It "could" be true?

[Savannah]

ps. there are only good adventures posted on youtube. don't people take footages of the bad things that can happen?
(I'm not all to great at film capturing, otherwise I would have filmed my monkey hut getting ripped apart from the dust storm that occurred the Thursday before the event started in 2010 - On second thought, I couldn't because was hanging on to the tarp and flexible PVC that was threatening to tear my arm off while screaming for help - last time I will build a shade structure at 3AM!!!!)

One must acknowledge that the live band does keep playing, however:



. . . Here are "Virgitarians trying to save their Quonset Hut / Waterbar and Yurt".



Btw . . . for effective quotes/tags to work go to your User Control Panel --> Board Preferences --> Edit Posting Defaults --> Enable BBCode --> Submit.

[vargaso]

Ah, those videos warm my cold heart.

[organizedchaos]

okay... lets all do our part.

if everyone on this board can convince one virgin not to go... (insert random math equation that doesn't make a lot of sense here).

also its probably worth mentioning that sparkle pony's will be shot.

[pink]

okay, Okay, OKAY! I did it! It's all my fault! We had ELEVEN virgins in our camp last year and I already have TWO MORE with tickets for this year.

SORRY!

Ya might have another...I was contacted by an old festival friend who has an extra ticket (yay! ) who asked if I'd get him up to playa-speed in exchange for his spare ticket. I sent him a message telling him a bit about our camp when he asked if our camp accepted burgins.

Well, we found another one or two of the 'missing tickets!'

[mrscience]

i've convinced maybe 10 people from Kansas to attend over 14 years... countless others have said, "yeah, i need to go someday..." Buying some of them tickets and conveying them certainly helped. Obviously I need to start telling everyone how much it sucks instead. About the dust leeches, and sand flies, and camel spiders (wait, that was Iraq).

(i used to have an eplaya account in the 90's but it seems to have disappeared...)

[Drawingablank]

I hear a lot of talk about the Dr Seuss video as if it were the main culprit in the sell out, so I went back and watched it again. While I love that video, I don't see much on there that would entice a birgin to attend.

So I showed it to several people who have never been to the burn. While that video may have deep meaning for burners, all those who had never been to the burn seemed unimpressed in my test group.

Based on my totally sketchy and non scientific study, I conclude that this video had very little to do with the sell out.

[AntiM]

I shared it with non-burners, and several expressed interest in the event. But that could be the nature of the people I know. No, none of them registered for tickets. They had stuff to do.

[lemur]

They had stuff to do.

they always do, dont they ?


in my 100% failure rate of trying to get people to go ive had to explain.. most people who DO go.. they also have 'stuff to do' or .. 'jobs' or 'families' or 'school' ...... but somehow they are able to pull it off.

[Drawingablank]

I shared it with non-burners, and several expressed interest in the event. But that could be the nature of the people I know. No, none of them registered for tickets. They had stuff to do.

Well perhaps I should elaborate - I used the word unimpressed because none of them decided to go to bm because of it. Several of my non burner viewers found it an interesting video, but none expressed any desire to attend bm after seeing it.

[Spritle712]

I don't think real demand increased two, three or four fold. I guess one indicator would be the number of people signed up for JRS (also the number who were signed up when tickets sold out last year). That would be a good proxy.

I still think it is scalpers (or scalpels if you prefer).

[5280MeV]

I thought of the Dr. Seuss video as a rendition of the book done at Burning Man, not as a documentary of Burning Man. I would also say that it is a really wonderful rendering of the book, and not a realistic account of what it is like to go to Burning Man.

I think that what the video did was to make Burning Man more favorable in the public eye - now there are hundreds of thousands more people who probably think of TTITD as a group of creative desert campers and artists rather than a just a giant nudist drug party in the desert (Not that I have a problem with anyone taking their clothes off and smoking dope, and really neither does a rapidly increasing slice of the general public).

This eases social pressures that might prevent some fence sitters from being able to go without causing distress in their family, job, or community. (Not that they shouldn't perhaps just go anyway in many cases).

