Secure Ticket Exchange Program (STEP)

[trilobyte]

Rather than a bunch of different threads for excited people to post about having signed up for or gotten tickets to Burning Man via STEP, we'll contain it all in this thread.

Please do not post your timestamp or post the timestamp conspiracy theory game. It may seem funny to you, but for people who mistakenly think there is something to it, it makes the already-stressful process of getting their Burning Man tickets that much more stressful. Moderators may remove time stamp posts without notice. Burner profiles, and the secure ticket exchange program runs on a large number of servers whose individual times are not necessarily synchronized, and certainly are not synchronized for what you may perceive to be the current time. Names are added to the queue on a first-come, first-served basis. There's no human intervention (to play games with the queue), the system is completely automated.

Be radically self-reliant!

If you have questions about STEP, the first thing you need to do is double-check the posted information. If that doesn't have the answers, then check the FAQ. If you still can't find an answer for your question, send an email to [email protected] with all the pertinent info (order #'s if there is one, or a support ticket # if you're following up on a previous request).


To either contribute tickets or sign up to hopefully purchase tickets, go to your Burner Profiles page and click the appropriate link. The gates open for buyers at noon PDT. Remember, for the majority of people who sign up to buy tickets through STEP, this is a process that will take MONTHS. The flow of tickets depends entirely on how often and how early people contribute them.

Sellers, thank you for contributing your tickets into STEP. Know that contributing a ticket is no guarantee of a sale. When a ticket is offered to someone in the queue, they have 3 days to respond to the offer and purchase the ticket. If they do not buy, the ticket(s) are then offered to the next person in the queue (who then has 3 days), the process repeats as necessary. Early on, the tickets that are contributed are snapped up very quickly. As time goes on and people in the queue may have already purchased tickets elsewhere, it will take more time for tickets to sell (because each person gets 3 days). As a personal word of caution from me to you, DO NOT WAIT until the end of the program to contribute your tickets, as it is entirely possible that last minute contributions will not have time to find a buyer. If it does not look like you're going to be able to make it to the playa this year, make that decision early so you can get your money back and you can help make someone else's playa dreams come true.

Good luck to everyone!

[melodiousdirge]

I find it deeply disturbing that the moderators feel they might need to censor people's posting of timestamps for fear it legitimizes a "conspiracy theory".

[trilobyte]

It's pretty simple - the ticketing boards are a working part of the site, intended to help people get answers and good information and not to cause unnecessary stress and anxiety.

[melodiousdirge]

It seems a little more like you're legitimizing the conspiracy theory by decreeing 'thou shalt not share information about when your order got through' than anything else. JS.

[melodiousdirge]

Also, this is the tickets discussion forum, not the tickets buy/sell forum.

[digital]

Also, this is the tickets discussion forum, not the tickets buy/sell forum.

He's the admin, I think he knows this.

Stop with the conspiracy shit already. It's getting old.

[melodiousdirge]

He's the admin, I think he knows this.

Stop with the conspiracy shit already. It's getting old.

He's a human being, and we can all use input from time to time. I never said there was a conspiracy, I said telling people not to talk about a conspiracy is about as cliche as you can get, and probably NOT the most reassuring thing to say.

Please, more people tell me to stop asking questions about why we're not allowed to share information with each other.

[trilobyte]

There have been enough issues with inaccurate and pranked posts (about a statistic that's not even an accurate measure to begin with) that we're not allowing it on the ticket boards any more. You're welcome to start a joke thread in Open Discussion, and you're welcome to post about your success at having signed up (and for what that's worth, posts on the board are given a time stamp).

[melodiousdirge]

There have been enough issues with inaccurate and pranked posts (about a statistic that's not even an accurate measure to begin with) that we're not allowing it on the ticket boards any more. You're welcome to start a joke thread in Open Discussion, and you're welcome to post about your success at having signed up (and for what that's worth, posts on the board are given a time stamp).

Well we wouldn't want anyone scaring the flock with readily explainable hard data from bmorgs ticketing site I guess. Alright; I'll unsubscribe and bow out. I was just trying to point out that it sounds a little fishy to apply the first two rules of fight club to ticket sales.

[afc_yosh]

In the STEP FAQ, it says you're able to indicate whether you need one or two tickets.

If you say two tickets, does it hurt your chances of getting a single ticket? i.e. will the system only match you up to someone who's selling two tickets?

