New Burningman Ticket Process - 2012

[theCryptofishist]

So, sould the BMORG be allowed to make decisions and allocate the use of PUBLIC LAND while simultaineously awarding themselves special access? My point is, if it's a lottery, fine. But everyone must be subject to it, even the organizers and VIP's. If not, I smell lawsuit...

You can bet the Org's legal team was heavily involved in making sure this system was kosher, regardless of what you think about it or how it should be run. If you want to try a lawsuit I hope you have a legal team as familiar with the issues surrounding the event & the permit as they do. I would start by reading the entire permit (once it comes out) very carefully.

It's a private event on public land. The hunting season is not. In addition to the legal team, you can bet there was BLM input. In giving the permit to the llc the BLM is giving them certain privileges, including the privilege to sell tickets to the event. I suspect that one way or another, your concern is unfounded.

[lucky420]

TheWalrus wrote:
So, sould the BMORG be allowed to make decisions and allocate the use of PUBLIC LAND while simultaineously awarding themselves special access? My point is, if it's a lottery, fine. But everyone must be subject to it, even the organizers and VIP's. If not, I smell lawsuit...

[lucky420]

I smell something and it's not a lawsuit....

[Eric]

Clearly, Eric, the BMORG did not think this one through.

Clearly, TheWalrus, they did. There is a greater demand for tickets than there are tickets available. Selling them first-come, first-served as they have in the past would result in a sell-out within a month (or less) as people are panicked because of last years sell-out. By doing this method they insure there are at least some tickets available still in March, and everyone who plans has about the same chance to get a ticket as they did last year.

You can freak-out all you want over something that hasn't happened yet, but personally I think it's a waste of time.


There I go, thinking all rationally and shit...

[Nipple]

There I go, thinking all rationally and shit...

I think everyone THINKS they're being rational. I mean... look where they're going for the source information. Garbage in, Garbage out.

[A Jester]

I smell something and it's not a lawsuit....

oh sorry, i stepped in some comments earlier. that's just me.

[lucky420]

lol well then scrape your damn shoe off...

[mournlight]

Pink said, [quote]@duchess:That would make sense. I wonder how many people do opt to pay more even if a lower price ticket is available? I know of people that just sat out the first day 'festivities' and bought a day or two out. That option you describe would provide interesting statistics. [/quote]

Pink, I do pay more and have both years. I think a lot of burners do. I believe (and optimistically believe I am right) that many of us feel we pay a pretty cheap price for the completely unique experience we are lucky enough to enjoy. And I know I'm not the only one who realizes I'm just pretty darned fortunate, and a small way of paying it forward is to buy the highest price I can buy. You know one of the things that struck me at the temple last year was the diversity of beliefs, of people, of experiences, and simply of people who were all present in that structure together with a single-mindedness. No where else in the world would you find people of so many faiths and non-faiths together, reverently enjoying a temporary respite in the middle of a desert. (Spend a little time considering how that would end up in other parts of the world, and oh how lucky we are!) How much was that experience alone worth? $300? $400? $500? More? You can't put a price on that, and then when you add in everything else that goes with the week. Jeez, it's a bargain, even with what I spend to get there from so far away.

I'm not particularly comfortable with this system, but I don't get to make the rules, so I'll do what I can and hope for the best. If it crashes, they'll certainly do something different the next year, for sure. The event has gone on for years and grown under the leadership or in spite of the leadership, and I believe that will continue.

I will be glad when this phase is over so we can all focus on the best part: Let's Burn!

[RedHeaven]

I'm gonna pay up, shut up, and start getting stoked ASAP!! (after we get over this ticket hump)
SIGH I can't wait for that part

[theduchess]

Doesn't look I can respond to Trilobyte in a private message so here goes:
I pasted an idea that someone else had:
When we bid we notify you guys what the highest price we're willing to pay is. We bid for 2 tickets (understood),
Which means, if someone is awarded a $240 ticket but they are wealthy and you see they could afford the $390 tier,
then they are made to pay the $390 tier and their $240 ticket that they won goes to (or is again free to go to) someone who can't afford the $390 tier.
I can't afford a $390 ticket. With this system I don't know what I'm going to have to pay, I can't even risk giving my card number because I might not have the funds there when the sale goes through!
(I think there might be a fuck up around people not having the funds in their accounts)

I can only do the $240 ticket and so I stop trying to buy once the low price ones sell out.
(I've already had a low income ticket)

There's a bunch of burner computer nerds in Seattle who could write you a brilliant program and make this all go smoothly and fair,
I bet they'd do it for free, and I wonder why their services are not being called upon. This is a community and there wouldn't be as much push-back if we took part in making the new ticket system.

