well it looks like it failed.

[A Jester]

People lost all sense of reality when they started SPENDING THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS on a fucking one week party in the desert when there's HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF HUMAN BEINGS DYING as a result of said party. YOU want to get all HIGH AND FUCKING MIGHTY about needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. What about the impoverished children working in sweatshops in 3rd world countries to build countless shitty blinky LED products for our party. What about the MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF FOSSIL FUELS consumed at our party that in turn will influence Oil companies to buy out our government and instigate war where HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WILL DIE. Fake fur = made from plastic, which is made from petroleum. How many Iraqis had to die so we can go to our fucking party? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

No, the costs of globalization (which are serious) are not the same as the costs of war. I mean, are you trolling? You can't actually be serious, right?

I would bet if you put it to a vote and asked the burner community if they would be willing to have names on tickets they would overwhelmingly say yes.



As for slowing things down, why not double the greeters? While one person searches your vehicle, the other checks your ID.

Yeah, you're probably right about that first part.

Oh... that second thing... You're so far from making an informed statement that you can't even see where they come from.

I think that there might be a simple solution/combination of what others have suggested! That 1. people who are registered to buy tickets already and who will not have gotten tickets will be the only people who can buy tickets with the STEP system for a given period of time before other people who have not tried yet have an opportunity and 2. the tickets will have to be picked up at will call by the new owners of the tickets, that way it will be more difficult for scalpers to sell them on the open market. This might still be a cluster-f#$% however it won't be as many tickets as if you had all of the tickets being sold with names on them/will call.

There's a good idea in here. I don't think it's quite fully formed (because of the huge will call line it would make), but you might be on to something. If nothing else it's not the same ideas that have already been thought about and decided against.

I really don't get this point, the only reason burning man didn't sell out this year was because BM held tickets back. Last year only half the tickets available at that time, sold out, this year every ticket available at this time, sold out. So on that basis alone the system last year was better/fairer. It is the changes made to ticket sales this year that has fuelled this panic.

The opinion about scalpers is based on Professional Scalpers, but I am certain that there are many amateur/opportunist 'scalpers' out there that are happy to pay up front for a 200%+ return in such a short time, for anyone with money to spare such a guaranteed return is greater than any interest you can make in a deposit bank over the same period, even making just $50 is a better return. June isn't that far away.

A hole was dug before Christmas when the 'cool hip burners' who frequent the forums, slated anyone who pointed out possible problems such a system would have, and the same frequent posters are doing it now, the hole may get deeper, then all the defense on this will just start to look like tired worn out failed propaganda. People should have the privilege to be angry, they should be afforded the privilege state it on this forum, they do not need the 'I an holier than you, condensing replies they are getting from some of the regulars in here.

Even if I am lucky enough to get the two tickets my partner applied for, I am now not so looking forward to going back to BM like I was last year.

It sounds like you're implying that this years (perceived soon to be) asellout has nothing to do with last years sellout.


You, and those opportunist scalpers, are counting their chickens before they are hatched. Also, your theory has people with money to spare going through a fair amount of effort in acts they are probably slightly ashamed of in order to make around $400 (or $50). Most of the people I've met with money to spare don't jump through strange immoral hoops in order to make relatively small amounts of money. But you and I are just guessing. Only time will tell.

Come up with something worth a good reply, and you'll get a good reply. From my perspective people have been whining about this process being "broken" before they even knew what the process was. Literally. So, until we actually see how the tickets end up getting distributed I'm tired of hearing people complain about how they weren't distributed well.

This lottery system is stupid and has already failed. It is only rewarding procrastinators that did not apply early through this ridiculous "redistribution" scheme. How is this either good or fair?

It's January. Who's procrastinating?

Also, what the hell are you talking about?

[Raymaker]

I really don't get this point, the only reason burning man didn't sell out this year was because BM held tickets back. Last year only half the tickets available at that time, sold out, this year every ticket available at this time, sold out. So on that basis alone the system last year was better/fairer. It is the changes made to ticket sales this year that has fuelled this panic.

