Before I saying anything let me start by acknowledging that this is "my fault" for not checking in the "right places" but please bear with me.
In the future it would be nice if the fact that tickets for PAX East (or any of them) were going on sale was announced on the main Penny Arcade site. I was told that it was announced through twitter (thankfully, not everyone uses twitter) and the actual PAX site (I don't normally keep tabs on the PAX site months and months prior to the event). Considering how quickly these tickets sell out it seems like generally a good idea to throw up the announcement that they're going on sale in big letters on the main site a day or two before they're available. I missed my shot this year as I found out that they were on sale through an Escapist article saying "PAX East tickets completely sold out!" which was pretty disappointing to read considering I didn't even know they were going on sale.
Again, I know, "my bad" for not scouring the web for this information in advance. But this seems like the kind of thing the PA guys should be shouting for the rooftops on all their interweb-venues, especially the main site. We get huge updates from Gabe every time there's a new Pin coming out, so why not this? Please give us poor luddites who are not on "tha twitters" a chance to also fail at buying tickets, just like everyone else
Not disagreeing with you, but PAX hasn't announced ticket sales lock step on the Penny Arcade main page in ages. Twitter has been the go to for a handful of years now. There were other issues with this year's launch, but those don't really affect that the place they have used to give out that information in a (mostly) timely fashion for a long time now is Twitter. I don't expect that to change.
Before I saying anything let me start by acknowledging that this is "my fault" for not checking in the "right places" but please bear with me.
In the future it would be nice if the fact that tickets for PAX East (or any of them) were going on sale was announced on the main Penny Arcade site. I was told that it was announced through twitter (thankfully, not everyone uses twitter) and the actual PAX site (I don't normally keep tabs on the PAX site months and months prior to the event). Considering how quickly these tickets sell out it seems like generally a good idea to throw up the announcement that they're going on sale in big letters on the main site a day or two before they're available. I missed my shot this year as I found out that they were on sale through an Escapist article saying "PAX East tickets completely sold out!" which was pretty disappointing to read considering I didn't even know they were going on sale.
Again, I know, "my bad" for not scouring the web for this information in advance. But this seems like the kind of thing the PA guys should be shouting for the rooftops on all their interweb-venues, especially the main site. We get huge updates from Gabe every time there's a new Pin coming out, so why not this? Please give us poor luddites who are not on "tha twitters" a chance to also fail at buying tickets, just like everyone else
Both Polygon and Kotaku announced the day before, that tickets would be on sale.
The staff members of PA and the Official PAX twitter accounts also announced that they would be on sale the day before.
In fact, this is the first time they've announced a date for ticket sales prior to sales going live.
The issue isn't how/when they announce the ticket sales: the issue is that there are more people that want to come to PAX than they can fit into PAX.
Sorry if this is spam, but where/who should I contact about tickets possibly being canceled? I bought 7 for me and a couple friends and even booked two rooms. I'm sure there is a chance that they will find me as a possible scalper. Thanls.
Sorry if this is spam, but where/who should I contact about tickets possibly being canceled? I bought 7 for me and a couple friends and even booked two rooms. I'm sure there is a chance that they will find me as a possible scalper. Thanls.
[*]Keep in mind that those selling badges on those services do not currently have their badges in hand, and if we find they violated our badge maximums, there’s a good chance those orders will get cancelled and they will NEVER get badges. Any badge orders that get cancelled will be gradually introduced to the ticketing system over the next several months.
Now I don't feel too crazy for having the registration page as one of my startup tabs to check every time I open chrome.
Also, with all this discussion about how the tickets were sold this year, I was wondering whether or not a wave system was considered; like how they do with blizzcon. It would in no way prevent any level of scalping and how they conduct the release of each wave can still put the site under heavy loads, but it would have been more "fair" for people who happened to not be at the right place at the right time.
Also, with all this discussion about how the tickets were sold this year, I was wondering whether or not a wave system was considered; like how they do with blizzcon. It would in no way prevent any level of scalping and how they conduct the release of each wave can still put the site under heavy loads, but it would have been more "fair" for people who happened to not be at the right place at the right time.
