Raffle vs. "Buy it now"

[jkisha]

OK, so I saw this thread viewtopic.php?f=290&t=55523, which is now locked, and it started me thinking. It seems that art projects and theme camps that decide to raffle off a ticket to raise money for their camp or project are at least tolerated. So say that they are selling 100 raffle tickets for $10.00 each to raise $1,000.00.

Say I need a ticket really bad and decide to buy all 100 tickets.

How is that really any different than a camp saying they have one ticket to sell, they need to raise $1,000.00. First come first served?

Isn't that pretty much the same thing? First example they are scalping 100 people each out of ten dollars and a sense of hope, the second example they are scalping only one person but it comes with a guarantee.

[lemur]

time honored 'people did it before this year' thing

[trilobyte]

A fundraising raffle is different than simply selling a ticket above face value. While the state of Nevada may allow selling tickets at face value, Burning Man reserves the right to cancel the sale of any ticket that was purchased with the intention of selling above face value.

[jkisha]

Well yes, but I guess that's my point. How is selling the ticket in a lottery really any different than selling the ticket over face value? The end result is exactly the same. The ticket is ultimately sold for over the face value.

Let's take another example--kick starter. First level, 10.00, you get a T Shirt 100 available... 5th level $2,000.00 you get T Shirt and Burning Man ticket. One available. Would this be wrong too?

Another example...Or I'm having a raffle for one ticket. Raffle tickets are $350.00 each (or $500.00 each or $1000.00 each--it is still a raffle.) I am only selling five raffle tickets.

The line is thin, very thin.

[graidawg]

bmorg needs to stop secondary ticket sales. its that simple

[lemur]

it seems, as we saw with the 'plug n play' thing that if youre 'giving back' to the 'community' that its OK if youre profiting off of said community (whether it be by them funding your art, allowing you to break even.. or allowing you to have a way bigger bangin camp than youd ever afford.. etc)

i bet this falls into that same category.. politically..

[jkisha]

Let me add that the post I cited was selling "early entry passes". I missed that on my first read. Now that is actually a different story than selling tickets.

[lemur]

but there are many of the things you mention..... i know of about 5 at least

[oneeyeddick]

Buying a raffle ticket for a fundraiser, no matter what the prize is, is a "gift" to the group that is trying to raise funds.

In exchange for your "gift" you get a chance to win something.

I don't see a problem with this at all, even if it is a ticket....

[oneeyeddick]

Say I need a ticket really bad and decide to buy all 100 tickets.

.

Oh , to clear that up, I have NEVER seen a raffle that has a limited amount of entries available...have you?

[trilobyte]

One's an apple, one's an orange. If you're arguing that they are both fruit then yes absolutely I agree. But selling a raffle ticket for a chance to win a prize is a very different thing than selling an item for a price. In most cases, the raffle tickets are sold at a fraction of the cost of the value of the prize (so it wouldn't run into trouble with the 'above face value' rule). Chances are if you offered 5 high dollar (over face value) raffle tickets and an equal number of tickets as prizes (for 1 to 1 odds), Burning Man may take exception with that - if you see such listed anywhere, report to partiserv@burningman.com and they can review it and make their determination.

And yeah, the thread in question was referring to someone who was selling tickets and the promise of early arrival (which was it's own gigantic no).

If your camp or project is thinking about raffling off a ticket as a fundraiser and you want to make sure your plan will be okay, contact partiserv@burningman.com for clarification. It's probably worth pointing out that tickets purchased through the directed ticket distribution program were specifically for the essential members of that camp or project, and not intended to be used for fundraising.

[Stickygreen]

Burn After Reading Magazine just posted a great article about this very Topic

check it out : http://burnafterreadingmag.com/raffle/

[lemur]

yeah..london olympics had a lottery.. and it sold out... lotsa people didnt get selected for tickets.. lotsa people were upset..

tickets for the london olympics cant be sold over face value..

but hey! how convenient! you CAN still get a ticket... the hospitality companies have tickets!! and they include them in outrageously expensive packages...

http://www.bing.com/travel/content/sear ... %247%2C000

win win!!!

you get a ticket cuz you can afford the big bucks.. the company looks like it hasnt sold it above face value (yeah dood, that bottle of wine really did cost $3000) and you get to go to the sold out event that everyone wants to go to ...the event that most people lost a chance to go to in the lottery


or!! we could just stop pretending and realize some doods in london got access to tickets for their biz in good faith and sold them at crazy high prices fuckin over the honest people in the process..


not that this has anything to do with burning man..or this thread... just thought it was interesting...

[theCryptofishist]

Oh boy, if somehow I had been in that lottery and had won, I'd have done something with that ticket so quickly you couldn't say whirlpool...

