Lotto... tempting regular folks into scalping?

[theCryptofishist]

The Lotto is a fine idea, but why can't Burning Man be the sole reseller of the ticket?

Because "scalping" is legal in both California and Nevada. There is no way for the llc to prevent a ticket's journey through other hands once it's been mailed.


(redacted)

[lemur]

(redacted)

oh!! the things i can imagine being redacted..

let me just come up with one..

If only LarryH didn't have busloads of escorts shipped in from Vegas to deal with his insatiable thirst for easy women we wouldnt even have to worry about the BLM population cap or scalpers.

[theCryptofishist]

(damn, he got it in one...)

[jorgebongo]

Well isn't that the big ol monkey wrench in my great idea...

[A Jester]

All along the way there are people who have said, "don't worry, it will all be fine." A "few" people might apply for more tickets than they need. A "few" people might have enough extra $$$ to purchase extra tickets. A "few" burners might get their shit together and register for the lottery.

Every step along the way they've been wrong, but they continue with the BMORG party line. How very Rumsfeldian.

Care to post some evidence of these multiple people saying those four things? Or was this just a Fox News style "some people say" sort of thing?

(sorry couldn't resist turning that table on you)

here's what I dug up in about 15 minutes, I'm sure you can find more:

The main sale is structured so that even if there's a stronger than usual increase in ticket demand, there should still be enough tickets to go around (trilobyte)

You are right, this statement was not a good predictor.
1 point.

That's great that you and your friend are not only down with hoarding, but that you're in a spot where you can both tie up all that extra money until sometime in June (well the hoarding bit's not great). I don't see the rest of the Burning Man community being in that kind of situation, both from the paranoia standpoint and the financial standpoint. (trilobyte)

woohoo that you guys can all spare twice as much cash for tickets (they won't be fulfilled until June, don't expect the ability to transfer will call tix before fulfillment happens), but I don't think the majority of participants feel the same way you do (or are in the same financial situation). (trilobyte)

These might be wrong, is there a way to know how much of the community has hoarded and how much of the community has only purchased their regular amount?
.5 point each.

the "lotto" is nothing more than just a panic attack because in the end we will all get a ticket (mamachicken32)

so, MamaChicken is saying we'll all get tickets. I think we have another six months before we can be sure if Mama is wrong.
0 points.

I am just realistic enough to know that with 40,000 tickets on sale in the main drawing the likelihood of getting one is pretty damn high. (Eric)

Again, we have yet to see what the likelihood of anyone getting a ticket is. I'm not sure what you (or Eric) calls "High", would 75% be "high"?
0 points.

I'm betting that there'll be a glut of T3 tickets from the main sale adding to that as well. This may be even more than were available for sale at that time last year. (bbadger)

Hey, you got one!
1 point

There will be plenty of tickets to go around. (TT120)

Again, vague and hard to disprove until people actually can't get into the event.
0 points.

if by some small chance you don't get in on a couple of those 40,000 tickets available, you'll have to try in March, when there's a remote chance that those will sell out before you buy yours (Davoid)

I guess Davoid was wrong overall, we'll have to see if his March predictions were totally off, too.
.5 point.

So, you're at 3.5/8 I'd say you have a worse rate of assessing things in the past than these people do of making assumptions about things in the future.

If you really think that the BMORG is some evil cabal of liars, why go to the event? Shouldn't you stop supporting them? Maybe start your own "We're not dicks and we're honest" event?

[lemur]

LarryH is too busy with his Vegas escorts to be handing out free blowjobs on the esplanade...

this is the real problem i have with the super elite echelon of the LLC

[CornMan]

I think the lottery tempted the more affluent folks with enough money to tie up funds for multiple orders to keep the lowest tier tickets awarded to them and sell the more expensive tickets to those with more limited means who could only afford to make a single order. It's ironic.

[veleda]

Personally I think there should be application process with the emphasis on WHAT you are bringing to the burn based on a combination of experience and contribution + a certain number of slots for virgins who also apply, then leftovers available in the general market. It gets rid of the weekend frat kids and/or other spectators that don't actually contribute. Since the percentage of contributors to spectators is not so great right now, I think this might be able to meet the demand of creators (art, music, events) to attend.

[Mofessor]

[quote="
If you really think that the BMORG is some evil cabal of liars, why go to the event? Shouldn't you stop supporting them? Maybe start your own "We're not dicks and we're honest" event?

Yawn.... zero points. I'm sure you can do better. Try again.

[A Jester]

[quote="
If you really think that the BMORG is some evil cabal of liars, why go to the event? Shouldn't you stop supporting them? Maybe start your own "We're not dicks and we're honest" event?

Yawn.... zero points. I'm sure you can do better. Try again.

Yeah, that wasn't my best. I was at work and kinda distracted. I'm home now, after dinner I'll try to do better.

Just for kicks, should I continue on with the comparisons to the Bush administration or do you think it would be more fun to take a stab at some another famous leader? Stalin or something? Maybe an Orwellian reference?

[lemur]

the ticket lottery is being run out of room 101.

[theCryptofishist]

Personally I think there should be application process with the emphasis on WHAT you are bringing to the burn based on a combination of experience and contribution + a certain number of slots for virgins who also apply, then leftovers available in the general market. It gets rid of the weekend frat kids and/or other spectators that don't actually contribute. Since the percentage of contributors to spectators is not so great right now, I think this might be able to meet the demand of creators (art, music, events) to attend.

