Burners pay a heavy price of BRC ignoring Lottery Concerns

[fembot]

In any other year, Burners have tickets in hand, bought mid-January and be deep in art projects and camp preparation. Instead, many sit without tickets. Even if I had tickets, I would be writing you on behalf of those who now sit without them, some who helped make you who you are today. Below are my concerns

Dragging on the suspense for those who only wish to create and contribute:

People want to work on art and community building, not scramble to attend. Planning starts as soon as the last event ends. I, as many, sunk thousands of dollars beyond the ticket price and countless hours supporting the community and its art – which in turn help you attract people pro bono¬. You drive away those who give vision, effort, and money to make this a wonderful event.

If you must have the lottery, why does the recirculation system wait for three weeks, with the second round wait an additional two months - March 28th? Why drag on, considering the current shortage, will immediately sell out, and offer only on first-come, first-serve, basis, rather than granting priority to those who registered in round 1?

The Lottery creates a stressful, competitive, and anti-communal environment. While I could have afforded to enter multiple times, I felt uncomfortable gaining the system and paid a high price trying to be fair. Burning Man has become bitter-sweet, a stark contrast to time when I only felt pure delight and transformation at the experience.

Decommodification? Radical Inclusion? Or Apathy?

Perhaps most disappointing is that in spite of community predictions and protest, Burning Man went ahead anyway and every fear came to light. You could have fixed the technology to better accommodate mass ticket sales or even kept the old system. It wasn’t ideal, but this is much worse, with so many dedicated attendees without tickets and so may scalpers posting.

https://buy.stubhub.com/checkout/checko ... =433840575

BRC has the advantage to sell out regardless. This lottery ensures sales and up-front money, yet fails to maintain integrity to the principles which Burning Man promotes. The magic of the playa feels in decline… especially when the community wisdom is ignored, and excludes the very people who helped both build this space to get you where you are today.

A New System that is not a Lottery

Future Note: A random lottery system puts regular attendees on even footing with scalpers. You have long time burners who could get priority admission that contribute to theme camps, etc or have attended regularly. I would feel much better not getting a ticket because others had priority registration for making greater contributions or having seniority, rather than it going to scalpers. You could allocate a portion to random entry as well, but this would keep the spirit the same, just something to consider for the future.


Botched Survey

This is just a small note for your census. I answered the survey honestly, but I bet your scalpers did not, on the chance that it would get them premium tickets.

[Arcticcircle]

Nicely said.

[bluesbob]

The issue is multiple entries in the lottery. A first come-first serve system favors no one. A person has a very difficult time getting multiple entries for lowest tier, or any tier, because after each purchase they have to once again get to the back of the line. But this lottery gave many people a leisurely amount of time to collect credit card numbers from family, friends, coworkers and enter them all into the system. It favored deception and cheating. Any good IT guy or gal could have easily installed software that would have seen multiple entries coming from single locations. The Borg are idiots. Their ticket sellers are idiots. And we're idiots for actually believing that both have the community's interest at heart.

[MikieCGY]

For those who actually do have extra tickets and want to give them back.. they should create a system like this..


FEBRUARY 3RD -- 75 TICKETS WERE REFUNDED.. which now make 75 Tickets available for purchase @ say 3pm Pacific.. one sold out.. wait until tomorrow at 3pm again..

only difficult part would be to try to eliminate duplicate credit card purchases to avoid those who have already got their name pulled during the draw.

[notthelarryharvey]

Solution #1:
Postby thelarryharvey » Thu Feb 02, 2012 1:05 pm
EASY
Lack of participants = shitty event

First round of tickets only go to approved application for participatory events
theme camps
art installations
art cars
art performances
etc..
you have to apply to participate to get tickets first...simple

after that what difference does it make since the rest will be spectators it won't change the event one way or another

Solution #2:
Burn the port-o-potties and leave a note about your protest

I prefer Solution #2 ....and I even got 4 extra tickets...yes they are already spoken for AT FACE VALUE
but I promote civil unrest for the disenfranchised because I love the underdog.

nothing worse than an ANGRY BURNER....sounds pretty dangerous to me
a bunch of angry people playing with fire....oooooooo this is gonna be great year for the record books, make sure and bring your extra fire extinguishers