But that's just me. I don't think I would have sold it to some company; I'm just not that good at finding those sorts of opportunities.

[Breaking Wave]

As an art project destined for the playa this year, that is raffling off a ticket to Burning Man. Maybe i can share some of my experiences, and a bit of perspective from the other side of the coin.

First off, yes we did wind up with an extra ticket, that we got in the main lottery for this years burn. This was not a planned action, it just worked out that way, life takes strange paths sometimes, and some people who buy tickets can't go. We we're given the opportunity to raffle off this extra ticket to raise money to make some cool art. So we're doing it.
Find out more info here : http://breakingwave.ca/?page_id=28

That brings me to the first point, All the money from our raffle is going to be spent on playa art. In fact our raffle is only going to cover about 25% of our entire budget, we have lots more work to do, to raise funds. We are not getting rich of this lottery. No trip to mexico for us!

Secondly, we would have much preferred to give the ticket to a well deserving friend, as our crew is compromised of well seasoned burners, we know LOTS of people who didn't get tickets to this years burn. We would have loved to give that gift, but then we wouldn't have the cash to build out sculpture.... So we decided to raffle off this ticket, giving it to who knows who, someone, anyone, it's totally out of our control, in fact someone could win our raffle and then list the ticket on Stub Hub, and make a killing. I hope that doesn't happen, but it's a possibility. Does that worry us? YES, but as the playa has taught us, you can't control everything, sometimes you have to throw caution to the wind and let it ride.

That leads me into the third point we'd like to make. We have spent many, many, many hours marketing our raffle. so much so that it would have been a lot easier to just list our ticket on Stub Hub and get an easy $1000 profit. Just a few clicks away to a decent amount of cash...
But, this would have inevitably landed the ticket into the hands of an awaiting sparkle pony, or worse, some slimy douche bag. Because we have marketed our raffle within the burnersphere of known camps, Facebook groups, and Twitter feeds, we have a pretty good chance of having someone who is connected, and probably an invested burner win our ticket.

I know it's easy to point and say, hey that's not fair, but the reality is that BMorg has encouraged ticket raffles for years. Sure the game has changed now that the event has sold out, but the reality is still there for playa art that needs cash. Now a days with Facebookk, and Twitter, people are so connected, throwing a super secret little party just doesn't cut it, there are five or six to choose from every weekend. Kickstarter, forget it, I've been asked for cash by at least a million Burning Man projects this year. Playa projects need to be more creative in how they bring in the money, raffling off a Burning Man ticket to raise that money is one of our strategeys. Money that will be spent in it's entirety on the playa isn't really that bad, just think of it as a reinvestment in the burn. The cash is going to be spent on the people that attend Burning Man, they will all see, and interact with our sculpture. We do feel bad for all these people who didn't get tickets this year, that could have been us, it was the luck of the draw....

[oneeyeddick]

There is no such thing as bad publicity either.

[lemur]

All the money from our raffle is going to be spent on playa art. In fact our raffle is only going to cover about 25% of our entire budget, we have lots more work to do, to raise funds. We are not getting rich of this lottery. No trip to mexico for us!

this brings up a point that got beat to death by some in the PLUG N PLAY thread..

yeah sure, no trip to mexico.. but ... like SOME projects last year.. and before.. some funding schemes rely on the community to allow the organizing folks to spend beyond their means..... and as kickstartr gets more and more prevalent and artists/camps stop looking to their own pockets to fund their projects (and storage of their projects) more and more.... people might start to wonder (some people already do!).. "why the fuck should we fund someone elses art? or theme camp?"

in the end.. sure, the playa art happens..camps happen... but is "giving back".. or providing something on the playa in itself innately good ? ... is it ? ..for some people the ends justify the means.. pay for a spot in my camp to fund my big art piece? sure! at least we get the art! .. for others...notso much... with the rise of kickstartr and the visibility stuff like this has got this year (with two years of ticket sell outs and the plug n play thing)... it can get pretty stinky at times

some of this stuff can really start to REEK.. no matter how awesome the project that was 'gifted' to the playa was.. sometimes it just feels, once you find out the details.. really cheap..

as ya say..

I've been asked for cash by at least a million Burning Man projects this year. Playa projects need to be more creative in how they bring in the money

i read about 'more creative ways' i tend toward thinking of all the not-so-awesome stuff that we found out is being done in the whole plug n' play discussion with theme camps/projects.... it reeks of creepy lawyery-ness


s0 !! yeah.. no trip to mexico.. burning man gets its art... but many artists and theme camps end up spending beyond their means.. (which can be fine... if it doesnt reek) and happily plowin along as if it is all golden.. maybe it is this year!!

but..

how long can it last?!

