Hey to all five lotto defenders... why?

[trilobyte]

@Arcticcircle - I suspect there are more than 5. Speaking for myself though - I post a lot because I'm a moderator and the admin of this site, and I've been working pretty closely with the ticketing team (and other departments within Burning Man). I've also got some experience with event production and have given the system some pretty serious analysis over the last several months, and genuinely do believe this system is an improvement over the system that was used last year. Once you've got an event that sells out, an unrestricted open sale falls apart pretty quickly. The plan's not perfect, but it's a pretty good step in the right direction and it's far too early to say whether it was a success or failure. I've already met Larry a few times, but no I'm not looking for him (or anybody else) to fly in my living room window or any other kind of perceived 'gimme' - just trying to help people with all the fear, uncertainty, and doubt. My opinion is my own, and if I didn't believe in what they're doing I wouldn't be investing my time and energy as a volunteer to try and help. Personally, I think the fear-mongers are far worse than any potential down-side to the drawing or scarcity.

[Simon of the Playa]

DAMMIT TRILO!

stop being so reasonable and well thought out.


yer fucking up my widespread panic.

[The CO]

Widespread Panic! I love those guys!

[Rice]

The real issue:

I think that there are simply less tickets than people who realistically want to go

So many people don't understand that concept.....

It's not a matter of fairness, conspiracy, money grab, it's BASIC FUCKIN MATH!

Math?? No, man, It is a conspiracy.. Some people just believe that BM is out to exclude them...

I agree with you totally!! If there are X tickets for sale and X+5000 people want tickets, some people just will not get tickets. Reality = "sucks to be you".

[Nomaddrifter]

Re: Hey to all five lotto defenders... why?
by BlackRockCityPimp » Sun Jan 29, 2012 11:54 am

I support the lottery still.. so I guess I am one of the 5 supporters you are calling out to.

Why you ask?

Well all BS aside I like new things, I think its a neato idea to try to curb scalpers and make ticket distribution more fair. The only thing I disagree with is the date they chose. I think they shoulda waited till after tax time since most burners I know use their returns for their tix.

Everyone in my household went for two tix for a coupla reasons. Mainly so any that lost lottery could still have a ticket and any leftovers we may have can goto art projects or themecamp builders that didnt make the drawing. We also plan on gifting a ticket or two as we do every year for the past 5 years.

Maybe if we get really lucky in the drawing we will have a gift ticket lottery if the mods approve. It would have to be youtube documented so people dont accuse us of showing favoritism with the recipient of the gift ticket
BlackRockCityPimp

Posts: 151
Joined: Fri Nov 25, 2011 3:48 am
Location: Tent


This is why I think the Lotto should not be done. A lot of people putting in for more tickets than they need. This is going to be our tenth year. I just put in for 2 tickets for my wife and I. Our chance seems pretty slim now looking at all the data. How am I going to benefit, or other burners from someone else getting extra tickets, I am not part of a theme camp but probably a lot of people have been to our bike stand out on the playa. We have 6 people in our household that could have put in for tickets for us also and I even had coworkers that wanted to help also but I thought that was unfair to other burners that wanted tickets so we just put in for ourselves.. I know that I am going this year again, I will get tickets somewhere. I love going. But next year I am going to have everybody help out and put in for extra tickets which every body is going to do now that didn't this year.

[Rice]

My, what an awesome burner you are!! Gee, they are doing something wrong. So, next year I am going to as well...

I am impressed!

[littleflower]

i would say that i'm one of the five, but i'm not, really .... i just don't bother posting because the 5 post what needs to be posted, and i have nothing to add.

[BlackRockCityPimp]

Re: Hey to all five lotto defenders... why?
by BlackRockCityPimp » Sun Jan 29, 2012 11:54 am

I support the lottery still.. so I guess I am one of the 5 supporters you are calling out to.

Why you ask?

Well all BS aside I like new things, I think its a neato idea to try to curb scalpers and make ticket distribution more fair. The only thing I disagree with is the date they chose. I think they shoulda waited till after tax time since most burners I know use their returns for their tix.

Everyone in my household went for two tix for a coupla reasons. Mainly so any that lost lottery could still have a ticket and any leftovers we may have can goto art projects or themecamp builders that didnt make the drawing. We also plan on gifting a ticket or two as we do every year for the past 5 years.

Maybe if we get really lucky in the drawing we will have a gift ticket lottery if the mods approve. It would have to be youtube documented so people dont accuse us of showing favoritism with the recipient of the gift ticket
BlackRockCityPimp

Posts: 151
Joined: Fri Nov 25, 2011 3:48 am
Location: Tent


This is why I think the Lotto should not be done. A lot of people putting in for more tickets than they need. This is going to be our tenth year. I just put in for 2 tickets for my wife and I. Our chance seems pretty slim now looking at all the data. How am I going to benefit, or other burners from someone else getting extra tickets, I am not part of a theme camp but probably a lot of people have been to our bike stand out on the playa. We have 6 people in our household that could have put in for tickets for us also and I even had coworkers that wanted to help also but I thought that was unfair to other burners that wanted tickets so we just put in for ourselves.. I know that I am going this year again, I will get tickets somewhere. I love going. But next year I am going to have everybody help out and put in for extra tickets which every body is going to do now that didn't this year.

