Ticket Fiasco, PR Perspective

[ZaphodBurner]

One Cat In The Hat video DID NOT MOVE THE NEEDLE. Sorry. Wrong. Thanks for playing. Here's an edition of the home game.

I have to go with Trilo on this. I've never even heard of the song or the video before until I was visiting my dad, who said "Check this out!" and had it up on his computer. He said "Man, if I'd have known Burning Man was like that I'd have gone every year." All of the photos and videos I've showed him over the years didn't anything near that reaction.

The difference between this video and the ones that I've showed him in the past is, it fascinated him. He still watches it. In previous years, unless you had high-speed internet for uploading, downloading, people had no way to view things like this. Until last year, for example, his entire community was still on dial-up.
If you don't think video has power, consider the band DEVO. I never listened to that shit. I hated it. But there aren't many people in our culture who couldn't describe a DEVO hat.

Clearly, THIS video had a mind-control effect. All your tickets are belong to us!

(If 1% of a million viewers decided to buy a ticket, that's ten thousand tickets. You could add another 5K just for those who bought extra tickets for their partner.) While it certainly isn't what's responsible for the problem, it could -certainly- have moved the needle.

[ZaphodBurner]

and without you, none of us have a Burning Man. We get it. Yes, we should have seen it coming, it’s not like you didn’t warn us, but we didn’t. I

"So, now, if I went and made a major security situation out of it, everybody steps in; Administration steps in, and there's no exclusive rights for anybody, nobody wins! So I made a decision, and it was... wrong. It was a bad call, Ripley. It was a bad call!"

[lemur]

While it certainly isn't what's responsible for the problem, it could -certainly- have moved the needle.

id like to see any youtube video move THIS needle..



or that one

[The CO]

Whatever. The CO now joins Lemur on my "foe" list. So it goes.

Guys, I'm not into starting flame wars. You love the event, I love the event. I just had to call Trilo out on his nonsense as he has been spreading it pretty thick over these threads since the lottery.

For my part, I will re-double my efforts toward positivity and hoping STEP works out & to putting forth a "positive solution" ala Isotopia's thread.

Good day, all.

Wow, I'm clearly entering a new level of eplaya if I'm a foe! Achievement Unlocked!

Who's flaming? We have 2 pieces of evidence for each argument. (Lemur seems to be positing a third in favor of Trilo)

Now is the time to provide further evidence. Then we can make a judgement as far as the razor issue.

Good to hear you plan on using STEP. If only more people would do so instead of decrying it as a failure before it has even started.

And a good day to you as well sir!

[Dr Dilemma]

Kestrel-

10 seconds per ticket x 53,000 tickets= An extra 8834 hours at the gate.

That's assuming that there are no problems and every ticket inspection only takes 10 seconds. Let's call 15% of the ticket interactions 'difficult'. We'll say they take 60 seconds each.

The problem interactions now add another 6625 hours to the gate operations.

So far, that's an extra 15,459 man-hours at the gate. At 4 hour long shifts, that's an extra 3865 volunteers gate needs.

How big is your camp? Got an extra 3000 volunteers? I'm sure we can find the other 865 no problem.

@EB-Actually, Occams Razor states that when presented with competing hypotheses, selecting the one that makes the fewest new assumptions usually provides the correct one, and that the simplest explanation will be the most plausible until evidence is presented to prove it false.

See, while this may make for an interesting thought experiment, it really bears no relevance to how the gate process works. Generally one person will check tickets whist another does the inspection for stowaways and contraband. The person checking the tickets always finishes first and generally will just shoot the shit with ya till the inspection is done. So while hypothetically the 2-10 seconds it would take to look down at a ticket, then at a person's face would "add time" realistically it really wouldn't. I've never seen this process resemble anything you would call fast and efficient, so quibbling about an extra 10 seconds seems kinda silly. Heck, if you buy the "it's all virgins who have the tickets cause of that swell video" then the process of making 70% of the population roll around in the playa dust, a process that will take appreciably longer than glancing at a picture for a couple of seconds, will require a gazillion more person hours! If you wanted to get all scientific about it, we could do some experiments and load up a couple of cars, trucks and RVs with some test subjects and time how long it would take… but come on man, they are already looking at the ticket … the extra 2-3 seconds it would take to look at a face isn't going to make the queue go any slower.

[CornMan]

NPR Insight Interview with Marian Goodell "Maid Marian" of the Burning Man Organization. Aired 02/09/2012 @ 10:00 AM.

http://ia600803.us.archive.org/32/items ... 20209a.mp3

[The CO]

Kestrel, if it adds time to the gate per interaction then you have to tally all the potential interactions.
2-3 seconds per ticket multiplied by 53000 tickets. Yes it's only 2 or 3 seconds extra per person as they go in, but that is a pretty big fuck you of time for the gate.

Are you willing to screw the gate into needing to increase their crew so that you can assuage fear of scalpers which has not even been proven to be a threat yet?

[Nipple]

Are you willing to screw the gate into needing to increase their crew so that you can assuage fear of scalpers which has not even been proven to be a threat yet?

Hey kids! Wanna hang out a mile away from a huge party and talk to tired dickheads that have been in line for 4 hours (which was LOADS of time for them to get drunk and stoned)?

