If you have a really well thought out reason why registration should be a particular way, I suggest putting it in the post-pax survey that they send out after pax. Also I don't think that anyone could possibly have anything to say on the matter that hasn't already been said more times than I can easily count.
If you have a really well thought out reason why registration should be a particular way, I suggest putting it in the post-pax survey that they send out after pax. Also I don't think that anyone could possibly have anything to say on the matter that hasn't already been said more times than I can easily count.
No post-PAX survey for me, because of a lack of prerequisites.
I didn't know that this was a huge problem, because I've only done PAX East before and this is the only year I encountered problems.
Yeah, bottom line is, people are always going to get left out, and crave a system that increasing their personal chances of having gotten tickets.
If it got switched to a lottery, you'd have the early birds, and the people who think they could have been early birds complaining. It'll be the classic "Equality of opportunity VS equality of outcome" debate that happens in every political thread ever. Without end.
In the grimdark future of arguing over PAX passes, there is only war.
I tried to get SDCC tickets this year and despite being there for the second of launch I never even got into the waiting room to be queued up ... this time around the queue system seemed to work for passes at least with only the hotel site being a hot mess ... in the end I chose to use my backup reservation rather than select a hotel I did not want. Sure it will cost me more but in the end it was not worth getting twisted about.
PAX East 2016 .... gots my Passes [x] Hotel [x] Flights [x] Packed [..] .... ok we're all good !!!!!
If you have a really well thought out reason why registration should be a particular way, I suggest putting it in the post-pax survey that they send out after pax. Also I don't think that anyone could possibly have anything to say on the matter that hasn't already been said more times than I can easily count.
No post-PAX survey for me, because of a lack of prerequisites.
I didn't know that this was a huge problem, because I've only done PAX East before and this is the only year I encountered problems.
The only prerequisite is buying at least one pass...
Anyhow, yeah, prime has been dealing with this for awhile now. This debate has *raged* on for awhile and never gets anywhere, because there's not that many unique solutions out there. They know about the options.
Anyhow, yeah, prime has been dealing with this for awhile now. This debate has *raged* on for awhile and never gets anywhere, because there's not that many unique solutions out there. They know about the options.
Do you know if they've considered gladiatorial combat? Everyone who wants to go fills an entire stadium somewhere, they release the tickets from a blimp/plane/whatever above, and if you come out of the stadium with a pass you pay them then.
Anyhow, yeah, prime has been dealing with this for awhile now. This debate has *raged* on for awhile and never gets anywhere, because there's not that many unique solutions out there. They know about the options.
Do you know if they've considered gladiatorial combat? Everyone who wants to go fills an entire stadium somewhere, they release the tickets from a blimp/plane/whatever above, and if you come out of the stadium with a pass you pay them then.
You wouldn't happen to be the Enforcer who wears a complete suit of armor every year would you?
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stebuuCrabs are fucking crazy, and I hate horsesRegistered Userregular
Yeah, bottom line is, people are always going to get left out, and crave a system that increasing their personal chances of having gotten tickets.
If it got switched to a lottery, you'd have the early birds, and the people who think they could have been early birds complaining. It'll be the classic "Equality of opportunity VS equality of outcome" debate that happens in every political thread ever. Without end.
In the grimdark future of arguing over PAX passes, there is only war.
Considering the general theme of PAX of "for the fans, by the fans", I doubt they will make a change. There are two main things they could change... reduce demand or redistribute supply.
Reducing PAX demand has two primary mechanisms:
- increase cost. PA is clearly not interested in this too much, as they could increase prices by 50% or so and probably still sell out 3 day and Saturday within a day
- Make PAX less welcoming. Dickwolves aside, not a rational tactic.
Redistribute Supply:
- the only real alternative is to go lottery. I doubt PA will go down this route, because
- more work to implement
- will probably increase the number of tickets that get sold via third parties (many people will enlist friends to buy tickets, and will end up with extra tickets)
- current mechanism is weighted towards the "true faithful", aka, people who are so hyped for PAX they have all the twitter feeds open and aren't assuming that the PAX website will let them know when tickets are for sale*.
