"PLEASE NOTE: In order to keep things fair, we currently have badge limits of 4 per person. If we determine that your are ordering under different names and multiple addresses, all of your orders will be cancelled immediately"
This seems pretty clear to me. Breaking this rule, directly resulted in many people not getting any passes for this event. I would get more graphic with this, as I am still simmering over how this was all handled, but Ill keep it PG.
Faith has been restored in PA. Just heard from some people that have been innocently effected by this that they contacted PA Directly and showed enough proof to justify the badge return. Looks like the Right thing was done on PA's end after all. They really do care about us. They are trying their best to make things right. Cheers
Who did they talk to? We haven't heard anything back yet and want to make sure we're asking in the right place!
I'm glad to hear some people are getting things worked out.
And I changed my mind about trolling you, but @Zyrael your post is extremely hypocritical. They didn't care when the decision went against you, but now that the decision is in your favour they suddenly care and did the right thing?
We never said they didn't care. We said that it felt like they didn't, based on the information we had at the time. New information, new opinion. I also said I couldn't believe that was true, because I trust PA too much to make a catch-all decision like that that could have hurt lots of fans. All we ever wanted was a chance to explain our case and have someone listen, which is what we're getting and I'm extremely thankful for it.
Nice of you to admit you've only been posting in here to troll people though.
Faith has been restored in PA. Just heard from some people that have been innocently effected by this that they contacted PA Directly and showed enough proof to justify the badge return. Looks like the Right thing was done on PA's end after all. They really do care about us. They are trying their best to make things right. Cheers
So because people like you whined about not following the rules, they changed their minds. How does that make things right? You were the ones who abused the system when it clearly said not to. They have been doing things right from the start. You were the one who failed to do so by ignoring SIMPLE RULES.
And I changed my mind about trolling you, but @Zyrael your post is extremely hypocritical. They didn't care when the decision went against you, but now that the decision is in your favour they suddenly care and did the right thing?
If both of you read closer you would see I already had my tickets. I didn't get flagged. I was simply standing up for the people that deserve better. And if nothing would have been done to help them it would have been a sad year.
Faith has been restored in PA. Just heard from some people that have been innocently effected by this that they contacted PA Directly and showed enough proof to justify the badge return. Looks like the Right thing was done on PA's end after all. They really do care about us. They are trying their best to make things right. Cheers
Who did you talk to? We haven't heard anything back yet and want to make sure we're asking in the right place!
I'm glad to hear some people are getting things worked out.
And I changed my mind about trolling you, but @Zyrael your post is extremely hypocritical. They didn't care when the decision went against you, but now that the decision is in your favour they suddenly care and did the right thing?
We never said they didn't care. We said that it felt like they didn't, based on the information we had at the time. New information, new opinion. I also said I couldn't believe that was true, because I trust PA too much to make a catch-all decision like that that could have hurt lots of fans. All we ever wanted was a chance to explain our case and have someone listen, which is what we're getting and I'm extremely thankful for it.
Why do they deserve the chance to plead their case in the first place? Seriously, I find no reason from earlier posts that indicates they should at this point. They ignored the rules which in turn took the fair treatment away from others who could have bought that 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th badge set, and then they continued to whine until they got their way like children. They aren't being fair to others, yet they feel entitled to those extra badges. It blows my mind.
Simplicity on
+1
sanovahNerd of the WestSan Diego, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
edited April 2013
TBH you guys should have lost all your passes. You're lucky you got to keep one order and even luckier someone is possibly listening to you.
It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to read and understand the rule they started right before you purchased tickets. Assuming you're not one of those people that needs to be told mc Donalds coffee is hot you fully understood the intent and meaning of the rule and decided to go against it.When you got caught you had a temper tantrum like my 3 y/o niece until you got what you wanted just like she does
Why do you deserve the chance to plead your case in the first place? Seriously, I find no reason from your earlier posts that indicates you should at this point. You ignored the rules which in turn took the fair treatment away from others who could have bought that 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th badge set, and then you and Zyrael and others continued to whine until you got your way like children. You aren't being fair to others, yet you feel entitled to those extra badges. It blows my mind.
