I'm not sure it's changed a lot. At our first Live Oak in 2000, coming in late Friday morning, the first impression was "there isn't ANY place to set up our tent". We finally set up on top of a boulder field. The next year, we came earlier and tried farther back, and were warned "that's a fire road, you can't camp there" by the people camped by it. Later we looked and their friends were camped there. We had moved to another spot where we were alerted/warned "I hope you like all-night music, 'cause that's what we do". The music was OK until late when the alcohol took over, then sleeping became difficult.
It should be clarified that not all volunteers get in early; supposedly only the ones doing the setup and preparation. The rest of the volunteers are in the same camping boat as everyone else. Also, not all volunteers just work the assigned hours, many put in a lot more, so the $115 ticket is really not much in comparison to the time they work. To tell them they can't set up camp until everyone else comes in might be enough incentive to have them figure it's easier to just pay the $ and not have to deal with it all. And they still pay for parking and any additional family members at full price, so it's very feasible that someone puts in many hours volunteering, and still spends $4-500 for the festival.
I've seen general ideas, but never a full-fledged workable solution. Moving the big RV's was a good idea, but there are still a lot of RV's in the general camping area. It might be an idea to have a separate or larger area for all the RV's, campers, trailers, not just motorhomes, then tents wouldn't have to be packed in so tightly. Is there any more area available for camping at the site?
Cars in the campground are also a problem, and I don't think the $40/20 thing worked too well. While it did raise more money, there was still only a $20 incentive to move your car out.