To paraphrase my favorite line from the West Wing: "Boy, ticket sales. I don't know."
This probably could go into a post-pax survey but my idea would be to have the hotels registration go live maybe a couple weeks after ticket sales. This might help OnPeak from crashing. I've noticed a couple people saying that they need to cancel their reservation after failing to obtain the badges they wanted.
This probably could go into a post-pax survey but my idea would be to have the hotels registration go live maybe a couple weeks after ticket sales. This might help OnPeak from crashing. I've noticed a couple people saying that they need to cancel their reservation after failing to obtain the badges they wanted.
I like that idea. Or, better yet, when it does go live at a later time keep it password protected and only send the password to those that purchased tickets through the official system. Sure someone is bound to share it with someone else and it'll leak out, but if they send an email to everyone with the password for it at the same time it opens up that might help out as well.
This probably could go into a post-pax survey but my idea would be to have the hotels registration go live maybe a couple weeks after ticket sales. This might help OnPeak from crashing. I've noticed a couple people saying that they need to cancel their reservation after failing to obtain the badges they wanted.
I like that idea. Or, better yet, when it does go live at a later time keep it password protected and only send the password to those that purchased tickets through the official system. Sure someone is bound to share it with someone else and it'll leak out, but if they send an email to everyone with the password for it at the same time it opens up that might help out as well.
You know what, new idea. Pay $1000 dollars, get a PAX badge tattoo. Entry 4 lyfe. Then you go to the hotel and just stare menacingly while displaying your tattoo. The concierge, out of fear, gives you a room of your choosing.
Yeah, bottom line is, people are always going to get left out, and crave a system that increasing their personal chances of having gotten tickets.
If it got switched to a lottery, you'd have the early birds, and the people who think they could have been early birds complaining. It'll be the classic "Equality of opportunity VS equality of outcome" debate that happens in every political thread ever. Without end.
In the grimdark future of arguing over PAX passes, there is only war.
Considering the general theme of PAX of "for the fans, by the fans", I doubt they will make a change. There are two main things they could change... reduce demand or redistribute supply.
Reducing PAX demand has two primary mechanisms:
- increase cost. PA is clearly not interested in this too much, as they could increase prices by 50% or so and probably still sell out 3 day and Saturday within a day
- Make PAX less welcoming. Dickwolves aside, not a rational tactic.
Redistribute Supply:
- the only real alternative is to go lottery. I doubt PA will go down this route, because
- more work to implement
- will probably increase the number of tickets that get sold via third parties (many people will enlist friends to buy tickets, and will end up with extra tickets)
- current mechanism is weighted towards the "true faithful", aka, people who are so hyped for PAX they have all the twitter feeds open and aren't assuming that the PAX website will let them know when tickets are for sale*.
To paraphrase my favorite line from the West Wing: "Boy, ticket sales. I don't know."
*I may possibly still be bitter
Following one twitter feed and having the forum open the day tickets go up isn't that hard. I personally don't like the idea of a lottery too luck based for my tastes.
Anyhow, yeah, prime has been dealing with this for awhile now. This debate has *raged* on for awhile and never gets anywhere, because there's not that many unique solutions out there. They know about the options.
Do you know if they've considered gladiatorial combat? Everyone who wants to go fills an entire stadium somewhere, they release the tickets from a blimp/plane/whatever above, and if you come out of the stadium with a pass you pay them then.
Also, gladitorial combat is a favorite of Robert's.
Rats, I thought I truly had something there! Perhaps we could make Robert the Caesar of the games. That way even though he wouldn't be doing it all himself, he'd at least be making the calls of who lives and who dies.
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stebuuCrabs are fucking crazy, and I hate horsesRegistered Userregular
Following one twitter feed and having the forum open the day tickets go up isn't that hard. I personally don't like the idea of a lottery too luck based for my tastes.
Counter-arguments:
-Updating your website isn't that hard.
