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Firefly Event Dates

Firefly 2023 will be held from 12 noon on Tuesday July 4th to 12 noon on Sunday July 9th.

Regular arrival starts at 12 noon Tuesday July 4th
Early arrival starts 12 noon Tuesday July 3rd. You need to pre-register. See the “Early Arrival” section of the “Getting There” for more info.

Weather depending, the Bug burns Friday night, and the Temple burns at Saturday night.

Event Price

Participants each pay what they are willing and able to make Firefly happen. Children 10 and under (born on or after 29 June 2011) do not need tickets nor to be registered.

Parking Passes

Parking passes cost $40 per car online, $60 cash-only at Gate (The price has increased this year.) See the “Event Parking” section of the “Getting There” page for more info.

Firefly Ticket Lottery

Tickets for Firefly 2023 will be offered by way of a randomized Lottery (similarly to 2012-2022). If more Fireflies sign up for the Lottery than there are tickets available, we will use a waitlist to handle ticket turnover. Tickets are not transferable person-to-person but can be refunded to be offered to the waitlist.

After the Lottery, participants can still register, and will be placed on the waitlist in the order they do so if there are no tickets available.

General Registration Information

Getting a ticket to Firefly starts with creating an account on our private registration system, linked below. Each Firefly attendee must register with a unique email address and provide their name and birth date as they appear on their government-issued ID. When you receive a ticket offer, it will be tied to your name and birth date and not transferable to anyone else. Anyone who shows up at Firefly without a ticket associated with their name and birth date will be turned away. Minors under 18 will not need to present ID at gate; see Minors section below. If you do not have a government-issued ID, please contact tickets@fireflyartscollective.org.

The database is cleared between events, so you need to register again this year, even if you’ve done so in previous years.

Gifting a Ticket

Since signing up for a ticket requires a personal account–the same account used to sign up for volunteer shifts at Firefly–it’s not possible to surprise a friend with a ticket. You can still tell them to sign up and offer to pay for their ticket, though.

Registration Dates

Registration for the Lottery occurs through Monday 8 May. Everyone who registers after this period will be added to the end of the waitlist in order of registration.

Groups

The Group option is for any set of 2-10 people who want to enter the Firefly Lottery in an “all or nothing” manner to avoid a scenario where one person gets a ticket offer and others don’t. Being in group ties you in the Ticketing system to your other group members such that you all have adjacent places on the list after the Lottery. Neither signing up as an individual or in a group gives an “advantage” in the Lottery.

Group members need to register normally as individuals first. Once individual registrations are complete, you can then form a group. More details for forming and joining groups are at the bottom of this page.

Groups are only applicable for the initial Ticket Lottery and do nothing for post-lottery registrations, which go directly to the waitlist.

Minors

All minors 11-17 (born between 28 June 2004 and 29 June 2011) must be registered in a group along with their legal guardian. Minors 10 and below do not need a ticket and do not require registration. ID is not required for minors, but all minors (including age 10 and below) must arrive at the gate with their guardian. Any minor who does not arrive at the gate with their guardian will be turned away.

Confirmation of Registration

You will accept the terms of Firefly’s release during the registration process and a copy will be sent to the email address you used to register. No paper forms are required for registration.

Lottery and Waitlist Creation

The Lottery will happen after the close of ticket registration on a 8 May 2023. We will randomly order everyone who registered during the registration window. The top confirmed entries will receive a ticket offer, and the others will create a waitlist. Everyone who registered will receive an email: those with a ticket offer will receive instructions on how to purchase their ticket, and others will be informed of their status on the waitlist. If you do not receive any email from tickets@fireflyartscollective.org by 10 May, something is wrong with your registration and you should contact us. You can also check your status at any time by logging into the Ticketing System.

In order to ensure that ticket offers go to people on the waitlist who are still actively waiting and wanting a ticket, we have an “activity” checker built into the ticketing software. In order to stay active and get a ticket offer as soon as as your waitlist spot comes up, be sure to log in at least every two weeks. If you take longer to log in and go inactive, no worries–you re-activate as soon as you log in and retain your original waitlist position.

