New Burningman Ticket Process - 2012

[Franklin1948]

I understand that the even though the Burning Non-Profit organization has been formed, the transfer and buy out has not yet occurred. - I think the proposed plan has nothing to do with fairness or making the ticket sales run more smoothly - The goal is to squeeze more money out of the people who usually buy their tickets early - so as to have more cash for the buy out.

If this were not true, an easy solution to the alleged problem would to sell all tickets at the same price for the first two weeks of ticket sales - giving everybody who is really interested a chance to buy. After two weeks, if tickets were left (which is very likely), prices could be raised.

[Ugly Dougly]

I would prefer a big roulette wheel.

Yeah, you say that now, but as someone who's spun that wheel, I just going to say you have no idea what you're asking for.

You mean *SHUDDER* staying home and doing something else? How can you even suggest that?????

[theCryptofishist]

- I think the proposed plan has nothing to do with fairness or making the ticket sales run more smoothly - The goal is to squeeze more money out of the people who usually buy their tickets early - so as to have more cash for the buy out.

Ah, yes, it has been blessedly without the money conspiracy theories. I should have known it was too good to last.

[Elderberry]

I understand that the even though the Burning Non-Profit organization has been formed, the transfer and buy out has not yet occurred. - I think the proposed plan has nothing to do with fairness or making the ticket sales run more smoothly - The goal is to squeeze more money out of the people who usually buy their tickets early - so as to have more cash for the buy out.

If this were not true, an easy solution to the alleged problem would to sell all tickets at the same price for the first two weeks of ticket sales - giving everybody who is really interested a chance to buy. After two weeks, if tickets were left (which is very likely), prices could be raised.

Transfer and buy out???? I don't think they are selling it. I think they are just converting the LLC to a non-profit Corporation and doing whatever is necessary to meet those requirements. I would be very surprised to hear there are different people at the helm. But I could be wrong.

[theCryptofishist]

I've heard (rumor mill alert) that the transfer to a non-profit is to ease a succession when they are ready to retire.

[Elderberry]

I've heard (rumor mill alert) that the transfer to a non-profit is to ease a succession when they are ready to retire.

you might be right about that. Larry and I forget his lady friend's name, were at a Q&A for one of the BM Films here in L.A. awhile back and were fielding some questions on the transition. (There were also some of the original people that were booted; so the evening was interesting to say the least. There's no love lost there and they didn't care who knew it either!) That might have been something they mentioned--but I didn't take notes and I really don't remember to much of the Q&A anymore. But Trishntek was with me and he might remember more than I do at this point.

[Lassen Forge]

Hey, moderators are supposed to walk the company line, no?

Some feel they must... I don't think, however, my conscience can allow me to sell out. I may work for the man, but it doesn't mean I have to agree with every cockamamie idea someone there comes up with or toady up to what is a patently unfair and IMO bad business decision. And as a theme camp operative, it puts me in the bizarre position of wondering how I justify gambling my theme camps money on the odds enough of us get in to do our camp under this plan.

Hell, the state actually pays me for working for them, and I don't sell out to them eithier - and if I did my job and worth at work would be gone.

bb

[Joshy Neurotic]

Franklin1948- I've worked for non profit organizations. .... Some are true non-profit most are not.  Idk about bmorg. 

Jewel_man- if you do go through with this, I seriously hope u get kicked the fuck out with no vehicle, water, food.  I am no hippie, nor am I a raver.  I don't like dubstep, trance or any of that shit.  I am not afraid to hate,  I constantly yell at people on playa, it's my way of countering the huggy hippy happy crap. But you sir, I would love to see get kicked out. Put down your Starbucks and get a clue.

[Elderberry]

Hey, I'm on your side; you certainly don't owe me or anyone else an explanation. It was refreshing to read your post!

Hey, moderators are supposed to walk the company line, no?