And then we have people complaining that they can't plan what they will do until they get the ticket.

Maybe this monster will chase its own chair until it turns into a whirlpool of butter.







I wouldn't count on it though.






And really, who is qualified to judge someone else's "contribution"?





And finally, I kinda don't like the "burningman is the special olympics of art" explanation, but it does get to something I value about the burn. Everyone gets to be creative, and some of us haven't had the chance since finger-painting in kindergarten. Those people are not inherently more unworthy as those of us who have spent time on various art pursuits over the years.

[theCryptofishist]

If you really think that the BMORG is some evil cabal of liars, why go to the event? Shouldn't you stop supporting them? Maybe start your own "We're not dicks and we're honest" event?

Yawn.... zero points. I'm sure you can do better. Try again.

Yeah, that wasn't my best. I was at work and kinda distracted. I'm home now, after dinner I'll try to do better.

Just for kicks, should I continue on with the comparisons to the Bush administration or do you think it would be more fun to take a stab at some another famous leader? Stalin or something? Maybe an Orwellian reference?

Yes, please Stalin. Josef Vissarionovich is just so fascinating.


And he makes Larry look like a piker...

[Arcticcircle]

All that was true the minute tickets sold out last July. Scarcity is the problem. If it was done via first come, first serve the boards would be filled with people screaming bloody murder about the event having completely sold out already.

No, perceived scarcity is the problem. There isn't that much actual scarcity. There is a minor surplus of demand over the allowable allotted tickets (easily less than 10%). There is no way to know of course but I don't see why all 50,000 tickets would sell out on the first day. There is no evidence that what took 5 months to happen would happen in 5 hours this year. Most people (those that didn't procrastinate) were not impacted whatsoever by the selling-out and weren't significantly concerned about selling out this year because we knew we could do what we always we do which is buy on day 1 and beat the thousands of virgins who don't make their decision until later in the year.

It is only with this lottery "system" that the concept of scarcity has been deeply embedded in everyone's psyche leading to a general (and false) conclusion that there is a serious shortage of tickets. THis has resulted in massive over purchasing, hoarding, etc. (and why not, with so much uncertain injected into the ticket buying process, any rationale actor would try to increase their chances of getting a ticket by co-ordinating with others to purchase extra) such that the tickets now did sell out in 5 hours. The lottery system created the very problem it was trying to avoid.

Apparently no economics or psychologists working at bmorg as this qualifies as behavioral economics 101....

Alt12 = smart burner. Well-said. And to the person who posted the snarky comment about the BMORG needing to hire a bunch of uber-specialists, note that we are talking about the kind of knowledge you'd learn in a *101* class. It's almost intuitive. Behavioral forces, easy to predict and being proven right before our eyes. Best of luck to everyone. I put in for one top tier ticket and I'm anxiously waiting....

[lemur]

YEAH BURNING MAN CAN BE FIXED BY HIRING A BUNCHA 17 YEAR OLD COLLEGE KIDS WHO TOOK ALL THE 101 CLASSES!!!

17 YEAR OLDS KNOW EVERYTHING ANYWAYS. WHY NOT HIRE THE EXPERTS?

[theCryptofishist]

*blows lemur kisses*

[amarantha]

All this talk of ticket reselling and verification, etc. makes me want to give a shout-out to the amazing burner from New Orleans who sold me two face-value tickets on Craigslist in 2010 (I think), and when I expressed concern about getting scammed, he actually MAILED ME THE TICKETS FIRST and let me send the money once I had them in hand. How awesome is that?

Hopefully people with extra tickets will be cool like that this year!

(EDIT: To clarify, I didn't mean that people should literally do what he did, but just that they should show the burner spirit when redistributing their extra tickets.)

[A Jester]

All this talk of ticket reselling and verification, etc. makes me want to give a shout-out to the amazing burner from New Orleans who sold me two face-value tickets on Craigslist in 2010 (I think), and when I expressed concern about getting scammed, he actually MAILED ME THE TICKETS FIRST and let me send the money once I had them in hand. How awesome is that?

Hopefully people with extra tickets will be cool like that this year!

(EDIT: To clarify, I didn't mean that people should literally do what he did, but just that they should show the burner spirit when redistributing their extra tickets.)

That's a pretty awesome story.

[ChallyHo2452]

[link removed]


I was surprised to read this since the person must have just received their confirmation. ugh hurts my brain

[Wompasaurus]

well i don't think many are using step as if you go on ebay there's tickets for sale ranging from 700 all the way to 1600 lots of tickets there as well i was kind of surprised i guess that really shows the over ordering people did this year. hopefully i can get a ticket in the march 28 sale or find one in step

[trilobyte]

Nobody's using STEP yet, the program won't launch until later in the month

As for eBay selling, it's unfortunate but not unexpected. Please don't feed those bears, and remember that they do not have actual tickets to sell (tickets will not be fulfilled until June 2012). If that violates a site's terms and conditions for selling, you may want to consider flagging the listing

[BBadger]

All this talk of ticket reselling and verification, etc. makes me want to give a shout-out to the amazing burner from New Orleans who sold me two face-value tickets on Craigslist in 2010 (I think), and when I expressed concern about getting scammed, he actually MAILED ME THE TICKETS FIRST and let me send the money once I had them in hand. How awesome is that?

Awesome! Hopefully you find another gullible rube this year too!

(joking of course)