Positive Suggestions for Fixing What Is Obviously Broken

[playfle2]

Btw - I'm completely with the notion that the ratio of true believers to newbies should be 80/20. For a lot of reasons.

The problem is "who gets to decide?" Remember high school parties? Heathers covet passing judgment on other people.

This is a classic shout out for "elitist democracy". We might have a politburo blessing a burner caste, but if there is some autonomy among pwoerful elites, that may be the best we can do. I strongly prefer some mechanism whereby the ticket purchases "vote with their actions", but what are we supposed to do, invent an online competition for ticket priority?

[Stephendragonfly]

I had this dream that the BMORG announced a second, simultaneous Burn in New Mexico.
Revealing the real meaning of Fertility 2.0

Non Transferable Tickets were to be sold first to people left out by the random selection process and STEP, second to all the Theme Camps left out of the 10000 ticket secondary sale, and third on the open market.

[BBadger]

Btw - I'm completely with the notion that the ratio of true believers to newbies should be 80/20. For a lot of reasons.

So anyone who has been there once is now a true believer?

[Cabbie]

Idea #1, for 2013 and beyond: Sell tickets on the way out of BRC. You were here this year? You've got your ticket for next year. One person, one ticket.

Idea #2, 2012: Ship the tickets now and let the market do its thing.
Last year, when the sell-out was announced, black market tickets shot up to over a thousand dollars. Within a few weeks, they drifted back down.
Holding off distribution until June drives up uncertainty. Uncertainty drive panic. Panic drives prices. Release the pressure now. Might not make it better, but it could hardly be worse.

Ice Cabbie.

[playfle2]

Here we go - the core issue for the Directed Ticket Distribution committee. Can these mere mortals know the true believers when they sift through the database? Well no, of course not. Can we all admit that it is not going to be fair and try to help their impossible task instead?

Let's hope that those in charge can populate the playa in their own likeness. It's the best humans can do. They have already
stated the algorithm:

http://burningman.com/news/news_story.html?id=17818yy=2012

... will use practical criteria ...

1 History – ... must be in our database ...
2 Demonstrated Community Benefit – ... meaningful, provides ... infrastructure, helps ... create its magic
3 LNT – !
4 10 Principles – ... in their entirety.
... to carefully and conscientiously reconstruct the rich tapestry of our community ... based on information ...

Can we help them improve this algorithm? Here's my two rupees worth:

History is good. Okay.

Demonstrated community benefit - well maybe that should come first not second? I prefer the term they use on idealist.org "demonstrated commitment".

LNT, really?! What is it payback time? Is someone venting? That shouldn't be on the list because it is one of the 10 principles. I'm not sure why it's third and the principles is fourth.

[playfle2]

Idea #1, for 2013 and beyond:

Idea #2, 2012: Ship the tickets now and let the market do its thing.

Ice Cabbie.

Except sell all the tickets for 2012 and 2013 now, no restrictions or no rules, and let the market do its thing. Or would that be an even worse disaster? I don't know. I'm drifting back to 'elitist democracy' as the best we can do. Go BMORG go! Good luck, you're gonna need it. Maybe we can send them something.

[quadraspleen]

So anyone who has been there once is now a true believer?

I was. So were the two other "newbies" that went from our crew the year I first went. Why is that so hard to accept? Why does that entitle you to "get" or "like" or "participate" any better than anyone else?

That someone who hasn't been twenty (or even five) times cannot feel the wonder, and sense of community that BM offers (thrusts upon you, even!) is such a crock.

This is part of the bullshit that is making up a lot of the discussion over in the other tickets forum..Why is it that some people feel they are more entitled to be there, or in this case, even feel like they should be there? It's total bullshit, I'm afraid. And what's more, it's exhibiting the EXACT same "elitism" that a lot of ppl are accusing the BMORG of..