Some feel they must... I don't think, however, my conscience can allow me to sell out. I may work for the man, but it doesn't mean I have to agree with every cockamamie idea someone there comes up with or toady up to what is a patently unfair and IMO bad business decision. And as a theme camp operative, it puts me in the bizarre position of wondering how I justify gambling my theme camps money on the odds enough of us get in to do our camp under this plan.

Hell, the state actually pays me for working for them, and I don't sell out to them eithier - and if I did my job and worth at work would be gone.

bb

[A Jester]

I think they are just converting the LLC to a non-profit Corporation and doing whatever is necessary to meet those requirements. I would be very surprised to hear there are different people at the helm. But I could be wrong.

The LLC
http://www.burningman.com/whatisburning ... t_bio.html

The Project
http://www.burningmanproject.org/board-of-directors

Looks like they added in a bunch of people, and kept the founders of the LLC.

[jdevries]

Why does everybody assume that tickets are guaranteed for anybody buying the first day under the old system? I just don't see that as being a given anymore.

Last year you had the whole launch day fiasco caused by people trying to save a few bucks. $110 tops. There was no urgency to it or chance of not even being able to attend the event. Tickets were then on sale for another six months as most of the people attending bought their tickets. Then the unthinkable happened and the event sold out for the first time in it's history. Until this happened, the thought of Burning Man actually selling out was an abstract idea at best. Ticket buyers were almost entirely burners as it's hard to attract a speculative element to a secondary market when tickets are still available from the Org. Panic ensued. Ticket prices skyrocketed, peaked and then slowly came back down. Almost entirely, the "scalping" was burners screwing over fellow burners. Anybody from outside of the community was too late to the party by time they realized that Burning Man was indeed a sellout event.

This year, anybody who's even semi-aware appreciates the gravity of the situation. This isn't about saving a few bucks, this is about actually attending the event. It's pretty much guaranteed to sell out, and extremely quickly, so anybody who thinks they even maybe might want to attend will be there first thing on launch day. Worse case scenario, you can sell your extra, for a profit no less if you are living without scruples. Also joining in on launch day will be a host of speculators. As I stated earlier, none of these people were involved last year because they didn't know it was going to sell out until it was too late to get any tickets. People make a living doing this, and it's legal in most states: concerts, sporting events, disney on ice, any event with more demand than supply, and now on their radar: Burning Man. Even making $50 a ticket is more than worth their while, so they will be out in force, regardless of how tickets are sold. The most sophisticated in this group have bot armies (intense computer programs written expressly for this purpose) that will beat any human to the punch in the online onsale, type a capcha at human speeds to avoid detection, and have the tickets bought before most people are even in the queue. As a veteran of procuring tickets to many events that do sell out in as little as 5-10 minutes for a 20,000 person concert, even with an adequate ticketing system (ie Ticketmaster) that doesn't collapse due to demand, 60,000 tickets could go in as little as 30 minutes, if not quicker depending on demand. The reality though is that nobody really knows what is going to happen since we have no baseline data to base projections on going forward, since the entire situation has completely changed.

I'm not going to pass judgement on the lottery until I actually hear the specifics, but no solution I have heard is flawless. The old system can be exploited, any concept of a lottery I can think of can be exploited. Non-tranferable tickets have their inherent drawbacks that will upset a certain percentage but is probably the best way to keep things intact. I guess we'll really just have to wait and see what unfolds. While I agree that a lottery is potentially troubling, I don't think anybody has a leg to stand on in claiming that the old system will assure them tickets if they play by the rules. Nobody knows for sure how this is going to go down...

[Ranger Ryan]

Why does everybody assume that tickets are guaranteed for anybody buying the first day under the old system? I just don't see that as being a given anymore.

It took six months for the tickets to sell out this year. I have a hard time believing that it would sell out in a day next year. We don't know the figures and the data-- but I just seems like such a huge jump to go to a lottery system when tickets were available for 6 months.

