The byzantine and highly complex process of buying officially sanctioned, face-value Burning Man 2017 tickets is now underway, everybody. Registration for the Burning Man ticket Main Sale began at noon today (Wednesday), so you’ve now got less than 48 hours to get your name into the queue. This registration closes promptly at noon Pacific Time on Friday (March 24) and tickets go on sale to registrants Wednesday (March 29), creating a breakneck registration deadline that Burning Man has deemed a necessary evil to avoid the technical disaster crapshoots, lottery clusterf***s, and tragi-comic scalping prices that have marred Burning Man ticket sales past.
If you’re a regular, muggle-level Burner who is not affiliated with a big-name, famous camp, you basically need to register for the Main Sale by Friday noon. This involves logging into your Burner profile, that thing whose password you always forget because you use it, like, twice a year tops. If you don’t have a Burner profile, you need to create one. Once logged in, make sure your profile is complete and your address information is consistent with your current credit card billing information. You need to do this prior to 12 p.m. PDT Friday, March 24.
As said above, the tickets actually go on sale next Wednesday, March 29, at 12 p.m. PDT — so you’d better have $425 per ticket as available funds on your credit card ready to (sparkle) pony up at that moment. You may only buy a maximum of two tickets, and you can bet your dusty ass these tickets will quickly sell out. Burning Man expects to make “approximately 30,000 tickets” available in this sale, and last year there were 70,000 people registered to buy them according to the Reno Gazette-Journal. You’re welcome to join the “online waiting room” as early as 11:30 a.m. PDT that day, though Burning Man insists that will not put you at the front of the queue when tickets go on sale at the strike of 12.
While you’re in there, you should also buy your vehicle pass ($80). Vehicle passes and tickets cannot be purchased separately, you have to buy them both in the same purchase, you can’t buy a vehicle pass without also buying Burning Man tickets. On the off chance you do successfully buy Burning Man tickets in next Wednesday’s frenzy, your physical ticket will still not be shipped to you until June.
If you screw this thing up or don’t get tickets next Wednesday, it is not the end of the world. Burning Man’s Secure Ticket Exchange Program (STEP) serves as an official face-value online ticket exchange, so you can buy regular-price tickets from trustworthy Burners who have extras. Registration to buy STEP tickets begins April 26 and the platform stays live for three months. You can also apply for a $190 Low Income Ticket through Monday, April 17, but you’ll be asked to provide proof of your income along with your sob story. And if you are simply in the “I don’t have that kind of money right but I will later” category, a couple thousand OMG Sale tickets will be put on sale the first week of August with a registration deadline of Friday, July 28.
Confused? Burning Man's Ticketing Department is holding a Reddit AMA this afternoon at 1 p.m. PDT.
The Burning Man festival runs August 27 to September 4, 2017 at Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, which is currently underwater.
Related: Federal Agent Charged With Abusing Burning Man Party Privileges
