Why I'm a lottery defender.

[A Jester]

"SO the next time you complain about how bad the lottery is and how stupid the Org is, just remember that it's only this bad because a bunch of smart Burners who have been doing this for years honestly thought it would be MUCH WORSE if they did nothing."

Instead, NOBODY IN OUR CAMP GOT TICKETS and a few have decided not to go.

"Much worse" for whom?

I'm bummed to hear your whole camp didn't get tickets yet. That sucks, and I hope you don't give up.

Here's what we know:
40k tickets got sold, divide that by the average purchase size of 1.7 = just under 24K sales.

Last year there were more than 50k people there. So, if HALF of the people from last year all bought tickets, there is zero room for scalpers.

Much worse would be if nobody in your camp, or any camp on your block, got tickets. Much worse would be instead of 24k Burners (or maybe 23k burners and a few hundred scalpers) that 2k Burners and 22k scalpers got tickets. Much worse would be instead of 80 tickets on stub hub, there were 8,000.

That's much worse, and people would be even angrier than they are now.

People would be saying things like "names on the tickets, duh!" and the org response would be "we don't have the logistical capacity" and then people would say "then do a lottery, duh!" and the org would say....
I dunno.

I don't have the headspace for it, but I bet you could troll through the millions of "ticket needed" threads from last year and find more than just a few angry posters demanding that the Org "Do something" about the sellout. We all seemed to think it was a good idea to "do something" last year.

[copilot602]

"I told them to just print pictures on the back of the tickets, why didn't they email me back so I could explain how to do that to them?!?"
after they released a FAQ which addressed why they didn't go with names on tickets,

Could someone please direct me to the faq explaining why they chose the lottery and decided to not make tickets non-transferable, if such a thing really exists?

Thanks,

Boots

[Elderberry]

SO the next time you complain about how bad the lottery is and how stupid the Org is, just remember that it's only this bad because a bunch of smart Burners who have been doing this for years honestly thought it would be MUCH WORSE if they did nothing.

Obviously, you are not familiar with the history of Burning Man.

[The CO]

Could someone please direct me to the faq explaining why they chose the lottery and decided to not make tickets non-transferable, if such a thing really exists?

http://tickets2.burningman.com/faq.php

There ya go!

[ZaphodBurner]

People are suggesting that the burn will be crap this year just because of the lottery - are we, the burn and everything it stands for really that weak and fragile??! Shame on us if it is.

You sound like somebody who has a ticket.

My camps spends hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars preparing to entertain and hydrate people's asses, and as of this moment two of our partner camps are collapsing and we're the only one still planning to tough it out, but I don't know if our root beer's gonna make it, I don't know if our bike service guy is going to go, whether our mutant vehicle crew is still going to invest thousands of dollars, let alone even go. These are people who will normally pay full price for a ticket in January even though they have their shit together.

The "weak and fragile" and "you just have to try harder" and "if you REALLY want to go, you will" shit is like the Republicans and Democrats telling us to suck it up and endure their clusterfuck. Remember, If you APPLY yourself, you can succeed at ANYTHING is just another way of telling you that if you fail, it's your fault.

We word hard not to simply get to Burning Man, but to PARTICIPATE ONCE WE GET THERE and I keep hearing camp mates say things like "You know, this might be the year to check out New Zealand" or "We're going to skip this one and wait until they sort their shit out."

There goes your root beer, sno-cones, massage tables, viewing structure, baconfest, sound camp, artist, art barge, large installation, bartender, orgy trampoline... whatever is happening to EVERY PUBLIC CAMP right now. That's the problem.

[lemur]

People are suggesting that the burn will be crap this year just because of the lottery - are we, the burn and everything it stands for really that weak and fragile??! Shame on us if it is.

You sound like somebody who has a ticket.

people who have tickets to burning man are SCUM.

[piehole]

people who have tickets to burning man are SCUM.

*scoffs*

[lemur]

i guess i should added this:






(joke!)

[ZaphodBurner]

people who have tickets to burning man are SCUM.

LOL! No, that's certainly not what I mean. It just seems like there are a lot of people telling my entire camp 'Well, I won the lottery and got mine so if none of you got yours, gee, you're not as radically self reliant as I am. You have to EARN the burn. Don't worry, you can still get them from scalpers.'

