Image: thomashunt.com
Registration is open now for Burning Man tickets. As with the past few years, you have to create a Burner profile and register for the sale to be eligible to enter. Do that by noon Friday. Then next week you have to log in within the first few seconds after 12:00:00 on Wednesday, and watch a little dude crawl across the screen for up to 2 hours without knowing if you won the lottery arrived in time to secure a place in the ticket queue.
If someone would have asked me at the end of Burning Man 2016 what my prediction for ticket prices would be, I would have said there will be more VIP tickets, less low income, prices will go up, and they will find some sneaky way to raise prices further like increasing the vehicle pass price or the handling fees. Don’t be surprised if the population cap increases too. This is pretty much my default prediction for every year now.
Sure enough, all of that is true. The good news is, more tickets: 4500, “approximately”. The bad news is, predictably, prices went up, from $397 to $437. Handling fees were $7, now they are $12 – for EACH ticket or vehicle pass “handled” by this computer system. Which means vehicle passes are now $92. The number of low income tickets has decreased, from 6000 to 4000. That’s 2000 extra sherpa positions created on Billionaire’s Row – thanks Trump! Prices for these have increased from $197 to $202 – low income or not, you still have to pay more. It’s a charity tax-exempt entity now, there is important work to be done making the world a better place. You think it’s cheap sending social alchemists to Costa Rica? Try sending whole teams of them.
The number of VIP tickets has increased, to 5500. Prices for these have been bumped only slightly, to $1212. The higher end VIP tickets are no longer called “Da Vinci Tickets”, they are called 1200s – a nod to the DJ crowd, perhaps? Anyway, you can load up on these still via the Burner Profile.
The number of tickets now is approximate. There are “approximately” 500 more of the expensive tickets available for sale. They “may” have 27,000 vehicle passes, or they may sell thousands more. We will never know, since this “unlikely leader in transparency” (indeed) no longer discloses such things to mere Burners. If you need 10 tickets and you don’t mind paying about fifteen grand, I would be very surprised to learn the web site rejected you.
It might seem like ticket prices didn’t change that much compared to last year, but BMorg have artfully found a way to milk another almost $10 million tax free dollars out of the community. An impressive feat of capitalism, I salute them. But I’m still scratching my head on how this rave is making the world a better place, even with all this extra dough coming in since they went “non profit”.
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Tickets are already available from Stubhub for $895 and vehicle passes from $179.
Image: thomashunt.com
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Where do you get the 5k additional VIPs? When I look at the BM site it adds up to 70k.
5000 x 990s pre sale
5000 x 1200s pre sale
500 x 1200s extra sale
I am calling the 1200s vip but I guess the 990s are too
“5,000 tickets available in this sale, at two different ticket prices: $990 each and $1,200 each”. I read this to mean 5k total, not 5k each. Thanks for explaining your math, that helps. FWIW if the pre sale is only 5k (total) and you add in the 2500 second wave of DGS (which you didn’t include) it’s 70k.
Typically vague language from BMorg. If it was as you suggest, they would say 2500 tickets at $990 and 2500 tickets at $1200. You seem to be reading a lot into the positioning of a comma. Perhaps they are returning to their old ticket tier model where you just decide what price you should pay.
I did miss the 2500 second wave of dgs, thanks .
didn’t it used to NOT be about money? I’m so glad I could experience it before avarice and greed took over. They will justify every expense, without ever seeing what they have created: A rich mans playground. No, it didn’t need to end up like this.
It is what it is. People that go are the people that are there. Neither holds any interest for me. The dream is over. The happy challenge is to look for it elsewhere.
“Neither holds any interest for me.”
AHAHAHAHAHAHHAA!!!
Proved by the MANY other Burn type events I have gone to since I gave up playing the Borg’s games.
When I went, EVERYONE who wanted to be there was there. No longer true. Most of the Burn events I have been to since DO have everyone there who wants to be.
I know this already thanks to your many, many posts on this blog about Burning Man.
For me it is not about money and has never been. None of the changes that have occurred over the years have changed that. I think if you obsess over what others do it’s going to effect your burn.
And if the lake bed still has water in it they do not have to refund any money
On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 1:54 PM Burners.Me: Me, Burners and The Man wrote:
> burnersxxx posted: ” Registration is open now for Burning Man tickets. As > with the past few years, you have to create a Burner profile and register > for the sale to be eligible to enter. Do that by noon Friday. Then next > week you have to log in within the first few seconds” >
Yes, but you still get all the excitement over tickets and preparing, not to mention bragging – isn’t that really the reason people go anymore. 🙂