TLDR Summary: At registration for the ticket lottery, you will be asked to commit to how much you are willing to pay for a ticket. There are no changes to the lottery system. If you get a ticket, you’ll be asked to pay what you said you would. For Firefly to break even in 2019, the average ticket buyer would have to pay $95. We hope that some people pay more than the recommended average contribution, to cover the costs of some people paying less. This is an experiment: if it looks like Firefly won’t be able to meet its financial obligations as a result, the Board may decide to set a flat ticket price, as in past years.
In 2018, Firefly introduced Financial Assistance for ticketing, which meant that Fireflies could write in to say that they could only pay a portion of the cost of a ticket, and a bunch of other Fireflies donated more than the cost of their ticket to help cover the difference. The community stepped up pitched in more than enough to cover the costs of every Firefly requesting financial assistance. This year, we want to expand this pricing system…to everyone. That lets you, and all the other Fireflies, pay what you are willing and able to make Firefly happen.
Based on our budget, if we changed nothing else, the ticket price would be $95/person. For some of you, this is more than your finances can handle; for others, it’s remarkably little for an experience as important to you as Firefly. So, this year we’re going to let you decide what you can pay.
We ended 2018 in the red, but only barely. We expect 2019 expenses to be slightly higher–for instance, we’re adding 24-hour first aid/medical. For the last several years, we’ve kept ticket prices constant by adding about 10% more tickets…this year, we will not be increasing size of Firefly. Parking capacity and complexity is the largest structural constraint on event growth.
Our budget estimates for 2019 and more information about how we ended up with $95 is here.
Of course, you can read all about tickets on our website!
The process of getting your Firefly ticket will change very little. There’s a FAQ describing in detail how things work.
When you register for your ticket you’ll be asked what making Firefly happen is worth to you. We’ll have a lottery and a waitlist, just like past years. When your name gets to the top of the list, you’ll receive a ticket offer and pay the amount you decided on at registration.
This is an experiment: if it looks like Firefly won’t be able to meet its financial obligations as a result, the Board may decide to choose a flat ticket price, as in past years.
Other pricing will remain the same, including bus ticket prices (which covered around half the cost of the buses in 2018).
We hope this goes without saying, but to be totally clear: when you register for the lottery, and indicate how much you’re willing to pay for a ticket, that price has no bearing on your chance of getting a ticket. Every participant has the same chance of getting a ticket in the lottery, and groups are handled the same way they have been in the past.
If Firefly has a revenue surplus, that money will roll over towards the next year’s budget and will reduce the recommended average ticket contribution next year.
In 2018, the Financial Assistance system raised a bit more money than was needed. Because donors intended that money to go towards people requesting financial assistance, it won’t be used this year–we’ll reserve it until next year, in case we go back to a Financial Assistance model of ticketing.
Ticket registration for Firefly 2019 will be open from Tuesday 16 April to Monday 29 April, and the Great Ticket Lottery will occur on 1 May. Register at volunteer.fireflyartscollective.org.