What happens now is a few people have spare tickets, a lot of people want them, we're all friends, and if my friends sell me their extra it means they have to tell another friend that they chose me over that individual. It's not actually my problem at this point because--this is truth--there's a virgin who will sell me her extra ticket if I let her give me a blowjob on the playa. So, I guess that means if you don't have a ticket yet, you're not trying "hard" enough.

But I'm certainly not going to beat people up for winning the lottery, except maybe the ones who ordered extra tickets "for their friends just in case they didn't win the lottery." ...unless they're my friends, offering to sell me their spare tickets. It's just that NONE OF MY FRIENDS got tickets which would be statistically improbable even if other group weren't reporting the same thing within their own camp or community. Meanwhile, bless 'em, nearly ALL of our unaffiliated virgins GOT TICKETS, and we're not the only community reporting this.

What everybody is saying is, we all--not just my camp, but, the greater community of camps in the Portland area--smell a rat. Next year, I'm not going to tell them about five years of being an LNT camp, or all the volunteer shit we've done. We're going to tell them we're all total virgins without theme camp affiliation because, statistically, somehow that profoundly increases the odds of getting a ticket.

[copilot602]

Thanks for the ticket faq.... I should have looked harder. I was expecting some long "Jackrabbit speaks" letter...

Q: But this system doesn't really prevent scalpers! They'll just register multiple names and decrease my chances of winning!
A: Actually, it does help prevent scalpers from purchasing tickets. Our ticket vendor has advanced filtering techniques to flag duplicates and prevent multiple entries from entering the system. However, the random-selection system is more about distributing opportunity for tickets than preventing speculation. If we sold tickets with a traditional first-come first-served online process, it would be susceptible to the ever-evolving automated scalper systems that currently purchase a lot of tickets to high profile events.

Stubhub http://www.stubhub.com/search/doSearch? ... &geo_exp=1 has 89 tickets listed at a starting price of $615 1 day after the lottery...

But you wouldnt have scalpers if you used non-transferable tickets that could only be sold back to BM through STEP...

Q: Why not just register each ticket with a name and require ID at the Gate to use the ticket?
A: It has been our experience that a great many tickets are purchased for giving away, ensuring a project has coverage, or selling later to a friend in need. The administrative cost of changing the name on every ticket that ever changes hands exceeds our capacity. And frankly, many of your fellow BRC citizens are uncomfortable with the notion of showing ID just to enter the event (nor suffering through even longer wait times at the Gate). While we know some events use non-transferable tickets, we're not convinced it works for our community. We're counting on everyone playing fairly so we don't have to go to an "ID-specific" process for ticket sales and event entry.

Guess what, everybody didn't play fair... and now MANY camps dont have enough tickets to even operate, let alone give away.
If you really wanted to be able to gift, your lucky beneficiary could just be with you at the gate....You have 4 tickets that say Joe Q. Burner, you show your id that says Joe Q. Burner and the 3 people with you get in...problem solved. You can't have everything, and I would rather have the people who want to go have a fighting chance rather than a lottery that is arbitrary.

The new 99% - Burners Without Tickets!

[lemur]

You took one sentence out of context, put words in my mouth and ignored the concerns of my entire camp.

the context is right above the post in question


i didnt claim you said that.. i said that.


i am not concerned about your camp.


edit: your camp may be nice!

[lemur]

dude!


when you edit a post you arent supposed to like... totally add whole entire paragraphs and change the meaning altogether!!

[piehole]

i guess i should added this:






(joke!)

*crosses arms, shakes head, walks away w nose up*

[1durphul]

I did NOT get a ticket in the lottery. However I believe the lottery is far-and-away better than what would have happened had we stayed with the old system. Last year there were probably 30k people in line for tickets when they went on sale in the first-come-first-serve system. And this year it probably would have been 75k people. It would have been an unmitigated disaster for the servers.

This system worked without technical problems. The mechanics worked. What didn't work was how the tickets were allocated. That can be fixed by requiring ID #'s for an ID you will bring with you for the event, AND requiring resale to take place through the website so that the ID # can be changed (and also force the seller to not sell above face value.)

Once you add that piece to the lottery it becomes a scalper free system, and everybody gets their one ticket to a person. If you want two tickets you just gotta have your friends ID# handy.

[RevDusty]

I didn't get a ticket. Only one person in my camp of 20+ did. I understand and accept that camps and "big art" may be blown out of the water this year, and that might indeed be a good thing; a needed shake-up if you will. I also don't think that camps have any inherent right to tickets.