The opinion about scalpers is based on Professional Scalpers, but I am certain that there are many amateur/opportunist 'scalpers' out there that are happy to pay up front for a 200%+ return in such a short time, for anyone with money to spare such a guaranteed return is greater than any interest you can make in a deposit bank over the same period, even making just $50 is a better return. June isn't that far away.

A hole was dug before Christmas when the 'cool hip burners' who frequent the forums, slated anyone who pointed out possible problems such a system would have, and the same frequent posters are doing it now, the hole may get deeper, then all the defense on this will just start to look like tired worn out failed propaganda. People should have the privilege to be angry, they should be afforded the privilege state it on this forum, they do not need the 'I an holier than you, condensing replies they are getting from some of the regulars in here.

Even if I am lucky enough to get the two tickets my partner applied for, I am now not so looking forward to going back to BM like I was last year.

It sounds like you're implying that this years (perceived soon to be) asellout has nothing to do with last years sellout.

You, and those opportunist scalpers, are counting their chickens before they are hatched. Also, your theory has people with money to spare going through a fair amount of effort in acts they are probably slightly ashamed of in order to make around $400 (or $50). Most of the people I've met with money to spare don't jump through strange immoral hoops in order to make relatively small amounts of money. But you and I are just guessing. Only time will tell.

Come up with something worth a good reply, and you'll get a good reply. From my perspective people have been whining about this process being "broken" before they even knew what the process was. Literally. So, until we actually see how the tickets end up getting distributed I'm tired of hearing people complain about how they weren't distributed well.

Well opinions are formed by life experiences, and it is likely mine is different to yours. Obviously I like to think my opinions are informed, but I accept my opinions can be wrong. I look at BM from a marketing point of view and I am well aware that quite a lot of people seem to think using the word 'marketing' and 'BM' in the same sentence is evil!

But the BM ticket is a 'product' and buying a product makes you a consumer. Selling tickets is marketing, and decisions on how a company markets its products can work or fail. Regarding BM and its 10 principles one could even stretch it to say that 'burners' are shareholders of the event, for they are ultimately responsible for whether the year was 'better than last years' or 'better than next years', the burners are responsible for the experience. So either as a consumer or shareholder you want the best product and you want the company to handle it in the best possible way, so on that basis there is a 'right' to complain, because complaining isn't just about putting a company down, it can help improve the service. The problem that some die-hard burners appear to have is that going to BM is a privilege and you have no rights to complain, but if you have that as an attitude what do you do when people start to say that 'energy', 'housing', 'medicine' and 'food' is a privilege, do you just lay down and die, (an exaggeration I agree and yes I know some people will say we don't have a right to these, so not a solid argument, but it's the only way I can think of to illustrate the point).

So, all decisions about selling are marketing, and it doesn't even matter if your giving tickets away for free, whatever you do influences the 'market'. A change in marketing decisions can improve the product or make it worse. I am just stating that in my opinion the marketing changes this year made the sale of the product worse. There is no point in me stating why I think that is so here, because other people have done so already, albeit not in the best possible way, but reading between the lines you can extract reasoning from the rant.

Re the scalpers part, I have no experience in this field, my partner and I want one ticket each, my partner alone applied for the two tickets we need. But I have experience on how people however 'good' they are, want to improve their lives, and if they believe making $50 extra in the long run will do that, they will. For example without these 'good' people we wouldn't have people calling us on the phone saying our computers have a bug that they can fix for a small charge, telling us that with a $500 investment in stock and shares you can make $5,000 in six months, there would be no scams, to think that BM is immune to such scamming is irresponsible.

