A great way to get a ticket — especially as someone who’s never been before — is to find a local large camp or art project that needs help, and help them.
Show up every weekend to hammer and saw and paint and sew and give massages and serve food and clean up after their fundraisers. Join them for local or regional events. They may have DGS (Direct Group Sale) tickets to spare, or they may have members who find they can’t go. If someone showed up every week and busted their butt helping out, you could be sure we’d find a way to get them a ticket — and we have.
If you don’t end up getting a ticket, you still get to have a great time and meet people in your area.
And this is also how you arrive at the event not as a tourist but as part of a community.