Selling tickets for the subsequent year AT the festival?

[BillyBeru]

I what if there's only 2k tickets available per year to new attendees since the other 10k are repeat / lifetime customers?   Not only would it be insanely difficult for a festi-virgins or those who've taken a year off to score a ticket, scalpers would have a field day.

Man, no one's talking about selling 8k tickets in person at the 40th for the 41st - but yes, some amount of tickets for the following year would be kool and the gang. The system needs to be worked out by the professionals.

[oddfired]

I personally like the idea of selling some tickets at the festival for the following year.  There are already multiple outlets and options for going to the festival, so what's one more?  I'd love to have mine locked up the year before and not have to worry about it.

That said, I say let's have a round of applause for the PB people.  It was a little slow and annoying today, but systems are always going to have growing pains and it could have been worse.

[Pirate Looks at --]

Hey just make yourself Mayor of Town Park and you can have a life time pass. Much deserved Tom BTW! I am not too sure that selling them at the fest for the next year is an answer, it limits the availability of tickets for those people that can't make it one year. Take Ron for example, ....and might I add Mr. BillyBeru might have been cut out for this year. I really like FOM and JoeBu's suggestion as a way to cut out the scalpers! Oh BTW Billy....I would have bought you a ticket if they were on sale at this years fest!

[BillyBeru]

Hey just make yourself Mayor of Town Park and you can have a life time pass. Much deserved Tom BTW! I am not too sure that selling them at the fest for the next year is an answer, it limits the availability of tickets for those people that can't make it one year. Take Ron for example, ....and might I add Mr. BillyBeru might have been cut out for this year. I really like FOM and JoeBu's suggestion as a way to cut out the scalpers! Oh BTW Billy....I would have bought you a ticket if they were on sale at this years fest!

Argh, Pirate! I'm talking a limited amount of 4 days for the following year (say, 500 to 1000), but maybe that actually isn't fair since not everyone maybe ready to pony up the funds for the following year.

Flash tickets is no doubt the way to go.

And Pirate, I have 6 gallons of the frog sitting in my fridge. I am not joking. When are you coming to SF - I will give you 3 gallons.

[zack_adcock]

Wouldn't putting tickets on sale at the festival just make it more difficult to get tickets when they go on sale next December? I guess it would be more likely that the people who bought those tickets would actually go to the Fest, but it still doesn't prevent scalping, nor does it solve the demand problem.

The fact that TBF is now a high profile festival but has a relatively limited capacity compared to other festivals is what draws both new fans and scalpers to the scramble to get tickets along with the rest of us who've been before, and unless TBF changes its location or somehow finds a way to fit a crap ton more people -- something no one who has ever been to the fest would ever want, I'd imagine -- this scramble is just going to keep happening.

I know today was frustrating for a lot of people, but I also know that a lot of people gave up and/or were posting on these forums as people were snapping up the few tickets that were left at the regular price. I know hindsight is 20/20 or whatever, and parts of the process were outright unfair and frustrating -- particularly the business of people being able to put tickets that don't exist in their checkout carts -- but focus and determination got a lot of people tickets today, regardless of the technical difficulties. Saying this doesn't fix anything for those who didn't get them, nor does it account for the number of people dedicatedly online at 10 to get these tickets that were in their carts and who got shafted out of them, but it's true. It might not be the focus and determination those people expected to put into the process, but it helped no less.

Anyway, I feel like I'm ranting now, and I reckon I'm probably not making any friends in pointing out some of this stuff.

To the point of the original post --  selfishly, as someone who scrapes to be able to go in the first place and who can only go every other year, I don't like the idea of a block of tickets already being unavailable before the official onsale in December. To me, you'd just get people all pissed off at the Festival because the "pre-sale" tickets are sold out.

Godspeed and good luck to everyone!

[BillyBeru]

Wouldn't putting tickets on sale at the festival just make it more difficult to get tickets when they go on sale next December?

1) Not if those who buy them onsite are non-scalpers.
2) People who buy them onsite and who are planning on going every year would then not be in the market for tickets when they go on sale in December.(so their demand is removed and wouldn't make it more difficult).
3) If anything, it puts tickets in the hands of those who want to go and less for the scalpers to buy.

Downsides:
1) Yes, less tickets for those who are not in attendance and who are not in a position to purchase 6 months in advance.