IS THAT A BUBBLE I SEE!?

[gyre]

Say I need a ticket really bad and decide to buy all 100 tickets.

.

Oh , to clear that up, I have NEVER seen a raffle that has a limited amount of entries available...have you?

Yes.
I thought they were required to state the number, though that may as well be infinite in some cases.

[Joshua!]

Why wouldn't the camp/project sell a bunch of raffle tickets and then just "randomly" choose their buddy? I've seen this a million times in raffles/lotteries/gaming. It's cool to say everyone is a honest as my dead grandmother, but they haven't met my dead grandmother.

Joshua

[Ratty]

I do a bit of 'compliance' work. If the raffle is in California you NEED to provide a NO PURCHASE NECESSARY clause. If someone wants to enter for free. You let them. The dollar amount must be a donation. Not the price of a ticket. Trust me. The California Gambling Commission and the DOJ love to shut you down and to fine you. You can charge a fee if there is no prize. (Like the annual trivia contest where all your team gets is a traveling trophy and bragging rights for a year).
If the raffle is small enough you won't get caught. When you start advertising it online, good luck.

[PLuMPs]

While in the past I may have thought having a raffle was fine but we are now in a time when tickets are sold out any many are unable to attend. This to me is every bit as bad as scalping if not worse. These groups purchased or recieved more tickets than they needed taking a ticket from someone else and selling it for a profit to support thier cause. Yet another reason I dont call myself a "burner" too many burners are hypocrites.

[BBadger]

I'm with jkisha on this one: I see this "raffle" as effectively the same thing as selling above face value for both for the seller and the buyer. For the seller: because the group/person is making a profit--no matter for what cause--on the face value of the ticket by breaking up the cost into smaller chunks supposedly without a guaranteed win. For the buyer: again as jkisha has pointed out, the tickets can be purchased en masse to secure a win--which is effectively directly purchasing a ticket above face value.

Even if someone doesn't just go and buy all the raffle tickets, isn't the whole purpose of the "face value" clause more about not selling the ticket above face value? In other words, not profiting on the tickets? That is exactly what fundraising ticket-raffles are doing. They're just breaking the ticket cost into smaller, profiting chunks. There is no way around this fact. This is not apples and oranges, but apples and apples: this is profiting on the face value of a ticket. As such, I think that the use of tickets as a fundraising mechanism fundamentally compromises BMOrg's no-commerce/no-sale-above-face-value position. These raffles are directly exploiting ticket scarcity to profit on tickets--even if that profit is supposedly for a good cause.

This flimsy "good cause" concept is also open to abuse. What if someone wanted to host a raffle to pay for two BM tickets for friends using one directly in hand? A 100% profit, but to help someone else attend. Sure, a "good cause" to help a fellow burner, but I think most of us would be opposed to a raffle because it is allowing people to fund their trips using tickets. So what makes it different for camps and projects? A promise of community value? Fundamentally, why should tickets be involved in the fundraising process, rather than relying on self-funding, or gifts from interested community members?

Finally, even if some distinction is going to be made between the result of selling and raffling, there are these other questions of how do we prevent the system from being abused. For example, how do we prevent camp-allocated tickets from becoming camp fundraiser tickets (as already occurs)? What about tickets allocated to projects for their crews and builders? What about scams or bogus projects made up just to raffle the ticket for money? And now we are going to condone these raffles, as well as allow them to be advertised on ePlaya?

This whole problem was never an issue before tickets sold out, but it needs to be addressed now.

[Karma]

The site in question has posted there response to this and other threads regarding there raffle.
Have a read.

http://burnafterreadingmag.com/raffle/

[gyre]

I find it impossible to consider anything anyone says using 'hater' as a slang noun.

Know what I mean?
Know what I mean?
Know what I mean?

[jkisha]

The site in question has posted there response to this and other threads regarding there raffle.
Have a read.

http://burnafterreadingmag.com/raffle/

LOL of course they are able to justify it...they are benefiting from doing it! The most rediculous thing In that article was them saying that they won an extra ticket in the main lottery, so why not raffle it to raise money. If my understanding of the main lottery is correct, and they played by the rules, why did they have that extra ticket to begin with? Pot trying to pretend its not black if you ask me.

[BBadger]

LOL of course they are able to justify it...they are benefiting from doing it! The most ridiculous thing In that article was them saying that they won an extra ticket in the main lottery, so why not raffle it to raise money. If my understanding of the main lottery is correct, and they played by the rules, why did they have that extra ticket to begin with? Pot trying to pretend its not black if you ask me.

Yes indeed it's a complete joke. It also says quite a bit about how the ticket system and ticket scarcity is being abused as a mechanism for fundraising.

