And now we wait...

[LittleJack]

I'm a bit relieved and a bit nervous now that the main Ticket Lottery is done. Now they scrub the database for dupes and known scalpers, then we start getting the good news.

Watching one's inbox seems to be the modern incarnation of sitting home by the phone. I wonder how long it'll be until people start to worry that they didn't get tickets?

[Urban]

tick......tock.......tick.......tock refresh....look look......tick.....tock.......tick.........tock refresh......(make coffee) refresh....tick (On top of that I am OCD)

[BeyondIndigo]

Every time I get an email, my iPad goes "bing". Every "bing" I'm like "OhpleaseOhpleaseOhpleaseOh...nah, more Viagra spam. "

[jella]

I can almost feel the collective held breath of my bretheren.

[danibel]

Does anyone know when in the process the email is sent out? Like after the charge goes through? Or as they are charging? A couple hours after the charge? OMG. I am on pins and needles waiting... I hope this doesn't go till the first of February. I can hardly stand waiting to know.

Also - Will someone post when they get a notification? It would be fantastic to know the process has indeed started.

*tap*tap*tap*tap*

[Mosquitopilate]

Yeah waiting is killing me,I just want to know if I got one I do not care how much $

[Mosquitopilate]

My question people say they are going to weed out the scammers, how are they going to do that?

[King Bonehead]

I don't need to hear if I got tix yet....

I just want to hear the number of tickets demanded through the Open Sale. If it's <40,000 we're all just fine.

[remi]

My question people say they are going to weed out the scammers, how are they going to do that?

There is a known scalper database, also people that register numerous times with one CC, or many orders going to the same address. Those are a few ways that I thought of in moments off the top of my head.. I'm pretty sure they have a few more.

[piehole]

I am so ridiculously excited, irritated, and happy all at the same time.

Probably won't sleep after tonight

[Ruleryak]

As a programmer I look at this whole setup as one of the most ridiculous, poorly designed systems I've ever heard of. I just have to assume that someone hired their "techie" brother to handle ticket sales and his answer to the needs of the many was an MS Access program with Visual Basic thrown on top for good measure. I can't tell you how many times I've come into a company over the years to modernize them only to find out that they'd been habitually lied to by a moron for years rather than getting something functional put together by someone that knew what they were doing. These sorts of faux tech heads will do and say ANYTHING to keep their job and keep outside help far away. They don't want it surfacing that they're incompetent and instead rely on their employers knowing even less than they do.

I'm in charge of a series of servers for an ecommerce company and have machines that cost us less than $200 a month that can easily handle half a million credit card transactions in a day without hiccuping. These are systems selling unique products, downloadable products, physical goods, whatever and they don't skip a beat. They cannot oversell an item or sell duplicates of an item. If I told one of my machines to remove duplicates from a database of 50,000 records it would be done in a fraction of a second - not DAYS. If we were hired to set up a system to take said database and do random selection tier by tier, AND bill the cards when they're selected the entire process would run it's course in a few minutes. The idea that they actually need 10 full days to work through the list (processing less than 5000 sales a day) is insane.

Whatever dinosaur they have in charge of this whole system needs to step down after this year and allow someone modern to take his place.

That's just my two cents on how crazy it is that we have to wait at all now that the all important lottery sign up is concluded.

[trilobyte]

Then as a programmer, you'd be wrong on a number of your assumptions and conclusions. Scrubbing the lists involves human review of what the system flags, doing that right takes time.

[Ruleryak]

I get what you're trying to say Mr Moderator but I don't think you have any idea how tiny a dataset of 50,000 is. Human intervention? For what? Any system worth it's salt shouldn't be flagging (ie. its programming wasn't complete enough to handle all potential issues) more than 1% of orders so that leaves them with 500 orders to look at or less. If it was built properly it would be more efficient comparing lists for the scrub process than a human would be because it wouldn't have the possibility of failing. The terms "user error" and "human error" come up constantly for a reason.

Why they can't just use ticketmaster is beyond me. Ticketmaster handles sellout sales of 100,000+ person events in minutes with no downtime and would cost us the same or less in "convenience fees" than the org's made up extra fee scale costs us. Let's see... can ticket master sell over multiple time periods? YES. Can it sell tickets in tiers? YES. Does it already have the most complete anti-scalping database out there that's probably got all the same names/addresses that the org now has and more? YES.

[trilobyte]

I'm sorry that you don't get it. It's been covered exhaustively in numerous threads as well as the FAQ, should you care to know more.

[Ruleryak]

I've read the threads and read the FAQ. And I see you all over the place in this section doing your best to kill dissent with your "stop whining" responses and unending loyalty to a disconnected group of folks running this in the worst possible way they can. In the end there will be more scalping this year than last year, as the org can't control who sells their extra tickets (and basically anyone that could afford to went in for more tickets than they needed - eg. three friends need one ticket each so all three sign up for two each to increase the chances of all three going and then sell the excess tickets online). These excess tickets will go on sale, be bought by scalpers at the fair sale-price, held for a few months, and then put back on sale at 5 times their value as they were last year.

"I'm sorry you don't get it" - oh boo f-ing hoo for you, not everyone is going to just give up on logic because you've convinced yourself that the Org is some infallible organization with our best interests at heart.

[trilobyte]

They're far from infallible, but they're also far from the incompetents that you're making them out to be, and things are more complicated than you imagine them.

