Do the math: over 50% of tickets went to scalpers

[trilobyte]

@Stephendragonfly - I'm watching the behavior of the same scalper scumbag capitalists on other events. It stands to reason that scalpers do their thing and use the same behavior from one event to another. If they were truly all in collusion to create an illusion of scarcity, then why are there more than 20x the tickets available for Coachella (an event with only 4x more tickets)? And why were there 1,305 tickets to the bay area Madonna shows (which has a little over 38K tickets in total) being offered online only 40 minutes after the event went on sale (and before they had even sold out)? I don't doubt that there are some people out there waiting until some future date to try and scalp their tickets, but looking at those two other events it seems clear that any problem with scalped Burning Man tickets is tiny compared to other hot tickets.

[Stephendragonfly]

Trilobyte,
With reference to Coachella, the professional ticket resale agencies (hereafter referred to as scalpers) like known quantities, like sporting events and concerts. Coachella is a well known event with big name attractions. And it is only two months away. The timing of ticket sales is much closer to the actual event than for Burning Man. So the Scalpers are probably betting that putting tickets up now will generate the highest returns based on last years sales.

Since the scalpers don't know what Borg might do, because Borg is doing something totally new with the ticket sales, the scalpers are probably testing the waters this year. The scalpers may be waiting until after the final 10K tickets have been sold before putting their wares on display.

Let us say for a moment that as a scalper you had 99 buddies with credit cards enter into the lottery for two tickets apiece. If you had a success rate of ten percent, you now have twenty Burning Man tickets to sell. Would you put them all up for grabs now, while people still have shot at getting tickets through the Final Sale, Step, or Low Income/Scholarship, or do you wait until after every last legitimate ticket has been sold? If I had no ethics, I would put a couple of pairs up now at a median and a high price, to see what the market will bear. But I would hold the other sixteen back. Worst case scenario is that in August I might have to pretend to be an out of luck Burner with one or two tickets on Craigslist (I was gonna go, but now I can't cause...) to make my money back. Not much downside for the organized scalper.

[trilobyte]

@Colonel Monk - scalper sites don't need jack. They pretty regularly offer tickets they don't have in hand. eBay's rules may differ from state to state. As for Stubhub, I believe they'll allow ticket sales so long as the seller has a ticket confirmation (though I don't believe proof is required). While Coachella tickets may have recently mailed, those listings were up well before tickets were in anyone's hand, and in the case of the Madonna show those listings were up within the hour of the event officially going on sale. The most any of those sellers had was an email confirmation.

@stephendragonfly - I just don't see any kind of sign that scalpers have organized their efforts to take a uniquely different approach to this event. One person may think that particular way, and so might a few others. But getting half or any kind of majority (which is what it would take to account for the vast difference in the number of scalped tickets to Burning Man and other 'hot ticket' events… would require significant coordination among a pretty fiercely independent and competitive crowd.

The bay area Madonna gigs (with their 38K-ish tickets) isn't until October (after Burning Man), and when the numbers were measured it wasn't even a sellout yet. But on just those sites I checked there were listings for 1,305 tickets.

I'm open to the idea that scalpers could have gotten the lion's share of the tickets, I just haven't yet seen any evidence to support the claims. What I have seen, both here and on Facebook, is a HUGE swell in the number of people coming out of the woodwork to say they're coming to Burning Man for the first time this year. I haven't counted posts (and even that wouldn't be scientific), but anecdotally it's double or triple what I've seen in any previous year. The site's user ranks have swelled as well, though the numbers include both new participants as well as veterans who've signed up to voice their discontent and frustration.

[Stephendragonfly]

@ Trilobyte,
Just because the scalpers are likely using similar methods doesn't mean that they are collaborating. Incidentally, I don't believe that the Pro Scalpers have half the tickets, I believe that there are a lot of small time opportunists in the mix and a fair number of "I'll enter the lottery for an extra ticket, even though I don't know anything about Burning Man, or if I can get time off work, 'cause I saw this cool video on UTube, and I can always sell the extra ticket and make some money, 'cause it always sells out." The lottery really encouraged that kind of thinking.

Comparing Burning Man tickets to Madonna, apples and oranges. Madonna's concerts are a long way off, but the seating is assigned. All the best tickets have sold, but you can still get a ticket for behind the stage. Also Madonna is a known quantity for the scalpers, unlike Burning Man.

