Will Burning Man sell out?

[Captain Goddammit]

Dr Helix check this out, it's your MV at the burn, just below the middle of the photo

[Skuzzy61]

Nice pic!

[Dr Helix]

Dr Helix check this out, it's your MV at the burn, just below the middle of the photo

By golly it is!!!!! I guess this shoots my "I stay way back" statement right out of the water. I'd forgotten I did get fairly close last year. When i first parked, I thought I was well clear of the crowd. My mistake. But it was fun to off shoot a few flames now and then. Gotta let those big boys know you're around. Anyway, thanks for posting it Cap! Good times, good times. BTW, where are you?

[Captain Goddammit]

Right here!

[Elliot]

Hot ziggety, Captain -- I am sooooo snagging that overview photo for future use. Who took it, do you know?

[trilobyte]

Another thing to consider (for those stressing about ticket availability in the upcoming main sale) is that things like the pre-sale and the directed group sale actually help to relieve pressure for the main sale.

We have no way of knowing the exact makeup of last year's 80K registrants for last year's sale, but one theory as to why that number was so damned high was because of last year's directed group sale freakout. Some groups had opened their invitations up too widely, leading to an unexpectedly fast sellout and many established theme camps/projects unable to secure tickets for their core crewmembers - and it's quite possible that a number of those people may have enlisted friends/neighbors to also register for the sale. If that kind of scenario played a significant factor in last year's spike in main sale demand, then the changes Burning Man made to ticketing this year should make things a lot less stressful in the main sale too.

The more projects that cover their core members in the directed sale, the less competition there will be for tickets in the main sale.

[Captain Goddammit]

I don't see how the maths add up. I think the presales increase main sale pressure.
I'll break it down to simpler numbers for clarity but the principle is the same no matter how you scale it.

Let's say there were 1000 tickets and 2000 would-be buyers and there was no pre sale. Everyone would have a 1-in-2 chance at a ticket.
Now let's say you pre-sold 500 of them.
You're left with 500 tickets for 1500 buyers.
Now those buyers only have a 1-in-3 chance.

However you adjust the numbers, if there are more buyers than tickets, it looks to me like the remaining buyers have worse odds than if tickets all sold at once.
The pre sale takes potential buyers out of the main sale, but it also takes tickets away from the main sale in a 1-to-1 ratio, increasing the ratio of buyers-to-available-tickets in the main sale.

The only way I see it could work is if every pre sale ticket was an additional ticket added to the total number of available tickets. But if we are under a max population cap by the BLM, how is that possible?

I understand why we need pre sales to get tickets to the people who really make BRC happen. I get that part.

[Luigi]

Like the Capt'n I get the need for pre-sale, it gets the camp core members in. This year was a relief because ticketing gave us 72 hours, so the core did not have to be sitting online at noon Wednesday. On the flip, our camp DGS number was reduced by 37% so more of us are looking at the main sale for tickets.

It will sell out fast. But then there is OMG and low income.

Luigi - VW BusCamp

[Captain Goddammit]

Did ya notice how a the boat guy was talking about increasing pressure on the main sail...

[Elliot]

*tears remaining hair out*
Terminology and semantics, people!
I was able to follow the Captain, thanks to noticing the plural s on "presales". But this requires readers to accept DGS as "a pre-sale" -- one of two "pre-sales". And this is quite a leap from the established terminology on the Ticket Page.
Luigi seems to utterly confuse pre-sale and DGS. No offense intended! But this is a shining example of how things get effed up all over ePlaya all the time.

It is close enough to Sunday... that this was my Sermon.
As you were.

[Captain Goddammit]

The DGS is a pre-sale, it's a special sale that takes place prior to the main sale.

[ygmir]

[media]

[Elliot]

The DGS is a pre-sale, it's a special sale that takes place prior to the main sale.

That is indeed how I read you. But it relies on the distinction between Pre-Sale and pre-sale, which will elude many.

And so also your personal definition of pre-sales as including the DGS, which is a bit of a stretch, considering that no term like pre-sale or any variation thereof appears in connection with the DGS on the Ticket Page.

(Isn't this fun?! )

[Captain Goddammit]

Fun would be explaining why my reasoning isn't sound.
I'm trying to understand how the pressure is relieved from the main sale, which was quite clearly presented as being a result of both the initial presale and the DGS. Nit picking the difference between those two terms is irrelevant. There's no way anyone didn't get that.

[Elliot]

...

Let's say there were 1000 tickets and 2000 would-be buyers and there was no pre sale. Everyone would have a 1-in-2 chance at a ticket.
Now let's say you pre-sold 500 of them.
You're left with 500 tickets for 1500 buyers.
Now those buyers only have a 1-in-3 chance.