So yes I do believe the change has made things worse, I think if the old system had been retained it would have been genuine burners who sat at their computers for a full day trying to get a ticket or even two or three days, and yes more than half would have been sold this time, even if it was every ticket, there is a likelihood is that every ticket would be sold to a burner more so than a scalper. Yes, scalpers would be involved too, but they would, has argued in defensive of the new lottery, be waiting until nearer the event date to buy the tickets, and in all likelihood very few tickets would remain for them to buy. However, the principle thing is whatever the outcome, we would all know NOW what our situation was, we would know we had a ticket or not, but now if you don't have a ticket from the main sale, we have to wait for two more processes until we are sure we can go or not, that is so wrong, and I really can't understand why people here cannot see that!

And EVEN if my opinions are completely wrong, the very fact that the process as made me very unhappy, does that not count for something?

[Deirdresneem2000]

Well, try being one of the thousands of Europeans that are fly 12000 miles return to go to BM.This system has made us all nothing but anxious..
We haveN't even thought about art costumes!!
This lottery malarky has really put a cat among the pigeons as we don't know which of us
Will get tickets or when we ll get tickets.due to soring world oil prices flights can be well over £1000(1350 dollars) if u don't book early...We can't afford to wait til mid summer to still be trying to get tickets.we need to know if we are going long before then. Even in terms of booking holiday time off work is difficult by then as most other people like to holiday in August also.
That's before we organise hotels hire transport n equipment for desert etc We obviously would prefer to be able to
Go online buy tickets and know the score. Our camp last year had over 30 people from Uk,Ireland ,France n Italy ... That
Alone took months of organisation
Bottom line is We want to know for sure if our friends can come ( not that we are adverse to making new ones!) but the more of us the more cost effective. There could be upto a £2000 difference in price for our burning man experience
This system has turned people off ... The whole thing is a shambles for us over here and we are quite upset about it.
Dee( London,Uk)

[zorro sings]

This system has turned people off ...
Dee( London,Uk)

True words and after reading a thousand posts on the subject sums up my feelings.There is little doubt in my mind this new ticket experiment will lead to an inferior BRC this year.Our camp dependent on OS campers may have to call it a day after 12 years.
Much easier and just as fair to run a Dutch Auction starting at $550 or something.Of course the sacred tier system would have to be sacrificed and that might be a bridge too far.

[H.G.Crosby]

Dear Larry and Friends....You have ruined my life....my chakras are suddenly all out of whack, and my dharma wont even talk to my karma...i have tried manifesting a skew in the system so that I and my Truly Burner Friends, you know, we're the ones that DESERVE to go because we are so burny, any way, i digress....You ruined my life....oh wait, did i say that already...yeah, i did...this whole experience has squished the cosmic bloom of consciousness that had sprouted in my soul and now all is lost...Not even a chai latte can cheer me up, you fucking fuckity fucks....i am going to stay at the rainbow gathering FOREVER, so there....you wont have my home-made dream catchers as gifts anymore...

[AntiM]

Dear Larry and Friends....You have ruined my life....my chakras are suddenly all out of whack, and my dharma wont even talk to my karma...i have tried manifesting a skew in the system so that I and my Truly Burner Friends, you know, we're the ones that DESERVE to go because we are so burny, any way, i digress....You ruined my life....oh wait, did i say that already...yeah, i did...this whole experience has squished the cosmic bloom of consciousness that had sprouted in my soul and now all is lost...Not even a chai latte can cheer me up, you fucking fuckity fucks....i am going to stay at the rainbow gathering FOREVER, so there....you wont have my home-made dream catchers as gifts anymore...

Say hi to Liz for me.

[H.G.Crosby]

she's busy making some whine.

[Simon of the Playa]

A hole was dug before Christmas when the 'cool hip burners' who frequent the forums, slated anyone who pointed out possible problems such a system would have, and the same frequent posters are doing it now, the hole may get deeper, then all the defense on this will just start to look like tired worn out failed propaganda. People should have the privilege to be angry, they should be afforded the privilege state it on this forum, they do not need the 'I an holier than you, condensing replies they are getting from some of the regulars in here.

