed to be working that shift were a day late because of car trouble, well that ripples.
If the dance camps buy out burningman, I'm sure the line will be managed very slickly.

So all the "will call " people are volunteers? Ok then sign me up I will volunteer to do line control at will call. Who else is with me?
After officially pinned as volunteer for will call I will submit resources needed list. Oh wait does this mean I have done this before? Could it be? Say it is not true!

[Jackass]

Personally, I never understood why someone would do will call unless they absolutely had to. Having a hard ticket in your hand seems to make so much more sense to me. I have a file folder with all my BM info for the year, and the ticket and vehicle pass goes in a brightly colored envelope.

I can think of some real reasons for doing will call---such as orders from out of the country, or possible someone who is moving during that time.

Having a hard ticket in hand gives you the ability to sell it before the event--without going through the hassle of changing the name or having to meet up with a person to split an order.
For reasons beyond my control, I did will call last year and it was at least an hour wasted just winding my way through.

Can someone please give me a few reasons why they would willingly do will call?

Umm, how about low income ticket

[digitalfuckboy]

I had a will call ticket and my wife and family patiently waited 5.5 hrs in line. Someone leaving said she waited 9! Since we were on the playa, we acted like it and enjoyed each other's company as most everyone was. I did not witness any cutting in line and was vigilant (off and on) to discover any. This was 8pm arrival Sunday night. Then, we slept at the greeter's station as it rained muddy burner.

The waiting was hard EXCLUSIVELY because my dumb ass stayed up all night packing. All told, we and friends spent 27 hours traveling from Reno before hitting camp. Frankly, it was AMAZING. Nobody plans to make things go wrong like that and nothing delayed entry more than the sweet, juicy rain that somehow remains blameless.

If something didn't go horribly wrong, it wouldn't be life. Also, if someone didn't enjoy waiting in line with the most inspiring people on earth, it wouldn't be wise.

I'm pretty sure it's known something bad happened but I would rather wait in that will call line than get irradiated or have my pants reached into by agents of the fakest security system ever built. SO MUCH LOVE!! As usual, BEST BURN EVURRR!

[David M]

Personally, I never understood why someone would do will call unless they absolutely had to. Having a hard ticket in your hand seems to make so much more sense to me. I have a file folder with all my BM info for the year, and the ticket and vehicle pass goes in a brightly colored envelope.

I can think of some real reasons for doing will call---such as orders from out of the country, or possible someone who is moving during that time.

Having a hard ticket in hand gives you the ability to sell it before the event--without going through the hassle of changing the name or having to meet up with a person to split an order.
For reasons beyond my control, I did will call last year and it was at least an hour wasted just winding my way through.

Can someone please give me a few reasons why they would willingly do will call?

Umm, how about low income ticket

Conclave tickets are at will call too.

[jasonwentcrazy]

Well, I guess I'll give some of the line trolling ticket seekers the benefit of doubt that maybe they got scammed. THAT would be crushing!

I would think anyone who is on ePlaya would know better, but did anyone on here actually get scammed in this way? It would be nice to know what the numbers were of folks who were both turned away from gate due to counterfeit paper tickets, and those who were turned away from Will Call due to being scammed.

Publicizing this info would dampen the aftermarket for-profit ticket sales.

I was hustled by someone that sold their tickets to multiple people. When I got to the Box Office with my printouts of the invoices as well as the name change confirmation from the seller they said those tickets had already been scanned earlier in the morning. I did about everything a cautious person would do in a situation like buying tickets by way of a Will Call Transfer and the plain fact is that as it stands there is no solidly secure method to do this. There will always be a possibility of falling victim to someone that sells their same ticket over and over again unless additional provisions are made available by BM or Ticketfly.

Fortunately I made sure to send payment via a PayPal credit card and am covered by their buyer protection policies. So the money being returned isn't an issue. The thing that sucks even more than getting scammed is that unless you came armed to the teeth with documentation of the entire transaction you stood a good chance of just not getting in at all.

How it worked in my favor was that as soon as the seller/scammer sent along a screenshot showing the confirmation number [and the message that the name on the tickets was successfully changed to mine] I called Ticketfly to verify this. I explained the situation and gave them the number from the screenshot and asked them to confirm it was a valid number. They were able to confirm it was valid and the customer service rep I talked to took diligent call notes. The Box Office folks had those notes and since they validated that I had been given the thumbs up in that regard they allowed me to purchase an Exception Ticket.

And the Exception Ticket cost $650. Which, by that time, I was fine with paying as I was just relieved to not be turned away entirely. As many people had been for whatever reasons.