[forty_eight]

Personally, I love when a programmer delivers software requirements and doesn't need user input. I love when a programmer tells me that I don't need 'x' functionality without looking at the actual business process involved. I love the ... arrogance!?!












Actually, not so much.

[knowmad]

As a programmer I look at this whole setup as one of the most ridiculous, poorly designed systems I've ever heard of. I just have to assume that someone hired their "techie" brother to handle ticket sales and his answer to the needs of the many was an MS Access program with Visual Basic thrown on top for good measure. I can't tell you how many times I've come into a company over the years to modernize them only to find out that they'd been habitually lied to by a moron for years rather than getting something functional put together by someone that knew what they were doing. These sorts of faux tech heads will do and say ANYTHING to keep their job and keep outside help far away. They don't want it surfacing that they're incompetent and instead rely on their employers knowing even less than they do.

I'm in charge of a series of servers for an ecommerce company and have machines that cost us less than $200 a month that can easily handle half a million credit card transactions in a day without hiccuping. These are systems selling unique products, downloadable products, physical goods, whatever and they don't skip a beat. They cannot oversell an item or sell duplicates of an item. If I told one of my machines to remove duplicates from a database of 50,000 records it would be done in a fraction of a second - not DAYS. If we were hired to set up a system to take said database and do random selection tier by tier, AND bill the cards when they're selected the entire process would run it's course in a few minutes. The idea that they actually need 10 full days to work through the list (processing less than 5000 sales a day) is insane.

Whatever dinosaur they have in charge of this whole system needs to step down after this year and allow someone modern to take his place.

That's just my two cents on how crazy it is that we have to wait at all now that the all important lottery sign up is concluded.

You are not wrong about the company In ticketing.
Described here last year by the Borg
....."We’ve been working with In Ticketing for years. They are not just a ticket vendor, they’re our friends, and fellow Burners. The ticket sales process has improved steadily since 2006 and in 2010 was completely effortless. Moving forward we will be collaborating with In Ticketing to ensure the queue won’t crash again in the future."....

And the Cronies fund thiere camps artcars and burn off the sales to those they chose.

[danibel]

The ticket page is still accepting registrations. What is up with that? I thought it was supposed to close at midnight on the 22nd?

[Savannah]

It might look like it's accepting them, but ultimately these late registrations will almost certainly be scrubbed, and not confirmed.

[Urban]

Dear Moderator,

Will we ever know the total numbers of people that took part in the 3 levels? It have been a constant discussion in our village

[Faun]

I'm ecstatic to see how this all works out though my neurons are about to pop due to my unknown outcome of the drawing. My wife and I both put in for 2 tickets each in all tiers to better our chances. If we both win we plan on hooking up family or friends to go with us for our first time on the playa.

[theCryptofishist]

Dear Moderator,

Will we ever know the total numbers of people that took part in the 3 levels? It have been a constant discussion in our village

No, we will not. I don't remember in which thread this was discussed, but we will not know.

[knowmad]

Dear Moderator,

Will we ever know the total numbers of people that took part in the 3 levels? It have been a constant discussion in our village

No, we will not. I don't remember in which thread this was discussed, but we will not know.

But on a more positive note, The Emperor's new non transparent clothes helps his thin skin from being damaged by helpfull sugestions and complaints about being unfair.

[Mosquitopilate]

NO NO NO! TICKETMASTER please do not use that scum

[Ed Phunk]

This is my first year. Do people always get their pantaloons in a bunch this much over the small shit? Jeez. Been to regional burns and theyve been using a system similar to this for years. Takes out the advantage of having a faster computer/better Internet connection IMHO. Everyone has an equal chance ..

But this wait is killing me. I just want to KNOW!

[vargaso]

I've read the threads and read the FAQ. And I see you all over the place in this section doing your best to kill dissent with your "stop whining" responses and unending loyalty to a disconnected group of folks running this in the worst possible way they can. In the end there will be more scalping this year than last year, as the org can't control who sells their extra tickets (and basically anyone that could afford to went in for more tickets than they needed - eg. three friends need one ticket each so all three sign up for two each to increase the chances of all three going and then sell the excess tickets online). These excess tickets will go on sale, be bought by scalpers at the fair sale-price, held for a few months, and then put back on sale at 5 times their value as they were last year.

"I'm sorry you don't get it" - oh boo f-ing hoo for you, not everyone is going to just give up on logic because you've convinced yourself that the Org is some infallible organization with our best interests at heart.

Yes and yes.

[trilobyte]

@Urban - I believe there are no plans to publish details about number of registrations (either in total or at any given tier level) any time before the event. Any details that the BMOrg chooses to share would likely come in the form of the AfterBurn report, as they've done in past years.

[tamarakay]

Does anyone know when in the process the email is sent out? Like after the charge goes through? Or as they are charging? A couple hours after the charge? OMG. I am on pins and needles waiting... I hope this doesn't go till the first of February. I can hardly stand waiting to know.

Also - Will someone post when they get a notification? It would be fantastic to know the process has indeed started.

*tap*tap*tap*tap*

Well, I got my tickets in the pre-sale and checking my timestamps, my bank charge hit first, then the email was VERY shortly after. Not sure that's helpful, but at least its a real answer. Good luck!

[danibel]

Thank you Tamarakay. The waiting is literally burning me up!