-Adding text to your website that says "hey, the website might be borked because that load is going to increase 50 bajillion times at 11:59:55. Check @Official_PAX for realtime info" isn't that hard
-Making your @Official_PAX feed loader work instead of displaying "loading tweets..." isn't that hard
The main problem with the "just follow twitter and the forums, it isn't that hard" is that either the website is a source of PAX ticket info, or it isn't. And it was portrayed as a source of ticket info, was giving out inaccurate information and had no explicit alternative information sources. I suspect this may partially be a generational thing.
The only prerequisite is buying at least one pass...
The issue there is that attending PAX can involve a substantial sunk cost, and if it isn't spread out among multiple days, the "cost per day of PAX" factor gets too high.
convo shift: WARNING: TICKET AVAILABILITY FOR FRIDAY AND SUNDAY IS NOW "LOW".
(edited because I started two posts in a row with "main problem" and I'm OCD like that)
I've seen people selling passes probably right up until the actual convention center. There is only really one angle of approach to the convention center, starting from Boston South Station. You'll definitely pass a scalper between there and the convention center.
There's no such thing as "rights" on a forum that is privately owned.
There is a semantic difference between the rights I speak of and the rights you speak of; if the forum is opened to public discourse and opinion, a person is then free, as given bounds by forum policy, to speak their mind unless said speaking breaks policy. In that sense, they are exercising their rights as granted by policy. Until said policy forbids griping, then someone is perfectly free on this board to gripe.
{EDIT}
When did the term 'rights' become so polarizing? Why does no one think about deeper issues at play?
Following one twitter feed and having the forum open the day tickets go up isn't that hard. I personally don't like the idea of a lottery too luck based for my tastes.
Counter-arguments:
-Updating your website isn't that hard.
-Adding text to your website that says "hey, the website might be borked because that load is going to increase 50 bajillion times at 11:59:55. Check @Official_PAX for realtime info" isn't that hard
-Making your @Official_PAX feed loader work instead of displaying "loading tweets..." isn't that hard
The main problem with the "just follow twitter and the forums, it isn't that hard" is that either the website is a source of PAX ticket info, or it isn't. And it was portrayed as a source of ticket info, was giving out inaccurate information and had no explicit alternative information sources. I suspect this may partially be a generational thing.
Just to show that posting on the Internet can change hearts and minds, I largely agree.
I would say two things though. One, I think a lot of people just already assumed that the site wasn't a source for up to the minute info. I mean, it's still showing "2013 sold out" like a year later, clearly they're lackadaisical about updating it.
There's also a sort of funny irony to the fact that the reason twitter is the only reliable method is precisely because of those that refuse to use it (mashing F5 and borking the site instead).
That said, this is an issue that should be addressed. I think, as I've made obvious, that twitter is a highly effective solution. But yeah, they definitely need to get their act together on the site. Even if that means, and it possibly will, removing the ticket sale info entirely and just linking the twitter feed instead.
But implying that the site is a legitimate source of info, and having it NOT be, is unacceptable.
I've seen people selling passes probably right up until the actual convention center. There is only really one angle of approach to the convention center, starting from Boston South Station. You'll definitely pass a scalper between there and the convention center.
Not to condone or support scalpers, obviously, but just consider this.
If your decision making process on Friday/Sunday badges is "zomg but if I can't go Saturday," go buy them. Buy them now.
Because I can nearly guarantee you can go saturday if you'd like. And, especially if you are willing to show up a bit later (after 10), you may not even pay any premium (aside from the single day price, that is).
Edit: and if it's a matter of principle, well the only thing more awesome than principle is PAX, right?
Even if you never get a pass for Saturday, you still get 2 days of PAX, and a day to explore an awesome town. There will be plenty of PAX related parties and activities to take part in.
I've seen people selling passes probably right up until the actual convention center. There is only really one angle of approach to the convention center, starting from Boston South Station. You'll definitely pass a scalper between there and the convention center.
Not to condone or support scalpers...
Edit: and if it's a matter of principle, well the only thing more awesome than principle is PAX, right?
Is there some policy about talking about scalping? I mean it's a fact of life, but if talking about how to safely get 2nd hand tickets is discouraged or outright banned, I'd like to know. I don't want to end up on the wrong side of the forum rules.
