Ticket Day 2021 has come and gone. Some celebrated, many wept, most went, what just happened?
Here are some stats:
- 2300 total participants with 1150 tickets available via the lottery. The other 1150 are reserved for crew, artists and Theme Camps.
- 3900 registered profiles entered the lottery draw – a very similar number to last year (those with a crew ticket are eligible for a second ticket via the lottery)
- 594 invites went out via email and text inviting the initial batch to purchase tickets (up to 2 tickets each) on 7 October
- 700 of 1150 tickets have not yet been purchased (as of 11 October). The queue continues to move as people either purchase a ticket or decline to do so.
- STEP will release all unsold tickets to the next lot of Burners after two weeks, who again have 2 weeks to purchase.
- 7 Oct – 4 Nov: 2 weeks to purchase
- 4 Nov – 2 Dec: 48hrs to purchase
- 2 Dec – Event: 24hrs to purchase
- There are still plenty of reserved tickets to be allocated – artists, build crews, and other front line contributor
Fundamentally, it does not look like more people want to attend than in prior years – and the experience from prior years has been that in the end, there are enough tickets to go around. What has changed is the timing. In previous years, everyone knew whether they had a ticket or not once the sale ended (within minutes of starting).
After the ticket sale for KB21, there was overwhelming community feedback that the mad rush on tickets that then sell out instantly was not the way forward. There were also calls to provide a longer timeframe to purchase tickets. Community consultations resulted in the Lottery being launched, giving those invited to purchase longer to do so. The random allocation was truly random, and demand has continued to exceed supply in similar numbers to last year.
So let’s take a collective deep breath together and see how this year’s experiment turns out.
Our Service Facilitator, Craig, has written up an excellent blog post about the ticketing process this year and how the lottery system (including how a real fire was used to randomise the allocation!), together with an increase in reserved tickets for volunteers changed the landscape of allocations.