This is Burning Man people. I've only been two times (2009, 2011) and this will be my third time. Read my lips; I get it. I love it. I believe in it. I will help to make it happen for myself, my crew, and ANYONE else I can help along the way. I was a newbie in 2009; now I'm not. There are no newbies; there are only people (sure, some stupid ones, too - but it's a city of 55000 ppl - statistics, damn statistics)

FCFS worked; it was the tech hardware that didn't work. Invest in that (I'm in IT; I'm biased ) and make the same system that worked for years really WORK

jake out

[Cabbie]

[quote]...sell all the tickets for 2012 and 2013 now...[/quote]

Me Likee, Playfe!! Would a scalper drop money now for a pay off in two, three, or four years? Maybe some, but fewer! Would a burner buy now for tickets 2, 3, 4, 5 years down the line? I think quite so! Doesn't solve the problem, but it changes the burner:scalper ratio!

[quadraspleen]

...sell all the tickets for 2012 and 2013 now...

Me Likee, Playfe!! Would a scalper drop money now for a pay off in two, three, or four years? Maybe some, but fewer! Would a burner buy now for tickets 2, 3, 4, 5 years down the line? I think quite so! Doesn't solve the problem, but it changes the burner:scalper ratio!

But also means ppl have to come up with waaay more cash now, rather than when they can afford it..Or do we have IOU's? Or, how about shares in BMORG?

One way or another, to have really advanced sales will, again, disadvantage a large section of ppl..No easy answer to this one other than to go back to what worked before...I've almost forgotten why it had to change...But as for the popularity of BM making it a sell-out..we did that guys, you and I (and Youtube and facebook in some cases) but it was US who made it so popular..let's not blame the BMORG for that, eh?

jake out

[AntiM]

I know someone who has lifetime tickets.

[quadraspleen]

I know someone who has lifetime tickets.

Let's hope for all our sakes that they get to use them all up!

[hello_Chip]

Do you feel that BM on the Playa is a 1 day, 2 day, 1 week, or multi week event?

What if access to the Playa were limited or more expensive the closer to burn night it got? This might decrease the number of weekend only folks. As an extreme, what if the gates were closed (except for in/out returns) Thursday night at Midnight or Friday at 8am?

[quadraspleen]

Ok, how about this: (apologies if this has been suggested in a myriad of similar forms - I've just got up and cba to trawl the whole thread again) - just trying to come up with something creative to address the lottery bollox. This doesn't address the numbers..that's a different game altogether...

1. All tickets already have a barcode. Scan it into the same database that you already use to store orders in and attach it to a name - There's a degree of hand-wringing from the BORG about how hard having names on tix will make it for everybody to do shit - Not sure what shit (I think they mean it will be a logistical and costly enterprise for them but are just being coy ) So each ticket has no name, but is tied to a person who actually PAID for it with whatever payment method they have. Enough with this credit card only shit, please..What's wrong with bank transfer or paypal?? Unless, that is, you want all the money NOW. That is a whole different issue afaic

2. Make the tix all the same price, say $320-360 (either or, not between - I dunno what the BORG needs to survive and thrive - they need to choose), bar the existing LIP - perhaps extend it a bit as there always seems to be a lot of ppl saying that they are low income and they always find it hard to find the limited tix, or can't get it together in time to fill out the forms or whatever; that has to stay. Why there are varying prices I do not know..Extend LIP for those that can't afford the main price. How many LIP tix go out now? Double it. BORG do the math. Make it work on prices. Surely that's the easy bit, no?

3. Allow up to four tix in the main sale per person. remember, they have YOUR name/number on them, and crucially, a number that any potential re-purchaser (if they're not gifted) can check on that very same database to see who it was sold to if it is a scalped (higher than face value) ticket..(It is my understanding that "scalping" is legal in NV - it is no longer scalping at that point; it is re-selling.) If it is a dodgy ticket, report it to the BORG, they can (legally - even in NV) rescind it, and the "reporter" can get that same ticket at a slightly (say $20 off) reduced price plus shipping. The reduction encourages ppl to shop a perp and the amount surely wouldn't hurt the BORG too much? I dunno..play with the figures a bit but make an incentive, whatever it is..PPl will always buy from scalpers if a) they can afford it and b) they have no tix and it's getting time to get the gold lame on..make it a more level playing field.
This crucially places the burden of checking back onto the punter (precludes any whining from the BORG re too much hassle/time/manpower). Go get a good web designer on it..SF has some of the best in the world. You can afford it..There are a load of ways this particular piece of the jigsaw could be placed.

if a ticket is tied (in any way) to a person, surely it is much less likely that that person is going to try and profit from it if there is any risk of them losing their initial outlay altogether.