Well basically from reading every post this is the info i can sum up.
three guys in a group of eight went into que to get tickets. one of them got through and bought four sets of single day badges for their group. mean while the other two buddys are still waiting in que. so to help one of them out the guy that got through went into the que again from home this time and got in there as well. So he purchased four more sets of single day badges. nothing stopped the purchase from happening. Then that person informed the two still waiting friends that they have receipts for badges for all eight people in their group. So not wanting to waste two spots in the que system the two friends still waiting left their que to give the spots to people who have not aquired badges yet. Rather kind id say. Then a week later after hotels and flights were booked they received the cancellation email canceling half their groups badges.
It was an honest mistake in my opinion so i chose to stand up for them.
Also i cant find the quote but somewhere in this thread someone said
"If they dont want you to buy more than 4 badges with one person's billing information. Why do they allow it to happen"
who ever that was is on to something. hopefully in the future PA can hard code the site to not allow another accidental purchase to be made if the billing info has already been used.
TBH you guys should have lost all your passes. You're lucky you got to keep one order and even luckier someone is possibly listening to you.
It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to read and understand the rule they started right before you purchased tickets. Assuming you're not one of those people that needs to be told mc Donalds coffee is hot you fully understood the intent and meaning of the rule and decided to go against it.When you got caught you had a temper tantrum like my 3 y/o niece until you got what you wanted just like she does
I have my tickets but imo if they can prove that they aren't scalping then they should have their tickets given back. Also most people don't look at that snippet of text when their mind set is that you have to get tickets before they sellout.
Honest mistakes happen all of the time, but why is it PA's job to clean up their mistakes? I don't want to be mean but the rules are clearly stated and they've been clearly stated for years. And in response to your quote about why do they allow it to happen... just because you can, doesn't mean you should buy more than four. BUT I will say, they shouldn't have allowed that to happen, you're right, but that coding snaffu was also on ShowClix's part, not PA.
TBH you guys should have lost all your passes. You're lucky you got to keep one order and even luckier someone is possibly listening to you.
It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to read and understand the rule they started right before you purchased tickets. Assuming you're not one of those people that needs to be told mc Donalds coffee is hot you fully understood the intent and meaning of the rule and decided to go against it.When you got caught you had a temper tantrum like my 3 y/o niece until you got what you wanted just like she does
I have my tickets but imo if they can prove that they aren't scalping then they should have their tickets given back. Also most people don't look at that snippet of text when their mind set is that you have to get tickets before they sellout.
Because repoing the tickets wasn't just about scalping, it was about giving everyone a chance of buying the same amount of passes.
0
sanovahNerd of the WestSan Diego, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
edited April 2013
And I'm done. Enjoy arguing but it still falls down to mistake or not they broke the rules and are lucky they're getting anything. I'm done so piece out. Zer feel free to delete this.
TBH you guys should have lost all your passes. You're lucky you got to keep one order and even luckier someone is possibly listening to you.
It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to read and understand the rule they started right before you purchased tickets. Assuming you're not one of those people that needs to be told mc Donalds coffee is hot you fully understood the intent and meaning of the rule and decided to go against it.When you got caught you had a temper tantrum like my 3 y/o niece until you got what you wanted just like she does
I have my tickets but imo if they can prove that they aren't scalping then they should have their tickets given back. Also most people don't look at that snippet of text when their mind set is that you have to get tickets before they sellout.
Because repoing the tickets wasn't just about scalping, it was about giving everyone a chance of buying the same amount of passes.
If they truly waited in the queue twice then other people did have the same chance of getting tickets. If they used the line jump trick knowingly then ya revoke the extra ones.*
I can offer some clarity into this as I believe Zyrael is likely referring to me.
Today, my tickets were confirmed to not be cancelled (both sets of 4 single day badges, 32 total).
The resolution came from registration@paxsite.com after emailing them politely with the situation that occurred resulting in us purchasing the amount of badges in the fashion that we did, and asking for assistance if at all possible.