However you adjust the numbers, if there are more buyers than tickets, it looks to me like the remaining buyers have worse odds than if tickets all sold at once.
The pre sale takes potential buyers out of the main sale, but it also takes tickets away from the main sale in a 1-to-1 ratio, increasing the ratio of buyers-to-available-tickets in the main sale.
...

Oh, absolutely this! I agree completely with this math.

[Elliot]

Where we differ, is in that your irrelevant terminology seems very relevant to me.
It is a matter of priorities. I place a high priority on accurate language.
To my mind, a minor inaccuracy now can easily turn into some unknown ePlayan's quite significant mistake ten months from now. In the case at hand, where you have (innocently enough) associate the term "pre-sale" with the DGS -- an association which did not previously exist in Burning Man website literature -- somebody could actually mix up the Pre-Sale with the DGS. This could lead to the poor soul missing out on BM that year.
I'm not saying it would happen. But I notice flubs of this general nature on ePlaya, and all over the interweb, all the time. In fact, I just spelled one out, somewhere... about the word "gas" -- how it can mean very different things, sometimes with tragic results.

[Captain Goddammit]

Attorneys use this tactic. They bury the real issue in technicalities to get the whole thing thrown out.
If we must do it this way, here you go:
Point one: The prefix "pre" means "before". The DGS happens before the main sale. It's one of the pre-sales.
Point two: I was obviously referencing the post made by our good friend Trilo, in which he specifically said that the two earlier sales, the Pre-Sale and the DGS, relieved main sale pressure. The sales in question were all well defined.

If Trilo chooses to jump into this cesspool of semantics, I do look forward to being enlightened because I know he knows what he's talking about when it comes to Burning Man issues, and I sometimes don't. Like I said, I don't get this one.

I apologize in advance to the poor hapless soul who doesn't get a ticket because he read my question. Because, there's really a way that's actually going to happen.

Calgon take me away...

[AntiM]

To me, "pre-sale" means the higher priced tickets which used to be the holiday tickets meant for gifting. While DGS is before the Main sale, I do not consider that a pre-sale, it is a special sale. So I'd call both types of tickets special, but only one of them Pre-Sale.

[Jackass]

It doesn't really matter what you call it. By the time the rest of us get a crack at a ticket, all of those other pre-main sale tickets are gone. Not applicable to the pool of hopefuls lining up for a chance in the last "main" sales... DGS is the new main sale, just ask the large percentage of eplayans that are already ticketed. As for myself, I'll be duking it out in the old main sale with the hoards. I do loves me some good old fashion fightin...

[Captain Goddammit]

The DGS is a pre-sale, it's a special sale that takes place prior to the main sale.

That is indeed how I read you. But it relies on the distinction between Pre-Sale and pre-sale, which will elude many

Ok. Since it was obviously clear enough that you understood exactly what I meant, but most others will derail on some ridiculous semantic side-track and end up not getting a Burning Man ticket because of it, I'll rephrase the question so that you and the majority of others who you assume are abject morons won't be put in danger.

From the top... Jesus fucking Christ...

Let's say there are 1000 burning man tickets available. (The actual number is closer to 70,000, I'm using these inaccurate, rounder, smaller numbers to make the discussion simpler, if you nit pick that I'll put you permanently on my "ignore user" list and live happily ever after).
Let's say a percentage of them are PRE-sold, prior to the main sale, in two distinct, separate, entirely unrelated sales that both take place before the main sale. Those sales are called the Pre-Sale and the Directed Group Sale. They both happen before the main sale, but they aren't both the same sale, one is an early offering of a limited number of APPROXIMATELY triple-priced tickets referred to on the Tickets page as the Pre-Sale, and the other fucking sale is the special offering of a limited number of tickets to people deemed by the Org to be essential to assure the theme camps and art projects that make the event what it is can happen. It's not the same sale as the Pre-Sale. It's a different one.
But both of those sales, the latter of which shall not be referred to as a Pre-Sale in this discussion for the safety of the vast majority of people who cannot comprehend that the DGS and the high-price Pre-Sale aren't the same sale, take place PRE-event.
So let's say there are 1500 buyers for the 1000 total tickets. (I specifically mean Burning Man tickets, not traffic tickets or theater tickets, in case that's not readily apparent.)
if there were no pre-sales (see that "s" that makes the word "pre-sales"'plural, meaning MORE THAN ONE SALE?) and all tickets were sold in the same big sale, everyone would have a 66.6% chance of getting a ticket. They would all have 2 out of 3 odds.
But as clearly defined earlier, we sell a percentage of the tickets in two different sales before the main sale.
Let's say we sell 500 of the tickets in those two separate, not-the-same-one sales.
Now there are fewer buyers left in the main sale, only 1000 buyers. But now there are also fewer tickets left for the main sale, only 500 of them.
Now we have 1000 buyers competing for 500 tickets. Now, a main sale buyer has only a 50% chance, 1 in 2 odds.
So, I'm not understanding how the Pre-Sale and DGS reduce pressure on the main sale when it appears to increase pressure.

