The Ticket Team manages all aspects of the Nowhere ticket sales.
If you're looking for info on how to buy tickets try: Nowhere Tickets Page
In order to hold Nowhere, the event requires a permit. The easiest permit for Norg to get is as a “campsite”. Unfortunately. as part of the requirements of a campsite in Spain, we need to record information on all campers. In previous Nowhere's the local government didn't ask this from us, but since 2019 this has been has been enforced. In 2019 an official book was used at Gate, but caused longer queues and was deemed unsatisfactory to the local officials. As a solution it was decided to gather the ID number and real name at ticket purchase and just verify that it matches at Gate.
At least two weeks before the general ticket sale, the low income application form should be opened. The form should gather at least the name, email address and the reason for the application.
A team of people is needed to assess all the applications. Currently we rely on the honesty of the applicants but this might need to change to a more facts based approach with documentation submitted to back up the application.
All applications need to be assessed at least a day before the general sale, so that the failed applicants are notified and have a chance at purchasing a full price ticket.
If all the low-income codes are allocated, a waiting list should be set up to handle any returned or expired codes (low-income codes are only valid for 2 months).
Some lessons learned:
As a perk for volunteering, we offer all people who volunteered for the previous Nowhere an early access code for this years sale. The codes expire the day of the general sale.
In years where it's perceived that tickets will sell out fast, we offer codes to barrio's to allow their core members to buy tickets before the general sale. The amount of codes offered matches the previous years Early Entry numbers for each barrio. The codes expire the day of the general sale.
If all the tickets are sold out, we turn on STEP to handle all the resales. This is a process where people can register that they want to buy a ticket, and matches them against people who want to resell their tickets. Since the process is handled by the ticket agent, the process is secure for both buyer and seller.
After a long assessment in 2017, Nowhere chose to use Quicket as their ticket agent. They are very burner friendly and always extremely helpful. Quicket use Stripe as their payment gateway.
Current issues with Quicket:
Due to the need to manage volunteers who arrive early for build, an Early Entry system was created. It's got two different aspects to it:
Norg teams During the initial build of Norg (roughly a month before the event starts) numbers are extremely restricted by the permit and infrastructure. During this time various teams are balanced against each other in EE allocations.
The Volunteer Coordinators are the first point of contact regarding Norg EE's.
Barrio build crew On the Wednesday before the event starts Early Entry for barrio build crews are opened. Each barrio has a fixed allocation of EE based on their projected member size. This was considered the fairest method of distributing the limited numbers the government permit allows us.
The Barrio Coordinator is the first point of contact for Barrio EE questions.
Art installations The Art Leads will collect all the needed EE information and supply them to the EE team.
Before the event the gate team needs access to both the Early Entry lists, and then the full ticket list to control access. Historically this has been provided as both an API and database depending on the gate scanner needs.