[bradtem]

One of the reasons electronic, photo-associated tickets are great is that you can't lose your ticket. Your ticket is a combination of some way to look up your ticket entry (your name, a printed number, a QR code) and your face. You won't forget your name, and you won't forget to bring your face. Tickets can't be scalped, and they can't be forged (except by identical twins if you have no online link in the ticket processing device.) The ticket processor is a phone or tablet. They generally work fine out there in the desert, and though some will break they are common and plentiful and older models are cheap so you have spares for that eventuality. The only thing not to love is the cost and the programming -- while this method will become standard in future, it is today used only in a few places.

Paper tickets get lost and forgotten. They get stolen. They get scalped. Every year people make up very nice looking forgeries and sell them to people who end up in tears at the gate, and sometimes worse. Their main advantage is their simplicity, and the fact that electronics failure does not hurt them. Hard to forge tickets actually cost a fair bit to print 50,000 of. Though people do like them as souvenirs, there are other ways to make nice souvenirs.

The forgeries remove one of the advantages of paper tickets -- that if you are bringing strangers in your vehicle, you can confirm they all have tickets. With online tickets you need to be online to confirm that, though a smartphone is online enough if need be, so you can still pick up a stranger at Reno airport and give them a ride. And they are easier to see in bright sunlight, I will give you that -- phones need a shadebox for that.

[trilobyte]

@stephendragonfly - you're still making the assumption that a significant number of scalpers are not just doing something contrary to their usual business practices for events, but that they're all doing the same thing. I agree with you in that much of the scalping we've seen are small time/amateurs, and probably a fair number of burner-opportunists (as we saw last year). We'll see how things play out over time.

[Dr Dilemma]

Here is something to ponder. I think we can all agree that we won't really know for sure how many tickets are in the hands of scalpers for sure until much later. Much too late for most of the folks that do most of the work involved in putting the city together to do that work. So let's say that we really do have some ridiculously inordinate amount of new people. Well, not a lot we can do or say, they have just as much right to go as anyone, go have fun kids! But let's say we plan for the worst case scenario and implement non transferrable tickets. What would happen if there really were a zillion people that decided they had to go to burning man this year because they saw a YouTube video? Well, those people would still be able to go, no harm no foul, no worries. LIsten, we know there will be a good number of speculated tickets this year. Is it 1%? 70%? 50%? we don't know yet. But in a situation like we have with so many folks not being able to get a ticket ANY percentage that could be taken out of the hands of speculators and scalpers and put back into the community will be well and truly appreciated. Whether it was professional or semiprofessional scalpers, individual speculators, or friends and family grabbing extra tickets to hedge bets, we know for sure a ton of people ordered tickets that really had little to no intention of going. The STEP system could very well work, but for a great many people who would need to start planning NOW to get projects done they just can't wait for months to know if they can get a ticket from that system or hold their noses and purchase it from a scalper. And I think this is the part that folks just aren't getting. Even if STEP works it will be way too late for a lot of people. The only way you keep people from buying up tickets they aren't going to use personally is to just put the bleepin picture on it already. It's not rocket surgery, other events do it, it's not hard to do, it won't keep any legitimate person from not being being able to go, and even if it turns out to be totally unnecessary because golly gee the system really did work perfectly and no scalpers at all got tickets then so what? When your ticket gets inspected they take the extra 2 1/2 seconds to look at your face. It seems to me that folks are just way too invested in defending the system they devised. You know what, we don't need to assign blame, we just need to fix it and move on.

[bradtem]

Scalpers want high prices. Normally these are in the period just before a sold-out event, but that's a rule for concerts and less for Burning Man. I believe if scalpers had tickets, now would be a good time at least during the period of initial panic. You would want to sell into the panic for quick profit, but not everything because who knows where it will go. But of course nobody has tickets -- I presume not even pre-sale people actually have tickets in hand. So you can't sell on ebay or other places that demand tickets in hand, and even if you sell in a place that doesn't demand that, it's hard to sell to a stranger when you can't prove you actually have a ticket and won't give the ticket up until the summer. I could see somebody with a superb ebay reputation getting away with it, and I can see it happening with stubhub's guarantee, but even so it's just too early once you get over the panic.