[bradtem]

Yes, jdevries has it about right. I've always been surprised at the opening day web site overload that happens effectively every year. There are ways to handle that which don't require building a massive capacity system. Burning Man is not a software house of course, but they're not that complex. However, as noted even if there were such a system, there is indeed the risk this year that it would all sell out in 10 minutes, which would leave a lot of people in the lurch.

And then it's the aftermarket. BM Tix have two aftermarkets. One is at face value, due to peer pressure. The other is at market value, found on eBay and other sites. A third one developed in 2011 with people selling tickets from trailers parked along the route to the playa. I am quite curious if anybody stopped at those trailers to ask what price they were selling for. I presume it was above the eBay price at the time (about $500) possibly well above it.

The problem with the two aftermarkets is this encourages arbitrage. If you try to be a friendly burner to your buyer, and sell at face value, there is a significant chance you're just selling to a speculator who will then sell it on eBay for market price, laughing at you. After all, it's a very rational thing for a speculator to do -- why take risks buying tickets in advance when you can wait to judge demand, and kindly suckers will sell them to you at the same price you would have paid 6 months ago for you to flip? If I were selling tickets for face value, I would ask to skype with the buyer and have them show me a picture of them on the playa, or otherwise convince me they're burners, not speculators.

I will note that in an electronic ticket system that can do no-transfer, it's also possible to make one-transfer tickets, or one transfer/month, which thus prohibits flipping. That means the speculators must buy early and take some risk, but it's not a lot of risk so this would not be worth doing just for that.

Ranger Ryan: I think jdevries answered your question. In 2012 there will be a lot more preemptive early buying, both by burners and speculators, because to not buy early is to have a serious risk of not going. They sold 20K on the first day last year, it is said. You don't think there will be 2.5x as much buying due to the preemptive urge? My view is that the lottery makes it worse, and could cause even more lottery buying by all parties. The logic goes:

a) How many tickets does your group need? Say 20
b) What's your guess of the oversubscription, ie. the ratio of lottery entrants to lottery winners. Say you guess 1.5x
c) Add some slop in case your estimate is low -- so make it 2x
d) Enter the lottery for 40 tickets among your group. Ideally you will win 20, perhaps 25. Perhaps 40 though that is unlikely. Perhaps less than 20 if you guessed low.
e) Sell the extras online, or pick up the extras from others online.

Under this logic, the 20,000 tickets sold on first day becomes 40,000 lottery orders. Add 10,000 scalper orders and that's the 50,000 ticket number once you fill it all. However, BMOrg does not plan to make all 50,000 available on day 1. They plan to do some subset, and then to do more and more rounds. Each person who loses in the early rounds will come back in the later rounds. Scalpers who win in the first rounds will come back again under different names in the later rounds. The use of rounds means the 20,000 folks don't get 40,000 tickets, they get 20,000 if that's the first round, some getting more than they wanted, some getting less. That smooths out the peak a bit.

[cpart]

I think it's more logical to raise ticket prices than to have a lottery and use the money to make the burn better while keeping away the uncommitted.

Now we have to have a lot of money to be committed to Burning Man? Screw that, they should make the price however high they need to, to completely cover the cost. Raising the cost should be out of necessity only. Not to weed people out.

If the BLM only permits 50,000 people raising costs would have many advantages; and I think it could be considered necessary.

Don't they allow a certain percentage more than the year before? That means that it can continually grow, if the people keep buying tickets. I think it would be pretty lame to raise the price, unless they needed to. What necessary advantages are you speaking of?

[pink]

@ the guy who wants to get X number of friends to game the lottery (hey I actually read all of this and it was about 5 pages back so I don't remember who he was): Are you the same guy who bitched & moaned about the system crashing on day 1 last year and then let slip he had 4 computers running the queue? Shit like that doesn't help the system...and contributes to the problem since that kind of shit is what overloads the servers to begin with. So is fucking up the lottery for the 10 or 20 people you are bumping. And even if you sell at face value? Do I know you? Do I know your ticket isn't a fake, or you aren't a scammer? Your attitude just really sucks IMHO. Screw whoever else is out there since you can.

