Ticket
Process
When tickets
go on sale, anticipation around the office builds. We receive envelopes from all
over the world. They contain requests for tickets, but they bring much more. Many
contain messages and are decorated, painted, and stickered from the inside out.
These are the ones we love. Every letter is read, and each decorated envelope
is cherished. We put them in the archives. This makes us feel closer to all of
you.
Frog is surrounded
by plain and decorated envelopes and gifts (bribes?) sent by
participants for 2002 tickets.Photo: Crimson Rose |
As the event has grown larger, requests for tickets have increased.
Storing and retrieving information has also grown, becoming more sophisticated.
Our Filemaker database is maintained on a regular basis. It stores information
for the Volunteer,
Theme Camps,
Art, and
our main Contacts databases. The Contacts database coordinates mailings
as well as ticket and merchandise sales. This consists of basic snail
and email address maintenance. Keeping over thirty thousand addresses
current is labor intensive and requires constant maintenance. Data must
be uploaded for mailings of our newsletter, ticket postcards and special
events. Data must be downloaded to our ticket vendor. It all comes down
to tracking information. Your address will never be sold to vendors, corporations
or any business. Participant information is strictly secure and confidential.
Frog and
Bex reviewing the database. Photo: Crimson Rose |
Over the years we have improved our ticket procedure. At the beginning of
our ticket cycle, 7,000 ticket requests come pouring in during the course of a
few days. This can feel overwhelming, but we have gradually improved our process.
This is a three-phase task. The first phase is the simplest: we sort envelopes
by postmark deadline, open the envelopes and photocopy all payment information
for accuracy. For this we need the help of volunteers. During the second phase,
funds must be verified, sales bundles created for data entry, and deposit information
must be forwarded to the accounting department. In addition to these duties, our
partiserv(at)burningman(dot)com
helps people with their orders and answer questions via email and telephone. The
third and final phase is data entry and fulfillment of orders. We ask people to
furnish us with legible information, but sometimes we must decipher smudged scribbles
and scrawls. This can drive us crazy. In some cases, requests must be returned.
In ticket fulfillment, tickets are matched with appropriate invoices and mailed
out of the office.
Joy is scrutinizing
the postmark date before opening the mail.
Photo: Crimson Rose |
Part of this department's job involves updating information on the website
as well as creating all the forms to create a sale.
Ticket
information can be found here.
Brien's sorting
through the bins of ticket orders before photo copying each
one. Photo: Crimson Rose |
Merchandise and Memorabilia is never sold at our event, but we do sell a
few items throughout the year: T-shirts (2 designs), cap, several videos,
and a poster throughout the year. These items are stored, packaged and mailed
from our office.
For more information on sales,
go
here. We are an organization in which all of the holidays -- the 4th
of July, Halloween, Christmas and Chanukah -- are celebrated at once. Our
New Year begins the day after the Man disappears in flames.