A large number of those facebook likes may just be people who like burning man. They may or may not become burners. My spouse likes burning man, but she is not too keen on the dust and 100+ degree days and as of now has no interest in going.

[AntiM]

I don't think real demand increased two, three or four fold. I guess one indicator would be the number of people signed up for JRS (also the number who were signed up when tickets sold out last year). That would be a good proxy.

I still think it is scalpers (or scalpels if you prefer).

I think it is a perfect combination of a number of factors. No one single answer suffices.

[bittermac]

I wrote a blog awhile back, taking a bunch of odd stuff and claiming that the Burn was over. Yuk yuk and ripped apart in Eplaya.
Now, not so sure, the logic holds and the Burn may be morphing into something else.
Check here. http://alturl.com/2675u

[Spritle712]

I don't think real demand increased two, three or four fold. I guess one indicator would be the number of people signed up for JRS (also the number who were signed up when tickets sold out last year). That would be a good proxy.

I still think it is scalpers (or scalpels if you prefer).

I think it is a perfect combination of a number of factors. No one single answer suffices.

You're almost certainly correct.

I accept that real demand from burners for tickets increased dramatically. Say like 40%. That would mean that the ~60k people who wanted tickets last year increased to say ~80-85k. Based on a rejection rate of ~2/3, people must have submitted to buy at least 120k tickets (I think the number is much, much higher based on our camp's 85% failure rate). I know that the SF theme camps aren't sitting on the tickets. I hear distant noise from burner acquaintances that a ticket or two are unclaimed but there's little evidence a lot tickets sitting with actual burners. So I'm thinking that scalpers are big driver of this calamity.

Still waiting to hear from BRC. I think they have another week to give a more robust response per the Guardian article.

[theCryptofishist]

I thought of the Dr. Seuss video as a rendition of the book done at Burning Man, not as a documentary of Burning Man...

I gave up when that woman turned around and she had a tail on and she went walking off. It was so "burny" in the worst cliched way...argh!

[theCryptofishist]

(i used to have an eplaya account in the 90's but it seems to have disappeared...)

I joined eplaya in 2003, just after the change to a bbs system (or something, I never saw the old stuff, so I don't know how it was run). A number of people mentioned that they lost accounts. It's been more than a decade... Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that it doesnt' work. At any rate, welcome back.

[mrscience]

thanks, Crypto.

I guess at least i will be giving people rickshaw rides on the playa this year as i have been for 14 years. it's a great way to meet people.

[Jackass]

.

camper-bike.jpg

[5280MeV]

.

camper-bike.jpg

Could you legally park that RV in the walk-in camping area?

[trilobyte]

@pinemom - Yep, that's my belief. 300K+ 'likes' on the official page. Better weather than anyone can remember (there's always an influx of new people after a good weather year). A bumper crop of truly amazing videos, as well as one that went massively viral and accumulated over 1.1 million views by the time registration closed. This also seemed to be a big year for people to return to the playa after some time away. All we need now is 100 miles of highway widened so we can give that population cap a kick in the pants!

@vapor - I sure hope that's the case, and that as people's plans don't pan out they keep the tickets they can't use within the community at face or less.

@RedHeaven - I agree, the video was definitely a factor. I'm reluctant to say 'blame' though, people have been giving poor Teddy a hard time about that great little clip (as if he did it to intentionally make things difficult for anybody or to screw himself out of getting a ticket). And yeah, such great weather. And the Time book. And all of it.

@moonrise - 2009 was 43K (down from 49K the year before, most likely in the wake of the housing/credit crunch), population info here.

@Drawingablank - spend some time reading the comments on that video. There were quite a few from people who had never been and appeared to be determined to go.

@Spritle712 - scalpers is a possibility, but I haven't seen any evidence yet. Sure tickets are on offer, but it's a tiny percentage when compared to the number of tickets that have been awarded.

@mrscience - if you like, send me a PM with the email address and name you may have used on that earlier account and I'll see if I can find it.