Bullet points because TLDR;
- We purchased 4 sets of single day badges approximately 12 minutes after the site went live (16 badges)
- We then had 2 people be granted access to the queue, only to have them 504 Bad Gateway error for the duration of their 8 minutes attempting to purchase tickets and then be forced back into the queue
- The queue then popped again for another member of our group, and they purchased 4 sets of single day badges approximately 48 minutes after the site went live (32 badges total at this point)
- Both payments were processed using the same credit card, no other information was the same (email, address info, etc)
- All tickets were to be picked up at will call after providing ID and proof of purchase (as we are in Canada)
After emailing registration@paxsite.com and providing these details in a polite manner, we received a response 2 days after the initial email stating they would not cancel any of our badges (not offering an exact reason as to why).
I am grateful, and I hope people have a similar experience. While I can appreciate people being upset about that resolution, their perspective would change if they were on this side of the coin if you will.
So if PA does not give all them back (I would guess the guy whom got 300 is sol) what are they going to do, just drop them into showclix randomly ? Or should we expect a tweet or something?
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AlazullYour body is not a temple, it's an amusement park.Enjoy the ride.Registered Userregular
My question is this, what happens to all the passes that get pulled? I'm glad they're returning the ones to people who accidentally or unintentionally broke the rules, but if there are some being recalled due to actually dirty tactics I'd like to be able to buy them through official channels.
I'm going to guess that I'll have to follow PAX on Twitter and everything to find out, but if anyone knows it'd be awesome to find out.
User name Alazull on Steam, PSN, Nintenders, Epic, etc.
Well PA is about webcomics (and PATV) sooooo... draw a comic about us getting tickets, and a webshow of people recieving badges and uh.... then we get badges mailed to us?
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I would almost bet Blizzard made that system themselves. One of the advantages of being a software developer is having access to programmers.
Chances are Showclix does not have the same resources on hand.
Totally agree with that, especially since round one for BlizzCon tickets seemed to go well not too long ago. Kinda deja vu looking at the forums and official blog post comments (without the server errors.)
But I believe that ShowClix learned a metric fuckton from this debacle and will have a more robust infrastructure for future PAX registrations. Of course the question is will that even more robust infrastructure be enough if demand for Prime '14 outstrips this year by a large margin?
0
LefuuleiJust an Average UserSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Question, if I'm allowed to ask:
How long as PAX Prime been around?
When did the sudden influx of attendees outweighing capacity start?
2013 will be the 10th consecutive Pax Prime and there was no sudden influx of attendees, it has just gotten more popular every year. Here is a Google spreadsheet I made that documents the sell out dates.
2009 was the first year Pax completely sold out, and it took 6 months. It has gotten steadily faster ever since.
"There was no sudden influx of attendees, it has just gotten more popular every year."
That's a bit confusing? Especially considering the following:
You said 09 it took 6 months to sell out, another person reports '10 had been on sale for weeks before they sold out, '11 per the spreadsheet badges sold out in about 1 month, '12 badges sold out under 24 hours, '13 badges sold in 6 hours.
Looks like the influx happened 2012.
By influx I mean "Demand exceeding supply." By Sudden I mean drastic change. Of course it got more popular but I don't imagine the dead are coming up to purchase badges meaning no more people(well living) came. Usually an influx like that is brought on by an increase in popularity.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Either way thanks Skelevader, Cultural Geek Girl and zerzhul for the answers. Was mostly curious.
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2013
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Just posting to check in and say our group got our tickets un-cancelled. We're all going to PAX. I am sorry for ever doubting you, PA
AWESOME Grats kyyp! im happy to hear another wrong has been corrected by pa. have a fun time =D'
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I3izzyNonofficial member of the F5 brigadeFG, ORRegistered Userregular
edited April 2013
Edit: Previous post editied because after reading further it was better explained by the person involved.
So jsut for argument say there was 500 4 day passes they decided to take back. They should take those passes, find the next 500 people who order all 4 days, ask them if they want the option to get the 4 day pass, and give them the difference back. I feel a lot of people had to pay more because some people exploited the system
Also I am a big fan of them combinding all my single day passes into one 4 day since there is no benifit of having 4 single day passes. I have seen this done at other cons and feel it is a great idea.
