Now that the lottery failed ... here is a suggestion

[dragonpilot]

Old System: I either get a ticket or I don't get a ticket.

New System: I either get a ticket or I don't get a ticket.

[illy dilly]

Or the people that decry something as a failure before it has occurred.

I think its going to be very interesting to see how the whole thing pans out by August.
I have a feeling that wont really know how well it went tell the very end.
Once the lottery is done,
The second sale over,
"ticket hoarders" have unloaded their extras,
And finally how many people do/do not get tickets.

In my opinion, we are only in part 2 of a 6 part process (excluding scholarship and December)
Part 1: lottery registration
Part 2: Lottery drawings
Part 3: Post lottery 'open market' sales
Part 4: March Secondary drawing
Part 5: After Secondary drawing open market
Part 6: Last minute "What do you mean there was a lottery" freak outs

[Nipple]

oh shit!!

There's a lottery?

If I didn't enter it, will I still be getting an email today with my tickets?!

[illy dilly]

oh shit!!

There's a lottery?

If I didn't enter it, will I still be getting an email today with my tickets?!

Damn it Nipple!
Save your "O shit, What lottery?" panic for August!
I mean really, you are a contributing member of BRC, who has been going for years. You contribute so much to the community!
You deserve a ticket! even if you wait tell August to get it!

[forge]

My solution:

Only allow people to buy 1 ticket. This ticket is not a paper ticket. The ticket is an electronic ticket that is attached to the credit card or id that you submit. This id is scanned at the gate by card reading devices (the same type they use at other major events).

If someone does not have a credit card there are plenty of places they can go and get a prepaid card to use. However, since the ticket is attached to your id there is no chance for a scalper to buy tickets because your id is your ticket essentially.

So long as you allow people to buy a ticket for anyone other than themselves you are allowing room to scalp tickets.

[theCryptofishist]

Dammit, I love Simon!

forge (interesting name in a ticket discussion, but I digress), electronic equipment on the playa gets awful fiddly really quick. Dust reeks havoc thereon. So this idea violates the "no solutions that will slow down gate" principle.

[A Jester]

Part 6: Last minute "What do you mean there was a lottery" freak outs

THAT is going to be a shitshow fun

[Rice]

oh shit!!

There's a lottery?

If I didn't enter it, will I still be getting an email today with my tickets?!

Thank you!!

I needed a good laugh.

[alt12]

Or the people that decry something as a failure before it has occurred.

I think its going to be very interesting to see how the whole thing pans out by August.
I have a feeling that wont really know how well it went tell the very end.
Once the lottery is done,
The second sale over,
"ticket hoarders" have unloaded their extras,
And finally how many people do/do not get tickets.

In my opinion, we are only in part 2 of a 6 part process (excluding scholarship and December)
Part 1: lottery registration
Part 2: Lottery drawings
Part 3: Post lottery 'open market' sales
Part 4: March Secondary drawing
Part 5: After Secondary drawing open market
Part 6: Last minute "What do you mean there was a lottery" freak outs

Thank God I have nothing to do all year but obsess about the intimacies of this multi-step process and the likelihood/unlikelihood of getting a ticket.... What a relief it is it drag out something that I used to get done in 1/2 a day into a + 6 month adventure... Yay!

[alt12]

...

[A Jester]

Or the people that decry something as a failure before it has occurred.

I think its going to be very interesting to see how the whole thing pans out by August.
I have a feeling that wont really know how well it went tell the very end.
Once the lottery is done,
The second sale over,
"ticket hoarders" have unloaded their extras,
And finally how many people do/do not get tickets.

In my opinion, we are only in part 2 of a 6 part process (excluding scholarship and December)
Part 1: lottery registration
Part 2: Lottery drawings
Part 3: Post lottery 'open market' sales
Part 4: March Secondary drawing
Part 5: After Secondary drawing open market
Part 6: Last minute "What do you mean there was a lottery" freak outs

Thank God some people have nothing to do all year but obsess about the intimacies of this multi-step process and the likelihood/unlikelihood of getting a ticket.... What a relief it is it drag out something that I used to get done in 1/2 a day into a + 6 month adventure... Yay!

[A Jester]

I just felt like it should be said a third time.

[King Bonehead]

I believe that once all this has played out, most everyone who wants one will have a ticket, and there will only be a handful of people actually damaged by the process: the BM staffers.

Regardless of the virtues of this year's sale system, I am sure the staff has been working super hard to make it work as well as it can. They have been continuously beaten up for their efforts, and now are creating a FOURTH sales venue (STEP), with not a lot of love coming at them from this community. I can't imagine the number of complaint e-mails, calls and visits they are dealing with.