This is probably one of the few suggestions I've seen that offers what appear to be fairly clear benefits without significant drawbacks. Obviously any system is just musical chairs (taking badges from one, giving them to another), but this particular system doesn't seem to damage any particular group systematically at the expense of others, aside from "people available at one specific time and not another" which isn't really a valid concern. I don't know that I'd go too far with this...2 or 3 "waves" would probably be sufficient to address any true "I was working the safety shift at the nuclear power plant and couldn't possibly be available" concerns.
Please give us poor luddites who are not on "tha twitters" a chance to also fail at buying tickets, just like everyone else
Just have to call this out again. Refusing to check twitter doesn't really make you a luddite. At its core, twitter is merely a website. You don't need to be "on the twitters" or "get your face booked" to get the update, you can access the official PAX feed with no login whatsoever. If you are posting on this forum you've already shown a willingness to do what is necessary to get the information you want, and you are just actively choosing not to use the most efficient method to get the information you want while minimizing the load on those you want to get that information from.
Actually, that may fit one of the dictionary definitions of "luddite" I'm looking at, but not the more common definition of "technologically averse." It's just straight up pigheaded, self-destructive behavior. Stop it. Go to twitter.com, I promise you your computer will not explode, nor will you inherit a sudden love for teenage pop music. Skip the registration, and look at PAX's feed. Hell, do it now, before it's crucial, to convince yourself that it's harmless so that you won't be afraid to next year. You'll thank me.
I mean, call me a dick all you want right now, I'm fine with it. But next year take my advice, and you will be happier. I promise this. It still won't insulate you from all the technical fuckups and stress, mind you, but it will put you way, way, way ahead of the curve. "The curve" being comprised, at the moment, of the group you are presently a part of.
EDIT: If you merely didn't know about the twitter feed, disregard some or most of the previous statement, btw. This isn't just for you personally. There are a lot of people, though, who have made an active choice not to check that feed, then complain when they don't get the information elsewhere in a timely fashion.
Also, I'm noticing a LOT of complaints, at least this year, center around "I didn't get three day badges" moreso than "I didn't get badges for all three days." Might want to consider some perspective...if the technical snafu's just meant you had to pay a few more dollars to get in, that still puts you ahead of a lot of people who are now instead dealing with uncertainty and scalpers. And given that it appears that PAX is moving away from multi-day badges and the significant discount that comes with them, and moving towards more attendees having to buy an individual badge for each day, you might take it as an opportunity to get used to that prospect.
But color me amused at anybody holding three legitimate single-day badges and complaining because their voluntary refusal to go to a specific website cost them a few more bucks to get them.
the last three years the place to go was the official pax east website. Since my work blocks twitter, "no big deal," I thought. I find it unfair that the real place to get them was #rkhoo. It just seems unprofessional and back-doorsy
Btw a "few dollars" is about three hundred dollars because I buy for my friends. Is that trivial to you? It's not to me.
Btw a "few dollars" is about three hundred dollars because I buy for my friends. Is that trivial to you? It's not to me.
Are your friends not going to pay you back? I understand being financially set back initially but your friends should have budgeted for this possibility. That's what I did when I went to Prime this year.
the last three years the place to go was the official pax east website. Since my work blocks twitter, "no big deal," I thought. I find it unfair that the real place to get them was #rkhoo. It just seems unprofessional and back-doorsy
Btw a "few dollars" is about three hundred dollars because I buy for my friends. Is that trivial to you? It's not to me.
The real place to check for information was social media: Twitter, PA forums, PA website, friends, etc.
My workplace also blocks twitter. I also have limited access to my phone during work hours. That doesn't mean MY problem invalidates twitter as a viable platform for the other tens of thousands of twitter users/people with access to it.
And you had to buy single day badges instead of three day badges. I'm sorry, but who said that you were guaranteed 3-day badges? Or that you had the right to a 3-day badge over anyone else who wanted one? Should PA wait until everyone's out of work and has nothing planned, before they start selling tickets?