Just posting to check in and say our group got our tickets un-cancelled. We're all going to PAX. I am sorry for ever doubting you, PA
AWESOME Grats kyyp! im happy to hear another wrong has been corrected by pa. have a fun time =D'
I'm in Kyyp's group as well, we are unbelievably happy that everything turned out okay! We definitely learned our lesson though, and we'll be better prepared next year. I am so grateful to the PA guys for this, you're so nice and awesome.
+1
SkeleVaderYour Friendly Dark Lord of DestructionRegistered Userregular
I think this is mostly because they have never tried a new ticketing system for EAST. Last year and this year they tried a new platform, iirc, and both times it's been sub-optimal. Last year it was bad enough they had to revert to the old platform, which has always worked flawlessly regardless of demand.
Question, if I'm allowed to ask:
How long as PAX Prime been around?
When did the sudden influx of attendees outweighing capacity start?
2013 will be the 10th consecutive Pax Prime and there was no sudden influx of attendees, it has just gotten more popular every year. Here is a Google spreadsheet I made that documents the sell out dates.
2009 was the first year Pax completely sold out, and it took 6 months. It has gotten steadily faster ever since.
"There was no sudden influx of attendees, it has just gotten more popular every year."
That's a bit confusing? Especially considering the following:
You said 09 it took 6 months to sell out, another person reports '10 had been on sale for weeks before they sold out, '11 per the spreadsheet badges sold out in about 1 month, '12 badges sold out under 24 hours, '13 badges sold in 6 hours.
Looks like the influx happened 2012.
By influx I mean "Demand exceeding supply." By Sudden I mean drastic change. Of course it got more popular but I don't imagine the dead are coming up to purchase badges meaning no more people(well living) came. Usually an influx like that is brought on by an increase in popularity.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Either way thanks Skelevader, Cultural Geek Girl and zerzhul for the answers. Was mostly curious.
If you graph the sellout times you would see the demand grew at a constant rate and was very predicable. There was no year when it all of a sudden got popular. There are still people out there who do not know about Pax and will try to get tickets next year.
"Sudden influx" to me means there was a steady demand and then one year it all of a sudden spiked. This was not the case.
SkeleVader on
+2
CaptainTapoleAwesome in the Possum - Yee-Haw!Northern CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
Also I am a big fan of them combining all my single day passes into one 4 day since there is no benefit of having 4 single day passes. I have seen this done at other cons and feel it is a great idea.
While, in general, is a genius idea; most (if not all) Cons I have gone to, their badges were of paper/stock-cards/stickers. Basically someone that can print it out right then and there--given the right system and actually at the Con itself.
PAX is the first (and only that I have been to thus far) Con that has actual plastic badges. They can only make so much from the company they go through to make it and make sure it has all the extra secret stuff to make it real and official. So, I do not think they will do this anytime soon*, unfortunately.
* I only speak on behalf of myself and only myself...and frogs. Oh and coffee. None of my thoughts and wordings will ever reflect the opinions of PA, Reed, ShowClix, etc etc etc. this really goes without saying, ya?
The Girl Who Gave Everyone the Shortest Jenga Game Ever.
0
sanovahNerd of the WestSan Diego, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
Only Khoo can answer this but if think that they wouldn't begin printing passes until two maybe three months before prime.
If I'm right I'd think offering a conversion would actually be pretty easy and help save PA money on production and shipping. It would allow PA to sell as many passes as possible and then offer the conversion and then send the real number to the manufacturer.
Also I am a big fan of them combining all my single day passes into one 4 day since there is no benefit of having 4 single day passes. I have seen this done at other cons and feel it is a great idea.
While, in general, is a genius idea; most (if not all) Cons I have gone to, their badges were of paper/stock-cards/stickers. Basically someone that can print it out right then and there--given the right system and actually at the Con itself.
PAX is the first (and only that I have been to thus far) Con that has actual plastic badges. They can only make so much from the company they go through to make it and make sure it has all the extra secret stuff to make it real and official. So, I do not think they will do this anytime soon*, unfortunately.