[danibel]

. . . Here are "Virgitarians trying to save their Quonset Hut / Waterbar and Yurt".

I hope someone posts these on Facebook. I would, but I am on a facecation.

[ZaphodBurner]

...
{dust storm videos}
...

Thank you so much for posting these.

[Savannah]

Aw. One more then. Some friends of mine are in it; battening down the hatches.

[lemur]

from 2008 it even says in the posters comment section on this one "THE REASON WHY WE LEFT EARLY" the dust nailed em!!


oh!!! DID YOU EVER WANT TO KNOW WHAT ITS LIKE TO BE A LAMPLIGHTER?

(from 2010,.. a bit long at 5 minutes long but ... i think this captures what its like to do that task pretty darn well)

(and we have lit in much harsher dust storms.. this one is wimpy!! )



fun times.

[Savannah]

Man, 2008 was amazing for storms . . . I'm feeling a wave of nostalgia.

And I love that second video, Lemur.

[Wrath]

What remains to be seen is how wild this exponent really is.

I hope it's totally crazy. I hope five times as many people are dead set on going and two thirds end up outside the exclusion zone.

[burner von braun]

[pinemom]

Horton hears a whom...

[remi]

I don't think real demand increased two, three or four fold. I guess one indicator would be the number of people signed up for JRS (also the number who were signed up when tickets sold out last year). That would be a good proxy.

I still think it is scalpers (or scalpels if you prefer).

I think it is a perfect combination of a number of factors. No one single answer suffices.

You're almost certainly correct.

I accept that real demand from burners for tickets increased dramatically. Say like 40%. That would mean that the ~60k people who wanted tickets last year increased to say ~80-85k. Based on a rejection rate of ~2/3, people must have submitted to buy at least 120k tickets (I think the number is much, much higher based on our camp's 85% failure rate). I know that the SF theme camps aren't sitting on the tickets. I hear distant noise from burner acquaintances that a ticket or two are unclaimed but there's little evidence a lot tickets sitting with actual burners. So I'm thinking that scalpers are big driver of this calamity.

Still waiting to hear from BRC. I think they have another week to give a more robust response per the Guardian article.

You forgot to take into account all the hoarders. Last year, everyone entered for the exact number of tickets they needed. This year, if 50% of the people requested 2 tickets instead of one, that makes your 80-85K a 120K and, by your figures, that means there are no scalpers.

[Colonel Monk]

I definitely believe that the issue with tickets has been a lot of speculative buying based on the hype of the sell out last year. I would bet that a lot of people who haven't been before registered just in case they want to go, knowing they can always resell the tickets later. The question remains at what point speculation turns into a decision. I'd bet that in many cases it is when tickets are mailed in June.

There's a long time natural growth curve of attendance and there's no reason to think that curve is any different this year. I think that is what the org was counting on, I know I was thinking the same thing and just registered for 1 ticket (didn't win) - I honestly thought demand for tickets would not be much more than the 40K available . . . I really find it hard to believe that there was some large increase (3-5x ?) in people who are planning to go now than were planning to go last year at this time. Scalpers, sure, some. Over registering, sure, some amount. But I don't think those add up to what seems like about a 30% chance of getting a ticket.

I have also found it incredibly difficult to convince people to go. A lot of people have initial interest, then I start explaining things like the weather, no stores, total self reliance and they lose interest pretty quick.

So . . . we wait . . . the dust will settle at some point.

You know, the first couple of years after my virgin burn I did that. I bought a few tickets and REALLY thought to myself about just how hard it is to pull off, financially, physically, mentally, etc and told myself "maybe I'll skip this year, but I'll get a ticket just in case"

I know I'm not alone in that thought. Though in recent years, even though it WAS harder to get time to come, didn't have as much money, was limping around on a bad knee, I still had no doubts I was doing this EVERY year.

There are alot of people out there that don't realize what it costs to make it happen. And people will drop out as the event nears, count on it. But too early to say what's gonna happen and how that will affect the event.