You wouldn't need to get the tix checked at the gate; by that time it's too late and would add a whole heap of shit onto already stretched gaters. The system has to work before the event, not during..

Will Call wouldn't need to change as it is never going to be a source of scalped tix - I do think that offering some kind of postal concession to non-US burners would be a good gesture..I have no problem with paying an extra $25 for USPS signed-for international mail and I know all of the other non-USers would go for that (probably - perhaps some ppl like Will Call!)

I don't know about limited-time access in and out..Some ppl come a looong way and have lots of balls in the air to juggle (not speaking only of international burners, but anyone who has a life!) I think the ability to arrive and leave when you like is (a small) part of the allure - please spare me the "hasn't seen the temple burn/done the full week isn't a true burner" crock. The BORG already makes it unattractive to leave site during the main event via the early exit fees..leave it at that..

Anyway, my 2p's worth..feel free to ruthlessly pick it apart and point me to the other ten posts that say the exact same thing LOL..Obv, the "solution" offered here regarding the actual mechanism of distibution doesn't address the issue of scarcity in the first instance. I have no answer for that. It's the way of all cool, worthwhile things. It is no longer an underground event..sad, but true..but then underground can often turn internecine at the first sign of trouble, as we have seen on these boards..

peace

jake out

[Max Callahan]

So I've seen the idea of widening the 447 go by a few times from people who aren't aware of just how enormously expensive that would be given paving is a huge cost, and on top you have to buy the land, and it's a really long distance to upgrqade.

Here's my hopped up on crack variation on the theme. What if we pave the 9.5 miles of Jungo Rd from where it meets the 447 just south of Gerlach to the obvious playa entry point.
I'm given to understand some large portion of our traffic issues on the 447 have to do with the 25 mph zone in Gerlach, this routes around that. We can keep to old entrance available for emergency and service vehicles, so that has to be an improvement to the cities carrying capacity in the eyes of the BLM. And if the gate backs up to far on entry, really who cares at that point, It's not like jungo is a real road right now, the back up wouldn't inconvenience the locals or interfere with emergency vehicles.
Construction costs should be on the low end of the scale (ok, yes 3 to 9 million ish dollars, which is hyuge, but a good 2 orders of magnitude less than widening the 447 all the way south), and construction on jungo isn't going to mess with the locals like construction on the 447 would.

What do you think sirs?

[bradtem]

I've done some investigation of that.

Turns out that doing a chipseal paving of a single lane from the closest playa entry point is quite affordable even to the Burning Man budget -- about $16,000 per lane-mile for a decent job. Probably less because the road is already graded. You don't have to pave the eastbound lane, though that would create some problems as people going east decided to use the westbound lane during non-burning-man times. Chipseal lasts a lot longer if you don't run heavy trucks on it. For exodus, a southern route could be limited to lighter vehicles, but enforcing this in the rest of the year is problematic (and you would have to do a whole extra lane so the trucks have an unpaved westbound lane.) Still, it would last for several years and more than pay for itself with extra capacity. Full paving is more expensive but lasts a lot longer and can handle heavier vehicles.