* I only speak on behalf of myself and only myself...and frogs. Oh and coffee. None of my thoughts and wordings will ever reflect the opinions of PA, Reed, ShowClix, etc etc etc. this really goes without saying, ya?
Fanime has had plastic badges for everyone who pre-regs before a certain date. However, because they don't mail the badges and all badges are named and numbered, it makes pickup day total hell.
Hey, those that posted about getting your tickets back, I'm glad. I can't see scalpers even taking the time to post here. However please remember by not following the rules you did muddy the waters making it extremely difficult for PA to actually stop the massive eBay/Craigslist issues. You can justify this anyway you like but your actions have impacted thousands of fans in a negative way. Own your action and understand you have given those whom want to twist this great con for ill gotten gains cover to do what they do.
Now seeing as PA will bend the rules , will you give me 1k USD so I can get tickets off of one of theses ( myfriend bailed on the con) people ? /sarcasm
Done with this now. PA please communicate the method you will use to resell the tickets. I know at least 300 of those should be up.
Question, if I'm allowed to ask:
How long as PAX Prime been around?
When did the sudden influx of attendees outweighing capacity start?
2013 will be the 10th consecutive Pax Prime and there was no sudden influx of attendees, it has just gotten more popular every year. Here is a Google spreadsheet I made that documents the sell out dates.
2009 was the first year Pax completely sold out, and it took 6 months. It has gotten steadily faster ever since.
"There was no sudden influx of attendees, it has just gotten more popular every year."
That's a bit confusing? Especially considering the following:
You said 09 it took 6 months to sell out, another person reports '10 had been on sale for weeks before they sold out, '11 per the spreadsheet badges sold out in about 1 month, '12 badges sold out under 24 hours, '13 badges sold in 6 hours.
Looks like the influx happened 2012.
By influx I mean "Demand exceeding supply." By Sudden I mean drastic change. Of course it got more popular but I don't imagine the dead are coming up to purchase badges meaning no more people(well living) came. Usually an influx like that is brought on by an increase in popularity.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Either way thanks Skelevader, Cultural Geek Girl and zerzhul for the answers. Was mostly curious.
11 was Halofest
12 was League of Legends Tournament.
13 is natural progression, because of the boost of 11 and 12, more people know about it
Hey, those that posted about getting your tickets back, I'm glad. I can't see scalpers even taking the time to post here. However please remember by not following the rules you did muddy the waters making it extremely difficult for PA to actually stop the massive eBay/Craigslist issues. You can justify this anyway you like but your actions have impacted thousands of fans in a negative way. Own your action and understand you have given those whom want to twist this great con for ill gotten gains cover to do what they do.
Yeah, I honestly feel awful about contributing to this mess. Words can't even describe how grateful I am for PA's understanding in this situation, even though I screwed up and made this more difficult for everyone.
After two days of constant worrying, though, everyone in my group is very much relieved that our annual tradition remains intact for another year.
Now to work from home until the passes taken back are put on sale. Missed the original sale due to work training, anything to avoid this happening again.
For future years, I would suggest they raise the price of tickets. I know PA tries to keep it affordable for all gamers, but at some point supply and demand need to align. I'd rather see it done by PA so the proceeds go to the expo instead of scalpers.
I still say reverse sliding scale. Start prices at something like $100 per day and then keep going down at random intervals. This should theoretically destroy the scalpers because buying early as they are wont to do to increase profits means paying a premium, which of course kills their profits.
Unless they buy every single ticket, they will be automatically undercut at the very next price drop (which shouldn't be a problem with limited tickets plus some verifications)
Think of it from PA's perspective. They wanted a place where nerds can be nerds and be awesome together. They set a reasonable price and more and more people started attending. There are too many nerds trying to go to PAX now. Whether there are 10k, 20k or 1 million people that don't get to go because of the limited amount of tickets, PA still accomplished their original goal of making a successful nerd gathering place
They've made it clear that PAX is not about money. If they sell-out the con, which is their goal, increasing the price would only be a money grab. It isn't going to magically allow more people to go, the con will still sell-out, and there will still be 10k, 20k, 1 million nerds out of luck.