The new system doesn't stop scalpers at all.
...and there must be a better way to stop the server traffic jam!
Let's get creative, people!

[pyrocat]

Having worked for a Company that leased land from the BLM, I can tell you that you certainly must answer to the entity leasing the property. They after all have liability and I can guaranfuckintee you that the BLM doesn't want it.

[trilobyte]

@theduchess - I'll take a look at your account, you may still have new user status which prevents the sending of PM's (though you should still be able to click to send email). Sorry, the idea you pasted is not how the Main Sale will work. If you're concerned about available funds, then I'd suggest looking at a pre-paid debit card. Once you've got money together, take it to your local check-cashing place and for a small fee, they can issue you a pre-paid credit card. That makes the funds available for registration and the draw, but 'ropes it off' so that you don't dip into it with other purchases.

[socks]

No this sucks

[pink]

Pink said,

@duchess:That would make sense. I wonder how many people do opt to pay more even if a lower price ticket is available? I know of people that just sat out the first day 'festivities' and bought a day or two out. That option you describe would provide interesting statistics.

Pink, I do pay more and have both years. I think a lot of burners do. I believe (and optimistically believe I am right) that many of us feel we pay a pretty cheap price for the completely unique experience we are lucky enough to enjoy. And I know I'm not the only one who realizes I'm just pretty darned fortunate, and a small way of paying it forward is to buy the highest price I can buy. You know one of the things that struck me at the temple last year was the diversity of beliefs, of people, of experiences, and simply of people who were all present in that structure together with a single-mindedness. No where else in the world would you find people of so many faiths and non-faiths together, reverently enjoying a temporary respite in the middle of a desert. (Spend a little time considering how that would end up in other parts of the world, and oh how lucky we are!) How much was that experience alone worth? $300? $400? $500? More? You can't put a price on that, and then when you add in everything else that goes with the week. Jeez, it's a bargain, even with what I spend to get there from so far away.

I'm glad you do pay more; I did when I had more income. I'm just curious how many do; get into the fray and buy a higher price when a lower one is available. In prior years I just bought during the presale so I'd have it budgeted and paid for and not worry. I agree that it a small price to pay in comparison to what I get from the burn. I have grown and changed in ways I couldn't imagine the first time I set out for Black Rock City.
I'm not particularly comfortable with this system, but I don't get to make the rules, so I'll do what I can and hope for the best. If it crashes, they'll certainly do something different the next year, for sure. The event has gone on for years and grown under the leadership or in spite of the leadership, and I believe that will continue.

I will be glad when this phase is over so we can all focus on the best part: Let's Burn!

[enl8enmentnow]

I can't believe we are going ahead with the lottery... it's so epically bad... I thought they would have changed their minds by now. But NO, registration is opening soon! How hard is it to put pictures on a ticket like they do at Glastonbury and make them non-transferable? Problem solved. 36 pages of rants and still they are going ahead with it...

[trilobyte]

Believe it. Non-transferrable tickets with name and photo printed on them may work great for Glastonbury, but I think it would be a huge mistake for Burning Man (for a few reasons). I'm pretty confident that the registration process and scrubbing the lists will deter or block the majority of would-be scalpers, so as long as the the majority of people registering for the main sale aren't planning on using friends/family to load up on tickets (and in the financial place to tie that kind of money up for several months), things will be fine. And the secondary sale should make sure there's an opportunity that some tickets will still be available for those who couldn't get the money together in January.

[lemur]

burning man isnt glastonbury.

they had 4 pedestrian entry gates and 7 vehicle entry gates at a recent glastonbury..

basically theres only 1 real gate at burning man..


plus theres mention of many roads to access the site and ease pressure on multiple roads feeding multiple gates..

The worst time to arrive by car is between 7am and 2pm on Wednesday. In 2010 at peak times, the A39 queue to get into car parks took several hours, while it took less than an hour for those travelling on the A37.

and even with all of the extra gates and closer access to many different roads...

The worst times to leave by car are on Monday between 12 midnight and 1am and then between 9am and 5pm when there can be long delays of up to 9 hours to leave the car parks. Beat the queues by leaving between 2am and 7am on Monday morning – if you can get up!!! The Festival is doing everything possible to reduce queuing but there is only so much capacity on the roads.

really i think getting in to burning man takes long enough for the monday people.. adding another thing to check would just cause further delay.

not to mention the fact as mentioned ...lots of burners trade tickets throughout the year for various reasons..