I love that the "it's not that hard" comment keeps coming in for updating the website. They were trying to update the website. They could not log in to their back end to update it because it kept going down due to F5s. This is real information. I agree that it blows ass that the website wasn't updated right away, but that's the reason. Does that mean they should anticipate more load? Absolutely. But it's not as if they just "forgot" about it or thought "well let's screw these guys."
This is just a thought Zer and I'm not complaining since I got my passes. Why not update the website earlier then at noon? You could always have the link on the website before they are officially on sale and if the ticket company was worth its salt they just would not have the tickets available til noon?
@abby they tried but in a way that was not functional for all. I was at my PC trying like most people to get the website loaded. My phone was next to me but I was more worried of trying to get on the website then to check Twitter. Like I said I got mine. But I was lucky. I got one of the ones I think that was re-released.
@zerzhul ... and it is important to note that when they realized this they tried to get info out
Yeah, I didn't mean to imply it was easy to fix at the time. Once the F5 mashing started, it was over. But it's something that needs to be fixed for the future.
This is just a thought Zer and I'm not complaining since I got my passes. Why not update the website earlier then at noon? You could always have the link on the website before they are officially on sale and if the ticket company was worth its salt they just would not have the tickets available til noon?
@abby they tried but in a way that was not functional for all. I was at my PC trying like most people to get the website loaded. My phone was next to me but I was more worried of trying to get on the website then to check Twitter. Like I said I got mine. But I was lucky. I got one of the ones I think that was re-released.
Because then the ticket site gets the f5's and dies.
Anyhow, yeah, prime has been dealing with this for awhile now. This debate has *raged* on for awhile and never gets anywhere, because there's not that many unique solutions out there. They know about the options.
Do you know if they've considered gladiatorial combat? Everyone who wants to go fills an entire stadium somewhere, they release the tickets from a blimp/plane/whatever above, and if you come out of the stadium with a pass you pay them then.
Nah, you have to pay to get into the stadium. Then battle your way out. Adds incentive to fight hard.
This is just a thought Zer and I'm not complaining since I got my passes. Why not update the website earlier then at noon? You could always have the link on the website before they are officially on sale and if the ticket company was worth its salt they just would not have the tickets available til noon?
@abby they tried but in a way that was not functional for all. I was at my PC trying like most people to get the website loaded. My phone was next to me but I was more worried of trying to get on the website then to check Twitter. Like I said I got mine. But I was lucky. I got one of the ones I think that was re-released.
Because then the ticket site gets the f5's and dies.
It seemed to hold up pretty well. It only slowed down a little after EVERYONE got the link. It wasnt OnPeak.
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stebuuCrabs are fucking crazy, and I hate horsesRegistered Userregular
I love that the "it's not that hard" comment keeps coming in for updating the website. They were trying to update the website. They could not log in to their back end to update it because it kept going down due to F5s. This is real information. I agree that it blows ass that the website wasn't updated right away, but that's the reason. Does that mean they should anticipate more load? Absolutely. But it's not as if they just "forgot" about it or thought "well let's screw these guys."
Seeing how I literally said "Updating your website isn't that hard" a couple hours ago, I should weigh in.
The PAX website was hit with, for all intents and purposes, an intentional distributed denial of service attack. PAX IT staff knew, essentially down to the second, when it would start. Updating your website when it is melting is impossible. In this day and age, updating your website when you knew it would melt in six months, is not hard. While my message was sarcastically countering hyperbole with hyperbole, that doesn't come across well over the internet. My bad.
But seriously, folks, this EC2 thang is gonna catch on one of these days. Live on the coagulated edge!
I won't lie. It scared the shit out of me when the website buy tickets link didn't work. If they gave advance notice, they could have at least said the site won't be the place to buy tickets, which would have gotten more people watching the twitter than the site. Instead we had a ton of people fighting to get to the wrong source.
