As Ryxa suggested, it is temporary. That note was left out of the website's update information page, but there's no information when tickets will be permitted for set 1.
The new year's event NPC's won't appear until Dec. 31. I'm assuming the update information was incorrect. It said "Starting from now, we are glad to announce the New Years Event in Onigashima 2015!" but on another page on the official website says the NPCs don't appear until Dec. 31 in the event details. So my guess is that they forgot to add the event drops (as they did with the sugar cane during the yukata event) or the event as a whole doesn't start until the 31st.
http://onigiri.cyberstep.com/special/Ha ... index.html