I'm also a big fan of Ticketfly for having some really solid customer support staff. They handled my calls like a champ and followed up with an additional call and left the thorough call notes in the system that ended up being the exact thing I needed in the end.

[maladroit]

Average processing time multiplied by number of will call tickets. Figure at least 60 percent of people will arrive the 24 hours after Gate opens (the org already has actual data for that rather than my guess). That's how many staff-person-hours you need to schedule.

So if you plan to put 18,000 tickets through will call in 24 hours, you need to process 750 tickets per hour. If each transaction averages only two minutes, you need 1,500 minutes of work done per hour. That's 25 work hours per hour, so you need 25 people processing tickets at will call during peak hours or your line will start piling up. If you only have 15 people working, that means every 1 hour worked will pile up another 40 minutes of backlog (the line). After 8 hours of peak operation you will easily have a 5 hour line. One extra minute processing time per ticket will throw everything down the crapper that much faster.

Number of will call tickets, ticket processing time under the new system, and typical demand levels after gate opens...all of this info would have been available to the org weeks beforehand.

[dragonpilot]

Can someone please give me a few reasons why they would willingly do will call?

Some staff/performer tickets and low income are will call only. Also, if someone always loses stuff, will call is safer.

Gifted tickets, STEP, OMG sale...all required will call. Massive numbers of folks in these categories exponentially increased the mob at will call. That said, during the 6+ hours I spent in line I was entertained by fire performances, soccer ball demonstrations, and an engaging newbie lady who was thrilled to be there.

Didn't really mind the wait that much, but the line crashers and other asshats...shame on you! May you have worse than bad karma!

[theCryptofishist]

Number of will call tickets, ticket processing time under the new system, and typical demand levels after gate opens...all of this info would have been available to the org weeks beforehand.

But not the volunteer manpower, necessarily. And at least some of those ticket orders were for two tickets. Of course, some of those then had a ticket given back under a new name.

[lucky420]

Can someone please give me a few reasons why they would willingly do will call?

Some staff/performer tickets and low income are will call only. Also, if someone always loses stuff, will call is safer.

Gifted tickets, STEP, OMG sale...all required will call. Massive numbers of folks in these categories exponentially increased the mob at will call. That said, during the 6+ hours I spent in line I was entertained by fire performances, soccer ball demonstrations, and an engaging newbie lady who was thrilled to be there.

Didn't really mind the wait that much, but the line crashers and other asshats...shame on you! May you have worse than bad karma!

Perhaps bullhorn shaming could have stopped line crashers?

[Elderberry]

The biggest problem I encountered was stupid people. There was a guy in line that had a letter with a photocopy of the original purchaser's dirver's license 'authorizing' that person to pickup the ticket. I don't understand why the person working the window allowed him to argue his position for literally over an hour. Of course, it ended as expected--he wasn't allowed to pick up the ticket and more than a hour was wasted.

On the other hand, people with all of their paperwork in order were processed in less than two minutes. Unfortunately, more people were ill-prepared than we're prepared, which lead to most of the wait time. (my experience arriving at noon on Wednesday)

[maladroit]

The biggest problem I encountered was stupid people. There was a guy in line that had a letter with a photocopy of the original purchaser's dirver's license 'authorizing' that person to pickup the ticket. I don't understand why the person working the window allowed him to argue his position for literally over an hour. Of course, it ended as expected--he wasn't allowed to pick up the ticket and more than a hour was wasted.

Um...that's exactly how I transferred and picked up my ticket in 2012. The tickets site says to do an online name transfer, but still also says:

If you want to provide someone with extra back up, you can give them a signed letter releasing your order to them, along with a copy of your photo ID.

That's extra back up because it's how things have been done in the past, and should have been sufficient in the event of a technical failure on Ticketfly's part.

If those are the kinds of arguments Will Call had, it was fucked before the first burner arrived.

[Elderberry]

Wasn't aware of any backup procedures, as it was the first time I ever used will call and just made sure I followed the instructions on the email I was sent. I wasn't close enough to hear the entire conversation, so maybe there were other issues with his ticket.

But, he wasn't the only person having long time consuming issues. I just assumed that since I went through quickly, and all of the people around me that had all their correct paperwork went through quickly, the slowdowns were because of people coming to the window without having the right paperwork.

[maladroit]

Well, I suppose it's possible that this was the year idiocy suddenly jumped to much higher levels among will call ticket holders. That seems pretty unlikely, though. In a large sample size, you don't usually see sudden shifts in core parameters like that. Instead you look at common factors that affect many people...and the common factors here are Ticketfly and the Will Call counter. If Ticketfly gets all the blame for ticket screwups and other technical problems, this was unavoidable and must be fixed next year. If Will Call wasn't ready to handle the higher volume, it was avoidable this year because that information was known well in advance.