[alt12]

[youtube][/youtube]


this one is OLD i want a FRESHIE!!!

Fucking briljant

Awesome. Never gets old. I actually ended-up watching this movie purely based on the burner re-edits. Its actually a very good movie....

[MisaBlue]

Well, try being one of the thousands of Europeans that are fly 12000 miles return to go to BM.This system has made us all nothing but anxious..
We haveN't even thought about art costumes!!
This lottery malarky has really put a cat among the pigeons as we don't know which of us
Will get tickets or when we ll get tickets.due to soring world oil prices flights can be well over £1000(1350 dollars) if u don't book early...We can't afford to wait til mid summer to still be trying to get tickets.we need to know if we are going long before then. Even in terms of booking holiday time off work is difficult by then as most other people like to holiday in August also.
That's before we organise hotels hire transport n equipment for desert etc We obviously would prefer to be able to
Go online buy tickets and know the score. Our camp last year had over 30 people from Uk,Ireland ,France n Italy ... That
Alone took months of organisation
Bottom line is We want to know for sure if our friends can come ( not that we are adverse to making new ones!) but the more of us the more cost effective. There could be upto a £2000 difference in price for our burning man experience
This system has turned people off ... The whole thing is a shambles for us over here and we are quite upset about it.
Dee( London,Uk)

Dear Whoeveryouare - as I don't now you, because you came here just to whine (at least it seems like that, because it was your first and only post)
I don't really see the point.
You will know, if you have the ticket no later than 1Feb...which is 6 months till August - i.e. no problem according the flight tickets, booking hotels, renting a car..........
If you don't get one...there will be quite a lot people with extras - as huge percent of them asked for more than they need - even if it takes 2 months to get one to your hand (yes, I know they might be hold in Will Call), it will be just April and still plenty of time to buy the flight ticket and do other booking...

So, please, before you start to whine again and making point...you should check the arguments first...

...because you can think about your costumes even without the ticket in your pocket...

**** *** *** ********

And just to let you know who is saying this:
Burner from Europe - 12379 miles Prague to BRC and back
flight ticket - 1300 USD regular price and I can add insurance for 40 USD so if I cancel they return me money
preparing 3 art projects for Playa with an international crew




*Misaaaaaaaa, stop reading this thread!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!!!*

[delle]

I was hoping you'd chime in, Misa.

THAT, folks, is the voice of pure unruffled sanity.

[BlackRockCityPimp]

It's clear that this has happened, but who would be so stupid as to post it? I know who!

Radical Self Reliance. I put in for two and my wife put in for two.
If we get extras, that's two that are not in the hands of brokers and will go back into the community.

Thats the way we look at it in THIS house full o burners. We decided that if we all win the lottery than we will likely gift some of the tix to art projects that come up short and resell the others via STEP for the 99%ers that cant afford to even consider buying tix before getting their tax return.

[ygmir]

I was hoping you'd chime in, Misa.

THAT, folks, is the voice of pure unruffled sanity.

[youtube][/youtube]

[matt_kicks]

Having people apply for their tickets seems exponentially more feasible than having names printed on tickets. Spend 30 minutes filling out an application about what the event means to you or what you'll bring to the event if you're a first timer. Have a team of volunteer mods to read and review the applications to weed out the people who made no effort and scrub scammers/scalpers. Issue tickets until they are sold out.

Oh yeah. Let's get the English majors in. Leaving out the car mechanics and machine shop operators. (In a very crude sketch. We all know that there are mechanics and machinists whose command of the language is very impressive.) Oh, what about the Japanese, Norwegians, and South Africans? There are a lot of people with a lot to contribute, who can't put it in a written application. And do we really need any more bad prose than Larry's. His keeps me quite satisfied. And then there are the people who will hire someone to write his/her answers. Those are "real burners"...

And it will be expensive. You don't get people reading all those tens of thousands of essays for free. And you have to keep rotating...it'll burn out anyone with a soul...