If new events reduce the scarcity, it's bad for scalpers but not tremendously bad. If the STEP and secondary sale do not resolve the problem, you will see a 2nd round on panic. But this year I don't think there will be an August panic like last year. Last year people who had been planning to go for a while, but lazy about their tickets were shocked when they learned it sold out. This year, if you don't have tickets you are not going to just continue planning your giant mega-camp and putting deposits down in the hope that you'll pick something up from scalpers in August. August will be for people who decide at the last minute to go and mostly spectate.

So the late release of the paper tickets should cause big problems for the scalpers. They can't easily sell what they don't have right now, and by the time the paper tickets come out, people will have already settled their plans, I suspect.

[JStep]

Can a retailer (such as BMORG) determine if a particular CC # is from a pre-paid card?

In a word; no.

If your card starts with 4616 then it's a VISA card. Payment processing systems do not know whether that card is a credit card, a prepaid card or a debit card. Nor should it really. Having a credit card doesn't ensure you're good for the money... Having a debit card doesn't mean that you might not have a line of credit backing up the account to cover possible over-drafts. The onus should not be placed on the seller to ensure that you're able to pay for the item, that's your responsibility. (Doesn't have much bearing on the discussion here, just providing the info for clarification.)

@Trilo, FYI eBay's rules do not differ from state to state.

[marcgorcey]

Here is something to ponder. I think we can all agree that we won't really know for sure how many tickets are in the hands of scalpers for sure until much later. Much too late for most of the folks that do most of the work involved in putting the city together to do that work. So let's say that we really do have some ridiculously inordinate amount of new people. Well, not a lot we can do or say, they have just as much right to go as anyone, go have fun kids! But let's say we plan for the worst case scenario and implement non transferrable tickets. What would happen if there really were a zillion people that decided they had to go to burning man this year because they saw a YouTube video? Well, those people would still be able to go, no harm no foul, no worries.

Yes - furthermore if you wanted to gift a ticket you could provide the name (or even a picture under your plan) and they would have their gifted tickets. There could be no last minute gifting or maybe tickets but the event just can't support that anymore.

I'm ready to put my name on a ticket NOW and to pay with the understanding that I will sell my ticket back at face value if I can't make it.

There are logistical questions but there's time to work that out. Let's make the burn for people who want to go to the burn, not just for people who want to hold on to tickets. Yes, it will be complicated but it can't be worse than the alternative, i.e. inability to plan, theme camps not being able to go and so on.

[bradtem]

In a no-transfer scheme these is no transfer, which means no gifting. You can gift a ticket if you planned to gift it when you bought it, by putting the recipient's face in the order. But after the order you can't gift it, you can only return it to the org where it goes to the first person on the waiting list.

I guess you could implement a gifting system as follows:

a) If you have a friend who has a decent place on the waiting list....
b) You return the ticket with the caveat that "If person X comes to the front of the waiting list before the event, let them have this ticket free"
c) If the person has not made it to the front of the list by date Y, sell it to the next in line.

This is of no value to scalpers so it could be done.

In addition, it is easy to set up a system so that multiple tickets are tagged to your face, so that you can bring that many people into the event if and only if they arrive with you. So you could gift tickets to those people, or even scalp to them. That's OK because it isn't really a very scalable way of scalping. At really high prices you could see scalpers who sit in Gerlach and will sell you a ticket for $1000 or so which really involves them having say 4 joined tickets, and they drive 3 people in and turn right back for $3,000 so it's a good profit -- but it's a hard way to scalp.

[vargaso]

Comes down to priorities, what's more important, to be able to gift tickets at will or to reduce scalping and ensure camps can plan? I vote for the latter. We've reached capacity, we can't have it all anymore. For that matter, I'm for tying tickets to a valid ID. Again, we have to give up something here, and I'm willing to show the BMORG my ID.

[Eric]

Can a retailer (such as BMORG) determine if a particular CC # is from a pre-paid card?

In a word; no.

If your card starts with 4616 then it's a VISA card.

Minor correction- if your card starts with a "4" it's a Visa. Period.
("3" is Amex**, "5" is Mastercard, "6" is Discover).

Ah, the useless things you learn in 30 years of retail...


**Technically "34" or "37" is Amex as Diners Club/ Carte Blanche starts with a "3" as well, with more technical fiddly-bit details, but who uses them anymore?

