Yeah exactly, it's not speculation any more.
Really disappointed in this news, as are many of my friends, many of whom have volunteered in the org for several years all the way to 15 years...
The dog has already been fucked, but to dash what was the last big hope of regular burners to get a ticket?
So, now ALL 10,000 tickets are going to theme camps / artists? Are there really even that many theme camps? Personally, I love BRC but I'm more of a "dive bar" and "live music" kinda guy. I'd rather just drive the streets and stumble upon something cool, I've never even looked in the Bman Guide...
I'm trying to wrap my head around this....
Borg sold 3000 "first-class" tickets to the "wealthy-class" burner. First, and foremost, immediately, they sold "golden" tickets to the highest-bidder without respect to any kind of class, but let the money do the talking so we know who bought those tickets.
Then Borg decided to do the lottery, which proved to be a disaster. Tickets are in the hands of some burners / scalpers / wannabe-burners (and a large number at that, if you are to believe the numbers). This decision also did not take into consideration "class" per se, but again, if you decided to vy for the most expensive $390 ticket, you had a much better chance of being awarded a ticket. So once again, they discriminated against people with less money.
Then, when they realized that was a disaster and their friends didn't get tickets, they decided to take the remaining 10,000 tickets and sell them exclusively to burners who are part of "special" groups in BRC, which are deemed more important than the rest of us burners. So the last great hope, are ALSO being awarded to people of class and stature. Probably some of them are also coming with a camp for their virgin burn. After all, one of the guys who admitted to having extra tickets for his theme camp admitted to bringing 11 newbs to the event last year alone? That kind of recruitment is excessive, and if we pointed fingers as to why the population has skyrocketed well.....
So we went from a few days ago talking about the first principle of radical inclusion, to this? Not that I'm the biggest supporter of this principle when it comes to this supply problem, because I don't agree that my hard work should be tossed for someone to attend the event because it's on a Time magazine bucket list, but the borg sure did get over it in a hurry, didn't they?
If they are willing to abandon the original plan for the last 10,000 tickets, they ought to just redo the
whole fucking thing, that would at least be a little bit more fair to other veterans, who have little chance of getting tickets now that they are all earmarked.
So what, people were already awarded tickets in the main retarded lottery - what, why are we worried about pissing anyone off NOW? They are already fucking pissed off, this couldn't get any fucking worse. The ONLY outcome from redoing it would be some additional pissed off people, and with my plan, more of them would be newbs. They'll get over it.
So take back ALL the tickets. ALL OF THEM.
Make them all the same effing price. Let's call it $300.
1 ticket per registration. There are only 2 classes of registrant - veteran and newbs. No, the newbs don't get an equal chance. SORRY!
85 percent of the tickets are awarded to veteran burners.
15 percent of the tickets are awarded to virgin burners.
Anyone who doesn't get a ticket is automatically enrolled in STEP, and those in the queue are selected AT RANDOM so that everyone has an equal chance to get a ticket that comes up for sale.
Not fair? How so? I doubt we've ever had more than 10-15% virgins at a Burn before, and if there was, it was because the population of the city went up 10,000 in a year or something.
That way, the theme camps can run, the volunteers have what they need, independent MV builders/teams have a good chance of getting tickets, artist and big art conscruction crews have a good chance as well, and a damn kindly number of newbs get to experience Burning Man every year without displacing the veteran population who, frankly needs to attend pretty badly for Burning Man to continue - the BORG proved that veterans are important today with that announcement, the trouble is, it's only allowing selected veterans to return, and that sucks!
dust.