So jsut for argument say there was 500 4 day passes they decided to take back. They should take those passes, find the next 500 people who order all 4 days, ask them if they want the option to get the 4 day pass, and give them the difference back. I feel a lot of people had to pay more because some people exploited the system
Also I am a big fan of them combinding all my single day passes into one 4 day since there is no benifit of having 4 single day passes. I have seen this done at other cons and feel it is a great idea.
You know what? I'd be a big fan of combining all my single day passes into one 4 day as well. Heck I'd even agree to it without the refund of the difference. Why? Because 4 badges is way harder to keep track of than 1. I think it would cut my worrying down by 75% lol if I only had 1 badge to look after.
Question, if I'm allowed to ask:
How long as PAX Prime been around?
When did the sudden influx of attendees outweighing capacity start?
2013 will be the 10th consecutive Pax Prime and there was no sudden influx of attendees, it has just gotten more popular every year. Here is a Google spreadsheet I made that documents the sell out dates.
2009 was the first year Pax completely sold out, and it took 6 months. It has gotten steadily faster ever since.
"There was no sudden influx of attendees, it has just gotten more popular every year."
That's a bit confusing? Especially considering the following:
You said 09 it took 6 months to sell out, another person reports '10 had been on sale for weeks before they sold out, '11 per the spreadsheet badges sold out in about 1 month, '12 badges sold out under 24 hours, '13 badges sold in 6 hours.
Looks like the influx happened 2012.
By influx I mean "Demand exceeding supply." By Sudden I mean drastic change. Of course it got more popular but I don't imagine the dead are coming up to purchase badges meaning no more people(well living) came. Usually an influx like that is brought on by an increase in popularity.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Either way thanks Skelevader, Cultural Geek Girl and zerzhul for the answers. Was mostly curious.
Actually, the sales data falls pretty well in line with exponential growth.
After last year's sales server meltdown, I took what sales data I had (from '09 through '12), plotted it up, and curve-fit a decaying exponential (assuming Rate-of-Sales was equivalent to 1/Demand), and used it to get some projections for when all passes would be sold out in the coming years.
For this year, the plot predicted 3 hours until all passes were sold out. I was off by a factor of two, but that's not a lot when extrapolating with a limited set of data.
The point is that the pool of past attendees grows every year, and those people go home and tell all of their friends and suddenly they want to go too, et cetera, so on and so forth. There wasn't a discrete spike in demand, we're just now getting into the unpleasant territory where demand far exceeds supply.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, and you wanted to start worrying about it now, the prediction for next year is 20 minutes to completely sold out.
Posts
This seems pretty clear to me. Breaking this rule, directly resulted in many people not getting any passes for this event. I would get more graphic with this, as I am still simmering over how this was all handled, but Ill keep it PG.
I'm glad to hear some people are getting things worked out.
We never said they didn't care. We said that it felt like they didn't, based on the information we had at the time. New information, new opinion. I also said I couldn't believe that was true, because I trust PA too much to make a catch-all decision like that that could have hurt lots of fans. All we ever wanted was a chance to explain our case and have someone listen, which is what we're getting and I'm extremely thankful for it.
Nice of you to admit you've only been posting in here to troll people though.
If both of you read closer you would see I already had my tickets. I didn't get flagged. I was simply standing up for the people that deserve better. And if nothing would have been done to help them it would have been a sad year.
Why do they deserve the chance to plead their case in the first place? Seriously, I find no reason from earlier posts that indicates they should at this point. They ignored the rules which in turn took the fair treatment away from others who could have bought that 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th badge set, and then they continued to whine until they got their way like children. They aren't being fair to others, yet they feel entitled to those extra badges. It blows my mind.
It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to read and understand the rule they started right before you purchased tickets. Assuming you're not one of those people that needs to be told mc Donalds coffee is hot you fully understood the intent and meaning of the rule and decided to go against it.When you got caught you had a temper tantrum like my 3 y/o niece until you got what you wanted just like she does
Well basically from reading every post this is the info i can sum up.
three guys in a group of eight went into que to get tickets. one of them got through and bought four sets of single day badges for their group. mean while the other two buddys are still waiting in que. so to help one of them out the guy that got through went into the que again from home this time and got in there as well. So he purchased four more sets of single day badges. nothing stopped the purchase from happening. Then that person informed the two still waiting friends that they have receipts for badges for all eight people in their group. So not wanting to waste two spots in the que system the two friends still waiting left their que to give the spots to people who have not aquired badges yet. Rather kind id say. Then a week later after hotels and flights were booked they received the cancellation email canceling half their groups badges.
