Ticket Perspectives- positive side

[oddmanout]

If you are reading this, be sure you are one step closer to getting a ticket than you would be sobbing into your pillow. As long as life is what you fake it till you make it, your mind is your only chance. Here in the great northwest we are lucky to have a strong and reliable resource for entertainment, and succor. The following is an excerpt from the ignition NW burner regional monday night pot-luck announcement, regularly combusting from the wily wit of Michael Holden, wielder of a powerful snark. I offer it to our beloved community in the hope that dispairing pilgrims will find some relief from ticket angst.

I would like to add that, while I haven't plumbed the depth of the current brouhaha/discussion about the lottery, lotteries are not uncommon in events. Many events nationally use lotteries to sell tickets. As a person who attends numerous events as a vendor, in my no way humble opinion BM org is one of the most competent outfits in any event arena. The folks who run this event are uniquely skilled (I've met a fair number of them personally) at functioning in circumstances for which there is no academic qualification. The implication that these folks are running BM toward the cliff is ludicrous. O ye of little faith. Stick your neck out. Join the conversation. Become proactive, and your attitude will change your life and your burn.

Here is Micheal Holden (email 2-6-2012):

"Act as if the maxim of your action was to become through your will a universal law of nature."

-- Immanuel Kant

You didn't get a ticket. You didn't get a ticket for your partner, friend, spouse or parent. After all these years of going to The Event In The Desert, you got that email. You know, the one that, more than possibly any and maybe all of your life's cumulative college application rejection letters, grad school rejection letters, breakups-via-email, post-interview-we're-gonna-pass letters, pink slips and denial of parole notifications came across as a rejection of you as a person.

How can this thing that has welcomed you when you were needing it most, transformed you into who you are now, been fertile field where your creativity has grown beyond measure...or been your hope and dream or best chance give you the middle finger....so callously, with such disregard to who you are and what it means to you?

I am not going to comment on the workings of the ticketing system, or if it is good or bad or evil, or what we should all do *instead* of burning man, now that "most of us" "didn't get" our ticket.

I will tell you, in four simple little words, how you will get your ticket. You ready?

BELIEVE. ACT AS IF.

You are going. You've got the time off work. You've submitted your art app, your theme camp is going full steam ahead. You've got $400 in cash or whatever in an envelope for your ticket. You tell everyone that you're going, you get the blinky stuff for your bike, you get a roof rack for the truck.

WORK YOUR SOCIAL NETWORK. You tell everyone that your ticket hasn't found you. But it will. You know it. No specific notion of how it will get to you, but it will find you. It wants you to find it.

DON'T PANIC This is Panic's high season, this is the time when it is the least likely that tickets will change hands. But between the STEP program and the open ticket sales coming up, a lot more people who sincerely believe that they're going to Burning Man will get tickets.

BE PATIENT. A week before the event, ticket prices will plunge. Most folks who need tickets will get them then. And damn near all of them will be people who believed that they were going, and acted as if they already had a ticket in hand.

So. Come to potluck. Act as if. Believe.

For a snarking good read, check out Michael's weekly invite. It's regularly quite good. And marmosets!!
seattle-announce@burningman.com

Thanks again, Michael. Peace-

[Savannah]

Great post, oddmanout. Especially for those looking for "just" a ticket or two . . .

(I wouldn't even quibble that far, except I'm aware of the straits of most theme camps.)

[RevDusty]

Sorry, but I believe the post misses the point. I have no doubt whatsoever that I can get a ticket at face value. That's not the issue. The issue is one of creating something for the event. A lot of people are already bailing on that, people who have spent countless hours creating the art that you all know and love. I'm not talking about yet another bar or LoudSound camp.

I've heard it a million times: Burning Man is a do-ocracy. We make stuff. We build things. We don't sit around and wait and will the universe to shine down upon us. We take action.

Being told that it will work out isn't really the appropriate answer right now. 'Cuz it hasn't worked out so far, so the track record ain't so good.

There are lots of opportunities and resources to fix this. I'd like to see some forward movement.

P.S. It's not about the lottery. It's about the results. The system was gamed...there is really no other answer for what we are seeing.

[Ugly Dougly]

What's Potluck? A potlatch? Might be fun.

[oddmanout]

Hey Dougly! Potlatch went out with the missionaries. Now it's pot luck, every monday at banned camp. And BM is the closest thing to the spirit of potlatch as practiced by the North Coast Tribes anyway, so you don't have to leave home. We had to teach the natives greed because it's hard to rob people who don't value anything. Nobody owns anything, there's nothing to steal!

I'm pretending Revdusty has finished raining on my little parade here. I wish a mod would move it but I don't want the trash to see it either. What is it John Prine says about "living in your head?"

It took me a while to respond, and not just because I'm in the boonies on dial-up. Hysteria sure doesn't look like fun to me. Best to get high and read Sherlock Holmes. He'd get to the bottom of it with a clearly defined attitude!

I'm glad of the delay also, to applaud BMorg for the JRS special this morning. I am not humble and in my opinion (the awesome truth of how I feel, by golly) I find the same BM fluid consistency resonates throughout this entire brouhaha. As a side note, a pure burgin in our little rural blurb got two first tier tickets. She has never had any contact w/BM (and yes, the ticket is already claimed - at face value). Anyway, I heard there's going to be a weird typhoon next september, but it might be a rumor. I wouldn't want to start any rumors during Revdusty's interogatories. I better go before I start really enjoying myself. I owe, I owe, so off to work I go, and goofy was not a dwarf. Thanks for letting me get these issues off my chest.

I didn't win the lottery either, but I hear if you have one of those hats Lightning Rod Larry wears they just wave you through the gate! See you at the burn!!

[mojitomolly]

Great post!

Couldn't agree more, and love the idea of your ticket being out there trying to find you.

I've been uplifted by Halcyon's positive take on this situation as well.