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Fair ticket selling methods for large conventions
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I mean, don't get me wrong, I recognize that good will is an asset, but if you're looking for a pure "bottom line" standpoint, increasing the price of tickets this year by at least 50% was the way to go. So, if that's all they care about... why didn't they do it?
PA is not Verizon. If you honestly think they are completely apathetic about the experience their fans have, or at least outside their bottom line....man, I don't know what to tell you.
If that's all they were interested in, they would be fleecing a shitload more money from PAX goers. The price on 3-day passes is extremely low. Which exacerbates the current problem.
The question is, should I use my job to get access to the convention because I missed out on tickets.
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Both of these options work for me.
If they wanted to maintain the "not for the money" aspect, they could just retain the usual price as the 'baseline' number, and any money over that amount gets contributed to Childs Play. Baseline for 3 days is $100 and someone pays $1000? Bam, $900 to Child's Play right there! Across potentially tens of thousands of tickets, even a couple of bucks could add up rapidly.
It's not perfect; both still reward those with more disposable income the greatest chances of going, but as I strongly dislike the lottery, I'm not sure I see a way to distribute tickets that isn't going to run afoul of someone who can (pardon the expression) 'pay to win/go'.
Demand will be higher, and tickets will be tougher to come by - scalpers will see that as more opportunity for higher profits. And when it comes down to it, scalpers will always be among the fastest people getting the most tickets. That's literally their job, and they will probably do it better than you.
I think this year was probably the last one they could get away with not addressing scalping, if it is even important enough to them.
The strain/negative would then be on the developers/publishers to create double the showing. But it also creates a coverage system allowing more indie groups to appear locally with bigger coverage, while big wigs can be in both. If you told the big pub's they could get double the coverage of pax each year I bet they would fork over the money for the extra set's. Plus, it's EA and activision, fuck 'em.
I was marginally upset because I was busy at work and couldn't check my phone or computer for a day, and missed it. And I just moved to Seattle. :evil: But, with 60k+ tickets selling out in a few hours, and reported demand of 140k more, there is literally *nothing* you can do to meet that demand.
About the only alternative is to pull a Blizzcon style deal with DirecTV, and/or Justin.TV and stream the whole con for X dollars. It's not the same sense of community, but I'd drop 20 bucks to have a stream for 3 days of some of the cooler panels, and on the ground interviews of people. It's not a solution to not having enough space, and you are definitely not going to get the sense of community, but it's an all right consolation prize.
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This is a nice idea. Instead of just streaming the con for those unable to go, they can livestream events for two cons at the same time. It'll make the whole thing bigger, but there's like 140k people who are still potential customers so why not?
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what if you could attend a con where you'd be able to see a live-stream of all those panels plus a bunch of exclusive ones (that will be live-streamed for the other con) plus just all the pax-stuff that isn't the panels (tournaments, free play, booths)?
And the second, since everyone has an email they can follow, but possibly not a twitter.
Lottery idea is not cool...
This would also make it a lot harder for scalpers to get that early access. The only reason I see them not doing it is that it's more work, but they'll probably lose any sense of community if their criteria is only going to be "was on twitter and next to a computer when the tickets went on sale"
Any system without that feature is multiple hitlers.
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Yep, this is a very good way of doing it.
Which is a very unfortunate way to view your fanbase, IMO.
It's probably cause they only read SE++ or G&T.
There's no reason that they couldn't accommodate them. Set up a Penny Arcade Registered Fan deal where you give them your email address and they send you links ahead of time to pre-register for PAX. Maybe with a couple of tiers of pre-reg opportunities stepped to length of registration time. If you signed up 5 years ago you get a shot at the first 30% of tickets six, eight months in advance. If you've been on the list for 3 years, you get what's left of those 30% a month later, etc. It doesn't take any kind of 'community activity' into account, but that's kind of a BS way to determine who gets to go to PAX anyway. I lurk a lot more than I post; do I deserve less of a shot at a ticket than a dude who posts "Shit yeah, brah" in SE++ chat threads every 15 minutes?
It doesn't have to be forum-based, and I'm not really talking about PAX specifically, but any event where early sellout is likely.
Pick a group of people close to the event organizers and divvy up presale tickets between them. Then those people divvy up presale tickets to people they consider to be community leaders. Then those community leaders divvy up presale tickets among whomever they want.
Yes, this is blatantly playing favorites. It specifically benefits people who have few degrees of separation from the event organizers. But I'm actually fine with that. It means that you build up a core community and it keeps even large events feeling more intimate.
People will bitch, but people will bitch anyway.
All ticket holders should also get the right to watch recordings of all events online in case they get on a panel line too far back or want to see two panels that are scheduled for the same time, with the ability to watch being extended to the general public roughly two months after the convention ends.
First, would be allowing users to register at a (small - $5-10 / annual) cost for pre-sale tickets. There should be a limit (say 2-4) to the number of tickets any one user can purchase, and maybe 20% of the tickets should be available to this group. This guarantees that the core 'fan club' has access to tickets, and by charging a cost to get on the list you prevent people from flooding the list just to scalp tickets.
