Conjoined troll threads

[lemur]

this thread needs more conspiracy theories.

[theCryptofishist]

Grassy knoll. Finland Station. the Illuminati. This was planned centuries ago.

[Rice]

this thread needs more conspiracy theories.

Selfish burners caused the ticket shortage!!

[Simon of the Playa]

[theCryptofishist]

Well, that's one of those futuristic movies that will look completely dated in a few years.
The fetus stuff has some current resonance, though.

[H.G.Crosby]

everything OLD is NEW again...

[wh..sh]

i had a real good thing all typed up!

but then i noticed you wanted a rational reason..


pah!

I like it when lemur is funny.

[BBadger]

I'm just saying that if they would have quietly put tickets on sale like all the years before instead of making such a big deal about it, fewer burners would be ticketless.

Why are there any fewer burners ticketless now? It's not like the tickets just upped and disappeared--ticket gaming or not.

If the tickets are not in the hands of "burners", and rather in the hands of scalpers, how would have "quietly" putting the tickets on sale improved anything? The scalpers knew there was a sell-out the previous year, so they'd definitely be on the ball. Even without scalpers, we could expect the same level of demand that caused the sell-out last year. Hell, nearly 30,000 sold in the first two days alone in 2011. It would've been worse this year, possibly selling out all the tickets.

But of course we're just beating glue to death at this point.

[FeetOfClay]

Grassy knoll. Finland Station. the Illuminati. This was planned centuries ago.

You forgot the Reptilians.

[catinthefunnyhat]

Well, that's one of those futuristic movies that will look completely dated in a few years.
The fetus stuff has some current resonance, though.

It's actually 14 years old already.

[Box Burner]

I"m sure that the people behind Krug Champagne* could have bought the whole thing for more money and caused the llc less aggravation than they are making off this...

But, who will make and bring art? And I am sure they cant supply all the crazy people either.

Either they would have killed the goose and a year or two afterwards attendance would drop precipitously, or they could hire some people to be the local color. They are crass enough.

Ever been to a Renaissance Fair? Everything there is paid for. Very little is even very special. The King and his court are paid to be there and work from a general script. Most of the art is provided by vendors who sell it for all the traffic will bear. Even attendees are "paid" in the form of a discount on their ticket if they come dressed in costume. (So as to provide more ambient color to the event.)The vendors pay a fee to get a booth and are required to be in costume. The jousters are paid to be there. Actors (jugglers, plays, animal acts, etc.) work for tips. Very little is truly amazing. The cost of the event is so high that it has to run for several weeks before it shows a profit.

Fun? Yes. But very mundane and no surprises.

I do not believe this thing we have in the desert will work as a commercial venture. But the playa is big and the black rock desert is not the only playa available so they are welcome to try. But I bet they will only be able to do it once. They surely cannot do it as a leave no trace event.

[theCryptofishist]

Well, that's one of those futuristic movies that will look completely dated in a few years.
The fetus stuff has some current resonance, though.

It's actually 14 years old already.

Whoops.

[VultureChow]

Grassy knoll. Finland Station. the Illuminati. This was planned centuries ago.

You forgot the Reptilians.

I always assumed that since it had SF roots, that BOrg had their board meetings at Bohemian Grove.

[theCryptofishist]

Grassy knoll. Finland Station. the Illuminati. This was planned centuries ago.

You forgot the Reptilians.

I always assumed that since it had SF roots, that BOrg had their board meetings at Bohemian Grove.

Hush, don't say that! *looks around nervously* You want them to come after you?

[ZaphodBurner]

The default-world Ticketmaster solution would be to the price until demand equals supply.

Which is why you can go to Burning Man for a week for $420 and listen to people complain about the ticket cost or you can pay $120+ just to see Rush, Roger Waters or U2 play for 90 minutes and listen to people blather about what a great show it was.

$800 tickets would solve the demand issue. I applaud the Org's effort to keep it burny, however shitstormy it ended up turning out.

[mshaman]

It seems like many can agree that non-transferable or STEP-transferable tickets would have been a better solution to the new ticket-demand situation than a lottery. However the OP blaming it on BMorg's greed seems totally irrelevant to me. It wasn't greed, it was A)increase demand and B)craptacular policy (how the lottery was implemented). Greed was not a factor in that equation, because the ticket price and the number sold were not factors in whether to sell first-come-first-serve or in a lottery. The total dollars were the same regardless of the method.

If you're going to rant, at least be good at it.

If you wanted to allege greed in the BMOrg, the first thing you'd do is go to the financials. It's hard to see what's going on because you only get what is the expense half of a heavily doctored of a statement of cashflows, but you'd see immediately that the year they began the transition from an LLC to a nonprofit BMorg payroll expense went from $2.4M to $7.5M (2009, 2010), and see that this in in excess of the maximum theoretical revenue generated by ticket sales. In essence the board is pulling out $15M or more over 3 years and draining the nest egg that the LLC has built up. If you did this you might have a leg to stand on, with actual data to base it on, until you compare the board's compensation to other executive payouts.

Compared to most payouts in the commercial world, this is indeed as Larry would say "Unremarkable", and I think that while they are obviously no saints or altruists, the board's cash-out is below what is customary. I've seen private companies in this revenue range sell at around 4x the EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortizations--a common measure of annual profits/cash-generating ability) once all the excess cash was stripped out of the company. So they'd take all the cash that wasn't needed for operations (the $15M+that they're taking) plus 4 times the annual earnings of the event. This probably more than they're getting.

Given BM's ludicrously incomplete financials and the fact that BM demands "financial transparency" in regional burns, you'd have a better shot at claiming hypocrisy than greed. After all, as Zaphod says, they could've just raised prices to cope with demand if the goal was simply to line their pockets.

[junglesmacks]

Extremely well put.

[CornMan]

Yes, there is nothing in that post that I disagree with.

[Isotopia]

I wanna hear more about this Finland Station thing.

Fuck the rest of you ticketless whiners.

[socks]

How about we hold back say 3000 tickets for sale at the gate.With tickets at the gate at face value.The whole idea for a scalper to buy a ticket is to make a profit.We take the profit away the scalper will go away.

[theCryptofishist]

I think you're creating a clusterfuck. 10,000 people trying to buy at the gate, with the cars involved waiting for them and people who came in a group with people who do have tickets essentially obliging the whole group to turn around and go to Reno... And the constant whining about not being able to plan because key people don't know if they'll be there or not. Oh, and ea passes are another wild card in there...

[BBadger]

I've got a better idea: we'll ban this socks troll from ePlaya!

[trilobyte]

I'm combining the OP's trollish threads into one. Please feel free to feed or ignore as you see fit.

[Simon of the Playa]

bump....


it's a conspiracy.

[junglesmacks]

Well, this is a shift in moderation techniques.

Interesting.

[Simon of the Playa]

perhaps we should just conjoin the trolls.

[theCryptofishist]

Alas, I think that is beyond the power of the mods...

[ranger magnum]

46.75% of the tickets went to virgins. 37% went to veterans that have burned over 5 years. 6% went to veterans who have burned over 10 years. 7% of the 46.75% will not make it. 68% of the 37% are looking for additional tickets for the 6%.
.08% knows one of the 37% who thinks they know someone who has a spare ticket.

100% have a way to do it better than the org

0% of those ideas will be implemented next year