Ticket Sales Unlimited?

[XS]

Tickets went on sale early this year and have been selling out fast in each price tier. $175, $200, and now $225 are rapidly selling out.

How many tix have been sold thus far?

Is there any pre-established limit?

Last year there were over 35,000 souls on the playa, 5,000 more than the previous year. Didn't really notice it... until the exodus! (Monday afternoon)

Can the playa handle 40,000? 45,000? Do I hear 50,000?

How about the infrastructure? Is support for the needs of the BM festival proportionate to the number of folks attending?

I don't wish to sound alarmist, but with the tix selling out this fast this early in the year, just how many pilgrims can the desert accomodate?

Food for thought.

Bon Appetit mes enfants terribles.

XS

[Badger]

Is support for the needs of the BM festival proportionate to the number of folks attending?

Maybe you should ask one of the BM co-ordinators. I'm sure they'd love to have you.

[XS]

Good suggestion Badger. I'm only too happy to try to help out.

I think I would make a good greeter. I'm pretty mellow, diplomatic, and have some good foreign language experience. (Not that that is a pre-requisite but I'm sure it could help.)

Any suggestions on who to contact would be appreciated.

I'll look into it further.

thanks dude.

[Tancorix]

The playa is large enough to accomodate 50,000 with ease. Pull up one of the satellite images floating around and you will likely reach the same conclusion.

Infrastructure is the big question...I'll speculate here and say that the only limits I see are porta potties. How much capacity can the treatment facility take on? I'm sure ticket prices could be raised and will be...and waving a few more pictures of Ben around will inspire others to find extra capacity at the plant, and JOTS can hire more people and bring in more trucks.

REMSA would have some scale limits but you might be able to pull in more medical units from Nevada, say Vegas even? I'll assume the Rangers can be upgraded / expanded. And LEO's never have a problem with calling in more officers. Half of the local Sheriff's departments I'm familiar with have reserves and Sheriff's Posses that can be tapped into.

Camp Artica is expandable....providing the volunteer help is there. Center camp...oops I'm biased, no comment. Gate, Greeters...you might hit the volunteer limit and have to offer 'incentives" after a bit...

Anyway enough rambling but that's the thoughts of a measly 3 year veteran who wanted to take a shot at your questions. The one thing I know is the playa has plenty of room for a group that truly practices LNT principles.

[Badger]

The one thing I know is the playa has plenty of room for a group that truly practices LNT principles.

Maybe its time to stop pretending that collectively our 30+ thousand camp mates are practising LNT.

Its bullshit.

The event (DPW and a small group of volunteers) assure that LNT is as closely adhered to as possible. However, the fact is and remains that a considerable number of shit hats *do* leave a trace. Often ugly ones.

Parroting the the unfounded party line (i.e. talking the talk) does nothing to insure a trash free playa unless *all* folks start actually practising it while at the event. Otherwise its just so much hype and BS.

[Tiara]

XS (and anyone else wanting to get more involved) ~

The first thing to do is check out the information available from http://www.burningman.com/participate/

After you read about the different volunteer groups, fill out a volunteer questionaire http://www2.burningman.com/people/ and indicate your area(s) of interest.

[XS]

Tiara,

Thanks for your helpful suggestions and helping to maintain some positivity within the thread. I'll check it out. I would like to be more involved with the BRC community.

Much love.

[Bob]

The "stipulations" attached to the BLM permit for 2004-05 authorize up to 34,000, with the understanding that this is the number to be used for providing essential services, and that additional facilities may be required if the head count significantly exceeds this.

http://www.nv.blm.gov/winnemucca/recreation/burningman/

Doesn't directly answer your question, but that's the rough target amount used for planning the event.

[XS]

Merci Bob, for your specifics of your reply. I guess they went a little over the "limit" last year. But it's somewhat comforting that some folks have given consideration to the events' capacity.

I just signed up for the volunteer gig. I'm totally psyched... er... well ... I'm greatly enthused about direct participation this year.

(It's already "Next Year")

Long live the playa and its beloved burn.

[Badger]

I just signed up for the volunteer gig. I'm totally psyched... er... well ... I'm greatly enthused about direct participation this year.

Cool. Way cool.

Seriously.

perceived negativity aside I'm glad you're up to walking the walk.

[XS]

Right on Badger.