It was an honest mistake in my opinion so i chose to stand up for them.
Also i cant find the quote but somewhere in this thread someone said
"If they dont want you to buy more than 4 badges with one person's billing information. Why do they allow it to happen"
who ever that was is on to something. hopefully in the future PA can hard code the site to not allow another accidental purchase to be made if the billing info has already been used.
Because repoing the tickets wasn't just about scalping, it was about giving everyone a chance of buying the same amount of passes.
*This is hard to determine though...
Today, my tickets were confirmed to not be cancelled (both sets of 4 single day badges, 32 total).
The resolution came from registration@paxsite.com after emailing them politely with the situation that occurred resulting in us purchasing the amount of badges in the fashion that we did, and asking for assistance if at all possible.
Bullet points because TLDR;
- We purchased 4 sets of single day badges approximately 12 minutes after the site went live (16 badges)
- We then had 2 people be granted access to the queue, only to have them 504 Bad Gateway error for the duration of their 8 minutes attempting to purchase tickets and then be forced back into the queue
- The queue then popped again for another member of our group, and they purchased 4 sets of single day badges approximately 48 minutes after the site went live (32 badges total at this point)
- Both payments were processed using the same credit card, no other information was the same (email, address info, etc)
- All tickets were to be picked up at will call after providing ID and proof of purchase (as we are in Canada)
After emailing registration@paxsite.com and providing these details in a polite manner, we received a response 2 days after the initial email stating they would not cancel any of our badges (not offering an exact reason as to why).
I am grateful, and I hope people have a similar experience. While I can appreciate people being upset about that resolution, their perspective would change if they were on this side of the coin if you will.
I'm going to guess that I'll have to follow PAX on Twitter and everything to find out, but if anyone knows it'd be awesome to find out.
And by keep an eye out, I mean not sleep for the next month.
It shows you the position you're in, the estimated wait time, and how much stock is left. Very informative.
Chances are Showclix does not have the same resources on hand.
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Gabe will chase a flock of PAX attendees while calling out their names to hand them their PAX badges.
But I believe that ShowClix learned a metric fuckton from this debacle and will have a more robust infrastructure for future PAX registrations. Of course the question is will that even more robust infrastructure be enough if demand for Prime '14 outstrips this year by a large margin?
"There was no sudden influx of attendees, it has just gotten more popular every year."
That's a bit confusing? Especially considering the following:
You said 09 it took 6 months to sell out, another person reports '10 had been on sale for weeks before they sold out, '11 per the spreadsheet badges sold out in about 1 month, '12 badges sold out under 24 hours, '13 badges sold in 6 hours.
Looks like the influx happened 2012.
By influx I mean "Demand exceeding supply." By Sudden I mean drastic change. Of course it got more popular but I don't imagine the dead are coming up to purchase badges meaning no more people(well living) came. Usually an influx like that is brought on by an increase in popularity.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Either way thanks Skelevader, Cultural Geek Girl and zerzhul for the answers. Was mostly curious.
PAX 2014 Tickets [X] Got em!
PAX 2014 cosplay [ ] (Magicka Wizard)
PAXen attended:
2013
Attempting to communicate through the Morphogenetic field....
AWESOME Grats kyyp! im happy to hear another wrong has been corrected by pa. have a fun time =D'
So jsut for argument say there was 500 4 day passes they decided to take back. They should take those passes, find the next 500 people who order all 4 days, ask them if they want the option to get the 4 day pass, and give them the difference back. I feel a lot of people had to pay more because some people exploited the system
Also I am a big fan of them combinding all my single day passes into one 4 day since there is no benifit of having 4 single day passes. I have seen this done at other cons and feel it is a great idea.
Enough from me. Back to watching the show...
