by BeachBum » Tue Feb 12, 2013 1:59 am
I must give the org credit for how the ticket sale is implemented. So far, at least.
They raised the price to a point where demand was subdued, in a classical Econ 101 form. And they didn't promote the sale, leaving people who knew about it and really wanted to go a very good, or excellent chance of getting tickets without stress or drama. They cut out many of the weekenders by the price rise. As well as cutting out any dipcraps who would try to scalp, or casually scalp, their tickets by the price rise and the further ticket release in early August. And they cut out many who live far from here who would not be extremely committed and able to go by, as the current Uniform Commercial Code implements, once a ticket is sold it stays sold, and after few weeks before the event there may be no way to effectively sell it, forcing them to either dump the tickets earlier or eat them.
It seems the 3,000 $650 holiday sale tickets didn't sell out, given that people reported that they signed up for tickets after the first day of the sale. This sets a very, very hard cap on what tickets could possibly go for, rendering trying to get tickets and casually scalp them when they are received in the summer something only idiots would attempt. Apparently, the 10K sale to theme camps didn't totally sell out either, at least not immediately. And, the theme camps don't need to hoard any tickets, especially at these raised prices, people who want to join their camps can buy their own ticket.
I still think that it would have been more "burnerly" to have a lower price and limit demand by names-on-tickets, but this system is working, at least so far.
BMOrg has the ability to promote ticket sales later, if it is actually needed to sell out all the tickets. So they should have no reason to try to get a sellout now. They know very well how many tickets have been sold, and how many are registered for the current sale. So, to get any indications of this, as the magicians say, watch the action of the hands, don't watch the face (or drink the Kool Aid).
Given this, i have no prediction on when the tickets will actually sell out, other than it's probably immaterial this year. Way different than the ticket fiasco last year.