Selling a ticket above face value is functionally equivalent to holding a raffle with a single purchasable raffle ticket having a price greater than the prize. So we should ask ourselves: is it really any better if you split the cost of that single profiting raffle ticket among multiple tickets? I think not.

This raffling needs to be seen for exactly what it is: profit-equivalent to selling above face value no matter what the lame excuses for it (charity, projects, whatever). These raffles and their tacit endorsements--including on this board--need to stop.

[lemur]

This raffling needs to be seen for exactly what it is: profit-equivalent to selling above face value no matter what the lame excuses for it (charity, projects, whatever). These raffles and their tacit endorsements--including on this board--need to stop.

hey man! dont forget.. it's allllll good... anything ending up on the playa is innately good.. no matter how it is funded..

selling spots in your camp? ( http://www.trojanhorse2011.com/camp ) ALL GOOD! so long as they do somethin on the playa

"please consider letting us show you the softer side of Black Rock City, and check all of your cares at the gate. Our gift is creating a community where your needs will be met – with style"-camp spot seller


running your camp as a business? selling it to clients as a package deal? plug n play as they say? ALL GOOD! so long as you do somethin on the playa!
( http://www.zazzle.ca/playaskool_tshirt- ... 1052056034 )


"Our financial model is simple"-playaskool rep

"What is [a] “Plug and Play” [camp]? It’s a...camp not just for themselves, but in advance of the arrival for others .....most often for a fee, ranging from reasonably close-to-cost setups to high dollar luxury style RV camps"-will chase (burning man rep) ( http://blog.burningman.com/2012/03/tenp ... rock-city/ )


selling tickets above face value NO!!!!! DONT DO IT!!

"Whichever way you decide to source your ticket, we hope that you won't buy or sell more than face value (plus fees), ...scammers are looking to take advantage of Burners who are eagerly searching for tickets."-will chase, Jack Rabbit Speaks Volume 16, Issue #17

selling tickets in a raffle? ALL GOOD!! of course, so long as something happens on the playa..

"our raffle is only going to cover about 25% of our entire budget"-raffler

"anyone hating on a ticket raffle is just looking for something to complain about, too bad they didn’t get a ticket"-raffler


"WOO HOO!! WE DONT EVEN NEED ANY MONEY TO MAKE ART OR A CAMP ANYMORE!!

"NOW THAT BURNING MAN IS FILLED WITH DESPERATE TICKET SEEKERS, PASSIVE PEOPLE CLICKIN ON KICKSTARTR AND RICH FUCKS WHO DONT WANT TO DO ANYTHING BUT BE PAMPERED...WE CAN JUST RUN A PLUG N PLAY BUSINESS, SELL SPOTS IN OUR CAMP OR EVEN SELL THESE TICKETS FOR FAT WADS OF CASH...

"HEY BRO, DID YOU FILL OUT THAT KICKSTARTR PAGE YET?! IM BUSY OVER HERE COUNTIN THIS FAT WAD OF CASH"-douchebags that people embrace

[jkisha]

Now, all that being said. Our camp is seeking members. Dues are only $950.00. But that includes your own air conditioned yurt, hot water on demand shower, and two cooked meals a day. Join Here.

[lemur]

[BBadger]

• Carpet-bomb lottery for tickets (earn bonus points if you can get your own tickets via the LIT)
• Raffle N spare tickets for (M x ticket price / N) each where M is the profit multiplier and always greater than one. Adjust for ticket scarcity to hedge your bets!
• Ensure that the raffle does not occur unless all N tickets are sold! Use a hidden threshold if there is no limit. Spread the word! Tell your friends! It's for a good cause guys! Raffles are always for a good cause! "Help us realize our dream of bringing this to the playa!"
• Become indignant that your little ruse has been exposed for what it is. Tell people they're haters, and that the practice has been grandfathered in so it's okay. Oh yeah, never forget that raffles are always for a good cause! Even BMOrg tacitly endorses your raffle so long as it is for a good cause--which a raffle always is.
• Pay for BM trip (or "only 25%" of camp expenses ) or just simply...
• ...
• PROFIT!

If you're feeling really entrepreneuring, make the winner someone you know (or hire), publicize their "win" and keep the ticket (assuming you ever really had one!) Yeah, it's fraud, but who is keeping track? And who is going to question your motives as you've already qualified them by hosting this raffle for a good community cause in the first place!

Why stop at tickets? We can also raffle camp "dues"! Win a place in our camp by buying one or more of our fantastically priced--and morally paid for (it's a raffle remember?)--raffle tickets. Remember that the money goes right back into our camp, or at least camp member pockets, and you can treat the playa as any other resort town your cruise ship might dock at.