At least, that’s what a thread at Burning Man’s ePlaya forum says. If you fell into one of these categories:
– outside the US
– STEP
– OMG
– staff/volunteer
– low-income
– fire conclave performer
– issues with mailing
Then you had to go to Will Call.
One Burner reports that there were 30,000 Will Call tickets this year.
With around 20% of the party being international visitors, there’s 14,000 tickets. We know about at least 4500 through OMGSTEP, plus 4,000 low income. Black Rock City is allowed an additional population of volunteers and staff of 2000 above its 68,000 paid participants. We’re up to 24,500 just there, so the 30,000 sounds plausible.
There were also “Exception Tickets” being sold at the gate, for – wait for it – $650 each. Maybe that’s what happened to thousands of other tickets, they were sold at the gate for a price high above face value, to those who had ticket problems and a plausible enough excuse.
Here’s a selection of comments from Burners:
by theCryptofishist » Wed Sep 03, 2014 9:07 pm
by jasonwentcrazy » Sat Sep 06, 2014 10:54 am
I was hustled by someone that sold their tickets to multiple people. When I got to the Box Office with my printouts of the invoices as well as the name change confirmation from the seller they said those tickets had already been scanned earlier in the morning. I did about everything a cautious person would do in a situation like buying tickets by way of a Will Call Transfer and the plain fact is that as it stands there is no solidly secure method to do this. There will always be a possibility of falling victim to someone that sells their same ticket over and over again unless additional provisions are made available by BM or Ticketfly.Fortunately I made sure to send payment via a PayPal credit card and am covered by their buyer protection policies. So the money being returned isn’t an issue. The thing that sucks even more than getting scammed is that unless you came armed to the teeth with documentation of the entire transaction you stood a good chance of just not getting in at all.How it worked in my favor was that as soon as the seller/scammer sent along a screenshot showing the confirmation number [and the message that the name on the tickets was successfully changed to mine] I called Ticketfly to verify this. I explained the situation and gave them the number from the screenshot and asked them to confirm it was a valid number. They were able to confirm it was valid and the customer service rep I talked to took diligent call notes. The Box Office folks had those notes and since they validated that I had been given the thumbs up in that regard they allowed me to purchase an Exception Ticket.And the Exception Ticket cost $650. Which, by that time, I was fine with paying as I was just relieved to not be turned away entirely. As many people had been for whatever reasons.I’m also a big fan of Ticketfly for having some really solid customer support staff. They handled my calls like a champ and followed up with an additional call and left the thorough call notes in the system that ended up being the exact thing I needed in the end.

I was dismayed to see the line extend beyond the shade directly back out into the sun while I was getting close to the front. I really wanted to go back there and rearrange it so it doubled back and everyone was standing in the 4 foot of shade along the back of the covered area but American Boyfriend wouldn’t let me.
by Joeln » Wed Sep 03, 2014 9:31 pm
When I got there they were standing in that shade. I thought 2 hours was bad until I heard what others went through.
They’ll figure it out. The rest of entrance and exodus was pretty painless.





by offarock » Thu Sep 04, 2014 10:09 am
…Then having a “start” single line would help.. Greeter, Are you in line to pick up a will call ticket, this line.. You are here to split group tickets, this line.. Your in line to do other than pick up tickets, this line.. AND Please step over to that line for rants and complaints..



by maladroit » Sun Sep 07, 2014 12:12 am
Gifted tickets, STEP, OMG sale…all required will call. Massive numbers of folks in these categories exponentially increased the mob at will call. That said, during the 6+ hours I spent in line I was entertained by fire performances, soccer ball demonstrations, and an engaging newbie lady who was thrilled to be there.
Didn’t really mind the wait that much, but the line crashers and other asshats…shame on you! May you have worse than bad karma!

jkisha wrote:The biggest problem I encountered was stupid people. There was a guy in line that had a letter with a photocopy of the original purchaser’s dirver’s license ‘authorizing’ that person to pickup the ticket. I don’t understand why the person working the window allowed him to argue his position for literally over an hour. Of course, it ended as expected–he wasn’t allowed to pick up the ticket and more than a hour was wasted. On the other hand, people with all of their paperwork in order were processed in less than two minutes. Unfortunately, more people were ill-prepared than we’re prepared, which lead to most of the wait time. (my experience arriving at noon on Wednesday)
Um…that’s exactly how I transferred and picked up my ticket in 2012. The tickets site says to do an online name transfer, but still also says:
If you want to provide someone with extra back up, you can give them a signed letter releasing your order to them, along with a copy of your photo ID.
That’s extra back up because it’s how things have been done in the past, and should have been sufficient in the event of a technical failure on Ticketfly’s part.
If those are the kinds of arguments Will Call had, it was fucked before the first burner arrived.


It is not impossible that someone who has a ticket missed their first shift because of transportation issues. And it may be that they just don’t have enough volunteers, just like so many departments do.