please read Part I first

After last night’s announcement that the next release of 10,000 tickets will be going to theme camps, let’s take an updated look at the distribution of tickets to the community.

We have:

4000 low income/friends and family tickets (now very valuable on the secondary market)

3000 early bird tickets (at a higher price than any other official tickets so far, $420)

10,000 tickets from the Secondary Allocation to theme camps (presumably at $390 or more) – hand picked by the BMOrg in what must be the world’s biggest guest list, bigger even than the Oscars.

16,000 confirmed newbies (40% of the ticket lottery were newbies, BM has the exact number because of their survey)

10,000 tickets coming up in STEP – how did they determine this number?

From the original lottery, if 16,000 newbies got tickets then 24,000 Burners did.

To make this simple, I think it’s safe to assume that no newbies get early bird, low income or Secondary Allocation tickets. This means:

4+3+10+24 = 41,000 Burners are now going.

Of 72,000 in the community who applied to go, that’s 57%. With the possibility of even more tickets coming up in the Feb 29 STEP release.

This seems to me like it will go a long way to addressing the “Swiss Cheese” problem, but the demand on the secondary market for the “Golden Tickets” is likely to be high. Nearly half the Burners who applied in the lottery still won’t have a ticket, and neither will the 32,000 newbies who entered the lottery and lost. The event has just become WAY more exclusive, even for veteran Burners. Now, there’s a reason to suck up to a big theme camp. Maybe some theme camps will be selling tickets as part of their dues, said ticket including a Burning Man ticket also. No doubt, it will be the camps that are politically close to the BMorg who get the allocation – could be bad news for the noisy art cars and DJ stages.

This exclusivity would be alleviated if the BLM approves a permit for 70,000 or more when they issue their ruling in June. Of course, if the Feds ever wanted to mess with Burning Man, that would be the time for them to do so – if the permit number is reduced below 57,000, what could Burning Man do? Turn away people with tickets, when they may have paid thousands to get them?

Perhaps it’s time for the Burner community to start lobbying your local Senator. Tell the BLM we need more Burners! 300,000 permit at least!

Part I – Numbers

Part II – Dollars

Part III – Magic.