I got mine as well but only when that link came out ... but was nerfed on the hotel (luckily I had the foresight to book a backup) ... the early mobile release was surprising and did not work well for Canadian attendees (would not recognize postal codes) unaware of the workaround of lying about the address lulz ... I tried calling in (anticipating the problem) and even got through but because I was a couple of minutes early (I figured I would sit in the queue until it opened) but got in right away and when I was advised to call back it was too late and the phone line became dysfunctional. I am sure OnPeak will use this as a life lesson but was frustrating to no end while it was happening.
PAX East 2016 .... gots my Passes [x] Hotel [x] Flights [x] Packed [..] .... ok we're all good !!!!!
I love that the "it's not that hard" comment keeps coming in for updating the website. They were trying to update the website. They could not log in to their back end to update it because it kept going down due to F5s. This is real information. I agree that it blows ass that the website wasn't updated right away, but that's the reason. Does that mean they should anticipate more load? Absolutely. But it's not as if they just "forgot" about it or thought "well let's screw these guys."
I'm not trying to criticize PA because they do a great job and I don't know all the details on how they operate. I have long thought they should have a dedicated web developer on staff to take care of these kinds of things and enhance their site capabilities. Maybe they could have shelled directly to the DB and change the info there. Unless they aren't using a decent CMS in which case that's an entirely different issue. Maybe it isn't cost effective for them though. Or maybe they do have someone like that and I just dont know.
Nah, you have to pay to get into the stadium. Then battle your way out. Adds incentive to fight hard.
I had thought about that, too, but then they'd have a bunch of money from dead people and people escaping with more than one pass with potentially only paying for one. The only obvious solutions for that would be a) if you can get out with more than one then more power to you, you get to keep them or b) still only allow one pass per person and the admission costs from the people who don't make it out alive get donated to Child's Play.
Posts
No post-PAX survey for me, because of a lack of prerequisites.
I didn't know that this was a huge problem, because I've only done PAX East before and this is the only year I encountered problems.
If it got switched to a lottery, you'd have the early birds, and the people who think they could have been early birds complaining. It'll be the classic "Equality of opportunity VS equality of outcome" debate that happens in every political thread ever. Without end.
In the grimdark future of arguing over PAX passes, there is only war.
Anyhow, yeah, prime has been dealing with this for awhile now. This debate has *raged* on for awhile and never gets anywhere, because there's not that many unique solutions out there. They know about the options.
You wouldn't happen to be the Enforcer who wears a complete suit of armor every year would you?
Considering the general theme of PAX of "for the fans, by the fans", I doubt they will make a change. There are two main things they could change... reduce demand or redistribute supply.
Reducing PAX demand has two primary mechanisms:
- increase cost. PA is clearly not interested in this too much, as they could increase prices by 50% or so and probably still sell out 3 day and Saturday within a day
- Make PAX less welcoming. Dickwolves aside, not a rational tactic.
Redistribute Supply:
- the only real alternative is to go lottery. I doubt PA will go down this route, because
- more work to implement
- will probably increase the number of tickets that get sold via third parties (many people will enlist friends to buy tickets, and will end up with extra tickets)
- current mechanism is weighted towards the "true faithful", aka, people who are so hyped for PAX they have all the twitter feeds open and aren't assuming that the PAX website will let them know when tickets are for sale*.
To paraphrase my favorite line from the West Wing: "Boy, ticket sales. I don't know."
*I may possibly still be bitter
PAX East 2019!
Badges [X] Hotel [X] Time off request [X]
https://www.pinnypals.com/pals/Streetlight345
You know what, new idea. Pay $1000 dollars, get a PAX badge tattoo. Entry 4 lyfe. Then you go to the hotel and just stare menacingly while displaying your tattoo. The concierge, out of fear, gives you a room of your choosing.
Also, gladitorial combat is a favorite of Robert's.
Counter-arguments:
-Updating your website isn't that hard.
-Adding text to your website that says "hey, the website might be borked because that load is going to increase 50 bajillion times at 11:59:55. Check @Official_PAX for realtime info" isn't that hard
-Making your @Official_PAX feed loader work instead of displaying "loading tweets..." isn't that hard
The main problem with the "just follow twitter and the forums, it isn't that hard" is that either the website is a source of PAX ticket info, or it isn't. And it was portrayed as a source of ticket info, was giving out inaccurate information and had no explicit alternative information sources. I suspect this may partially be a generational thing.