You would want to look at how many tickets you are selling this way, but if it's so popular you are selling more tickets than you've allocated divide users up by the length of their 'subscription'. Give them one point a month, one point per $10 donated to Child's Play, etc. The people with the highest number of points should get first dibs, and the lowest tier would go on a lotto. Make this the 'VIP Group' or something similar. Give them their own line and something to make them feel special.
Next, take 10% of the tickets or so, and allow groups to pre-register for a modest fee. Make them submit a membership list and verify IDs. Give them their own line / entrance, so you don't turn entry into a clusterfuck for everyone.
Take the remainder of the tickets and sell them normally. Announce when they go on sale, and limit the number of tickets any individual can purchase to a reasonable amount (say 4-6 tickets). Don't require any ID verification for these tickets.
Take the remainder of the tickets and auction them off leading up to opening day.
If you are worried about people buying 3 day tickets but not using all 3 days, make it so that a 3 day ticket costs at least as much as two individual tickets.
It's a little complicated, but it's similar to how a lot of major universities sell sports tickets. It makes sure the boosters / longtime supporters have tickets, but allows students (similar to the 'group option' where a student ID is required) and the general public access to them too.
Obviously adjust the number of tickets in each group to reflect the needs of PAX, and donate any extra money to Child's Play.
I'm also curious as to who people here would think are 'community leaders' or whatever, and why those people are more deserving.
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My main point is as follows:
1. PAX is built on the gaming community
2. The gaming community gathers on a number of websites, including PA.
3. The more well-behaved of those websites could probably produce lists of members as candidates for a presale of a set amount of early tickets.
You can say it's "playing favorites", but the reality is that if you want your fans to come to your stuff, you have to give them an advantage over the average schmoe. You go to basically any large band, and they presale to their fan club or community. Otherwise, you just end up with the people who can afford the scalpers or were watching when the twitter dropped.
You also end up with a crowd more willing to tolerate non-transferable tickets.
What do you feel the benefit is to having your ideal of a "fan" in attendance as opposed to an "average schmoe"?
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That's self-contradictory. If the event starts to die "a slow death," that means that fewer tickets are selling, which means there's less need for any allocation system, which means it becomes easier for newbies to get tickets.
It's not "as opposed to," it's "in addition to."
And it depends on the kind of event you're running. You're running a concert where there's little to no interaction between attendees? Then just do first-come-first-serve.
But if you're trying to hold on to any sort of shared culture within your event, then it is extremely beneficial to have a core group of people with a long history with that culture, and a network of people who know each other and can make introductions.
Again, I'm not talking about PAX specifically, but over-capacity events in general.
This is awkward to say but as someone who was a relatively well-informed PAX-newbie last year (I'm *very* shy both on the forums and in real life, but I went to the ladies meetup, and have gone to two of the Boston-area PAX meetups since), honestly I did not feel like the long history of a PAX culture really improved my PAX experience that much. It seems like the community better serves people who have already known each other for ages but not so much for new people to get introduced. I remember the first day pacing through the handheld lounge with my 3ds and everyone was already sitting in little groups and I was too terrified to ask anyone to play. :\ The next two days were much better but even then the people who I felt most comfortable introducing myself to and most of the people who introduced themselves to me were other newbies. So I would not agree that having a stronger core community necessarily makes for a better experience for people outside of that core.
Besides, visiting PA forums every day already gives a huge advantage for getting PAX tickets. Because of reading the forums I already knew within a week or two window when the PAX-east tickets would go up, I knew that the official twitter account would be the best place to watch out for them, and I was able to get a text message alert to my (non-smart) phone as soon as it was announced on twitter because another forumer posted instructions on how to set that up.
Here's a question - what made PAX special? The people who are dedicated to dressing up/making events/organizing people to do cool things or just showing up and doing cool things. I don't think the public should be excluded, but you look at any successful event, band etc. - they understand the importance of giving the people who spend half their year planning around an event a leg up on the tickets. It doesn't even have to be forum based, and could be "golden tickets" passed out during the event to awesome cosplayers/volunteers/etc.
Is it "fair"? No. Life isn't either, but if we want this not to turn into an E3 marketingpalooza, it's the only way it's going to happen.
Anyone who is willing to buy a ticket and go to a convention about Penny Arcade is a fan. They may express their fandom by frequenting the forums, or maybe they just bought a poster and have it over their ping pong table. Either way, just because people hang out on the forums doesn't make us any more significant or important fans of the larger Penny Arcade brand. We're just bigger fans of the forums, which G&T have very specifically distanced themselves from.
Hell, as far as Im concerned you are in the secret club if you're in-the-know/ care enough to follow the twitter. The only responsibility the organizers have to the fans is to ensure the passes don't end up on the secondary market, and there're people that'd debate that.
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