Oh well.

This is Burning Man, the application doesn't have to be the SATs. The central idea would be to put a modicum of thought into the application. Draw something, write something, express something that implies you have a passion to attend that goes beyond smearing shit on the soundcamp toilet walls. If 30 minutes of abstract expressive effort is too much work, I have no idea why you'd even attend this event. It's the only way that you could realistically make the ticketing process 'merit' based without penalizing noobs.

And I think it would be exponentially easier to get volunteer mods to process applications than it would be to get extra gate crew to check IDs for name-printed tickets. I would volunteer some time that I'd be spending in front of the computer anyways to process applications if it meant the ticketing process would be more skewed towards those willing to make an effort.

[BlackRockCityPimp]

Having people apply for their tickets seems exponentially more feasible than having names printed on tickets. Spend 30 minutes filling out an application about what the event means to you or what you'll bring to the event if you're a first timer. Have a team of volunteer mods to read and review the applications to weed out the people who made no effort and scrub scammers/scalpers. Issue tickets until they are sold out.

Oh yeah. Let's get the English majors in. Leaving out the car mechanics and machine shop operators. (In a very crude sketch. We all know that there are mechanics and machinists whose command of the language is very impressive.) Oh, what about the Japanese, Norwegians, and South Africans? There are a lot of people with a lot to contribute, who can't put it in a written application. And do we really need any more bad prose than Larry's. His keeps me quite satisfied. And then there are the people who will hire someone to write his/her answers. Those are "real burners"...

And it will be expensive. You don't get people reading all those tens of thousands of essays for free. And you have to keep rotating...it'll burn out anyone with a soul...

Oh well.

This is Burning Man, the application doesn't have to be the SATs. The central idea would be to put a modicum of thought into the application. Draw something, write something, express something that implies you have a passion to attend that goes beyond smearing shit on the soundcamp toilet walls. If 30 minutes of abstract expressive effort is too much work, I have no idea why you'd even attend this event. It's the only way that you could realistically make the ticketing process 'merit' based without penalizing noobs.

And I think it would be exponentially easier to get volunteer mods to process applications than it would be to get extra gate crew to check IDs for name-printed tickets. I would volunteer some time that I'd be spending in front of the computer anyways to process applications if it meant the ticketing process would be more skewed towards those willing to make an effort.

I happen to like the poop graffiti on the porta potties near the rave camps.

[Raymaker]

Shut Up Hippy

I don't think I would ever qualify for the title of hippy. I am probably more like a very poor geek, middle aged, always been very immature for my age. Probably sexually repressed too, suffering from mild clinical depression. So you can use the truth about me next time you want to put me down.

Doesn't your reply confirm that paragraph?

[Simon of the Playa]

so sorry.

[Raymaker]

So you wish to censor my voice from Eplaya? So be it.

[A Jester]

so sorry.

I think I want to bear your children.

[A Jester]

Lots of words

Other words

Well opinions are formed by life experiences, and it is likely mine is different to yours. Obviously I like to think my opinions are informed, but I accept my opinions can be wrong. I look at BM from a marketing point of view and I am well aware that quite a lot of people seem to think using the word 'marketing' and 'BM' in the same sentence is evil!

But the BM ticket is a 'product' and buying a product makes you a consumer. Selling tickets is marketing, and decisions on how a company markets its products can work or fail. Regarding BM and its 10 principles one could even stretch it to say that 'burners' are shareholders of the event, for they are ultimately responsible for whether the year was 'better than last years' or 'better than next years', the burners are responsible for the experience. So either as a consumer or shareholder you want the best product and you want the company to handle it in the best possible way, so on that basis there is a 'right' to complain, because complaining isn't just about putting a company down, it can help improve the service. The problem that some die-hard burners appear to have is that going to BM is a privilege and you have no rights to complain, but if you have that as an attitude what do you do when people start to say that 'energy', 'housing', 'medicine' and 'food' is a privilege, do you just lay down and die, (an exaggeration I agree and yes I know some people will say we don't have a right to these, so not a solid argument, but it's the only way I can think of to illustrate the point).