The issue there is that attending PAX can involve a substantial sunk cost, and if it isn't spread out among multiple days, the "cost per day of PAX" factor gets too high.
convo shift: WARNING: TICKET AVAILABILITY FOR FRIDAY AND SUNDAY IS NOW "LOW".
(edited because I started two posts in a row with "main problem" and I'm OCD like that)
Especially since there's a better than even chance of getting Saturday for at or near face anyway.
Are scalpers allowed near the venue in MA like they are in WA?
There is a semantic difference between the rights I speak of and the rights you speak of; if the forum is opened to public discourse and opinion, a person is then free, as given bounds by forum policy, to speak their mind unless said speaking breaks policy. In that sense, they are exercising their rights as granted by policy. Until said policy forbids griping, then someone is perfectly free on this board to gripe.
{EDIT}
When did the term 'rights' become so polarizing? Why does no one think about deeper issues at play?
Just to show that posting on the Internet can change hearts and minds, I largely agree.
I would say two things though. One, I think a lot of people just already assumed that the site wasn't a source for up to the minute info. I mean, it's still showing "2013 sold out" like a year later, clearly they're lackadaisical about updating it.
There's also a sort of funny irony to the fact that the reason twitter is the only reliable method is precisely because of those that refuse to use it (mashing F5 and borking the site instead).
That said, this is an issue that should be addressed. I think, as I've made obvious, that twitter is a highly effective solution. But yeah, they definitely need to get their act together on the site. Even if that means, and it possibly will, removing the ticket sale info entirely and just linking the twitter feed instead.
But implying that the site is a legitimate source of info, and having it NOT be, is unacceptable.
Not to condone or support scalpers, obviously, but just consider this.
If your decision making process on Friday/Sunday badges is "zomg but if I can't go Saturday," go buy them. Buy them now.
Because I can nearly guarantee you can go saturday if you'd like. And, especially if you are willing to show up a bit later (after 10), you may not even pay any premium (aside from the single day price, that is).
Edit: and if it's a matter of principle, well the only thing more awesome than principle is PAX, right?
Is there some policy about talking about scalping? I mean it's a fact of life, but if talking about how to safely get 2nd hand tickets is discouraged or outright banned, I'd like to know. I don't want to end up on the wrong side of the forum rules.
@abby they tried but in a way that was not functional for all. I was at my PC trying like most people to get the website loaded. My phone was next to me but I was more worried of trying to get on the website then to check Twitter. Like I said I got mine. But I was lucky. I got one of the ones I think that was re-released.
Yeah, I didn't mean to imply it was easy to fix at the time. Once the F5 mashing started, it was over. But it's something that needs to be fixed for the future.
Because then the ticket site gets the f5's and dies.
Nah, you have to pay to get into the stadium. Then battle your way out. Adds incentive to fight hard.
It seemed to hold up pretty well. It only slowed down a little after EVERYONE got the link. It wasnt OnPeak.
Seeing how I literally said "Updating your website isn't that hard" a couple hours ago, I should weigh in.
The PAX website was hit with, for all intents and purposes, an intentional distributed denial of service attack. PAX IT staff knew, essentially down to the second, when it would start. Updating your website when it is melting is impossible. In this day and age, updating your website when you knew it would melt in six months, is not hard. While my message was sarcastically countering hyperbole with hyperbole, that doesn't come across well over the internet. My bad.
But seriously, folks, this EC2 thang is gonna catch on one of these days. Live on the coagulated edge!
I'm not trying to criticize PA because they do a great job and I don't know all the details on how they operate. I have long thought they should have a dedicated web developer on staff to take care of these kinds of things and enhance their site capabilities. Maybe they could have shelled directly to the DB and change the info there. Unless they aren't using a decent CMS in which case that's an entirely different issue. Maybe it isn't cost effective for them though. Or maybe they do have someone like that and I just dont know.