What if 70K people wanted to go?

Token · Post by **Token** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 5:51 am

It is human nature to try and find a villain, someone to blame for stuff when things go wrong.

Scalpers did it, BMORG messed up, bad burners went hoarding tickets ...

... look at all that villainy!

But logic of the simplest and most likely truth is that a lot of people actually wanted to go this year.
Hundreds of thousands have gone before, why wouldn't they want to go again?

For the sake of argument, lets assume that the 1.7x over-subscription on the ticket offering reported by the JRS is an actual number of legit burners wanting tickets in January, not hoarders, not scalpers, etc. No villains, no bad guys, just fellow fckos and friends. Legit demand of 70k folks for 40k of tickets.

How will this affect the community you have already built?
How will it change the dynamics of the unique do-ocracy culture of the Playa.
What is your vision of the next few years?

Post by **AntiM** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 6:09 am

I could throw my art at our regional, although that is reaching capacity also.

There is a lot of world out there which I have not had the pleasure of visiting.

I won't die, pining for the playa.

Drawingablank · Post by **Drawingablank** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 7:24 am

First, I agree with this to some extent - I have no doubt that more folks want to attend than there are tickets. I just find it hard to believe it is as high as the numbers below suggest.

I'm unsure why everyone keeps latching onto that 1.7 thing though. Saying that the average buyer ordered 1.7 tickets does not equate to 1.7 over subscription and in fact is a meaningless number unless you have something to compare it to (such as how many the average buyer bought in previous year) or know how many people ordered tickets.

I'm no math whiz, however somehow the numbers just don't seem add up logically. It seems to be accepted that approximately 30% of theme camp members got tickets, and from that we can extrapolate that 30% of everyone who applied got tickets. This would mean that 135,000 tickets were applied for in total which just seems like way too huge a jump in one year.

Again applying logic, if only 30% of veterans got tickets it seems absurd to think that first timers got 70% of them when statistically they should have the same approximately 30% success rate. So if 30% of vets got tickets and 30% of first timers got tickets, who got the rest of the tickets?

Edit - Forgot to answer you questions:
How will this affect the community you have already built? - It will stress it, but we are a small close knit camp so I don't see any long term effects other than some of us missing out on shared experiences.

How will it change the dynamics of the unique do-ocracy culture of the Playa. - Time will tell, I can't even begin to guess at this one.

What is your vision of the next few years? - There are plainly issues here that need to be resolved if we don't want the burn to evolve into something abhorrent to us. I understand that change is inevitable, but let's make it a change for the better.

lemur · Post by **lemur** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 7:33 am

forget the percentages of people who got tickets and all that '30%' stuff.

if 30,000 first time newcomers wanted to go this year thats gonna take a big chunk out of the available tickets.

no math needed!

thelionking · Post by **thelionking** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 7:45 am

How might it affect the community? If it is true that not all camps got the tickets that they need, they might recruit new members to their camp which could add to the diversity of those camps. New Burners might have more opportunities to join an established camp which gives them a level of comfort and provides opportunity to participate. That might be a good thing.

Any change in a system will change the dynamics of a culture to some degree. But, I think it is hard to predict. Like everything in life, there is always something good and usually something bad. And this goes to your next question..... if I was a good visionary, I probably wouldn't be here but writing books and doing lectures. While I may not be a vsionary, I will try to look for the good in the future and not dwell on the negatives I might come across.

CornMan · Post by **CornMan** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 8:18 am

If 70,000 people were vying for the 40,000 tickets awarded so far, and if there was no scalping or hoarding going on, then 57% of people who wanted tickets would have gotten them by now, and 71% of those who want tickets will get them by the time it's all over.

lemur · Post by **lemur** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 8:24 am

my word.

Post by **trilobyte** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 8:48 am

It wasn't 1.7x over-subscription. It was that it worked out to 1.7 tickets requested per registrant. Will suspected that might be an indication that people were 'maxing out' with the intention of hoarding, but I don't know that I agree with his logic. Sure, hoarders would get as many tickets as they could, but so would couples, pairs of friends, and tons of other people for legitimate reasons.

Info on numbers of registrations or total tickets requested has not (and probably will not) be published. But looking at Teddy's awesome video, which had garnered over 1.1 million views before registration ended, and I imagine there's tons more demand this year than in previous years. Even if only 1 in 20 was someone who saw it and went 'holyshitballswtfIgottagotothis' we're talking serious disruption here. Who knows whether that was a fluke or if the landscape of demand has forever changed for both better and for worse.