My main issue is that of timing. Waiting for STEP, waiting for the secondary sale...that all makes it hard to plan. I'd rather know early and I know there are a lot of amazing art projects that will find it harder to get started with so many people unsure of their attendee status.

I'm sure I will get a ticket; it will be interesting to see how the playa experience plays out with these rather substantial changes.

[A Jester]

It's not actually my problem at this point because--this is truth--there's a virgin who will sell me her extra ticket if I let her give me a blowjob on the playa.

And suddenly I stopped reading.

[ZaphodBurner]

It's not actually my problem at this point because--this is truth--there's a virgin who will sell me her extra ticket if I let her give me a blowjob on the playa.

And suddenly I stopped reading.

Whatever. Sounds like the BMorg stopped reading in about October. I'll admit, you're morally and intellectually superior to me. I hope my use of "blowjob" and my peculiar circle of friends doesn't offend your delicate e-playan sensibilities, but...

Flippant e-playa snark is so, like, 2007, isn't it? We've all moved on to "Really? Reeeaaally?" "Get mommy a drink" is totally 1.0.

[A Jester]

It's not actually my problem at this point because--this is truth--there's a virgin who will sell me her extra ticket if I let her give me a blowjob on the playa.

And suddenly I stopped reading.

Whatever. Sounds like the BMorg stopped reading in about October. I'll admit, you're morally and intellectually superior to me. I hope my use of "blowjob" and my peculiar circle of friends doesn't offend your delicate e-playan sensibilities, but...

Flippant e-playa snark is so, like, 2007, isn't it? We've all moved on to "Really? Reeeaaally?" "Get mommy a drink" is totally 1.0.

Well played (the bold part).

You're right, flippant snark is over. Or at least it should be.

I was trying to word something along the lines of "OMG STFU with your first world problems to the nth degree" but I couldn't quite get it right.

You're probably right, btw. I bet the ticketing team did stop looking for new ideas and brainstorming around October. I mean, at some point they have to settle on one idea and work it out. Otherwise, nothing gets done.

Thanks for giving me a hollow sense of superiority. It's no playa blowjob, but it's better than nothing.

So I read the rest of your post. Let me start by saying I'm a skeptic. I don't believe in God or conspiracy theories. I do believe in the possibility of extra terrestrial life, but I don't believe they visit Kansas for their anal probing needs.

The ticketing department said that the survey was for a completely different project, and that the two databases never saw each other. It would take more evidence than "A lot of people in Portland think that more virgins than vets got tickets this year" to convince me of the existence of whatever rat you smell. Heck, it would probably take more than a few standard deviations to convince me of evil in the Org, the same that it would to convince me of any other relatively complicated explanation of events past.

[ZaphodBurner]

Well played (the bold part).

You're right, flippant snark is over. Or at least it should be.

I was trying to word something along the lines of "OMG STFU with your first world problems to the nth degree" but I couldn't quite get it right.

LOL! Okay, duly noted. The blowjob thing is real, though. My point was, I'm covered. It's not about me, or what the ticket will cost me.

The ticketing department said that the survey was for a completely different project, and that the two databases never saw each other. It would take more evidence than "A lot of people in Portland think that more virgins than vets got tickets this year" to convince me of the existence of whatever rat you smell. Heck, it would probably take more than a few standard deviations to convince me of evil in the Org, the same that it would to convince me of any other relatively complicated explanation of events past.

Perhaps. I'm not accusing the Org of anything but creating a giant, epic clusterfuck under the dubious premise of preventing scalping, but we're hearing it from people everywhere. The reason you hear about it from theme camps is because they share information, so they know how many among a group got tickets. People weren't anywhere near this unhappy last year, were they?

[alt12]

People are suggesting that the burn will be crap this year just because of the lottery - are we, the burn and everything it stands for really that weak and fragile??! Shame on us if it is.

You sound like somebody who has a ticket.

My camps spends hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars preparing to entertain and hydrate people's asses, and as of this moment two of our partner camps are collapsing and we're the only one still planning to tough it out, but I don't know if our root beer's gonna make it, I don't know if our bike service guy is going to go, whether our mutant vehicle crew is still going to invest thousands of dollars, let alone even go. These are people who will normally pay full price for a ticket in January even though they have their shit together.