So y'all want a better chance at getting tickets? Do what I did in years when I was more flush....buy during the presale. I did that for a few years since...hey, I could afford to pay more and so I did. Isn't that one of the 'rules'? Pay the highest price you can. The last two years I joined the first day fray since I'm a bit more broke, but I'm giving up a bunch of stuff so I can make sure the important things are taken care of, like my BM ticket. I suggest some of the out of the country burners try the first lottery. And to read the JRS notice (it's in full on another thread) rather than base your panic on interpretations of the JRS announcement, the panic driven ruminations and speculations of people that apparently haven't read the announcement either.

Those that plan, burn. Those that don't PANIC!!!

[graidawg]

I don't like the lottery system it genuinely makes me nervous but having taken a lot of advice from people on here i have the money put aside for a ticket. So I am going out and getting a prepaid credit card and putting my ticket money on that. then i will wait see if I win if not I hope one of the many people on here i call friend have a spare they can sell me at face value (I suspect this will be the case)
i will wait for buying my fight till maybe 3 months before as BBS advised and i saw the price does drop about then. Again a bit of a gamble but i just want to go if it means i have to take a few more risks to get home then i will gamble. I have a real problem with gambling its cost me a lot of money over the years and if It could be avoided then I would but lets be honest here how much does Bm mean to you? To me its the thing I most want to do with my wages so I'll take whatever shit BMorg wants to throw at me because I WANT TO GO HOME

[BeachBum]

I'm also one of the many who just registered for ePlaya to say how much i dislike this lottery idea.

In 2011 there were two problems:
1) "a challenging ticket launch day", and 2) "the first-ever sold-out event", with a demand of like 60,000 for 50,000 tickets

So, the lottery will get everybody double ordering and allow the scalpers in the picture,
leading to an early attempted demand of 100,000+. Great solution to ameliorate problem #2

How about a more commonsense solution to these two problems:

1) The reason it was a challenging ticket launch day was that the lower price tickets were put on
sale first. Solution: Don't do that. Duh. It took 6 months to sell out last year even with a very large
percentage of the tickets sold in the first mad rush for discounted tickets. There are many ways
to implement this expressed in these threads.

2) Solution: Like many of the other ePlaya comments said, match a ticket to a name.
Gets the %$%^ scalpers out of the picture. Charge a return fee to pay for the extra office
work and to take the profit out of any remaining scalping attempts. Having a ticket-name
match will also decrease the initial demand for tickets.

The gate is a two step process already, the search and then taking tickets. Have the search,
which takes the time. Then the second step, up ahead a little bit, of taking the tickets/ticket
match which is way quicker. Not hard, it's the way it's done now. It doesn't even matter if the
tickets are closely checked to the names, what matters is that scalpers think that they will
be checked.

There were many comments in previous threads to do the ticket-name match. I remember
comments that said to learn how the Glastonbury Festival implemented this ticket-name
match to get scalpers out of their system. The lottery system with delayed receipt of
tickets will require a lot of clerical work due to people moving in the meantime anyways
and all the hassle that entails.

Also, i don't like the BMorg representatives on this thread saying that our voices don't
matter, they'll deliver unchallengeable pronouncements when they are ready. Please
add your voices to the cacophony saying that what we want is a reliable way of getting
tickets if we plan ahead. Request that our voices be respected.

(I really respect all the work that everyone behind the scenes put into this event, and
that it is often hard work and difficult to do. Wow! Thank you!)

[msmohit]

Just to add one more voice to the fray:

1. Our theme camp was just about to start planning and gathering funds for a gorgeous new public art car. But now with so much uncertainty as to whether our key members will win tickets in the lottery, how can we plan, spend time and money on our camp and the art car? Building this art car requires a lot of work over many months given that we have to do the work in downtime from other jobs and commitments. If we can't start until after the lottery, there is no way to create something worthy of the playa in that amount of time.