I'm in Kyyp's group as well, we are unbelievably happy that everything turned out okay! We definitely learned our lesson though, and we'll be better prepared next year. I am so grateful to the PA guys for this, you're so nice and awesome.
Thed
If you graph the sellout times you would see the demand grew at a constant rate and was very predicable. There was no year when it all of a sudden got popular. There are still people out there who do not know about Pax and will try to get tickets next year.
"Sudden influx" to me means there was a steady demand and then one year it all of a sudden spiked. This was not the case.
PAX is the first (and only that I have been to thus far) Con that has actual plastic badges. They can only make so much from the company they go through to make it and make sure it has all the extra secret stuff to make it real and official. So, I do not think they will do this anytime soon*, unfortunately.
If I'm right I'd think offering a conversion would actually be pretty easy and help save PA money on production and shipping. It would allow PA to sell as many passes as possible and then offer the conversion and then send the real number to the manufacturer.
Fanime has had plastic badges for everyone who pre-regs before a certain date. However, because they don't mail the badges and all badges are named and numbered, it makes pickup day total hell.
Switch: US 1651-2551-4335 JP 6310-4664-2624
MH3U Monster Cheat Sheet / MH3U Veggie Elder Ticket Guide
Now seeing as PA will bend the rules , will you give me 1k USD so I can get tickets off of one of theses ( myfriend bailed on the con) people ? /sarcasm
Done with this now. PA please communicate the method you will use to resell the tickets. I know at least 300 of those should be up.
11 was Halofest
12 was League of Legends Tournament.
13 is natural progression, because of the boost of 11 and 12, more people know about it
Yeah, I honestly feel awful about contributing to this mess.
After two days of constant worrying, though, everyone in my group is very much relieved that our annual tradition remains intact for another year.
For future years, I would suggest they raise the price of tickets. I know PA tries to keep it affordable for all gamers, but at some point supply and demand need to align. I'd rather see it done by PA so the proceeds go to the expo instead of scalpers.
Unless they buy every single ticket, they will be automatically undercut at the very next price drop (which shouldn't be a problem with limited tickets plus some verifications)
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MH3U Monster Cheat Sheet / MH3U Veggie Elder Ticket Guide
They've made it clear that PAX is not about money. If they sell-out the con, which is their goal, increasing the price would only be a money grab. It isn't going to magically allow more people to go, the con will still sell-out, and there will still be 10k, 20k, 1 million nerds out of luck.
You know what? I'd be a big fan of combining all my single day passes into one 4 day as well. Heck I'd even agree to it without the refund of the difference. Why? Because 4 badges is way harder to keep track of than 1. I think it would cut my worrying down by 75% lol if I only had 1 badge to look after.
color=blue]✓[/color Hotel, color=blue]✓[/color Plane Tickets, color=blue]✓[/color Time Off Approved, color=blue]✓[/color Waiting impatiently,
color=green]✓[/color 4-Day Passes Bought, color=Blue]✓[/color 4-Day Passes Received,
color=green]✓[/color Buttons Ordered, color=Blue]✓[/color Buttons Received,
color=green]✓[/color Bonus Buttons Ordered, color=Blue]✓[/color Bonus Buttons Received,
color=green]✓[/color Forumer Pint Glasses Ordered, color=Blue]✓[/color Forumer Pint Glasses Received
Attendee ♥ : Prime 2011, 2013
Actually, the sales data falls pretty well in line with exponential growth.
After last year's sales server meltdown, I took what sales data I had (from '09 through '12), plotted it up, and curve-fit a decaying exponential (assuming Rate-of-Sales was equivalent to 1/Demand), and used it to get some projections for when all passes would be sold out in the coming years.
For this year, the plot predicted 3 hours until all passes were sold out. I was off by a factor of two, but that's not a lot when extrapolating with a limited set of data.
The point is that the pool of past attendees grows every year, and those people go home and tell all of their friends and suddenly they want to go too, et cetera, so on and so forth. There wasn't a discrete spike in demand, we're just now getting into the unpleasant territory where demand far exceeds supply.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, and you wanted to start worrying about it now, the prediction for next year is 20 minutes to completely sold out.