I truly think it will greatly enhance the community experience.

It'll be great to meet a whole lot of cool peeps.

And who says you can't have fun while working hard for a good cause.

I'm sincerely totally psyched, especially right now because my TICKET JUST ARRIVED a half hour ago. Cool tix.

See ya round.

XS

[/b]

[dragonfly Jafe]

The one thing I know is the playa has plenty of room for a group that truly practices LNT principles.

Maybe its time to stop pretending that collectively our 30+ thousand camp mates are practising LNT.

Is LNT really a requirement?

[Badger]

Is LNT really a requirement?

Not a requirement. You can't mandate that people not levae trash, rebar, carpets, beater bikes, etc.

You can only set the example and put the word out.

[Tancorix]

LNT is not a requirement but if DPW has too much trash to clean up and they can't make the BLM deadline then there goes the permit which means the event is over...done in by having too much shit floating around in one form or another. So just because it's not fully codified in writing somewhere doesn't lessen it's importance.

[dragonfly Jafe]

what I meant was, we have a paradigm today that says "Leave No Trace" (but a clean-up crew will follow along to be sure you didn't "forget" something). Argueably some follow the LNT lifestyle more than others (and some not at all...). This paradigm appears to be working (eg-BLM award last year, continued permit granting, etc), however....

I think there is another paradigm; be pigs, leave trash everywhere, someone else will clean it up. (but tickets wouyld have an extra $500 tacked on to pay for a professional clean-up crew).

There must be value to LNT above and beyond merely alowing the event to continue.

There are plenty of gatherings in excess of 35,000 people. That is not special. When those folks go home (wading through a sea of trash to get to their vehicles), the event is over.

I believe that LNT is a requirement for Burningman, but not "required" by the BLM (we could pay them off). It (or something very much like it) is "required" in order to sustain our community. Otherwise we would be just another tailgate in the dessert.

Sure, we may fall short of the LNT ideal from time-to-time, but at least we have a common goal to help keep us together....(or at least we can pretend...)

[Bob]

"Leave No Trace" is a statement of the same principles used in public parklands and wild areas anywhere in the world, by everyone from the Sierra Club to Scouts to park administrators. I'd like to think there'd no need for magic misty-eyed burnie community bullshit. Everyone's supposed to be an adult, or accompanied by one. But it involves ethics, in a cultural environment in which many people think "morals" are some kind of mushrooms.

[Bay Bridge Sue]

It's like any other event...

The larger it gets, the more infrastructure it takes. Look at the huge staff now - compared to 10 or 15 years ago. As BRC grows, so do the needs of the city - Just from my perspective, the odds are that there's gonna be a *lot* more people getting sick with this year's (my est.) 37,500 participants, as compared to when it was in the single digit thousands, more, um, "people with sticky fingers" will show up, making the jobs of the rangerrs (and the omnipresent County and BLM Law) more complex... just like a "real" city. (Hell, BRC *is* a real city, 7th Largest in Nevada and Growing!!).

Saw it happen at the renfaire up here in NorCal. I remember when it was a few dozen booths and a bunch of people playing, plenty of room to expand, put on by a former schoolteacher and her buds. A couple decades later it was a full blown corporation up to it's ears in hassles and security issues and packed into the valley it was in and getting deeper into the hassles of a multi-million dollar year round corporation, "employing" thousands. (ANd *that* was a spectator event, not a participant event).

It's the nature of things - Things that are concieved as counterculture are popular with the masses, and the more people go the more they tell their friends, and they go, etc., etc.,etc...

Not a big deal to me... I wouldn't mind seeing (are you ready for this) 75,000 participants. It *can* (and eventually will) happen, Black Rock can handle this no problem, and hopefully so can BORG. ... but you'll need a core group of "municipal" employees to pull it off - just like a city... and unless the "city council" (presently the LLC and their trusted advisors) start planning **now** for this eventuality, it will get shut down andd be over. I think the Nevada Prperties was an awesome idea (if we can get the county to side with us, not against us!!!) and a step in this direction... but I think in the next 10 years they'll need people doing functionlity stuff F/T year round that are only seasonal at best. (I'll be retired from ny "other" job in 7, so that works for me!!)

I just hope BRC is still hammering strong through then and beyond. WAY beyond.

That's my story, I'm stickin' to it!

Bay Bridge Sue