2. I'm betting that the uncertainty the lottery creates may well result in less ambitious art, cars and theme camps because burners won't be able to plan and commit money until after the lottery.

3. This lottery sure sounds like a full employment plan for scalpers. (the post from Paul Okenfeld's partner was quite instructive)

4.Making tickets non-transferable seems like a much simpler solution. Then only those who are pretty darn certain they can go will buy them. There could also be a way that if something came up and you couldn't go, you could authorize burningman to transfer your ticket to a specific person-at face value only. That seems a much fairer way to deal with the issue of burners or scalpers buying up tons of tickets in a frenzy of fear that tickets will sell out. If this seems burdensome from an IT or application POV, I bet there are plenty of talented developesr who would help write the software rather than endure a lottery.

5. Didn't the tickets sell out last year after being on sale for quite a while. I have gone for the past 8 years and always buy my ticket in the first week and a either the top or second price level (not on the first day cause the servers are slow). Why penalize everyone who bought tickets in a timely manner with the maddeningly uncertain lottery?

Surely there is better solution our community can come up with.

[SkeletonMan]

What I don't understand is how a lottery will solve anything?

It won't stop scalpers. On the contrary, it will probably encourage them since everybody will now worry until they have a ticket in their hand... whether they will ever get a ticket in their hand!! So the scalpers has a chance to get hold of an early lottery ticket (just like everybody else) and can sell them at market price. If you have big camp and need assurance you can go won't you be inclined to pay just a liiiitle bit extra to know that you are going?

And, of course, the prices are likely to increase the closer you get to the festival and more people start worrying.

As I see it a lottery will solve nothing but create a scalpers market early on.

Why not make the tickets personal and non-transferable? If you have a ticket and can't go you have to return it to BM that could charge the applicable administration fee and resell it.

Would it costs that much to print a name on the ticket? And as for people returning tickets, well, they would have to cover the administration costs for that.

This lottery thing is so weird. Makes me wonder if I'm missing something..

[Paloma8]

[quote="pink"]

>>>>>So y'all want a better chance at getting tickets? Do what I did in years when I was more flush....buy during the presale.

HUH? the pre-sale isn't a 'Pre-Sale' it's a freaking LOTTERY too ! ! ! ! ! You want to beat the crowds and pay the most? It's still a gamble.

And while I still feeling like bitching........ Ok Ok.... I get it. It'll all be OK. I just get 15 friends and family members to register up and then... Some of them win, some don't.

How many tickets do I need, I just want to buy 2... but with a LOTTERY hanging over my head (I hate gambling, but hey, this is NV) I guess I'll either end up with 14 tix or none. It just seems like simple math to me that if everyone that usually bought early is now freaking out and has a few people extra register 'for them' to be sure they get something, that it'll thoroughly screw everything up.

There'll be people that WIN 20 tickets via their 'network'..... And honestly -- it's one thing to have a spare ticket by accident in late July I decide to sell to a local burner... it's quite another to have 18 spares... If I have a bunch of people register.... I assume when they WIN - they're just sent a notice that they won -- and that purchase is a done deal. I don't think they're gonna email "winners" and allow me 24hrs to check with my registered worker bees to coordinate the correct number of tickets needed by this burner. Which means I will either make a major investment in bMan tickets via gambling (gotta love it) and have to palm them off somehow to someone.... or I get nothing.

What Would Barbara Streisand Do?

wow. The secondary market this year is gonna be HUGE.

SECONDARY LOTTERY AT MY HOUSE!!!!

[Bob]

Don't think of it as a lottery, think of it as an algorithm. Feel better?

[danibel]

My questions:

How many lotteries will there be?

How many tickets are offered in each draw?

Who is validating the draw? An outside authority to make sure it's legit and not just a list of people that are part of large theme camps or A listers?