The immediate downs that spring to mind are that it'll be more challenging and more work to be able to go, and that camps (particularly the bigger ones) will need to learn to adapt. The immediate ups are that this will helpfully fuel a lot of growth for regional events around the world (not just in our own backyards), and that more people are connecting with the ideals of Burning Man (which I think can only be a good thing).

5280MeV · Post by **5280MeV** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 8:59 am

It all depends on why the new people want to go to Burning Man.

Do they want to try their hand at getting to and surviving in the desert, bringing enough stuff to eat, drink, and entertain themselves for a week until the big bonfire? Do they want to make contraptions, decorations, costumes, and small pieces of art? Are they going to dance to music from their 10W battery or solar powered speakers while the sun rises? Are they going to wander around looking for other interesting people to meet and share their interesting stuff with?

I think that this group of people will have a good time no matter what.

On the other hand, do they just want to see the biggest, most massive, amazing desert party on the planet, with glittery free bars on every street corner, high powered lasers, gigantic stages with booming sound-systems?

They may just be slightly disappointed depending on how things shake out.

Ultimately, one of these things is probably sustainable, and one is probably not. But what is the BMorg supposed to do, tell people that their project is too big and amazing to be at Burning Man?

I know that being brought into this in 2011, I will not have the same experience as the people who started ten or twenty years ago. My close friends and I in the area are discussing a regional strategy - and looking for a regional home base to go to every year, while maybe planning expeditions to the playa every few years. Maybe for me the metaphor will be different, Burning Man will be like going to the mountaintop, rather than going home.

Ugly Dougly · Post by **Ugly Dougly** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:06 am

It doesn't matter what they are dreaming of, no way of telling of course.
The OP's point was that as demand ramps up, the event's carrying capacity will either adapt or fail.

stinkyfoot · Post by **stinkyfoot** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:24 am

Drawingablank wrote:Again applying logic, if only 30% of veterans got tickets it seems absurd to think that first timers got 70% of them when statistically they should have the same approximately 30% success rate. So if 30% of vets got tickets and 30% of first timers got tickets, who got the rest of the tickets?

Bro, I don't think you know how percentages work. If 30% of virgins got tickets and 30% of veterans got tickets, that means that 30% of all virgins and veterans together got tickets, because percentages are just a more precise way of representing fractional values.

If 30% of 900 people asking for tickets actually got tickets that means that 270 people actually got tickets. If 500 of those people asking for tickets are veterans and 400 are virgins, that means that 30% of 500 veterans got tickets, or 150 veterans with tickets in hand, and 30% of 400 virgins got tickets, or 120 virgins with tickets in hand. 150 vets plus 120 virgins equals 270 people with tickets in hand.

trilobyte wrote:Info on numbers of registrations or total tickets requested has not (and probably will not) be published.

Maybe the total number of entrants considered for the lottery should be published and verified by an official source to stop people extrapolating their own meanings from the figures that have been published.

Ugly Dougly · Post by **Ugly Dougly** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:27 am

Was prior attendance a factor in awarding tickets or are we just speculating?

The CO · Post by **The CO** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 10:11 am

What if 70K people wanted to go?

Then at least 17,000 of them will be sad.

Ugly Dougly · Post by **Ugly Dougly** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 1:32 pm

Or approx 6 billion, depending how you count non-attendees.

Post by **AntiM** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 4:22 pm

Ugly Dougly wrote:Was prior attendance a factor in awarding tickets or are we just speculating?

Speculating.

Post by **Eric** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 4:34 pm

Ugly Dougly wrote:Was prior attendance a factor in awarding tickets or are we just speculating?

Everything being posted about this is speculation.

The only difference is that some people admit it & others don't.

Ugly Dougly · Post by **Ugly Dougly** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 5:07 pm

They all want to "go" at the same time?
That's a lot of porta-potties!!!

jella · Post by **jella** » Thu Feb 09, 2012 5:12 pm

We're gonna need a bigger boat

Token · Post by **Token** » Fri Feb 10, 2012 5:54 am

OK, I get that it's hard to detach from the technical details so lets update the premise.

It was 3:1 oversubscribed and 40% first timers.

So 120000 wanted to go, 48000 first timers and 72000 previous attendees.

Getting rid of all the newbs would not have solved the problem.

Banning all the ravers and hippies? Maybe

So, back to the meat and potatoes; in a place that has a strong tendency to the 80:20 rule, where 20% do the incredible and create the art/camps/entertainment/jackassery, while 80% interact and enjoy...

