This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.7
PTR
10.2.6
Beta
The Pain of BlizzCon, or: How not to sell tickets!
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
xaratherus
So... I've been trying since 6:00 a.m. server to get tickets for BlizzCon 2008.
So far, according to their telephone sales - who, by the way, can't sell tickets because their sales system is linked to the sales system on the Blizzard Store site - they've confirmed 12 ticket sales.
The site was non-responsive, with multiple errors and the insanely-infuriating "Oops!" Murloc, up until about 9:00 a.m. when they took it down to figure out what was going on. They also noted that even if you completed your ticket purchase during the warfare that was the first ticket rush, unless you got a confirmation e-mail you would have to repurchase as they lost all that data during the crash.
They brought the site back up about 3 hours later, with confirmation on the official forums that the issue was fixed but that performance issues might continue due to the load of people hitting the servers.
An hour later (about 2:30 p.m.) they brought the site down again.
So any of the Wowhead folks able to get tickets yet? ;) I'm thinking, given the glitches and how often web payment processing will accidentally charge one thing 50 times when you glitch, that this year's BlizzCon attendance total will be about 30 people, all charged for 500 tickets apiece...
Post by
42580
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Mumpley
From where im at it'd only be a 4-5 hour drive to Southern California. Then again theres the burden of gas prices. We could all fly,but flight travel is more expensive than ever. Paying extra for cabin luggage etc.
Seems like people can only travel in a 20 mile radius from their home these days.
Post by
warrior
Problem with BlizzCon has and will continue to be for me is it's location. It would be better if they did BlizzCon in different locations every year (instead of just Cali), like one year in Cali, another in North-East (Boston or NYC), etc. I can't be bothered spending $1K on a flight to Cali from NY - there are much better ways of spending that much money. :P
The site problems you mention however are entirely possible, having encountered that I'd just /shrug - wait out the initial rush, I doubt they'll sell out every last ticket any time soon.
Post by
zomfgbbq
I was under the impression that they sold out really, really fast last time once all the kinks got worked out?
Post by
xaratherus
I was under the impression that they sold out really, really fast last time once all the kinks got worked out?
They were sold out in approximately 72 hours. However, last time they did not have anywhere near the downtime and problems that they have had with sales this time.
The last official word came at around 10:30 a.m. - tickets will be available for sale against "after 12:00 p.m. PDT", with another confirmation that there are still "plenty" of tickets remaining.
Post by
129690
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Incendium
It's impossible to eBay the tickets. You need to show a valid photo ID and the actual credit card used to get the pass to get in. I feel sorry for the people who are actually trying to buy tickets on eBay.
Post by
xaratherus
It's impossible to eBay the tickets. You need to show a valid photo ID and the actual credit card used to get the pass to get in. I feel sorry for the people who are actually trying to buy tickets on eBay.
From what I've seen, most of these auctions include the caveat:
I will meet you out front of the convention center on the day of to provide your tickets, convention badges, and swag bags.
While you do need the credit card and ID to pick up the passes and swag, once you have them you do not have to show ID again.
If someone in the L.A. area wants to eBay the tickets and then go the day of the convention and pick up the passes and swag, then pass it out to his buyers out front, then it gets around Blizzard's planning to an extent.
Now, that's putting your trust in a scalper after you've already given him your money. :P Not wise, but...
Overall I'm just very unhappy about the customer service (or lack thereof) and a seemingly complete lack of buffing of the website to try and handle the hit it took. But I won't go into details again, I've already had my QQs and am moving on with life.
Post by
FlatGreenWind
seems it sold out in a day, yikes man.
Post by
xaratherus
seems it sold out in a day, yikes man.
They sold a minor amount of tickets on August 11. They pulled the site down overnight and didn't re-open it again until 12:40 p.m. the following day. At that point they started releasing the tickets in batches, but even then the largest first batch was gone in 14 minutes, and the last batch in that run was released and sold out in about 5 minutes around 1:00 p.m.
At that point they put up their last small batch (rumored to be 1000 tickets) up at 8:00 p.m.; they were all gone by 8:03 p.m.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.