If I enter a lottery for say - up to the 3rd tier, will I be entered for the drawings that are in lower tiers? And if my name is not drawn in the first lottery, will it stay in the second, third, fourth, ect - if there are any more? Or will I have to re-register? Can I re-register?

If I win in an early lottery, can I sign up for another one to get more tickets for my camp mates?

How many tickets can I sign up for in each lottery? In the past I could buy two tickets at a time, will that be increased to say, four?

What happens if my entry is drawn and my CC is declined that day (for a reason out of my control)? Will I get a chance to give another card number or am I shit out of luck?

I can handle the tickets being shipped in the summer - as long as I know I have a ticket coming at some point I trust the org to send me one if they charge my card.

I have always bought my ticket (2012 will be my fourth burn) on the first day they were available and this whole lottery thing has me pretty freaked out. Get rid of the tiers, put names on the tickets, sell them in person only, whatever - just don't punish us with a lottery chance because your "system" can't handle the load. Buy temporary server space from the cloud if you have to. This isn't rocket science, it's the burn. Figure out a way to make it first-come, first-serve.

[PabloElD]

Hi Burners,

I posted here earlier, but now I see my conclusions were wrong. The information given in JRS was ambiguous and open to interpretation and speculation. I'm inclined to agree it's best to wait for the clarification and details before creating apocalyptic predictions.

That said, the bare fact is that if more people want tickets than there are, the excess will be left out. The claim that the lottery system punishes planners doesn't hold. If more than 55,000 tickets are requested by planners on the first sale day, just as many will be left out either way. In the lottery system, you're left out by chance. In the old queue system, you're also left out by chance: internet goes down, computer crashes, child has to go to the doctor, or you happened to click the link six seconds past 10 AM and end up at 55,001. It's the same result - exactly the same number of good planners get left out. For my time and money, the lottery is an improvement. It's a more fair type of randomness, and at least you don't have to wait for hours in front of the computer for your turn to come up.

Given that about 27,000 tickets were sold in 2011 on the first day, what are the chances that the event will be oversubscribed on day 1? If it is not, every one of us early planners get tickets, and with less hassle. Will 28,000 late planners all become early planners? I guess it's possible given enough fear of scarcity.

The primary problem I see with the lottery system this: if day 1 is oversubscribed (or is merely perceived to be), it creates a perverse incentive to overapply for tickets, an incentive that was not created by the queue system. If the event is truly oversubscribed, those who gamed the system got an unfair advantage. Oversubscribed or not, a large number of unneeded tickets will be sold that could have been fairly distributed to others in the lottery.

The problem of overbuying tickets is softened by a couple of factors. First, it ties up a lot of the ticket buyers' cash. Second, half the extra tickets will have been bought above the average price so you risk taking a loss on the the resale. Plus the hassle. Third, extra tickets are likely to be sold at cost within the social networks of long-time Burners, not a terrible outcome.

If tickets do sell out on day 1, BMORG would be wise to distribute the tickets right away, so that the aftermarket opens up and planners who did not get tickets during the lottery can commit to their projects.

There's a simple tweak that would mitigate overbuying. Instead of automatically selling tickets in lottery order, the lottery first gives each participant a number, their place in the queue as determined by the lottery. Once these are public, the participant has the option to withdraw their bid. For example, Camp Sheiss4Brainz needs 24 tickets but conspires for 24 people to buy their limit of two tickets each. The lottery informs the 24 of their positions. They conspire again. The best 12 keep their position in the queue, and the worst 12 withdraw.Only 24 tickets are sold. The rest can now go to others lower in the lottery. Yes, this does allow Camp S4B to stack the odds in their favor. However, it has the advantage of not causing extra tickets to be bought and end up in the aftermarket. Then, if the event is not actually oversubscribed on day 1, every planner gets their tickets.

An alternative way of implementing this scheme is to send an email that says "Congratulations, you've won two tickets. Click here to cancel your order. Otherwise your credit card will be charged in three days." Canceled tickets are then assigned to the next in line.