The "weak and fragile" and "you just have to try harder" and "if you REALLY want to go, you will" shit is like the Republicans and Democrats telling us to suck it up and endure their clusterfuck. Remember, If you APPLY yourself, you can succeed at ANYTHING is just another way of telling you that if you fail, it's your fault.

We word hard not to simply get to Burning Man, but to PARTICIPATE ONCE WE GET THERE and I keep hearing camp mates say things like "You know, this might be the year to check out New Zealand" or "We're going to skip this one and wait until they sort their shit out."

There goes your root beer, sno-cones, massage tables, viewing structure, baconfest, sound camp, artist, art barge, large installation, bartender, orgy trampoline... whatever is happening to EVERY PUBLIC CAMP right now. That's the problem.

No offense, but at this point in my life, I could care less about the gifted sno-cones and orgy trampolines.... Its a campout with all my friends for a week. We build stuff. We provide stuff. That is the fun for me. I will be bummed if a bunch of my friends can't get tickets (I don't have one myself) and perhaps we won't be able to pull off some of the stuff we had pulled off in the past.... You seem to be saying "look what you're losing! I won't be there to give my root beer away and your thirst will be unquenched all weeklong" when the reality for me is more "look what I'm losing, I won't get to enjoy the incredible experience of working on a big project with a bunch of friends as a community and giving it away to others' delight." Losing that will be the bummer for me (assuming we're not able to go but that is still TBD).

Actually, I suspect that the reality for you is exactly the same as well. The secret sauce of burning man really is in the giving not there receiving (the receiving is fun for a while but after you've seen ten orgy trampolines the excitement fades).

But every time your say (and I've read about 12 of your posts on here all saying the exact same thing) that burning man will be deprived of your root beer if they don't change the ticketing situation, well its kind of off-putting....

[theCryptofishist]

No offense, but at this point in my life, I could care less about the gifted sno-cones and orgy trampolines.... Its a campout with all my friends for a week. We build stuff. We provide stuff. That is the fun for me. I will be bummed if a bunch of my friends can't get tickets (I don't have one myself) and perhaps we won't be able to pull off some of the stuff we had pulled off in the past.... You seem to be saying "look what you're losing! I won't be there to give my root beer away and your thirst will be unquenched all weeklong" when the reality for me is more "look what I'm losing, I won't get to enjoy the incredible experience of working on a big project with a bunch of friends as a community and giving it away to others' delight." Losing that will be the bummer for me (assuming we're not able to go but that is still TBD).

Actually, I suspect that the reality for you is exactly the same as well. The secret sauce of burning man really is in the giving not there receiving (the receiving is fun for a while but after you've seen ten orgy trampolines the excitement fades).

But every time your say (and I've read about 12 of your posts on here all saying the exact same thing) that burning man will be deprived of your root beer if they don't change the ticketing situation, well its kind of seriously off-putting....

[5280MeV]

No offense, but at this point in my life, I could care less about the gifted sno-cones and orgy trampolines.... Its a campout with all my friends for a week. We build stuff. We provide stuff. That is the fun for me. I will be bummed if a bunch of my friends can't get tickets (I don't have one myself) and perhaps we won't be able to pull off some of the stuff we had pulled off in the past.... You seem to be saying "look what you're losing! I won't be there to give my root beer away and your thirst will be unquenched all weeklong" when the reality for me is more "look what I'm losing, I won't get to enjoy the incredible experience of working on a big project with a bunch of friends as a community and giving it away to others' delight." Losing that will be the bummer for me (assuming we're not able to go but that is still TBD).

Actually, I suspect that the reality for you is exactly the same as well. The secret sauce of burning man really is in the giving not there receiving (the receiving is fun for a while but after you've seen ten orgy trampolines the excitement fades).

Beautifully put!!!

As a virgin last year, the gifts I received were inspiring. But being inspired, the excitement of coming back is being able to provide a part of the feast and the atmosphere.

I may be flying in, and I may not have much experience making stuff for the playa, so I wont quite be building Thunderdome, but I will be trying my hand at homemade beef jerky, I will be signing up for some shifts, and right now my desk is littered with wires, LEDs, resistors, breadboards, and other electronic parts.

[Eric]

Perhaps. I'm not accusing the Org of anything but creating a giant, epic clusterfuck under the dubious premise of preventing scalping,

I keep wondering why people have such a hard time with this simple fact- the lottery was intended to try to be as fair as possible in distrubuting tickets WHEN THE DEMAND IS GREATER THAN THE SUPPLY, while also attempting to keep scalpers from as many of those tickets as possible.