Buying extra tickets is indeed awesome. I am glad to hear that you will doing as we have been doing for so many years. There is no better feeling than gifting a ticket to someone who otherwise wouldnt be able to get to the playa.

[karma_cat]

The supposed 'real issue' is that there are less tickets available than there is demand for the tickets.

This is true ... but not to the extent that people are claiming.

Last year there were tens-of-thousands of tickets left for months after the sale began. And when the event finally did sell out it was late-July ... and even then the great people of this community sold tickets they could not use for face value.

Sure there were scalpers and jerks trying to screw people over. But all in all things weren't so bad.

Why?

Well because once the lower price tickets sold out there was no rush for the remaining tickets. It has always been the tiered pricing system that caused server crashes and madness on the first day of sale.

And it was the tiered pricing system that made this lottery get WAY out of control.

Not only were people worried about scarcity of a ticket in-general. But they were FURTHER worried about scarcity of low-price tickets ... and even FURTHER worried about what strategies other people might use to increase their odds of getting a ticket.

For example ... would it be better to register for a Low, Middle, or Upper Tier ticket? If you think it might be best to register for an upper tier then perhaps that's the strategy that other people would use as well ... thus making the lower or mid-tier tickets easier to get. So people registered at multiple tiers NOT ONLY to get the lowest price, but also because they wanted to make sure to pick the correct tier to register for to increase their chance of getting a ticket.

The main reason this lottery resulted in such a MASSIVE OVERBUYING is because the design encouraged people to register multiple times.

So yes ... there are less tickets than people who want to attend ... but the lottery's design created the illusion of much greater scarcity than actually exists and forced people (even the honest actors who only registered once) to play a game about which tier to register for.

That is why I made my suggestion for changes here: viewtopic.php?f=290&t=53539

Tell me what you think!!!

[lemur]

The main reason this lottery resulted in such a MASSIVE OVERBUYING is because the design encouraged people to register multiple times.



Tell me what you think!!!

i think you probably are not correct..


The lottery encouraged MASSIVE OVERBUYING like putting products on shelves openly in stores and not behind glass encourages people to steal shit.

only assholes will steal shit left openly on shelves in stores

only assholes will massively overbuy.

putting stuff on open shelves in stores may ALLOW people to steal shit.. but it certainly doesnt encourage them

having an open lottery system that may ALLOW every damn person you know to register in hopes to up ones individual chances.. but it certainly doesnt ENCOURAGE it..


clearly anyone suggesting that this system ENCOURAGES people to act like a buncha kleptomaniacs havnt been to a store lately...

good luck telling the cops "BUT THEY JUST SET THE PRODUCTS OUT ON A SHELF!! THEY WEREENCOURAGING ME TO STEAL IT!!!"

[karma_cat]

The main reason this lottery resulted in such a MASSIVE OVERBUYING is because the design encouraged people to register multiple times.



Tell me what you think!!!

i think you probably are not correct..


The lottery encouraged MASSIVE OVERBUYING like putting products on shelves openly in stores and not behind glass encourages people to steal shit.

only assholes will steal shit left openly on shelves in stores

only assholes will massively overbuy.

putting stuff on open shelves in stores may ALLOW people to steal shit.. but it certainly doesnt encourage them

having an open lottery system that may ALLOW every damn person you know to register in hopes to up ones individual chances.. but it certainly doesnt ENCOURAGE it..


clearly anyone suggesting that this system ENCOURAGES people to act like a buncha kleptomaniacs havnt been to a store lately...

good luck telling the cops "BUT THEY JUST SET THE PRODUCTS OUT ON A SHELF!! THEY WEREENCOURAGING ME TO STEAL IT!!!"

So your response to a clearly laid out explanation of some of the problems caused by the lottery ...

... is that the community is to blame.

OK. Thanks for clearing that up.

[lemur]

yeah dood i said this days ago..


"THE LOTTERY DIDNT FUCK YOU, YOUR COMMUNITY DID"

[karma_cat]

yeah dood i said this days ago..


"THE LOTTERY DIDNT FUCK YOU, YOUR COMMUNITY DID"

I wonder what part of the community was to blame?

Was it the part that overbought once the lottery started

... or the part that insisted the lottery was a great idea, well thought out, and that everything was going to be fine?

[BBadger]

The ticket lottery is entrapment!

[A Jester]

That is why I made my suggestion for changes here: viewtopic.php?f=290&t=53539

Tell me what you think!!!

TBH, I think that it's a bit overcomplicated. I like the idea of Burners Helping Burners, but I think the pay money into a fund which will later be distributed part has a few weak points. The most glaring (to me) is that it will be expensive, and then people will complain about the overhead.

I think it's really better to find an artist in your community, someone who brings or does something you think is awesome, and give that person a ticket/money/emotional support.

I think it's accurate to say that the tiers are a legacy issue, and not particularly well suited to our current system. However, many people will probably want to keep them.