As predicted by Burners.Me, Burning Man are releasing thousands more tickets to this year’s event. Specifically:

Today (Sunday, July 8) 1,000 additional $390 tickets will be placed into the Secure Ticket Exchange Program (STEP). This will get tickets to many of those who were not awarded tickets in the Main Sale, registered for STEP, and have been waiting patiently in the queue. (There continues to be a consistent trickle of tickets bought and sold through STEP, and the pace may increase as the summer wears on and people change their plans.)

1,000 additional $390 tickets will be made available to the general public through a first-come first-serve online private sale on August 3 at noon PST. You need not have registered for the sale in January, or signed up for STEP—anyone may participate in the sale, but you must request access to the private sale during a 12-hour sign up period between 10am PST and 10pm PST on Wednesday, August 1.

Great news, except perhaps for the scalpers. Prices are now down to $700 or less on Stubhub or eBay; we pity the fools who spent $1500 a couple of months ago. We note that it has taken almost 4 weeks after the announcement of the population cap increase, for them to finally make this decision. We welcome more tickets, although auctioning them on eBay would have brought more fairness to the community, more money to the BMOrg, and less computer headaches for everyone. We will see how their systems stand up to the server load on August 1 and 3.

Thanks to Burner Scott for pointing out, that after BMOrg’s vehement insistence to the community that it’s impossible to link identity to tickets to prevent scalping, now it seems to be no problem.

When you sign up, you’ll be asked for your name, your email address, and your zip or postal code. You will then be added to the list of people allowed into the private sale. Your email address will be your key to enter the sale. The sale will take place online on Friday, August 3, at 12 noon PST. Tickets are one per person, will all be held at Will Call, and are not available for name changes (this is necessary to prevent these precious tickets from ending up in the hands of scalpers)

Every decision they make, it seems like they’re laughing at us. This is not government of the people, for the people, by the people; this is the 1%/99% dichotomy. Or worse, the 1% of the 1% – out of 60,000 Burners, that would be 6 people making decisions which affect the entire community. 6 people who are isolated from the needs of the community by minions and handlers, who are motivated by the preservation of the pyramid more than they are by the wishes of the participants in their petri dish experiment. Which is strange when it’s we Burners who make the party, who fund the art and pay for the DJs to get there, who participate and gift and create the experience for others.