The scalper part is secondary, the demand > supply issue is the big one. We have gotten larger than the BLM will let our population be. Simple as that.

[copilot602]

Sorry, demand is NOT the problem! Tickets didn't sell out in two minutes or even two days last year, they sold out in 6 months. The BORG created an artificial demand problem by adding uncertainty to the market with the lottery.

By allowing people to buy first come, first serve, but by making the tickets non-transferable, you eliminate scalping and allow market pressures to play out naturally. Those who want/need a ticket will make sure they are in line waiting for their ticket first day.

If you have a ticket you can't use, you return it to BMORG using a beefed up STEP, and receive a refund based on a sliding scale. The later you return your ticket, the less you get back. This gives incentive for people not to hoard till the last minute and allows everyone that wants a ticket to purchase and plan. No one should be inconvenienced because of your bad day. And if the"profit" irks you, let it go towards art grants or whatever.

And PLEASE don't argue ticket gifting demands transferable tickets. Buy their damn ticket if you wanna gift it so bad. I would rather see ZERO gifted ticket and ZERO scalping/profiteering than 3% or 1500 gifted tickets (# pulled cleanly from my arse) and 100 scalped tickets.

Under this system, tickets would still eventually sell out, but in an orderly and dependable way. Not this cluster-fuck of Fear and Loathing in Black Rock City...

Boots

[A Jester]

Sorry, demand is NOT the problem! Tickets didn't sell out in two minutes or even two days last year, they sold out in 6 months. The BORG created an artificial demand problem by adding uncertainty to the market with the lottery.

By allowing people to buy first come, first serve, but by making the tickets non-transferable, you eliminate scalping and allow market pressures to play out naturally. Those who want/need a ticket will make sure they are in line waiting for their ticket first day.

If you have a ticket you can't use, you return it to BMORG using a beefed up STEP, and receive a refund based on a sliding scale. The later you return your ticket, the less you get back. This gives incentive for people not to hoard till the last minute and allows everyone that wants a ticket to purchase and plan. No one should be inconvenienced because of your bad day. And if the"profit" irks you, let it go towards art grants or whatever.

And PLEASE don't argue ticket gifting demands transferable tickets. Buy their damn ticket if you wanna gift it so bad. I would rather see ZERO gifted ticket and ZERO scalping/profiteering than 3% or 1500 gifted tickets (# pulled cleanly from my arse) and 100 scalped tickets.

Under this system, tickets would still eventually sell out, but in an orderly and dependable way. Not this cluster-fuck of Fear and Loathing in Black Rock City...

Boots

The real argument against this system (which it seems you've done a very good job of ignoring) is that the Org does not have the capacity to run it.

Gifting, meh.

Don't wanna show my ID at the gate, meh.

Can't actually put this system in to place, OK let's do something else.

[mshaman]

Perhaps. I'm not accusing the Org of anything but creating a giant, epic clusterfuck under the dubious premise of preventing scalping,

I keep wondering why people have such a hard time with this simple fact- the lottery was intended to try to be as fair as possible in distrubuting tickets WHEN THE DEMAND IS GREATER THAN THE SUPPLY, while also attempting to keep scalpers from as many of those tickets as possible.

The scalper part is secondary, the demand > supply issue is the big one. We have gotten larger than the BLM will let our population be. Simple as that.

I disagree. It failed on both the "fair" and "scalper" counts. The rich members of various camps I know are planning on paying more money to scalpers for their tickets, and the ones who can't afford that will likely be left out. No matter how right their action, no matter how organized they are, no matter how early they apply for tickets, the system which is supposed to be fair is biased AGAINST those who can't afford to pay extra on the secondary market that has been created by not having non-transferable tickets. No one is sitting on big stores of tickets. I've checked in on 30 camps. No one. There aren't and won't be enough STEP tickets to meet the demand, but you can bet that wealthy folks will get one at StubHub, eBay, or Craigslist.

