A way to test the waters to see if we CAN grow!
Burns throughout Europe have been selling out! There is such a huge demand from the ever-growing community for more access to burns (more burns, more tickets, more ways to get involved). We can't cater for it all but at the nest community meeting, the feeling is that we want to grow which would help with this.
One of the biggest issues for Nest to grow is the increase in compliance costs, to do that membership numbers would need to jump to at least 800 (500 tickets sold for this year).
One way we could get a meaningful gauge on if we could actually reach those numbers for next Nest with enough time to actually do something about it well would be to take deposits early and go from there. I am only thinking 10 pounds or something similar, nothing that will break the bank but will get an actual commitment from people!
We could do this by giving people a months notice and if it's possible, voting on when the sale would start.
I think it would also be nice to allow camps to before this date put applications for how many people they want for their camp and possibly an option for a portion of directed sale tickets and I think this is really important! Camps bring a huge amount to a burn and sometimes they really struggle to get the people needed to a burn!
There are many other things to deal with if the decision is to grow, but I figure this would give us some kind of useful information into how feasible it would be.
I would love your feedback and ideas.
I'm also happy working on making this happen!
Nick Staines Thu 22 Aug 2019 11:42AM
From my limited perspective this year was operationally the smoothest Nest I've been to by some distance (third consecutive Nest). Think it would be good to have one more year at 500 just to let the best practice learnt over the past few years to bed in a bit more before jumping into the next challenge especially if we're interested in focusing on how we can be more sustainable next year.
Keegan Tue 20 Aug 2019 1:11PM
I think we would make the deposits non refundable but transferable just like the tickets! It makes it a bit more of a commitment. The issue I see with doing the 500 and a waiting list is that it will likely be too late to actually do the work to grow. We really need to know ASAP if we are going to try for a bigger event or not. Ideally anything we do will be minimal admin as I love system and tech so hopefully the people can sort everything out themselves online!
Jeanette Tue 20 Aug 2019 1:21PM
Transferable sounds like a good idea. Good that you love systems and tech. I don't mind admin, so if there is any admin associated with it, I would be happy to help. :-)
Paul Phare Mon 19 Aug 2019 7:26PM
If the deposit is going to be offset against the ticket price then Quicket (or another service) needs to handle this otherwise it's more admin for someone
Tom Allen Mon 19 Aug 2019 7:30PM
Are we afraid of more work? If so we may as well give up on growing straight away.
Keegan Tue 20 Aug 2019 9:03AM
I've already been talking to Quicket and it's totally doable in their platform!
Daniel Hurley Mon 19 Aug 2019 7:31PM
Nest had over 700 attendants/members in 2016 (The site in Wales, we also didn't have a licence though if I recall correctly).
When I talk to people about my plans to go to Nest none have ever heard of it but a lot know of Burning Man. The UK has a very strong festival scene/culture in general and the local burner scene is large and growing. Those factors I believe are the reason behind the insanely rapid growth at Midburn and Borderlands.
Decompression regularly has/had an attendance that was higher than Nowhere (it was selling out the Coronet that had capacity for 2,500 people). Burns have seen an almost unexpected huge spike in demand occur at Burning Man itself, Nowhere, now Microburn.
Soon we're going to see Nest sell out within a couple hours, I guarantee it. I think this will happen within 3 years max.
Not only do we need to grow to address this but we need to have the infrastructure to be able to step up and need to prepare a mechanism (like what they have at Burning Man) so that those who are key to delivering the event (volunteers, theme camps, core team, etc...) get their tickets (hopefully the mere presence of such a system existing will encourage people to contribute).
I don't think we're ready to grow/expand in 2020 (and this was the consensus at the community meeting) but I think we will soon have to.
Tom Allen Mon 19 Aug 2019 7:35PM
It's worth noting that the arbitrary distinction of needing to get to 800 to make growing work is based on estimation of the costs of a process (getting a full event licence) which we don't actually need to do. To have a gathering of members of a membership organisation does NOT need a licence. I've been to a regular annual event with over 3000 people with no licence in Derbyshire, as they were not the public, they were all members of a membership organisation which had connection year round
Peter Tanczos Wed 21 Aug 2019 3:25PM
Tom, was that a 1/2 day gathering or an actual event? NEST is already a membership organisation to mark it out as a private event rather than public, as well as help get around the alcohol licensing arbitrary rules that go hand in hand with large events. In the final year we were at Port Talbot, we discovered the following issues that had dogged the event from early on. The event wasn't registered properly in the first place. It had taken the Police and Council all those years to realise it truly was a no commerce event rather than "non-commercial" and money was not changing hands for alcohol and therefore the alcohol licensing clauses were irrelevant but still restrictive. The Police & Fire Brigade finally understood what the event was actually about but suggested that the site was too small to grow any more than we had done and the Chief Constable even said he had the perfect venue for us in mind. But we moved to Cornwall/Devon instead. The move away from "Burner Butlins" towards more self reliance (and a return to that principle) probably lost about half the people who usually went and then the move to our current site was probably a bit down on that interim site. I believe with the people who've visited and attended at our current site coupled with a return of "old faces" we'd easily get to 800+. And this, I think, is part of the problem. There's a die hard core crew who'd go to NEST irrespective of where it was, there were quite a few "newbies" and "2nd timers" at the last NEST and still a lot of Burner faces I haven't seen (at NEST) for the last 3 years. I have no problem with growth, it has to grow or it dies. The issue is not to grow so quickly that the majority of attendees haven't fully integrated the principles (which is what seems to have happened at Midburn) I believe a 10% expansion of newbies is the right balance for a natural "each one teach one" growth that doesn't overburden "the most willing" and cause those with the most vital experience to leave because they spend their whole burn organising or mentoring others.
Jeanette · Mon 19 Aug 2019 5:51PM
I also think that buying memberships earlier would be great for community building and for giving people lots of time to think about what to bring to the event. However, offering a returnable deposit might be pointless since that might mean that lots of people who are not serious about going show interest and then ask for their deposit back (argh! the administration of it!). Another option could be to sell 500 memberships early (with payment plans if needed for those who cannot pay the full amount that long in advance) and then have a waiting/interested list. If that list hits 300 or whatever is seen as the magic number, we grow the event.