Now that the lottery has 'failed,' my suggestion is to do something nice for the staff (send a thank you note, or something). This event isn't a right; it's a creation built by the attitudes of everyone who participates.

[illy dilly]

Thank God some people have nothing to do all year but obsess about the intimacies of this multi-step process and the likelihood/unlikelihood of getting a ticket.... What a relief it is it drag out something that I used to get done in 1/2 a day into a + 6 month adventure... Yay!

Eh, why not think about Burning Man tickets. God knows, that from January ticket sales tell Mid September I can't go an hour with out Burning Man crossing my mind.
So might as well be tickets.

[Rice]

I know at least 10 people in my small burner community that received tickets. So far, no one has said they didn't. Maybe the lottery didn't fail.


Please, Feel free to panic. - After all, you are more likely to forget something you need on the playa than not get a ticket.

[dunkk]

You are spot on karma_cat. To purchase anything with cash is a transaction. A business deal. Nothing more nothing less. If part of the reason for the new system was to "reduce the customer's ability to control what they pay for the ticket" the customer will resist that notion (burner or not). If they want the customer to pay more simply say so and charge the amount needed to make it all work.

[greenmachinemike]

I say it's a failure. Or at least lame that deserving perennial burners may not get a ticket because of the luck of the draw. If the servers can't handle 50k requests in ten minutes, why doesn't BM offer tickets to established camps and other related communities first? If they sell out, great!, no frat boy/yuppie virgins. If they don't, open the sales to the public. Just sayin'

[Nipple]

deserving perennial burners

Why does anyone deserve a ticket more than someone else?

[FIGJAM]

[Rice]

I say it's a failure. Or at least lame that deserving perennial burners may not get a ticket because of the luck of the draw. If the servers can't handle 50k requests in ten minutes, why doesn't BM offer tickets to established camps and other related communities first? If they sell out, great!, no frat boy/yuppie virgins. If they don't, open the sales to the public. Just sayin'

In 2011 several experienced burners failed to purchase tickets from the BM ticket site due to the event selling out. Tickets went on sale in January and were sold out in July.

The ticket lottery was set up to deal with ticket scalpers and scarcity. (I believe)

I have no more right to be at Burning Man than anyone else. If I fail to get a ticket, I will live.

No one DESERVES to attend. We are privileged to attend.

[greenmachinemike]

[quote="Nipple"][quote="greenmachinemike"]deserving perennial burners[/quote]

Why does anyone deserve a ticket more than someone else?[/quote]

Yes you're right, no one deserves priority. I can see how selfishly giving first chance to buy tickets to veteran Burners would benefit me though. In my opinion, people who have repeatedly come to the event and created projects, theme camps, sound camps etc., tend to be better neighbors, strangers you interact with, and new friends, than the random, wasted, suburbanite who read about Burning Man in a magazine. Would it be too exclusive to offer the majority of the tickets through our community first then offer whats left to the public? To the people working on next years art piece or camp all summer if not already? I do feel the experience should definitely be available for those who haven't attended before, like if someone joins a camp or project, they will get a ticket in the "invite only" phase, the offering to people known to Burning Man as appreciated, perennial attendees. I wonder how many tickets would sell that way?

[The CO]

Now that the lottery has 'failed,' my suggestion is to do something nice for the staff (send a thank you note, or something). This event isn't a right; it's a creation built by the attitudes of everyone who participates.

Well said bonehead. More people need to realize the amount of work going into this.

[lemur]

deserving perennial burners

Why does anyone deserve a ticket more than someone else?

Yes you're right, no one deserves priority. I can see how selfishly giving first chance to buy tickets to veteran Burners would benefit me though. In my opinion, people who have repeatedly come to the event and created projects, theme camps, sound camps etc., tend to be better neighbors, strangers you interact with, and new friends, than the random, wasted, suburbanite who read about Burning Man in a magazine. Would it be too exclusive to offer the majority of the tickets through our community first then offer whats left to the public? To the people working on next years art piece or camp all summer if not already? I do feel the experience should definitely be available for those who haven't attended before, like if someone joins a camp or project, they will get a ticket in the "invite only" phase, the offering to people known to Burning Man as appreciated, perennial attendees. I wonder how many tickets would sell that way?

DONT MIND IF I DO!