[Rintho]

Burning Man is supposed to be about inclusion. BMORG should be working on supplying as many tickets as possible, as widely as possible. Instead they are spending way too much energy on a mechanism that gives them the ability to say "No" to an eligible buyer. Eligible meaning someone who is on-line, ready and able to pay while there are tickets available. They can create one or more mechanisms to give away or sell low-cost tickets. That's fine. Reserving 10,000 tickets to only be sold in March to serve the needs of anyone, who, for whatever reason, can't get their shit together in January or February is fine.

If one thinks it might help to inhibit scalpers (I don't) you can still send out tickets in July, limit the number of tickets per credit card etc.

There are only so many people who can sit up within the first 30 feet of the barrier to watch the man burn. Perhaps rangers should patrol the early comers and select every tenth person to get up and go back into the city. This will create room for more people to get closer. Is this more fair than first come, first served?

So the previous sales system crashed servers. Aside from being inexcusable considering the state of technology available, big whoop. The servers crash. The servers go back up. Anyone willing and able to jump into the fray on the first day get first chance at a ticket. Regardless of how well that system worked, everyone got a ticket. The first day. Every day. For months. There wasn't a narrow window of opportunity. You could jump in at any time for weeks and weeks and get a ticket.

Setting up a system by which BMORG can say NO to hundreds, perhaps thousands of buyers while tickets are available is not acceptable.

[theCryptofishist]

Burning Man is supposed to be about inclusion. BMORG should be working on supplying as many tickets as possible, as widely as possible. Instead they are spending way too much energy on a mechanism that gives them the ability to say "No" to an eligible buyer.

They have to say "No". They have to keep the numbers within the limits set by the BLM. No reposted statements declaring that they should do any different is going to change this.

[Rintho]

[quote]by theCryptofishist » Sat Nov 26, 2011 10:50 pm
They have to say "No". They have to keep the numbers within the limits set by the BLM. No reposted statements declaring that they should do any different is going to change this.[/quote]

Perhaps you've been on this topic too long and you're reading comprehension is flagging. I said they should not say No *while tickets are still available.* They do not *have to* say no until tickets are gone.

I'd much rather, if I were unlucky, to have BMORG say, in effect, "We're really sorry, but the event is sold out. We wish we could sell you a ticket, but to keep within the terms of our BLM permit we have to limit ticket sales."

Instead the BMORG would rather say, in effect, "We're sorry, but we rolled the dice and we're not going to sell you ticket. There's nothing wrong with your request or ability to pay. There are still ten thousand tickets available. We just decided not to sell you one now. You're welcome to try again later."

It's kind of a passive aggressive attitude. There are only so many tickets available. It's not bad enough the event sold out last year, disappointing many people. It's a bummer the event will likely sell out again this year, disappointing many people. Those are unavoidable facts of like. But that's not bad enough. To make it worse, BMORG would like to assume the power of arbitrarily selecting people to disappoint, impede, and fuck with, even before the event is sold out.

[Eric]

Perhaps you've been on this topic too long and you're reading comprehension is flagging. I said they should not say No *while tickets are still available.* They do not *have to* say no until tickets are gone.

If they did it by the old method tickets would be sold out in a month at most. How would your happy vision of the future be if all the tickets were gone in February?? You think it would improve things when tickets were being re-sold at ever increasing rates for 6+ months? Can you imagine the shit-storm of wailing about how the Org failed "us" when that happened?

Last year somewhere over half the tickets sold in the first few days, the rest took 6 months to sell out. This year everyone is expecting a sell-out, so you can expect that ticket purchases would be even more heavily front loaded, therefor screwing more people. With the new system there are tickets at least into March, possibly longer, and the LLC is working on an in-house resale venue, so people don't have to rely on Craigslist & eBay, which should cut down on scalping.

As Fishy said elsewhere, it's amazing how a group that puts so much emphasis on creativity and forward-thinking is freaking out about something that we haven't tried yet.

I think there is more likelihood that people will get tickets this way than there is first-come/ first-served, and apparently so do other really big, popular events like Glastonbury (which makes you register to be eligible for a ticket you are not guaranteed to get). This method has been tried for events where demand is greater than supply, just not for BMan.

I can't believe what a bunch of screaming nay-sayers Burners have become about change...

