We highly recommend you only purchase your tickets to Wasteland Weekend through our official ticket portal on our website or directly on the Growtix website. We cannot guarantee that tickets purchased any other way will be valid. However, we do not prohibit ticket buyers from giving or selling their tickets on to others (provided that they sell them for no more than what they paid – see the info on scams and scalping below).

What to know before you purchase a third-party ticket: 

1. YOU BUY THIRD-PARTY TICKETS AT YOUR OWN RISK. Wasteland is a non-refundable event. 

Ticket scams online have gotten worse and worse, especially on Facebook event pages and we highly recommend you only buy tickets through this site or through Growtix, and if you do choose to buy a second-hand/third-party ticket, make sure you KNOW the seller. If you don’t have any mutual friends with that person, and they don’t appear to be from the Wasteland community, we STRONGLY suggest you do not purchase from them. In fact, even if you DO have mutual friends with a seller, use caution. Again, if your ticket is determined to be invalid for any reason, and you did not buy it directly from us/Growtix, we can’t help you.
You do NOT want to be the person who drives 2,000 miles ready for a 5-day campout, only to find out at the gate that their ticket is no good.
All of that said, we do not prohibit buyers from selling or giving their ticket on to someone else. However, you are buying and selling third party tickets at your own risk. Wasteland cannot check to see if third party tickets are legitimate, cannot verify them for you, cannot help change you change the name on a 3rd party ticket, or mediate between parties who have a disagreement over a ticket sale.

2. The original ticket buyer maintains control over the ticket until it is used. 

This means that the original ticket buyer is the only one that can change the name on the ticket – ever (think of them as the “admin” of that ticket). No matter how many times the original ticket email with QR and bar code is passed around, the original buyer can still change the name on the ticket in the Growtix system. There is nothing to prevent a ticket buyer from “selling” you their ticket and then showing up at the event and using the ticket themselves (provided the QR code has not been scanned yet). So make sure you TRUST the person selling you their ticket.

3. The QR code IS the ticket.

Each ticket has a unique bar code and QR code. The QR code is the part we actually scan. Once the QR code for that ticket has been scanned, that ticket CANNOT be used again.  NAMES ON TICKETS DO NOT NEED TO MATCH ID. It’s all about the QR code (we check IDs in order to verify age, not to match with a ticket). Again – If someone has a ticket with a working QR code, they can get in to the event whether or not their name is on the ticket. Each QR code can only be used once. Never share a photo of your ticket online with the QR code visible. This would make it easy for someone to counterfeit your ticket.

Regardless of what name is on your ticket, make sure that you have your own valid, government-issued photo ID with you when you arrive. You will not get in without one (this is for age verification and liability, not because it has to match your ticket). You will NOT be allowed in without a valid, government-issued photo ID (drivers license, passport, military ID). If you just drove 3,000 miles without your valid ID, you’re driving 3,000 miles back. Sorry.

If this is confusing, we’ll give you an example. Let’s say John buys a ticket and later sells it it to Jane. He goes into the Growtix system and puts Jane’s name on the ticket. Later, Jane can’t get off work and wants to give her ticket to her friend Sam instead. Jane asks John to change the name on the ticket again, this time, to “Sam”. John doesn’t respond but Jane emails Sam a copy of her ticket so he can use it anyway. 

Let’s assume all three of these people decide, for whatever reason, to show up to Wasteland and try to use the ticket they they all now have a copy of. Who gets to use the ticket? Who gets in to the event? 

The answer: The first person who gets that unique QR code scanned. After that, the ticket cannot be used again.

Frankly, this is how pretty much every other large festival or concert operates when it comes to tickets.

Even with all of the above you should know that we have had many people give tickets to others to use with no issue, and we hope that, if you choose to go the third-party route (which may be very common once the event sells out) you will probably not have any issues whatsoever. We do believe most of our attendees are trustworthy sellers of tickets. But unfortunately, if for some reason your ticket does not work out for you when you arrive, we will not be able to help you if you were not the original purchaser.

Finally, if anyone out there thinks that this may present an opportunity to scam someone, be aware that it is VERY easy for us to track fraud like that within the Growtix system, and there will be consequences if it ever happens.

A note about SCALPING: Selling a ticket for more than its value (scalping) is illegal in the state of California and it is definitely frowned upon by the Wasteland community. Anyone known to have sold a ticket to Wasteland Weekend for more than the face value of a ticket plus fees may find themselves banned from future Wasteland events.