Was that better, clearer, and easier to understand?
Good god I hope so.

[Raoul]

*shakes glazed-over look from eyes*

Could you repeat the question?

[Captain Goddammit]

See what I mean? It was perfectly good the first time. But no, it had to be taken apart on semantic bullshit.
Now it's properly defined, and OSHA-approved for the safety of future Burners.

But fuck it. And I didn't mean "butt-fuck it". Or maybe I did.

All I want to know now is what the exact scenario could be where some future burner reads that post, misinterprets the question and it causes him to miss out on buying a ticket.

[Elderberry]

There is so much to know and understand about BM from a first-time attendee that most things get confused anyway. That's what ePlaya is for. (No, not to confuse them. To unconfuse them.)

[Elderberry]

If I were to base my opinion just on what's going on with our camp this year, I would say that it will definitely sell-out early. We cap our camp membership number at 65, with a 10 person unannounced buffer, so we'll end up with 75. This year, the preliminary list of people telling us they want to camp with us is over 150. Almost all of the first 65 have paid their camp fees because it's now a first paid, first reserved. The interesting thing that has been happening with us is all the plus ones. People that have camped with us in previous years coming back and wanting to bring friends.

[Raoul]

I've never found the ticketing process to be hard to understand. Whether breaking it up into various sales creates/relieves stress notwithstanding, the whole thing seems pretty straight-forward. IMHO, anyone who cannot figure it out gets a punch in their Radical Self-Reliance card.

[Elliot]

Captain... do you realize we are in complete agreement about the facts and numbers?!

And I absolutely love your phrase "cesspool of semantics". Because that's what this turned into, with each of us contributing roughly equally -- I certainly own my share.

AntiM boils it down very nicely to the essence of the mess (yes), namely the difference between "pre-sale" and Pre-Sale", which I pointed out earlier, but I probably used too many words to say it.

The only thing we disagree on, Goddammit, (yes, I did that on purpose ), is the dangers lurking in ambiguity. Most folks have a high tolerance for ambiguity, and I do not. And I'm sure we can happily agree to disagree, as the saying goes, on that.

And so... I reckon it is time to return to our regularly scheduled program.

[JohnEBGud]

Wait. DGS comes after the Pre-Sale. Doesn't that make a post-sale? I guess if it was called a post sale it would confuse those wanting to buy tickets and not posts.

[Jackass]

If the boneheads get confused by these different types of sales, and happen to miss out on getting a ticket for the event due to their lack of comprehension skills... I'll chalk that up as a "fool's filter". How would they ever get to the desert and be self reliant to begin with? Do we have to be so PC that we need to hold everyone's hand and show them which buttons to push and at exactly what time? In my book, if they can't make the effort to comprehend and figure shit out on their own on time they don't need to be there. Besides, me and my posse need those tickets and we don't need a ticket tutor to pull that off. There's been quite the uptick in people forming and joining theme camps in order to secure those ever-sweet DGS tickets, I call it hedging.

[Jackass]

Next year you'll see Jackass' Paper Mache Camp, we'll need at least 5 core members to set up and get all of that paper and glue and flour or whatever else we need to get "up to speed" onto the playa "on time". What we do with all that crap afterwards will matter not, because we'll have our tickets covered...bitches. Get what I'm saying? wink wink... It's just the nature of the beast. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

P.S. Sometimes, this Jackass likes to paint with the wide brush. I shoulda been a lawyer...

[BBadger]

Gotta make sure Paper Mache Camp has enough spare DGS tickets to attract new, *cough* "core" members who are willing to pony up "dues" for the privilege of joining a camp where you only pay "face value" for the ticket. Hell, who even cares if they stay at the camp if they've fulfilled their financial camp obligations.


On a more serious note, I remember the first time signing up for TicketFly months before the tickets ever came up for sale, because the ticket-buying instructions stated that we needed an account. I wasn't about to take any risk that I didn't get a ticket, especially at that stage. Get your ducks in a row.