[trilobyte]

You'd need to contact the ticket support team (see instructions above) for a definitive answer. If they do match singles to singles and doubles to doubles, it's difficult to say whether or not it would put someone at a disadvantage, since that still would depend on the flow of tickets into the system. The majority of ticket orders in the Individual Sale were purchased as doubles, but there's no way to know in advance whether people who contribute are selling both their tickets or just one of them.

[tatonka]

Will try STEP today , remember all that try Step start at 12:10 today ") Wish me luck.

[rudbyrd]

Good Luck. Today of all days I cant get into my profile for some reason. UGH!!!

[kiss-o-matic]

Hmm... I clicked the queue button pretty early on, but it just hung there for a while. When I refreshed the page at 2:04+ and clicked again I went right through (like, immediately). That's not a good sign, is it?

[tatonka]

same for me except it was 12:09 then 2x it says i couldnt get into ticketfly ,then 3rd time in in , dam hate this shit.

[melodiousdirge]

Same shit for me, only after the first refresh, the connection to ticketfly failed. Finally got through just now. Main Sale Deja Vu.

[kiss-o-matic]

same for me except it was 12:09 then 2x it says i couldnt get into ticketfly ,then 3rd time in in , dam hate this shit.

Hopefully some magic is happening under the sheets and it was just the browser(s) caching some bullshit. I'm still going to be realistic though.

[caffeineslinger]

It took me a few tries but I made it through eventually. I kept getting "ERROR: The connection to Ticketfly failed".
After nine minutes to register do I really have a chance to get any?

[Taggart]

Kept my original window open... spinning wheel.

Opened a new window at 12:10 - in immediately.

Checked the old window... wheel's still spinnin'

[Psycho]

Yeah, I was watching a spinning wheel for a while, and tried it on my phone just for the hell of it. Got through instantly (at 12:09)... I think it's just luck of the draw on how many people are hitting the system at that exact second...

I tried again just to be sure, and the system gave me an error saying I'm already registered, so I guess it worked...

[Ratty]

Getting through at all is a good sign. I'm disappointed that I got kicked off 10 times. The error said that I took too long to finish my order! What order? I did finally get through. Yippy. I expected a crash and got one.

[sturzhav]

I got tickets in individual sale but missed out on a vehicle pass.
When I tried to register for STEP to buy a pass I discovered that I can't because I already purchased tickets.
So, is it possible to buy a vehicle pass in STEP if I already have tickets?

[WeezerMike]

Kept my originally window open... spinning wheel.

Opened a new window at 12:10 - in immediately.

Checked the old window... wheel's still spinnin'

Same here. I sat staring at the damn wheel like a moron while countless people jumped ahead of me in line.

Way to go. Same shit, different day.

Why doesn't my place in line for the main sale carry over to the STEP program!?!?!?!?

[kiss-o-matic]

Since the wheel uses AJAX, there's a chance that you're actually queued up and registered but no feedback back to the browser. You'd think it would show you success when you refreshed (but that *might* be what the success after resubmitting is). The page uses jquery so all that jazz is under the sheets. Guess in the meantime I'll have to get ready to tickle someone's balls for tickets.

[gaminwench]

You can't get *just* a vehicle pass in the STEP sale.
OMG or secondary market.

I know it's different every year, but in the past, folks have entered the STEP queue in May and still received tickets.

[kiss-o-matic]

Why doesn't my place in line for the main sale carry over to the STEP program!?!?!?!?

That actually seems to make a *lot* of sense. Even if it didn't, why do they have these things coded up where those who hammer the hardest win?

[Wrath]

Seems to me it would just make a long line longer.

[WeezerMike]

Why doesn't my place in line for the main sale carry over to the STEP program!?!?!?!?

That actually seems to make a *lot* of sense. Even if it didn't, why do they have these things coded up where those who hammer the hardest win?

So we all scrambled to get into a big messy line for the main sale. It's a huge amount of demand on servers, and blah blah. So why is this process set up to create another big messy scramble? Why not maintain the same line? It really doesn't seem that hard to do since everything is tied to the burner profile.

As someone that missed tickets in the main sale by about 3 minutes, it's disappointing that I'm back at the end of the line because I didn't solve the mystery riddle of how to manipulate the new set of rules for this new queue. So frustrated.

Maybe I'll just parachute in. Bonzaiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[remi]

My 3 friends looking to get in just opened up another burner profile window then clicked and got in immediately... all while their original window was still open and "loading".

This seems to be the same thing that happened with the main sale, where if you opened another window you'd get in sooner then the window that was already in the queue.

Oh well... good luck to all!

[Capn-Joe]

REFRESH YOUR PAGE!!! Waited a hour. Refreshed page and got right in!