A refinement is to charge a non-refundable lottery participation fee, say $20 per ticket. If you buy your tickets, the fee is applied to their cost. However, if you withdraw your bid, you lose the fee. With a $480 cost in effect for stacking their odds, Camp S4B might decide to enter only 15 applicants instead of 24. The participation fee should be high enough to deter excess applications, but not exceed the hassle and risk of buying and reselling the unneeded tickets.

So I think a lottery system could work well, still favors early planners, and is an improvement over the server queue. Ideally incentives can be set up that deter cheating and mitigate the unintended side-effects of cheating. Not entirely of course, but enough that the system is basically fair. Then if you are a planner and don't get a ticket on day 1 or in the immediate aftermarket, it simply means there were 55,000+ other planners and you happened to be one of the unlucky ones, with the same odds as all the other planners. But I suspect their are not 55,000 planners, and in a well-designed system, everyone would get their tickets on the first round.

Thanks for reading.

C3
---------------------------------------------------

P.S.
I've made assumptions in this post about how the lottery works by reading between the line of JRS.

I think the new method is merely a slight variation on the old. Old method: jump in line one second after 10 AM, end up at position 6000 or 12000. Wait until your number comes up, then buy your ticket if it's within your budget. You get the illusion of some control, depending on internet connection, speed of typing, and free time available to sit and wait.

The new method eliminates how quickly you jump in line as a factor in the process.

New method: sign up at your leisure. On lottery day, the applicants are drawn one by one at random and sold the next cheapest tickets. You have to pre-specify your highest acceptable price, since you won't be online to make the decision. (This is exactly like an ebay automatic bid.) Therefore you always are sold the cheapest ticket available unless it exceeds your price limit. The main difference is that your spot in line is truly random, rather than set by environmental sources of randomness, and no one has to wait in line half the day.

This lottery process is repeated periodically until no more tickets are left. In the last lottery, some people will not get tickets.

I don't read into it any complicated tier system, just a simple price limit.

[davidpatrone]

2c

It seems to me that it would be pretty easy to create a ticketing system that assigned tickets to people and if you wanted to transfer them you would do it via BMORG. With all of the resources and resourceful people who are dedicated to BM I think it would be pretty simple to get a couple of folks together to write this prog and administer it. BMORG could charge a reticketing fee and that would cover the cost of administration. Hell you could even find a way to go ticketless altogether and simply verify by name upon entry. That would save costs of printing these expensive, hologram tickets.

You could easily assign each person a login or a code# and that way you eliminate scalpers. I had to buy a second ticket for a friend after the sell out & I was sweating bullets, hoping that the ticket I was buying was legit. I would certainly welcome a more secure way to do it. Fortunately for me the ticket was legit and I paid the same price that the ticket originally cost (plus the shipping and reimbursing for shipping to the person I bought it from). I was lucky, but I know a few people who weren't so lucky. With all of the costs of printing special tickets and trying to identify fakes, you'd be saving a lot of money. In the same amount of time it takes to search the vehicle and verify the paper tickets, you could just verify the person was the right one with an app on iPads or cellphones that was tied to a local WiFi at the gate, they could even upload a picture of themselves. I know it would never fly but you could easily upload your fingerprint too. EASY! C'mon now! We're supposed to be RESOURCEFUL people!

David Patrone
aka "Fella FItzgerald"

[sattelite5812]

This is a really terrible idea for a number of reasons.

1. Large camps may end up losing key members due to sheer bad luck.
2. Small camps may end up losing people who are NECESSARY to actually get there (i.e: transportation).
3. Families might end up with one member getting a ticket and another member not, meaning the entire family can't go.
4. Bands (I'm not even talking about the popular ones) might lose a member for no reason.
5. For people with low limits on their credit cards, it means they have to constantly monitor their usage so their card doesn't get declined (instead of having the correct balance ready at the right moment).
6. And yes, it screws with people's cost planning.