[Herring]

My friends' dad who lives in Reno said his neighbors were telling him to enter the lottery so he could make money selling the tickets...said they heard about it on a local radio station.

This bit really upsets me. I've worked in radio and scalpers ruin our promotional events. It hurts listeners which hurts sponsors which hurts us. It blows my mind that a radio personality would advocate scalping. If someone can verify this and tell me which DJ said this on which station, I'll happily start calling both the station and its sponsors explaining that I won't be in Reno to purchase anything from their fine establishments this year thanks to the careless remarks of a radio station they give money to, and I'm passing the word along to burners who can make it through Reno not to shop at your head shop or sporting goods store or casino or eatery because of your financial support of that station's pro-scalper announcement.

[vargaso]

I think the DJ pranking an established event is a little more in the spirit of Burning Man than a consumer boycott.

[Herring]

Well it may just be that all the DJ said was that it was sold out last year and that the ticket lottery was happening And Higg's dad's neighbors just decided to become amateur scalpers and enter the lottery based on that information with no encouragement from the DJ. But if that kind of thing was intentionally encouraged by a public broadcast figure than no I don't really see it as a funny prank. Consumerism pre-burn is out of control anyway, any excuse not to spend money in Reno is probably a good thing for burners.

[Stephendragonfly]

How do we get tickets out of the hands of scalpers/opportunists that we are assuming currently have over half??

The suggestion I have seen most is making the tickets non-transferable, i.e. names or pictures on tickets.
Also have seen convention style listing of names as a possibility.

Both have the same downsides of wiping out spontaneous gifting of tickets and making the wait to get even more horrendous than it already is.

Have seen suggestion of making the tickets print at home/super easy to duplicate, but with unique identifiers, so that it would be impossible to trust anybody but a close friend or tickets directly from the Borg.

I think that semi-transferable tickets (ticket printed with the name of purchaser who must then be present with id and entering for admission of all of his tickets, with a max of four tickets per purchaser) would work out better than totally non-transferable tickets. So you could gift a ticket, but you'd have to give your giftee a ride to (and hopefully from) BRC.

Heck, if Bmorg announced that as a policy tomorrow, a lot of scalpers would probably surrender their tickets to STEP, and BMorg might not even have to follow through with it.

Another random thought, did Borg scan for scalpers before or after the drawing, so that if known scalpers or ticket gimmicking companies had their number drawn, that ticket was immediately transferred into the STEP pool?? Just curious.

[theCryptofishist]

Another random thought, did Borg scan for scalpers before or after the drawing, so that if known scalpers or ticket gimmicking companies had their number drawn, that ticket was immediately transferred into the STEP pool?? Just curious.

Yes, the llc "scrubbed" the list.

Read up on the procedures before you start critiquing them. Please. We have had so many people bring up the same points over and over, more than half the time starting gratuitous new threads that I've gone beyond disgust, gone beyond hatred, and have just settled into a toxic stew of noxious vapor...
Wait...hm...
Things are so bad I'm compulsively mixing my metaphors. The wolves are howling outside and there's scratching at my door...

[Stephendragonfly]

@Crypto,
I reread the ticket FAQs on the BM site... Should have done it before I hit enter, my apologies. I planned to be processing my low income application today, so I am little miffed as well. I think I'll take a nice long walk, that usually helps me get out of a snit.

[bradtem]

Another random thought, did Borg scan for scalpers before or after the drawing, so that if known scalpers or ticket gimmicking companies had their number drawn, that ticket was immediately transferred into the STEP pool?? Just curious.

Yes, the llc "scrubbed" the list.

Read up on the procedures before you start critiquing them. Please. We have had so many people bring up the same points over and over, more than half the time starting gratuitous new threads that I've gone beyond disgust, gone beyond hatred, and have just settled into a toxic stew of noxious vapor...
Wait...hm...
Things are so bad I'm compulsively mixing my metaphors. The wolves are howling outside and there's scratching at my door...

The list was scrubbed, but dragonfly is suggesting more than that, namely that it might be possible to detect scalpers after the fact and cancel their tickets.