If you weren't budgeting for the possibility that there might be a ticketing-snafu or that 3-day badges would sell out, that's your misjudgement.
Just because something is unfair to you doesn't mean that PA should bend over backwards to cater to your specific needs.
This is definitely a new thing for East, and it does make sense that people who literally only pay attention to the pax east stuff would not have taken the initiative to be ready for a pax-prime-like sellout and have all of those places ready to go at sale time. It's unfortunate that not everywhere was updated in lock-step with everywhere else, but it's certainly not the case that the people who were using all the information available to them from the past few years' worth of paxes are somehow not people that want to go to pax and are undeserving of the badges they purchased.
You will never find me disagreeing with the sentiment that all the informational locations should be updated at once. I'm also not really a fan of suggesting that people are making a judgement error for assuming that would be the case. Anyone reading this thread that was in that position, however, has now learned that while they did not do something "wrong" there are additional things they can do for next time to improve their chances for being earlier in the queue (miniscule as they might be, just like everyone else), while also giving the feedback to PAX (through the official channels that I have posted in here a few times) that it would really be great if all the places were updated at the same time.
Personally, I'd just be happy if "all the places" that were being updated at once were limited to just PAX East official places - its official website and the official twitter feed. The #rkhoo update apparently went on a minute or two before the official update and that's a double bad - first because it's out of synch and second because that's not an official channel (or at least it doesn't make sense to me that it would be, when there is a separate twitter account that is official).
That said, I got into the queue a minute after the tweet on the official twitter account and was able to get separate 1-day passes which is good enough for me.
If they're all updated at the same time, I'm not sure how having *more* places tweet it is a bad thing. But yeah, I agree that it would be nice if everything was updated at the same time (precisely what I said above :P )
Pelican flip: When you say that the PA website was a place to get info, what do you mean?
My main personal complaint is that they didn't update PA's site until well after the other places. And well after it was possible to get a three day pass.
Is this just a misunderstanding? I just felt like I wasn't on equal footing.
Unless advertised, I dont think that all ways must be monitored. if you do, brace yourself for when it sells out because #dickwolves or something you are totally unaware of tells everyone but your friends and you are forced to pay almost double. Or worse, not able to go a day or at all.
I am cool with twitter but they should have updated the site first. If only because there is a bigger bottleneck there.
Pelican flip: When you say that the PA website was a place to get info, what do you mean?
My main personal complaint is that they didn't update PA's site until well after the other places. And well after it was possible to get a three day pass.
Is this just a misunderstanding? I just felt like I wasn't on equal footing.
Unless advertised, I dont think that all ways must be monitored. if you do, brace yourself for when it sells out because #dickwolves or something you are totally unaware of tells everyone but your friends and you are forced to pay almost double. Or worse, not able to go a day or at all.
I am cool with twitter but they should have updated the site first. If only because there is a bigger bottleneck there.
As far as budgeting, that's irrelevant.
I'm saying that the PA website was Plan A for information. Plan B/C was Twitter/PA forums.
Yes, they didn't update PA's website, because of what I am assuming was technical difficulties on their end. However, I'm not sure how they could have fixed it while people were bum rushing the living daylights out of the PAX website. By tweeting out links and posting it to the forums, and subsequently word of mouth, it helps to offload the number of people checking the main webpage. You're insinuating that they actively didn't care to update their website, which I think is untrue, and definitely unfair to say without any substantial evidence.
Could they have had a backup page redirecting people to Twitter/PA Forums? Yes, but I'm also assuming that it wasn't anticipated as an issue (possibly a lack of foresight). This is something that PA will have to look to remedy next year for PAX East 2015. PAX East has traditionally been less chaotic than PAX Prime in terms of sales, so I don't think they were anticipating such a breakdown of their servers.
If a website is crashed, laggy, or otherwise unresponsive, why keep trying? Chances are, by the time they fix/update a broken website, thousands of people will have already been in the queue/finished purchasing their badges. I would try alternate methods of checking in the meantime. I would check Twitter to see if anyone has tweeted out a link or gotten their badges already, or I would look to the forums. Failing both those methods, I would reach out to my friends who are planning on attending PAX.