[5280MeV]

Instead the BMORG would rather say, in effect, "We're sorry, but we rolled the dice and we're not going to sell you ticket. There's nothing wrong with your request or ability to pay. There are still ten thousand tickets available. We just decided not to sell you one now. You're welcome to try again later."

One way or another it is a complete dice roll.

If we all click the purchase button exactly at January 9 (at 12 noon PST) to get a $240 ticket, then we are doing nothing more than playing a lottery to see whose request gets processed first. This is a lottery that would potentially favor the people who are the fewest network hops from tickets.burningman.com and have the lowest latency.

All this does is save everyone the frustration of mashing the refresh button and having to leave work at exactly the right time. Instead, everyone who has their shit together by January 22nd gets a completely fair shot. In addition, it allows them to scrub the list of known scalpers.

[BBadger]

One way or another it is a complete dice roll.

If we all click the purchase button exactly at January 9 (at 12 noon PST) to get a $240 ticket, then we are doing nothing more than playing a lottery to see whose request gets processed first. This is a lottery that would potentially favor the people who are the fewest network hops from tickets.burningman.com and have the lowest latency.

As someone who got a tier 1 ticket that way, I prefer that roll of the dice.

Fair schmair. Last year people who didn't click fast enough could still buy a tier 3 ($280, rather than tier 4, $320) ticket for nearly the entire day. Some people didn't get their shit together for six months. To hell with that crowd.

[theCryptofishist]

by theCryptofishist » Sat Nov 26, 2011 10:50 pm
They have to say "No". They have to keep the numbers within the limits set by the BLM. No reposted statements declaring that they should do any different is going to change this.

Perhaps you've been on this topic too long and you're reading comprehension is flagging. I said they should not say No *while tickets are still available.* They do not *have to* say no until tickets are gone.

You do know that reads: Perhaps you've been on this topic too long and you are reading comprehension is flagging.

Or maybe I just have trouble with word salad...

[BBadger]

Perhaps you've been on this topic too long and you're reading comprehension is flagging. I said they should not say No *while tickets are still available.* They do not *have to* say no until tickets are gone.

You do know that reads: Perhaps you've been on this topic too long and you are reading comprehension is flagging.

Or maybe I just have trouble with word salad...

ZING!

[A Jester]

by theCryptofishist » Sat Nov 26, 2011 10:50 pm
They have to say "No". They have to keep the numbers within the limits set by the BLM. No reposted statements declaring that they should do any different is going to change this.

Perhaps you've been on this topic too long and you're reading comprehension is flagging. I said they should not say No *while tickets are still available.* They do not *have to* say no until tickets are gone.

You do know that reads: Perhaps you've been on this topic too long and you are reading comprehension is flagging.

Or maybe I just have trouble with word salad...

Can't type out a response to this that doesn't sound like I'm trying to give Crypto a blow job, so I'll just echo the "Zing".

[junglesmacks]

I'm not of the camp that finds Fishy's ongoing grammar nazi-ism a full on ZING, but hey.. that's just me.

[FizzyCoCo]

Last year was goingto be my first year, and it was my unfortunate luck that it was also the first year to sell out.
Are they likely to sell out even faster this year? If so, like what kind of window do I have you think?
I guess the lottery is good for preventing what seemed like was on the verge of happening (a classest shift; those who can afford it the soonest,
not those who want to go the most) getting to go. Although my situation wasn't really either. Hateful ex-boyfriend pretended he had discount
tickets then said he didn't after they sold out so he could break up with me and not have me join. So much for radical inclusion and maturity from a 38 year old.
ANYWAY, *ahem*
Last Q: can you use paypal to purchase tickets or sign up for the lottery?

Oh yeah, and is it best to pick the middle tier if we can afford it at all, I mean bc the odds that most people will be picking the cheapest tier, so there is the possibility that we would pick it and then have someone say it's sold out and by that tie the middle tier be sold out?

[trilobyte]

@FizzyCoCo - welcome to ePlaya! Yes, the event would likely sell out this year in significantly less time than it did last year (last year took 6 months, but half the tickets went in 48 hours). See the tickets page and the FAQ for details and info. Paypal allows you to shop anyplace that takes visa/mastercard, so you should be good to go.

[junglesmacks]

Paypal allows you to shop anyplace that takes visa/mastercard, so you should be good to go.

Wait wait wait wait Trilo. PayPal is not accepted this year.. correct?

"Q: What are the available forms of payment for tickets?
A: We accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and Diner’s Club credit cards."