Overall, I think Flash tickets is the best way of reducing scalpers as well.

I'm sure my economic theory is off so let's hear those rebuttals from the broken humerus and the dukie mars.

[zack_adcock]

I guess I implicitly meant that it would be potentially more difficult for those not in attendance/those unable to afford it at the festival, but also that -- for those people -- there would be that many fewer tickets to buy in December.

Plus, you're assuming that everyone who would buy an advance ticket for next year's festival would use it. I'm not suggesting scalpers are infiltrating, but at the same time the entire crowd is not full of rule-abiding Festivarians either, and those tickets would be open to anyone who wanted to put the effort in.

I'm no economist either; just thinking of loopholes. If I was an every-year attendee and had the money, I'd love to know I don't have to deal with the December onsale date, especially if it's going to keep looking like today's.

[FaceOnMars]

there would be that many fewer tickets to buy in December.

^ this would be one of my main concerns too ... which simultaneously makes it more difficult for those who didn't attend the previous year to purchase while at the same time inflating the aftermarket price due to more limited supply under the same demand load.

I'd actually go so far as to view the opposite as being a more equitable solution.  Someone suggested it here before that those who are unable to purchase tickets this year go to the front of the line for next year.

[HuckinFappy]

I may be naive but I don't think this is an influx of scalpers buying tickets today..

I don't really think so either.  But I do think that a lot of people bought more tickets than they needed, and are going to be selling the extra on StubHub, Craigslist, Ebay, etc.  I don't mean thousands of tickets, but I do suspect a couple of hundred 4-day passes were bought today specifically to resell to offset the cost of the fest.   The fact that there are already 70 of them on StubHub make me think that's not unreasonable.

[BillyBeru]

to Zach, yes, for those who can't attend, selling them at the festival reduces your chance - that is the downside.

to FOM, what's the matter with rewarding some degree loyalty? and how the heck are you going to figure out who didn't get a chance to go?

[Pirate Looks at --]

Is it aging well?

[BillyBeru]

Is it aging well?

I need to ask Hooch the half life of that stuff

[swander99]

Oh BTW Billy....I would have bought you a ticket if they were on sale at this years fest!

Argh, Pirate! And Pirate, I have 6 gallons of the frog sitting in my fridge. I am not joking. When are you coming to SF - I will give you 3 gallons.

There will be a wayfaring s'wanderer the Bay area next April! Could possibly help you thin the herd...

[FaceOnMars]

to FOM, what's the matter with rewarding some degree loyalty? and how the heck are you going to figure out who didn't get a chance to go?

Billy, if the demand outpaces the supply of tickets, then I think we'd be rewarding a form of "loyalty" based mostly in luck (of the draw).

I remember it was actually something to do with tour guides getting to the front of the line for permits to raft/guide the Grand Canyon if they didn't get picked the previous year ... so it wasn't a music festival.    However, that person's suggestion made sense from the point of view of fairness.   If PB transitions to a lottery for all 4-day passes (which isn't out of the realm of possibility), it would be very easy to figure to at least figure out who didn't get a chance to buy a ticket.   Figuring out whether they were able to attend (i.e. friend got them a ticket) would be add to the complexity.  If it moved to flash tickets, then tracking of actual attendance could be made easier on this front.    Not saying this would work easily, but simply stating that I think it would be more fair vs. allowing people to buy tickets for the next year's festival during the festival.

 

[Auntie Hope]

Hey just make yourself Mayor of Town Park and you can have a life time pass. Much deserved Tom BTW! I am not too sure that selling them at the fest for the next year is an answer, it limits the availability of tickets for those people that can't make it one year. Take Ron for example, ....and might I add Mr. BillyBeru might have been cut out for this year. I really like FOM and JoeBu's suggestion as a way to cut out the scalpers! Oh BTW Billy....I would have bought you a ticket if they were on sale at this years fest!

Argh, Pirate! I'm talking a limited amount of 4 days for the following year (say, 500 to 1000), but maybe that actually isn't fair since not everyone maybe ready to pony up the funds for the following year.

Flash tickets is no doubt the way to go.

And Pirate, I have 6 gallons of the frog sitting in my fridge. I am not joking. When are you coming to SF - I will give you 3 gallons.

Ahhhh....

Another Crunchy Christmas in the works. Love it!