I imagine gayte is a hard sell to most.

[NeophileB]

CO -

10 seconds per ticket x 53,000 tickets= An extra 8834 hours at the gate.

That's some pretty wrong math there. I'll correct it for you. 10 s x 53000 tickets = 530,000 s. Now 530,000 / 3600s/hr = 147.2 hours. Not really all that much extra time if you divide it up over 7 days and multiple ticket checkers. Your calculations are for a 10 minute ticket check. But that's really besides the point, you fail to address the fact that those 10 seconds probably occur *during* the vehicle inspection and so don't add to the net time for a vehicle to get through the gate.

[The CO]

Yep, as stated in abother thread, I flubbed the math.

Doesn't change the fact that:

Names on tickets=more time @ gate, not just the individual passing through, but much more significantly to the gate staff. How many people in your camp are volunteering for gate?

[NeophileB]

Yes, checking named tickets would require more gate personnel. There are certainly ways to lessen the impact of this, such as random ticket checks during high volume entry. We could sweeten the deal volunteers, or hire people to do the work. Of course associating names with tickets will only be useful if the ticket shortage is actually due to scalpers. We have no idea what the real nature of our problem is yet. Personally, I'm content to just wait and see what happens this year. But if it does turn out to be a scalping problem, I have serious doubts that your suggestion that people just don't buy those tickets will work. People will buy scalped tickets, they did last year and they will this year.

Maybe I have too little faith in our community, but I have to say the amount of irrational anger displayed on these boards has really taken it's toll on my estimation it's nature.

[theCryptofishist]

There are certainly ways to lessen the impact of this, such as random ticket checks during high volume entry.

I suspect that this is "gamible". I just can't figure out how.

[NeophileB]

There are certainly ways to lessen the impact of this, such as random ticket checks during high volume entry.

I suspect that this is "gamible". I just can't figure out how.

Probably, but as long as you make gaming the system enough of a pain in the ass most people will choose not to.

[hellolinds]

Bravo to the PR rundown at the beginning of this thread. I agree - acknowledge it, own it, apologize and SHOW that you are working. Some transparency of some sort. PLEASE. This didn't need to be such a continual disaster - there was so much opportunity to get people on side with a plan - now it's just a big clusterfuck. That being said there's been quite a few mentions of the ticket to ID in this thread so I'm going to digress:

I've worked gate, (yes paid) where we have 6 people processing 10,000 - 12,000 people into a festival. It adds a miniscule amount of time to the process to check IDs against tickets. If social media and so on are worked so that participants are aware to have their IDs available with their tickets - then the majority DO. People get ID'd ALL THE TIME in default life if they want to get into a club, festival, buy alcohol. They hand over their ticket, with the ID, in one fell swoop.

Moreover - once you get into doing the ticket/ID check, you get really, really quick at it.

And guess what - once ticket takers have checked IDs - they can move one car down the line, two cars, six cars, ten cars while the first car is still getting SEARCHED. Maybe with this fiasco, they can get more people to volunteer for the search teams - you won't need it for tickets/IDs. Searches are the time hogs, period.

I don't buy all this talk about not having names on tickets. Forget about photos - that's another layer of complexity that isn't entirely necessary.

Yes, registering tickets to names at this point for lottery winners would be sort of an administrative nightmare with their current staffing situation. (BUT you could get lots of lots of volunteers AND guess what, you have the money to hire help. Some really, really good help). Make tickets only refundable to the Borg - they sell them to the next on the ticket waiting list.

Want help for next year? You can make all of this completely automated on a website. Truth. We could make this happen for you!! Ask us!! Can't go to Burning Man 2013? Sell your ticket back to the Borg by clicking this button on the website - minus the hefty fee. (Hefty fee pays for technology and staffing needs to facilitate the process AND acts as a deterrent for buying before you are committed AND leftover amount goes to fund art in 2014). Next on wait list would have their card charged. Mail out tickets late in the game - there could be a back and forth flip of tickets via the Borg prior to this WITH user fees to fund the technology and staffing needs.

The only problem would be slowing the initial bum rush on tickets BUT you can get enough server load to handle it AND making tickets tied to names and only refundable to the Borg would stop speculators AND scalpers, therefore slowing the rush. You can still divide tickets out - majority up front. One set near the end for your gifters and last minuters. (Surely by that late point, you know who you want to gift the ticket to). Voila.

Sure there are some burgins that were all excited and bought tix - but not this many. I don't buy it. Where are all the tickets? I wouldn't personally buy a ticket from a scalper - I'm suspicious of scalpers BUT if I were even to consider it I would DEFINITELY want the ticket in hand after exchanging money. Not pay $600 now and hope for ticket in June. (Or I feel ill to consider $1,200 without even a glimpse of a ticket until June). I think most people think that way - you give money, ticket in hand. Not wait till June. Nope - those tickets are going to come out of the woodwork in June. On Craigslist and Kijiji and wherever else - some on stubhub yes...but elsewhere in droves. Scalpers aren't idiots - they've got a lot invested in this and they know people are going to be jonesing to see the man Burn once summer rolls around.

ps. I didn't get a ticket. Still hoping for a ticket. Maybe going to work on some art - still haven't reached critical mass of enough people to jump fully on board for a big project without tickets in hands tho.