But then you have the merge. You don't need a bridge, fortunately, because northbound traffic is light enough that a flagger or temporary light can solve the problem. You would need to widen 447 from the merge for a mile or so south to build a big dual lane there. But you still have the merge point, where it would take a lot of work to not have it become the final chokepoint. However, it should be a higher capacity chokepoint (with proper directions) than what I believe is the real chokepoint, the turn onto the blacktop in the north. However, I have heard many different claims of where the chokepoint is -- ramp to blacktop, turn to blacktop, 34 to Gerlach, Gerlach itself, Empire store and 447 itself. I do not know if anybody has done a proper study to find out where the chokepoint is. If it is Gerlach or north, than this method can improve capacity. I think the first step is to do a real traffic study if one has not been done. Typical capacity of a 2 lanes merging to 1 chokepoint is 1,300 to 1,400 vehicles per hour. Studies with "late merge" (deliberately tell people to use both lanes and take turns at the end) show theoretical capacity to 1,700 vph but real-world about 1,450 vph -- a modest but real improvement. Capacity of a single highway lane is 2,000 vehicles/hour but the various roads here are lower than that.

You also have to build a railway crossing, but again you can have a human flagger during exodus for the couple of trains that go through then.

[theCryptofishist]

So anyone who has been there once is now a true believer?

I was. So were the two other "newbies" that went from our crew the year I first went. Why is that so hard to accept? Why does that entitle you to "get" or "like" or "participate" any better than anyone else?

That someone who hasn't been twenty (or even five) times cannot feel the wonder, and sense of community that BM offers (thrusts upon you, even!) is such a crock.

Wait a minute. I know I haven't been on line since Friday, but last time I checked, BBadger was against granting tickets only to veterans.

[spirited]

Be nice, no biting

[Eric]

Here's my hopped up on crack variation on the theme. What if we pave the 9.5 miles of Jungo Rd from where it meets the 447 just south of Gerlach to the obvious playa entry point.
I'm given to understand some large portion of our traffic issues on the 447 have to do with the 25 mph zone in Gerlach, this routes around that.

There are also 25mph zones in Wadsworth & Nixon, and those are over 80 miles from the playa. Your plan might ease the crush at entry some but I don't see it changing Exodus at all, and there's no way it would change the capacity of 447 enough to expand the population.

As an idea for entry, I kind of like it. As a solution to the population... not so much.

[bradtem]

It really depends on what is the bottleneck. Points of slower speed limit do have reduced capacity, but it's not that much lower. Cars go slower but space closer together. I have yet to see a report on what the actual bottlenecks in exodus are. My intuition is that it's the turn onto route 34 from the 9 mile playa exit, or possibly the mega-merge just before that, but I have seen other places asserted.

To measure you need to go to various spots (or stick down a traffic counter) and measure vehicles per minute at various times. Once you hit the bottleneck you won't sustain much higher values after it, of course.

If it is the left turn onto blacktop, I think it can be greatly improved with a rental traffic light instead of just a flagger. If it's 34 itself, or Gerlach, or Empire or 447 itself then it's harder to easily improve.

[motskyroonmatick]

I keep an eye on how I think the traffic flow is going at exodus. In the last two years the points where I felt I was not proceeding at the maximum safe rate were the merges on playa and the rough part of the access road. I do recall having to hit the brakes pretty hard once on 34 between the event and the wye due to the accordion effect brought on by a slow vehicle. Other than that traffic spacing on 34 seemed slightly generous for what should reasonably be jugged as slightly impaired drivers.

If I had all the money in the world to throw at the traffic situation and it was up to me with no benefit of a real traffic flow study. I would smooth out the playa access road where it is remarkably rough. If the purpose of the rough part is to clear tires of debris before they hit the playa then I would replicate that effect with concrete or channels ground in a thickened asphalt section for inbound vehicles. Then I'd add another outbound lane with a full brake down shoulder to Hwy 34 all the way from the 12 mile entrance to the Wye at the transfer station. The lane would be terminated with a right turn only on to the transfer station road. A free right hand turn for northbound traffic. Widening would make the crazy passing of slow vehicles safer and all the broke down vehicles and people who stop for totally random shit wouldn't partially block a lane. It would also be safer for the people who go out and clean all the fucking moop that the fuckup fucking fucks moop.

