Send the tickets out early

[Haakon]

OK BM... How about sending out the tickets early? This would give the scalpers a chance to sell their tickets sooner and allow the rest of us to maybe get a ticket cheaper. Common sense tells me that the later the tickets are in peoples hands the more urgent it is going to be to purchase tickets driving up the prices. How about it. You've changed everything else about the ticket process so this should be no big deal. Just my thoughts since my only chance is to buy from a scalper. I have no other choice since I played by the rules and failed. Sadly it has taken me 50 years to figure out nice guys finish last.

[ZaphodBurner]

OK BM... How about sending out the tickets early? This would give the scalpers a chance to sell their tickets sooner...

I bet they'd LOVE that.

[Stickygreen]

holding tickets till the latest possible date is the most effective way to deal with counterfeit tickets.

i doubt your suggestion will be implemented.

[Mosquitopilate]

Give up everyone, you are on your own now that is what the last email said right

[Eric]

1) Until physical tickets are in a participants hands, they can be cancelled for any reason (and specifically for being purchased to resell at a higher price). With a late ticket release date it gives more time to find scalpers and get those tickets back into the community (if you want to report a scalper, send an email to partiserv(at)burningman(dot)com. Sites like StubHub etc are very difficult to track)

2) The earlier they're released, the more time counterfeiters have to make really good fake tickets. With the sell-out last year and tickets sent as they sold, there were some really good fakes out there (also some lousy ones people bought because they were desperate. The current ticket situation is a perfect storm for a flood of fake tickets, the June release gives them less time to be hard to spot. Nothing would suck more than getting to the gate & being turned around for a fake ticket.

[theCryptofishist]

I have no other choice since I played by the rules and failed. Sadly it has taken me 50 years to figure out nice guys finish last.

I don't know about "nice guys". I do know that no one wants to hang out with someone who who's all hangdog and self-pity. I realize that you're stressed now, that you've spent weeks waiting to buy a ticket, and it's hard to be cheerful and agreeable, but you do have the choice of being honest, of saying (for instance) that you're unhappy about how things turned out and frustrated by the process and just worn out by the whole circus, and people will respect you more than for the melodrama.

And I know this because I was heavy in the melodrama when I was younger. Even I like myself better now.

[Elorrum]

if you're 50, you probably remember this image. you make me very sad sir.

[lemur]

I wonder what a Vulcan nightmare would be like.

..Alone, exiled on a planet, where the only form of communication is laughter.

[BBadger]

No, that's not correct.

- Having tickets in peoples' hands earlier will reduce supply. Price is driven predominantly by scarcity.

- Increasing the time span between purchase and sale of tickets means there is more opportunity for tickets to be exchanged through something like STEP.

- Peoples' plans may change over the next few months and they'll need to get rid of their tickets quickly.

- There is a greater risk in holding a long term asset with no guarantee of payoff, and the risk of cancellation. Imagine, for example, that BMOrg implements a policy that forces "paper" ticket holders of the lottery to choose owners for the tickets much like STEP tickets, or else they can only be released into the STEP pool of tickets. I would not be surprised if this ends up happening given the policy change-ups this year.

The last point, forcing ticket owners to designate owners, could end up being the end-game policy for tickets in coming years, granting the flexibility to "exchange" tickets to some degree for a specific time period before the tickets revert to basic "STEP" type tickets. Of course what happens when the primary ticket owner cannot go, but the "partner" can? That may end up as a loophole in the system.