Tickets: Next Wave, Next Week

Got your ticket to Burning Man? This year, it seems that most Burners I know don’t have tickets yet, but no-one is too stressed out. 60,000 tickets are already spoken for, including the 3000 Chump Price ones, 15,000 World’s Biggest Guest List ones, 4,000 poor people tickets, and 38,000 general admission tickets.

Many camps sell tickets, so you might be able to get one with your camp dues. If you know any BMOrg insiders, many of them sell tickets on the side for a small cash premium. Otherwise, your best bet is the 1000 tickets in the OMG sale; the 9,000 “off the books tickets” that are not accounted for in the difference between number of tickets for sale (61,000) and permitted max population (70,000); or, STEP.

Yes, STEP, the bastard child of the failed Ticket Lottery System. Officially, it’s for people who were lucky enough to buy tickets, but then changed their mind. Unofficially, it’s a way for any tickets that couldn’t be scalped by insiders to be recycled to the Burner community. In past years, there have been so many tickets submitted to be re-sold through STEP that they had to stop accepting any more – so if you do have a genuine need to get rid of tickets, and refuse to make 100%+ profits by doing so on the secondary market, then you might want to get in early. If you have tickets to sell, register for STEP at noon PST, Tuesday April 15th.

If you want to buy 1-2 tickets, STEP opens at noon PST, Wednesday April 16th. Create a profile, then get in early and register, and the chances seem pretty good that you can get a ticket. Be careful, though – if you win a ticket, they will email you to let you know; if you don’t respond to that email within 72 hours, you’ve lost your chance.

BMOrg charge an additional $6 fee for each STEP ticket they sell, in addition to a $7 service fee and a $12 Will Call fee. So basically, STEP tickets cost $25 more, or $405. It seems that BMOrg have changed their previous policy of charging ticket sellers a penalty, and will refund purchase price at full face value PLUS all their ticket processing and delivery fees. We’ll believe it when we see it.

Everyone purchasing STEP tickets can purchase vehicle passes too. The fact that this is completely uncapped – after 98.4% of the tickets have already been sold – makes me question the veracity of BMOrg’s statements about the vehicle tax. People who have bought vehicle passes already are NOT able to sell them through STEP, with or without their tickets. This forces these Burners to the black market, where they can scalp vehicle passes for 450% profit margins. However, if they sell their unwanted tickets at these places, they are considered “bad Burners” by BMOrg.

Your other alternatives are:

Stubhub: 150 tickets, from $747.50; 34 vehicles passes, from $224

eBay: 4 tickets for $3595 (includes BRC License Plate Holder)

Craigslist: tickets available for barter