All of that and more.

I can say that this news will definitely put a serious hold on what we were planning to finance and build for the 2012 event.

I agree wholeheartedly. And further, EspressoDude sums it up: "Why build any art or a theme camp if there is a big chance you will not get a ticket. Those of us that plan and build things buy tickets first.
Those that buy tickets in June or July are likely SPECTATORS only and if they are too late and the event is sold out...well ....."

Coming from the perspective of someone who already prioritizes this event (to the extent that I have brought theme camps and art installations, in addition to volunteering within the city's infrastructure positions) over my ability to pay rent the rest of the year (currently in debt for the last couple months on that), I know from experience that it would be a crushing blow to not get our crew in. Our camp is small (~25 members), but realistically there are about 4 of us who actually make everything happen. It's already stressed enough; if one of these key members didn't get in on the lottery system, I honestly don't believe the camp would survive the year. We're already financially stretched, and doing everything we can to bring the Awesome out to share with everyone... but this could be the blow that crushes our chances of being able to come out and *participate* rather than spectate.

Also, I want to echo the other statements I've read on this list regarding how all the local communities are going to attempt to buy multiple tickets to circumvent this problem, reselling any extras within their local group. Those sentiments have already popped up on other lists I am on, and it's going to make for even more of a ticket traffic jam than usual. Honestly, I know it will equate to a pain in the ass for some, but the idea of making the tickets non-transferable seems the most viable I've heard yet. Especially if the only way to transfer the tix, if an emergency came up, was to go through the Org; they would have the ability to track who's reselling all their tickets, vs. who's bought tickets year after year.

[Raymaker]

I only read page 1 of 22 so someone else may have already mentioned this, last year one person requested tickets for four people, this year all four people will request 4 tickets each, so instead of removing four tickets from the 50,000 available they could end up removing 16 tickets, 12 tickets they will have to sell on afterwards. If the lottery forces such a large layout of finances to ensure getting tickets, then it could be seen by more people that this action justifies selling those extra tickets at a profit.

Ahh PabloElD covers this problem three posts above me.

[slevi2]

hey,

Not really a good idea , me and my friends are coming from uk and we need to plan for the trip if we don't know if we are able to get our tickets we cant book our Fliht or RV .
well i guess we just stop Burning Man thanks to thye genius who had this Lottery Idea

[Raymaker]

If we don't get tickets for BM 2012 we'll go to Disneyland, yes this is a threat!

[junglesmacks]

I only read page 1 of 22 so someone else may have already mentioned this, last year one person requested tickets for four people, this year all four people will request 4 tickets each, so instead of removing four tickets from the 50,000 available they could end up removing 16 tickets, 12 tickets they will have to sell on afterwards.

No. The JRS clearly states that you can only win one ticket from each lottery.

[trilobyte]

The 2011 event did take a little more than 6 months to sell out, but the rate of sale was not constant during that time. Approximately half of the tickets were sold within the first 48 hours of going on sale, and then the remaining half took another six months to sell.

If you make the assumption that there will be more tickets in 2012 (but not a whole lot more), then it would be likely that running tickets for 2012 the same way they were run in 2011 would be all kinds of disastrous. Even if the ticket provider had more zip ties and duct tape and could keep their servers together, first day demand would be off the charts. Why? Because of the experience from 2011. Thousands of people who were affected by tickets selling out and learning the hard way that the ticket shouldn't wait til the last minute, plus would-be profiteers (I'm not even talking professional scalpers, just random people who felt they could stand to gain by stocking up), as well as camps & artists investing in tickets for fundraising. That all adds up to the potential of the 2012 event selling out rather quickly if the old system was used. And given the history of opening day server issues, there'd be the potential that people who were ready and had prepared and saved their money and taken the day off work and all that… not being able to get through (or bumped from the queue), only to miss out completely.

I can see the need to review the old system and make changes. I'm looking forward to more details being made available.