The combination of transferable tickets and a lottery creates a system that favors the wealthy. Undeniably. It also acts as a disincentive to large-scale art, vehicles, and theme camps, because such things can't be organized at the last minute, which is when most of us will find out if we have a ticket. Have you read the theme camp thread? Have you seen how many are collapsing as a direct result of this combination of lottery and transferable tickets? What is more fair than the people who get off their butts in January getting a ticket, and those who waffle until July not getting a ticket? That seems like natural consequence. Last year I got off my butt, got a ticket first thing and took care of business like a responsible adult. That was fair in the face of a shortage. But a system that takes away the power of good actors to buy tickets in a timely fashion, encourages scalping, hoarding, and requires wealth to do it? That IS FAIR?

On the notion of a lottery being sexy: I don't want sexy in my ticket process, that's like having sexy in a portapotty. Ticketing is where you take care of business so that you can get to the good part. I want sexy in my art car, my theme camp, my giant fucking 150 foot tall lady made of steel with logging chain as her strands of hair. But I won't get that kind of sexy in 2012. Because there are no art collectives or theme camps that have enough tickets to muster it.

[jobennett99]

The panic and negativity needs to stop - I know its hard but our community has to rise out of this. We need more voices like this:



xx

[Arcticcircle]

Perhaps. I'm not accusing the Org of anything but creating a giant, epic clusterfuck under the dubious premise of preventing scalping,

I keep wondering why people have such a hard time with this simple fact- the lottery was intended to try to be as fair as possible in distrubuting tickets WHEN THE DEMAND IS GREATER THAN THE SUPPLY, while also attempting to keep scalpers from as many of those tickets as possible.

The scalper part is secondary, the demand > supply issue is the big one. We have gotten larger than the BLM will let our population be. Simple as that.

I disagree. It failed on both the "fair" and "scalper" counts. The rich members of various camps I know are planning on paying more money to scalpers for their tickets, and the ones who can't afford that will likely be left out. No matter how right their action, no matter how organized they are, no matter how early they apply for tickets, the system which is supposed to be fair is biased AGAINST those who can't afford to pay extra on the secondary market that has been created by not having non-transferable tickets. No one is sitting on big stores of tickets. I've checked in on 30 camps. No one. There aren't and won't be enough STEP tickets to meet the demand, but you can bet that wealthy folks will get one at StubHub, eBay, or Craigslist.

The combination of transferable tickets and a lottery creates a system that favors the wealthy. Undeniably. It also acts as a disincentive to large-scale art, vehicles, and theme camps, because such things can't be organized at the last minute, which is when most of us will find out if we have a ticket. Have you read the theme camp thread? Have you seen how many are collapsing as a direct result of this combination of lottery and transferable tickets? What is more fair than the people who get off their butts in January getting a ticket, and those who waffle until July not getting a ticket? That seems like natural consequence. Last year I got off my butt, got a ticket first thing and took care of business like a responsible adult. That was fair in the face of a shortage. But a system that takes away the power of good actors to buy tickets in a timely fashion, encourages scalping, hoarding, and requires wealth to do it? That IS FAIR?

On the notion of a lottery being sexy: I don't want sexy in my ticket process, that's like having sexy in a portapotty. Ticketing is where you take care of business so that you can get to the good part. I want sexy in my art car, my theme camp, my giant fucking 150 foot tall lady made of steel with logging chain as her strands of hair. But I won't get that kind of sexy in 2012. Because there are no art collectives or theme camps that have enough tickets to muster it.

<3

[inog]

The scalper part is secondary, the demand > supply issue is the big one. We have gotten larger than the BLM will let our population be. Simple as that.

Dead on. I was online for Coachella as the tickets went on sale. I waited 45 min online in que and still did not get a ticket. The first weekend was sold out at minute zero, it just took me 45 min to find out. The second weekend was gone shortly after.

Coachella was unloading something like 140k tickets. They sold them on the first come first serve basis. People there are griping just as hard. One big difference - With Coachella, unless you were online at the exact second AND got lucky, you did not have a chance for first weekend tickets.

The Burning Man lottery is better.

[lemur]

Coachella was unloading something like 140k tickets. They sold them on the first come first serve basis. People there are griping just as hard. One big difference - With Coachella, unless you were online at the exact second AND got lucky, you did not have a chance for first weekend tickets.

The Burning Man lottery is better.

boy you sure are alone in the field with maybe 10 other people when you say that one..

I agree.. the lottery was surely much better than a mad first come first served rush.. that likely would have also left just as many, if not more, people in the lurch.

even if you didnt get selected, at least you had a chance to be selected.. (two weeks to sign up!)