So, all decisions about selling are marketing, and it doesn't even matter if your giving tickets away for free, whatever you do influences the 'market'. A change in marketing decisions can improve the product or make it worse. I am just stating that in my opinion the marketing changes this year made the sale of the product worse. There is no point in me stating why I think that is so here, because other people have done so already, albeit not in the best possible way, but reading between the lines you can extract reasoning from the rant.

Re the scalpers part, I have no experience in this field, my partner and I want one ticket each, my partner alone applied for the two tickets we need. But I have experience on how people however 'good' they are, want to improve their lives, and if they believe making $50 extra in the long run will do that, they will. For example without these 'good' people we wouldn't have people calling us on the phone saying our computers have a bug that they can fix for a small charge, telling us that with a $500 investment in stock and shares you can make $5,000 in six months, there would be no scams, to think that BM is immune to such scamming is irresponsible.

So yes I do believe the change has made things worse, I think if the old system had been retained it would have been genuine burners who sat at their computers for a full day trying to get a ticket or even two or three days, and yes more than half would have been sold this time, even if it was every ticket, there is a likelihood is that every ticket would be sold to a burner more so than a scalper. Yes, scalpers would be involved too, but they would, has argued in defensive of the new lottery, be waiting until nearer the event date to buy the tickets, and in all likelihood very few tickets would remain for them to buy. However, the principle thing is whatever the outcome, we would all know NOW what our situation was, we would know we had a ticket or not, but now if you don't have a ticket from the main sale, we have to wait for two more processes until we are sure we can go or not, that is so wrong, and I really can't understand why people here cannot see that!

And EVEN if my opinions are completely wrong, the very fact that the process as made me very unhappy, does that not count for something?

So, to be clear, I find your reasoning sound (though I obviously disagree with some of your premises). Notably, I think we disagree about what an open sale, first come first serve, in January would have been like. I don't think it's unreasonable to guess that everyone who registered for the lottery would have hit that sale in the first week (remember, the lottery removed a lot of pressure). So, tickets to Burning Man could well be sold out by now. I think that would be worse than our current system.

However, there's a bit of signal to noise in these threads. I can't even come close to claiming I'm not a part of the problem. IN the spirit of doacracy, I'd like to invite you to this thread: http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... 90&t=53599

If you go there, I promise to play as nice as I can and see if there's some really good ideas we can work out.

[theCryptofishist]

I'm sorry to hear about the flight issue, Deirdresneem2000. I think that going ot the burn always has a gambling element. I think the thing to do is to think of some other things you might want to do the the California/Nevada/Arizona area. There's impressive scenery, ghost towns, swap meets, wonderful food, micro-brews and 42 other wonderful things that you can discover if you don't get Burningman tickets. Sometimes, the best things happen when you improvise. So, book flights, do your best to get tickets, and have a plan b.
Of course, you're the only one who can decide how to weight the options, and maybe you might want to wait until next year, when we will understand this new system and how to use it, the chaos level should be lower.

[Sham]

I'm sorry to hear about the flight issue, Deirdresneem2000. I think that going ot the burn always has a gambling element. I think the thing to do is to think of some other things you might want to do the the California/Nevada/Arizona area. There's impressive scenery, ghost towns, swap meets, wonderful food, micro-brews and 42 other wonderful things that you can discover if you don't get Burningman tickets. Sometimes, the best things happen when you improvise. So, book flights, do your best to get tickets, and have a plan b.
Of course, you're the only one who can decide how to weight the options, and maybe you might want to wait until next year, when we will understand this new system and how to use it, the chaos level should be lower.

Gosh, I love that woman!