How will this affect the community you have already built?
How will it change the dynamics of the unique do-ocracy culture of the Playa?
What is your vision of the next few years?
“

Wrath · Post by **Wrath** » Fri Feb 10, 2012 6:07 am

If seventy thousand people wanted to go then that means a hundred and fifty thousand are thinking about going and another five hundred thousand seventy-six don't think they can go, but might want to.

I've received a communique from the Bothan spy net. Forty thousand virgins are going to have the time of their lives this year thanks to ten thousand hardcore vets creating something out of nothing. Those who make it out to the trash fence at night will see the twinkling camps of those seventy thousand bringing the burn to a playa outside of where certain people say you can camp or not camp on your own land because you might hurt yourself.

Seriously, this is it. Consumer culture is about to disappear like tickets in a lottery.

The CO · Post by **The CO** » Fri Feb 10, 2012 6:21 pm

Token wrote:So 120000 wanted to go, 48000 first timers and 72000 previous attendees.

Getting rid of all the newbs would not have solved the problem.

72k-53k=19,000 people more than there are tickets.

wraith · Post by **wraith** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:51 pm

Token wrote:OK, I get that it's hard to detach from the technical details so lets update the premise.

It was 3:1 oversubscribed and 40% first timers.

So 120000 wanted to go, 48000 first timers and 72000 previous attendees.

Getting rid of all the newbs would not have solved the problem.

Banning all the ravers and hippies? Maybe

So, back to the meat and potatoes; in a place that has a strong tendency to the 80:20 rule, where 20% do the incredible and create the art/camps/entertainment/jackassery, while 80% interact and enjoy...

How will this affect the community you have already built?
How will it change the dynamics of the unique do-ocracy culture of the Playa?
What is your vision of the next few years?
“

120k is a serious stretch of credibility, though. Yes, TTITD is awesome. But it's not 'demand doubles in the middle of a recession with record gas prices and rising' awesome.

Post by **trilobyte** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:55 pm

You don't have to believe it for it to be true.

wraith · Post by **wraith** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 2:00 pm

trilobyte wrote:You don't have to believe it for it to be true.

Nah, but when we're all pulling guesses out of our asses, being statistically plausible is better.

Post by **trilobyte** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 2:20 pm

Speak for yourself

Stephendragonfly · Post by **Stephendragonfly** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 2:35 pm

I am sure that there are at least 70K people who want to go to Burning Man this year, and that doesn't even count the people who just want to go because of the Oh the Places You'll Go UTube vid. I just don't think most of them entered the lottery. I know my three of my burner friends didn't, two didn't have the cash/credit available and the other one is kind of a flake. I think that between one and two thirds of the people who entered the lottery were planning to go and getting ready early for a variety of reasons. But at least one third of the folks in the lottery have, at best, vague intentions of going.

joya · Post by **joya** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 2:45 pm

What if 70K people wanted to go?

Then I would assume that the BMORG would still discriminate and give tickets to the big theme camps and those they deem more worthy than others. So fuck it.

knowmad · Post by **knowmad** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 3:37 pm

I have 70,000 people trying to get in my pants. Some times all at the same time. I could raise the price, I could be more chosey. But in the end Im the bitch who won't fuck you and the gold-digging-whore who just wants more. And we are eveywhere!

graidawg · Post by **graidawg** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 4:48 pm

knowmad wrote:I have 70,000 people trying to get in my pants. Some times all at the same time. I could raise the price, I could be more chosey. But in the end Im the bitch who won't fuck you and the gold-digging-whore who just wants more. And we are eveywhere!

this quote is particulary appropriate with your avatar knowmad.

Max Callahan · Post by **Max Callahan** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 6:04 pm

wraith wrote:
trilobyte wrote:You don't have to believe it for it to be true.
Nah, but when we're all pulling guesses out of our asses, being statistically plausible is better.

Here's some statistically playable theory then.
(people trying to go * amount of cheating)+scalpers = ~120,000 ticket requests.
My personal "about this big" guess is 70000 people trying to go (projected based on the growth trend from 2000 to 2008 extended to today as if there had been no economic crash) * 50% of them put in for an extra ticket + 15000 scalpers got through = 120,000 requests.
You can swing the numbers in a lot of directions, less scalpers allows for more people putting in multiple times (I'm inclined to believe in more gaming of the system than i'm seeing, but scalpers gonna scalp, so it's hard to totally leave them out) and a lower number of people trying to go allows for more cheating and/or scalpers (given last years sell out puts demand that year at over 54k, i have trouble going lower than 60k for this year, also if real demand was closer to real number of ticket available then we would have seen a higher success rate at the sale, and a lot more "i got tickets from a friend" stories).

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