For example, at least in some jurisdictions, since the contract terms forbid scalping, the org could try to buy tickets from scalpers (using credit cards) and after getting them, canceling the credit card transaction -- though you need to work with the CC companies to do this and it is necessary that the scalping be illegal as well as a violation of contract terms I suspect. Having done this you could cancel the other ticket from a pair. In a way, allowing only 2 each makes it harder to detect scalping after the fact, unless you saw a pattern in the pairs.

Of course, we all are assuming a lot of scalpers but we've yet to get hard evidence on what the actual breakdown of ticket applyers was.

[theCryptofishist]

so I am little miffed as well.* I think I'll take a nice long walk**, that usually helps me get out of a snit.

*makes sense
**no comment

[Dr Dilemma]

I went to the Theme Camp Placement Forum at Burning Man HQ tonight and it was a really positive meeting. The feeling was "we hear you, we know we had to do something, we've deliberated and are now taking decisive action". The meeting stayed on track, and surprisingly on time. There was a lot of good energy in the room, good information and I'm feeling a lot better about the prospects of this years burn after the meeting. I'm sure they knew that there would be folks upset about the pre selection of what theme camps were going to be awarded the remaining tickets. But what they are doing is ensuring that virtually none of the remaining tickets will be bought by speculators, which means to me they really did listen to folks. There was really no discussion about scalpers, with one question from a video conference participant on the subject of scalping that was skipped. I could tell that they've been trying to figure it when I saw a white board filled with numbers and percentages where meetings took place and they tried to "do the math" themselves. The attitude seems to be "well, we don't really know what number are in the hands of speculators but there isn't a damn thing we can do about the tickets already sold anyway so we are going to concentrate on what to do with the ones we have left to sell." And really that's kinda exactly where they need to be right now. Action was needed, they are taking action. It may not be perfect, but I do like that they are ensuring that pretty damn near 100% of the remaining tickets are going to participants and I like those numbers.

[lemur]

I went to the Theme Camp Placement Forum at Burning Man HQ tonight and it was a really positive meeting. The feeling was "we hear you, we know we had to do something, we've deliberated and are now taking decisive action". The meeting stayed on track, and surprisingly on time. There was a lot of good energy in the room, good information and I'm feeling a lot better about the prospects of this years burn after the meeting. I'm sure they knew that there would be folks upset about the pre selection of what theme camps were going to be awarded the remaining tickets. But what they are doing is ensuring that virtually none of the remaining tickets will be bought by speculators, which means to me they really did listen to folks. There was really no discussion about scalpers, with one question from a video conference participant on the subject of scalping that was skipped. I could tell that they've been trying to figure it when I saw a white board filled with numbers and percentages where meetings took place and they tried to "do the math" themselves. The attitude seems to be "well, we don't really know what number are in the hands of speculators but there isn't a damn thing we can do about the tickets already sold anyway so we are going to concentrate on what to do with the ones we have left to sell." And really that's kinda exactly where they need to be right now. Action was needed, they are taking action. It may not be perfect, but I do like that they are ensuring that pretty damn near 100% of the remaining tickets are going to participants and I like those numbers.

Yeah, that's kind of the expected reply coming from people who are gonna get a ticket out of that decision.

i attended the theme camp forum (not in person) ..the energy was pretty good in the room..

but BUT.. when they informed people that only about 50% of the theme camps will get anything,.. and that they wont find out if they get anything until after applying for placement..... i tell ya, on my end of the connection.. i didnt hear much cheering.

only about 50% of the theme camps will get anything.. it was said so in the theme camp forum.. possibly many of the people in that room werent gonna be one of the groups selected..

so.. its easy to say 'YEAH EXPECTED REPLY FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE GONNA GET A TICKET' but at this point.. itd be pretty hard to be 'sure' you were gonna get one unless you were one of the 'obvious' choices and mainstays of burning man.. and even at that, you arent guaranteed 100% of the tickets you want, and maybe even need.. so yeah.. i wouldnt be too happy right now if i was one of those theme camps kind of 'in the middle' .. if you arent Opulent Temple.. or some big gigantic village.. you might be kinda in 'oh shit' mode right now.

there are likely very few camps who are feeling 100% OK right now!

[Dr Dilemma]

Yeah, that's kind of the expected reply coming from people who are gonna get a ticket out of that decision.