[Roberto Dobbisano]

nothing has failed...the project is a complete success.

http://theshroom.wordpress.com/2010/12/ ... documents/

"But the biggest bombshell was an internal memo from Larry to key BORG personnel that not only outlines his master plan to increase commercialness, but it reveals that Burning Man will officially become “Too Commercial” in 2012."

[remi]

Perhaps BMOrg's only mistake was putting faith in the Burner population. I guess in the end, most people are savage animals that only care about themselvs. Now, the only way to turn this into a positive is to stand up against scalpers and hope that whoever ended up with an extra ticket (there will be lots of you,) are decent enough to sell them at face value (which is against most humas natural instinct of caring only about themselvs.) I actually thought people in this community were better then this.

The best case senario, the market gets oversaturated with tickets in June and the most you could get for these tickets is 300$. That will teach people next year to not hoard unless your prepared to lose hundreds of dollars.

Still to early to call it a fail in my opinion... shit, me and crew all got our tickets in the presale, so as far as I'm concerned, this system worked great for us. Now I don't have to worry about selling extra tickets if I'm awarded extra, or worried about paying friends or family that entered the lotto for me. Now, plenty of time to work on art and costumes, so you'll have to excuse me... I have fun shit to do.

[ygmir]

Perhaps BMOrg's only mistake was putting faith in the Burner population. I guess in the end, most people are savage animals that only care about themselvs. Now, the only way to turn this into a positive is to stand up against scalpers and hope that whoever ended up with an extra ticket (there will be lots of you,) are decent enough to sell them at face value (which is against most humas natural instinct of caring only about themselvs.) I actually thought people in this community were better then this.

The best case senario, the market gets oversaturated with tickets in June and the most you could get for these tickets is 300$. That will teach people next year to not hoard unless your prepared to lose hundreds of dollars.

Still to early to call it a fail in my opinion... shit, me and crew all got our tickets in the presale, so as far as I'm concerned, this system worked great for us. Now I don't have to worry about selling extra tickets if I'm awarded extra, or worried about paying friends or family that entered the lotto for me. Now, plenty of time to work on art and costumes, so you'll have to excuse me... I have fun shit to do.

good post, thanks.

[Simon of the Playa]

aw, Man, why ya gotta ruin it for me?


it's so much more emotionally satisfying to panic and blame others.

[ygmir]

*passes Simon some Spam and wasabi*

IPBA

[wh..sh]

Will get tickets or when we ll get tickets.due to soring world oil prices flights can be well over £1000(1350 dollars) if u don't book early...We can't afford to wait til mid summer to still be trying to get tickets.we need to know if we are going long before then.

Booking tickets waaay in advance (6 months or so) will actually work to your disadvantage. Based on my international travel experience, airlines don't release cheaper tickets until 4/5 months before the travel date which in this case would be April end or May. You will know for sure if you have a your BM tickets by then.
And if you really want to save some $$, try to take a flight out during middle of the week instead of weekends. You end up saving considerable money by just doing that.

Sign up for price drop alerts and keep an eye out on here and also for tips - http://www.farecompare.com/mytrips/signup.html

[The CO]

The best case senario, the market gets oversaturated with tickets in June and the most you could get for these tickets is 300$. That will teach people next year to not hoard unless your prepared to lose hundreds of dollars.

And.... how's that a bad thing?

[theCryptofishist]

Perhaps BMOrg's only mistake was putting faith in the Burner population. I guess in the end, most people are savage animals that only care about themselvs.

There is actually a lively debate about this. Behaviorlists are studying altruism and seeing it in animal and human populations. I consider it likely that we have been forcefed the notion that "there is no such thing as society, just individuals and families" over the past few decades and we simply have that explination close at hand when we see that sort of behavior. The altruism may further be covered up by it being so "natural" that we don't think we need to explain it most of the time.
Although, the whole ticketing thing challenges this in some ways, I think that human behavior is very complicated, and that fear is a powerful impetus to behave differently than we otherwise would.