I don't travel to to the South so this is customized to make my Northerly exodus as smooth as possible. I care about many of you people that go south but not enough to gain direct experience of the apparent traffic nightmare you all participate in every second of every minute of every hour that you drive on 34 and 447.

Anybody have a bunch of traffic sensors lying around just waiting for a job? That would be a project with a participation rate only surpassed by the use of the JOTS.

[C187]

I think it can be greatly improved with a rental traffic light instead of just a flagger.

Traffic light can't see a LEO that doesn't give a damn cross lanes. Burners are too distracted to see the LEO coming. A flagger on the other hand watches out for both. (This is a general argument for all points that have flagger, by the way.)

I'm glad people are talking about the road now.

[SkeletonMan]

Here are a number of suggestions from burners within the BM community in Denmark.

The suggestions were made before the BM mail 16 February and copy/pasted as received.

Suggestions and thoughts:

An increase of participants have been rejected due to logistics. All burners in the danish regional are more than willing to bend in any way. If an increase in numbers are affecting cues and traffic - I would be willing to show up at a certain time - and leave the playa at a certain time, to get the logistics running. I would even have no problem in waiting 12-24 hours in line, if the option is ticket/no ticket. - ME

Making the ticket attached to a certain name. In that way a family, organization and larger group would be able to by more than 2 tickets on a single credit card by attaching a name to each ticket. Scalpers would have a very hard time.
A change of name on a certain ticket would only be possible through the STEP-system.. - ME

Theme camps are a central part of BM. BM could allocate a specific number of tickets for theme camps, ie. as part of an application a theme camp advises how many tickets it will need. Depending on BOrg’s evaluation of the camp a specific amount of tickets could then be allocated to the camp. This should place these tickets outside of scalpers. MW

Theme camps could also be awarded tickets based on a publicly available description of their camp on ePlaya. For instance, BOrg could first allocate the amount of tickets they think is reasonable considering all the other camps out there needing tickets. A second batch of tickets could then be allocated for the BM community to “reward” camps they find deserve extra tickets. MW

Part of such an allocation system could also be that BOrg rewards camps whose BM activities also relates to the default world. As it is often stated: BM is not a location but a state of mind. On this basis camps that can validate that their activity also has default world affects could be rewarded. MW

[playfle2]

Here are a number of suggestions from burners within the BM community in Denmark.

Theme camps are a central part of BM. BM could allocate a specific number of tickets for theme camps, ie. as part of an application a theme camp advises how many tickets it will need. Depending on BOrg’s evaluation of the camp a specific amount of tickets could then be allocated to the camp. This should place these tickets outside of scalpers. MW

Yes. I like this notion. It works. Basically, stop fantasying about how the vets are going to enlighten the virgins. I'm sorry I used that terminology, but I do think there is some idea of true believers and enlightenment roaming around in this discussion. Why does it matter that vets show up? Maybe it's just about promoting theme camps and art installations? Certainly, it's about WHOLE camps showing up, rather than what's happened. This idea could work for this year and next.

Yes, just like the boneman said: BM could allocate some percentage of tickets to camps via application. BM already allocates physical space and the Black Rocks Arts people grant money, so what's new about judging camps and installations? This would be a familiar process, camp managers get allocated numbers of tickets based upon their relative 'worthiness', and then the camp manager can micromanage the ticket allocation to actual people. That would get BM out of the individual person judgement.   

[theCryptofishist]

We'll see how it works for this year.

Personally, the last thing I want to see is this become permanent. There are already complaints about camps that exist more to give the campers a sleeping place near the centers of excitement than to provide the city with interactive experience.

[playfle2]

Well, depending upon how this year goes, there may not be a ticket shortage next year. Maybe someone will spin off a parallel event. There are a lot of people ready to go somewhere. I read somewhere that they had demand for 140,000 tickets. So maybe there is someone out there thinking 90,000 x $200 = $18,000,000 and there are several months to pull it together. Happy thoughts.