LET ME BE THE FIRST NON-NEWCOMER TO SWAY THINGS TOWARD THE SIDE OF GOOD WHEN I SAY

FUCK YER DAY AND THE RADICAL SELF ENTITLEDNESS YOU RODE IN ON, NEIGHBOR

"our community" is not limited to those who have bought tickets, or went to burning man before, or built shit, or annoyed the fuck out of their neighbors with their shitty dance music.. or built art.. or volunteered for the LLC..

whether LARRY H is an asshat hippie fool or not... many in our community have largely embraced his kooky idea of "radical inclusion" ...ya kno.. we werent all, as you say "appreciated, perennial attendees" from the beginning, ya kno?

this shit is old!! and dirty!! we all popped our cherry at some point!!! (even larry H and his friends)

so, while youre busy having an OPINION on whether we should allow burning man to devolve into a big fuckin orgy fuckfest circlejerk attended by only the COOL KIDS (and only vouched for newbs coming.. and whatever scraps left over for the people who just heard about burning man) I THINK.. that I will be out there WELCOMING the newcomers because they KICK ASS way more than the boring old curmudgeons who want to keep the fun to themselves!

(AND YES.. it would be too exclusive, because there isnt an "our community" and then "the public" .. we are all in this together man!!! don't you even know what a "BURNER" is ?? ... look it up man!! a burner doesn't even need a damned ticket!)

enjoy your burn!

[nncoco]

i think the lottery system is a good one because it puts tickets in the hands of Burners who will redistribute them to people in their camps at face value. People not connected with a camp can still get tickets in the lottery or secondary market. The people who create camps and art a huge part are what make the event worth attending.

Call me elitist, I don't give a fuck. There needs to be a higher ratio of creators than spectators and foreign travelers for the event to go off.

It is true that scalpers will have a lot of these ticket too but the long lead time and late delivery system makes it a less desirable investment for them. They have to tie up a bunch of cash and wait many months before they can even start to sell them.

The tiered pricing system is not necessary or practical anymore. It only works in a system where demand is met at the top level.

[lessrules]

I'll hijack this thread to throw in my hazy, late-night foggy-brained lotteryish-open-sale-merged idea:

0nce upon a time, there was this festival, and everyone was like - anyone who wants to come can come.
Then it got big and people were like - this is as big as we can handle right now.
Then people were like - are you saying that not everyone who wants to come can come?
Then people said - what we mean is like, everyone who wants to come can still come, but until the festival can be bigger, some people will have to wait until next time.
Then people were like - but how can we make it fair for everyone?
So people like got together and worked out a plan:

as big as we can handle = 53,000 people
everyone who wants to come = way more than 53,000 people
still, we must let anyone come who wants to come
we know that merging total inclusion of everyone with a population limit of 53,000 will make a population of regular attendees turn into a population of semi-regular attendees,
we know that the festival needs resources to operate = must charge money for tickets
we know that some people will volunteer to pay more for their ticket so that others can pay less

a lot of people know that we are making this plan,
they know our plan is for some people to go this time and some people to go next time,
we know that all of those people who want to go should try their best and compete for going this time,
we decide to try our best to eliminate the competition,
we decide that first-come = first served is most fair,
we decide that keeping tickets unregistered is important for anonymity and to promote liquidity between buyers and attendees, even though it leaves room for scaplers to operate,
we decide that keeping ticketbuyer anonymity is not nearly as important, thus, the ticketbuyers can be filtered for hoarding and gaming.
we decide that it is important for people to be able to know well ahead of time when they can attend

we know that we must have a queue (a lineup),
but we don't have a lineup now, we have an anonymous mob,
to get the anonymous mob into a lineup, we must make an initial random drawing,
give each member of the anonymous mob a number starting with "R", like R1, R2, R3, R4, etc.
draw "R" numbers randomly and ask each member of the anonymous mob to take a position in line starting at position 1,
meanwhile, if more anonymous people are wanting to come, start giving them numbers starting with "L", like L1, L2, L3, etc.,
when the whole mob has moved into line, then ask the "L" people to join the end of the line in order,
when all the people have a place in line take back all the "R" numbers and the "L" numbers and give the people their position number in line,
now we have an orderly line with new people filing in on the end.

we don't know if anyone has taken more than place in line, or if anyone has employed other people to hold places in line,
we know that because the people are still anonymous, theoretically, one person could hold all the places in line, however unlikely that may be.
we know that making people prepay for their ticket long before they actually get the ticket, will discourage some ticket hoarding

we decide that there are four tiers of tickets: $240, $320, $390, $420
each person decides the highest amount that they will pay,
starting with position 1, groups of 5,000 people are offered the chance to prepay for their ticket, or stay in line until the next group,
if they do choose to prepay for their ticket, they lose their position number in line, but get a new sequential "L" number for next time.
when the festival is over, they are immediately & automatically given a new position in line (by order of their "L" number).

each group of 5,000 people are offered the chance to prepay for 1 of 5,000 tickets and can choose the highest amount they will pay,
each ticket is randomly drawn from a proportion of the applicable tiers, but one can choose pay for a higher priced ticket if he wants.
when it is your turn to be drawn a ticket and there are no tickets left that would match your tier (or lower), then you are pushed to the next group.

while the line is more than 53,000 long, but less than 106,000 long, the expiry date of your position in line is 2 years,
if the line is 159,000 long, then the expiry date of your position in line is 3 years, and so on to make sure everyone has at least 1 chance of a ticket.

the prepaid tickets are held as long as possible and sent out as close to the festival date as reasonable to shorten the window of opportunity for scalpers.