[Jovankat]

If (one of) the issue(s) is not enough volunteers why don't they incentivise it and offer cheap or free tickets to Will Call volunteers? That seems entirely fair, cheap or free tickets to conclave members on the other hand not so much. That's a highly sought after position that requires and audition/application and getting to perform before the man burn is a huge honour and privilege.

[maladroit]

cheap or free tickets to conclave members on the other hand not so much. That's a highly sought after position that requires and audition/application and getting to perform before the man burn is a huge honour and privilege.

Perhaps the ticket is part of the reason it's so competitive, and makes it clear that it IS an honor and that the performance is highly appreciated, and needs to be at a certain level? I don't think changing it will fix will call, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to tinker with one of the remaining things that seem to be working.

[Jovankat]

I just think it's pretty shit that people who are doing something that is a highly visible and much lauded gig are being rewarded with cheap tickets when people doing the thankless and actually more essential to the running of the event tasks aren't. Also conclave doesn't need incentivisation, it is it's own incentive, hence the overabundance of people who want to do it. But will call volunteering could obviously do with having a few more perks.

Also I work in the entertainment industry so it is very much ingrained in me that when you're working with a small or non existent budget or doing charity work etc you pay the technicians and box office folk etc first because the event literally could not happen without them and the talent last because they are usually much happier "doing it for the love" on account of the fact they do actually get love from the public for what they do. The folk in black, not so much. It would be completely unheard of in the real world for box office staff to be working for free while performers are paid, the opposite happens all the time though.

For what it's worth is actually makes me feel a bit queasy that I often get paid more than the performers who put in longer hours than me but I also understand the reasons, different work is valued different for a bunch of reasons.

[theCryptofishist]

At a guess, some of the people working will call do get staff tickets. Just like Gayte (or are they gayte), Rangers, DPW, etc., get staff tickets. Of course, they will have had to have worked there before and proven that they are reliable before they get that ticket.
It is not impossible that someone who has a ticket missed their first shift because of transportation issues. And it may be that they just don't have enough volunteers, just like so many departments do.

[lucky420]

I may volunteer for will call next year (if they take volunteers). Not for any tix incentive but because it looks like there's a need.

I usually work ice, but there are always plenty of volunteers to be had there.

[BBadger]

If you're "volunteering" just to get staff tickets anyway, you need to reconsider your reasons for "volunteering."

[lucky420]

If you're "volunteering" just to get staff tickets anyway, you need to reconsider your reasons for "volunteering."

Tis true. I just inserted that because it was mentioned in the post above. Didn't want anyone to get my intentions twisted

[Jovankat]

While I don't think encouraging people to volunteer *just* to get tickets is a good thing if that incentive is enough to encourage a good intentioned person who just hadn't gotten around to volunteering than that seems ok. And honestly if a lack of volunteers is the issue I'm not sure how to solve that problem without offering some sort of incentive, tickets are just the obvious one, especially when the task in question is handing out tickets.

[lucky420]

From what I know of GPE you have to volunteer at least 6 shifts (6 hour shifts) to be able to get a ticket for the next year.

If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will come along shortly and correct me

[Rilopie]

From what I know of GPE you have to volunteer at least 6 shifts (6 hour shifts) to be able to get a ticket for the next year.

If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will come along shortly and correct me

5 shifts actually, including training. One shift is required to be graveyard (midnight-6am, or 6am-noon) and youre also required to work an exodus shift. On the gate scheduling system they do have a sign up area for will-call, but I assume that is to help with parking and the lines. I know that the box office also takes volunteers, though i'm not sure what the process is to get connected with them.

[Nipple]

http://burningman.com/participate/boxoffice.html

Same as most any... Fill out the questionnaire and tick the ticky box for the jobs you want.

https://profiles.burningman.com/participate/

[SunrayU75]

4-5 hours on Saturday evening. Got in at 6pm and met my camp mates at 11pm. 5 totally wasted hours.

As a UK burner, I am forced to pull right, park up and go collect my ticket. Now I do like the tickets we get given, they are really beautiful tickets. But they are also redundant in this modern age. They have a QR code on them and its that that is the important thing.

I had an early entry pass. I printed this out in my house in London and brought it all the way to the gate unassisted. Amazing? Not really.

Having a box office on gate is useful, how about having one in Reno too? Hire a disused office or conference suite for a week and sort it all out there while we are still in hotel rooms, have the internet and a phone signal. Rather than make people drive 120 miles, queue for hours in the baking heat with limited access to communications and then to get told something is wrong or they have been ripped off.

Crazy situation that needs an overhaul.