I don't know if my camp has been selected or not yet. So I'm saying this with only a 50/50 shot. Which admittedly is better than someone that isn't in a camp that was registered last year. But guess I've already gone and shot my mouth off so I'll just have the STFU and suck it if we don't. Yeah, a good bit of the oxygen got sucked out of the room when I asked her to clarify the selection process and she let us know that only about 1/2 of the camps were selected. But there was an overall very positive mood in the room. My suggestion if you want to be assured a ticket would be go volunteer for some essential volunteer duty like cleanup crew. I got to chat with D.A. at dinner. We've never talked before and he's really amazing. He's there from late July to September. He says he has like a sense of what the MOOP is going to look like each year but this year ... he just doesn't know. Maybe we should change the theme this year from Fertility to Chaos ... like Loki chaos ... coyote. We have no idea what is gonna happen.

[lemur]

yeah, it wasnt in the blog post.. or the placement email or the dmv email..

it was a question asked in the question part of the ticket info for people at the theme camp forum.. (and as all the other stuff was written by then, and going out to the masses.. it was probably a bit late to add it)

im sure it will come out in a more 'official' way at some point.. but even if it doesnt.... yeah, thats how it went down.. (kind of a bummer..)

[theCryptofishist]

but BUT.. when they informed people that only about 50% of the theme camps will get anything,.. and that they wont find out if they get anything until after applying for placement.....

Just want to point out that if only 50% of theme camps get anything--there's no guarantee those 50% will get everyone in they ask for. I'm expecting skeleton staffs, not overflowing at seams.

[CapnJoe]

I went to the Theme Camp Placement Forum at Burning Man HQ tonight and it was a really positive meeting. The feeling was "we hear you, we know we had to do something, we've deliberated and are now taking decisive action". The meeting stayed on track, and surprisingly on time. There was a lot of good energy in the room, good information and I'm feeling a lot better about the prospects of this years burn after the meeting. I'm sure they knew that there would be folks upset about the pre selection of what theme camps were going to be awarded the remaining tickets. But what they are doing is ensuring that virtually none of the remaining tickets will be bought by speculators, which means to me they really did listen to folks. There was really no discussion about scalpers, with one question from a video conference participant on the subject of scalping that was skipped. I could tell that they've been trying to figure it when I saw a white board filled with numbers and percentages where meetings took place and they tried to "do the math" themselves. The attitude seems to be "well, we don't really know what number are in the hands of speculators but there isn't a damn thing we can do about the tickets already sold anyway so we are going to concentrate on what to do with the ones we have left to sell." And really that's kinda exactly where they need to be right now. Action was needed, they are taking action. It may not be perfect, but I do like that they are ensuring that pretty damn near 100% of the remaining tickets are going to participants and I like those numbers.

Yeah, that's kind of the expected reply coming from people who are gonna get a ticket out of that decision.

I didn't hear it, sound was soooo bad, but I was told that our camp was mentioned during the forum. My wife and I didn't get tickets in the lottery, but I am possibly getting a $390 ticket for working last year. That is if I will work this year too, which I plan to do. Hope my wife can now get a ticket through our camp. This whole thing really sucks, but other than doing the whole thing over, which is said to be not possible, this is about the only thing that can be done to keep the whole thing from collapsing on itself. No matter what, everybody will not be satisfied, and it will not be fair to everyone. I really hate that things have worked out this way!

i attended the theme camp forum (not in person) ..the energy was pretty good in the room..

but BUT.. when they informed people that only about 50% of the theme camps will get anything,.. and that they wont find out if they get anything until after applying for placement..... i tell ya, on my end of the connection.. i didnt hear much cheering.

only about 50% of the theme camps will get anything.. it was said so in the theme camp forum.. possibly many of the people in that room werent gonna be one of the groups selected..

so.. its easy to say 'YEAH EXPECTED REPLY FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE GONNA GET A TICKET' but at this point.. itd be pretty hard to be 'sure' you were gonna get one unless you were one of the 'obvious' choices and mainstays of burning man.. and even at that, you arent guaranteed 100% of the tickets you want, and maybe even need.. so yeah.. i wouldnt be too happy right now if i was one of those theme camps kind of 'in the middle' .. if you arent Opulent Temple.. or some big gigantic village.. you might be kinda in 'oh shit' mode right now.

there are likely very few camps who are feeling 100% OK right now!