Ticket Offers

Your ticket offer email from tickets@fireflyartscollective.org will indicate the deadline by which you must purchase your ticket. By default, this is a three-day window from when the ticket offer email is sent, but that window will decrease the closer we get to the event. If you do not buy your ticket by the deadline, your ticket offer will be rescinded and the ticket given to the next person on the waitlist.

If your ticket offer goes to the waitlist and you still want to go to Firefly, there is a button on the Ticket Dashboard to add yourself back to the end of the waitlist. It is likely that some participants will not get tickets by the time the waitlist closes before Firefly.

Refunds

If you decide you cannot attend, log into the registration system and click the “Give Me a Refund” button. Your ticket will be reassigned to the person at the top of the waitlist. If you do not request a refund, the ticket remains associated to YOUR name and birth date and will only be valid at gate to let YOU in. There is no transfer or reselling of tickets!

The deadline for unconditional full refund of your ticket price is May 31. From June 1 on, refunds will only be issued if your ticket is purchased by someone on the waitlist.

Note: once you ask for a refund you have forfeited your ticket, even if it has not yet been purchased by someone on the waitlist.

Email List Enrollment

All ticket registrants are enrolled on the Official Firefly Announcement email list. Firefly will attempt not to spam this list–you should receive one newsletter per week with combined announcements about deadlines, theme camp and art placement, volunteering, and other Festival information.

Strategic Ticket Reserve

One of Firefly’s major concerns is ensuring that vital components of the event are managed properly and that people such as Core leaders, Art Grant recipients, and first aid volunteers are able to attend. As a result, we’re holding back some (<10% of the total) tickets to be offered to select people at the organizers’ discretion. If you think you might qualify for a such a ticket, you must still register for the Lottery. As the event nears, unneeded reserved tickets will be released to be offered to the top of the waitlist.

Note: This is not the Mx Firefly competition. Bribe attempts will annoy us and will not get you tickets. Due to gradual improvements in the ticket process, fewer Reserve tickets have been used in each of the last several years.

Third-Party Services

Notable third-party services used in the processing of tickets are stripe.com and various Google products. The Ticket Registration System was created by volunteer Fireflies. If you have any issue with the use of your personal information on these products, please let us know at tickets@fireflyartscollective.org.

Thank You!

The Ticket Core and other Firefly organizers are on the sixth year of refining this process with the input of the Firefly community, and each year we think it has gotten better. Feel free to share your thoughts with tickets@fireflyartscollective.org. Thank you to all who have weighed in previously!

Recap

  • Firefly event dates: Tuesday July 4th to Sunday July 9th.
  • Registration: Enter name and birth date via registration system before 8 May.
  • Groups and families can register as an all-or-nothing group of up to 10 people.
  • Minors age 11-17 must group with a legal guardian.
  • Lottery will be held on May 10th.
  • Everyone will receive an email with either their ticket offer or their waitlist position.
  • Late registrants will be added to the bottom of the waitlist.
  • Ticket offer emails will indicate deadline for ticket purchase after which ticket offer is rescinded.
  • If you can’t go, request a refund via the registration system. Some restrictions apply.
  • Some tickets are held in reserve to ensure key personnel are able to attend.
  • We use Stripe and Google products.
  • THANK YOU!

Register Here!

Register for the Firefly Ticket Lottery at tickets.fireflyartscollective.org

  • Each person’s registration must have a unique email address. If you’re registering for multiple people, we suggest the “ gmail + trick” (e.g. yourname+friend@gmail.com) or non-gmail equivalent.
  • To form a group with your camp or family, first each person signs up and submits a registration individually. Then, on the status page–not the initial registration page–click on the Manage Groups button. One person will be the group “manager” and use Make a Group. Groupmates then use Join a Group and the manager approves them.
  • If you have any problems, email us at tickets@fireflyartscollective.org and we’ll help you!
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