Burning Man Tickets

The BMORG released their plans for 2015 tickets today, as you probably saw.

Summary:

• Pre-sale: 4000 tickets at $800 each (up from $650 last year). 
• Directed Group Sale: 20,000 tickets (up from 15k last year) at $390 each (up from $380).
• Individual Sale: 40,000 tickets at $390 each (up from $380).
• Low-income Tickets: 4000 tickets at $190 each.
• OMG Sale: 1000 tickets at $390 each (up from $380).
• Vehicle Passes: $50 each (up from $40 last year). 27,000 total, down from 8k last year, but 27k is the number that were actually used.

My feeling is that they should probably not have reduced the number of vehicle passes, because while more were sold than were used last year (and they were very easy to find/get in the weeks leading up to BM), it would really suck to have tix and not be able to get a vehicle pass. And from all reports last year, they were willing to simply sell you a vehicle pass if you showed up at the gate with tix but without a vehicle pass anyway.

I've got no problem with them increasing the price of the pre-sale tickets. Clearly, all the marginal revenue from them is not funding the low-income tickets as per their justification for the pre-sale tix but whatever - people are willing to pay it, and if they're not, they can participate in the other sale options.

The increased allocation to the DSG sale is great. The people who are eligible for DSG tix are generally a subset of the group of people who actually make Burning Man what it is, and I'm all for it. 

What do you think?

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