[AntiM]

I think the burgins are going to have to step up. And I don't mean in huge ways, I am thinking of the little pocket camps on the back streets. I adore those camps, and as the event has grown, it seems as though there are fewer and fewer funky little bars and wacky daytime fun. Everyone wants a big theme camp, it seems, and wants all the bells and whistles. No, random book exchanges and spontaneous three customer bars, nipple cover making, on and on...those are the camps I love best. I am hoping this shake up will return some of that less pretentious interactivity.

If I didn't get tickets ... we'd arrange an orphan burn, after all, Utah has plenty of open space for camping. Or we'd say screw it and book a vacation somewhere we've yet to visit. I would be unhappy, of course, but I would survive, and I'd make my art project work in some way.

[BBadger]

DONT MIND IF I DO!

LET ME BE THE FIRST NON-NEWCOMER TO SWAY THINGS TOWARD THE SIDE OF GOOD WHEN I SAY

FUCK YER DAY AND THE RADICAL SELF ENTITLEDNESS YOU RODE IN ON, NEIGHBOR

"our community" is not limited to those who have bought tickets, or went to burning man before, or built shit, or annoyed the fuck out of their neighbors with their shitty dance music.. or built art.. or volunteered for the LLC..

whether LARRY H is an asshat hippie fool or not... many in our community have largely embraced his kooky idea of "radical inclusion" ...ya kno.. we werent all, as you say "appreciated, perennial attendees" from the beginning, ya kno?

this shit is old!! and dirty!! we all popped our cherry at some point!!! (even larry H and his friends)

so, while youre busy having an OPINION on whether we should allow burning man to devolve into a big fuckin orgy fuckfest circlejerk attended by only the COOL KIDS (and only vouched for newbs coming.. and whatever scraps left over for the people who just heard about burning man) I THINK.. that I will be out there WELCOMING the newcomers because they KICK ASS way more than the boring old curmudgeons who want to keep the fun to themselves!

(AND YES.. it would be too exclusive, because there isnt an "our community" and then "the public" .. we are all in this together man!!! don't you even know what a "BURNER" is ?? ... look it up man!! a burner doesn't even need a damned ticket!)

THIS.

I was going to shorten the quote, but it needed full treatment.

[AntiM]

Yes, yes, yes. As a burgin, I knew no one, would never have been invited in, because I'm hardly cool kid material. Now I'm Anti M, with a long standing art project. You never know what a burgin brings, and not every vet is worth the dust on their lazy ass. Hell, sometimes you don't know who is what, or what they contribute in ways you cannot see. So yeah, no old boys club.

[5280MeV]

I think the burgins are going to have to step up. And I don't mean in huge ways, I am thinking of the little pocket camps on the back streets. I adore those camps, and as the event has grown, it seems as though there are fewer and fewer funky little bars and wacky daytime fun. Everyone wants a big theme camp, it seems, and wants all the bells and whistles. No, random book exchanges and spontaneous three customer bars, nipple cover making, on and on...those are the camps I love best. I am hoping this shake up will return some of that less pretentious interactivity.

If I didn't get tickets ... we'd arrange an orphan burn, after all, Utah has plenty of open space for camping. Or we'd say screw it and book a vacation somewhere we've yet to visit. I would be unhappy, of course, but I would survive, and I'd make my art project work in some way.

YES.YES.YES.YES.YES.YES.YES.

I don't see why everything has to be so goddamn big. I understand why some things have to be big - because that is how some people express their massive architectural selves. Without the little things though, I wouldn't be spending all this effort to come back.

Orphan burns, regionals, etc... this is the way of the future. If your art project cannot exist anywhere but specifically at the official Burning Man event, then what are you really taking away from the event in the first place? Is this an awakening to be more boldly adventurous and creative, or just a goofy party in the desert?

( Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo )

[AntiM]

Personally, I don't have the resources to pull off my project at both the burn and the regional. So it goes to the Burn. But I have had it at the regional, and my secondary project has been successful there as well. I can't ever see the Home for Wayward Art as part of one of those massive theme camps.