If you were unaware that Twitter was a method used by many PAX attendees and staff, and that there wasn't a PA forum where a community shares information, then yeah, that would be totally unfair! However, you're saying that, yes, you are aware that there were alternate methods of being informed, yet you didn't bother to check either method, because "it wasn't advertised". If that's the case, should I not have bothered to check with my friends to see if they have found out any information, just because nobody told me to?
The means of finding out information are out there, some more reliable than others. Next time, if PA decides to announce the ticket sales in advance again (once again, it was the FIRST TIME they ever did that), then perhaps they can announce that Twitter and the forums are also good places to check for information.
I think pelicanflip means the pax website, not the PA website. The PA website has not been a primary source of information for pax for a very long while.
I think pelicanflip means the pax website, not the PA website. The PA website has not been a primary source of information for pax for a very long while.
I just got notification pax aus was on sale and wanted to see price difference. It's very expensive compared to east. I also saw they used showclix and accept paypal. Maybe that means east will be PayPal payable next year?
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whypick1PAX [E] Info Booth Manager~2' from an LCDRegistered Userregular
Everything's expensive in Australia if you're an American. Adjusting for purchasing power, passes are about the same price as they are in the US.
Well things in general in Australia cost more AUD than USD. I wouldn't use the paypal acceptance as any sort of definite indication of PAX East's future. There may be different legalities involved and such given that it is happening in a different country. I think if paypal is accepted for PAX Prime, that will be the eventual indicator.
The site refreshed. It wasn't obviously broken. Slow, but entire.
Until about 12:10 or so, it just said "coming soon". I'm not a psychic so I could only take them at their word that they weren't ready yet.
I don't see where desperation or back up plans come in. I dont even find it plausible. Updating a websites file system is not the same as serving a request. Plus It's not dire to get it done by 12:15. Stick to plan A. Do it right.
I don't know why you insist I did something wrong. There clearly were technical and (a lot of people agree) philosophical problems with this sale. As a personal result I have to pay much more than I likely would have otherwise. I believe there are many less outspoken people in this position. Can I afford it? Barely. Could i afford 200 a pass? Doubtful A grand.... eh? point is lots of people got them cheaper than me. And to a degree, what blocked me is a gaffe (I say) or panic (you say). Either is kind of crappy.
Just because you didn't do anything wrong doesn't invalidate the new information you have learned for next time. Take this experience and use it to devise a strategy that covers potential issues on both your end and the end of pax. The only wrong thing you could do at this point is to totally ignore this experience when considering your next pax badge purchasing opportunity. Even if things are improved in some fashion to your liking for next time, something new could happen.
The site refreshed. It wasn't obviously broken. Slow, but entire.
Until about 12:10 or so, it just said "coming soon". I'm not a psychic so I could only take them at their word that they weren't ready yet.
I don't see where desperation or back up plans come in. I dont even find it plausible. Updating a websites file system is not the same as serving a request. Plus It's not dire to get it done by 12:15. Stick to plan A. Do it right.
I don't know why you insist I did something wrong. There clearly were technical and (a lot of people agree) philosophical problems with this sale. As a personal result I have to pay much more than I likely would have otherwise. I believe there are many less outspoken people in this position. Can I afford it? Barely. Could i afford 200 a pass? Doubtful A grand.... eh? point is lots of people got them cheaper than me. And to a degree, what blocked me is a gaffe (I say) or panic (you say). Either is kind of crappy.
Then just stick to Plan A and best of luck next time. Unfortunately, Plan A (the official PAX website), isn't infallible. For me, the site refused to load or simply crashed, and so, to cover my bases, I checked the forums. And I immediately found a resolution.
I can see how if you saw the "Coming Soon" from 12:00 to 12:10 was very misleading, and yeah, it was absolutely BS if you only knew about the PAX website. However, I think everyone can generally agree: checking Twitter or the PA forums on the day of sales can greatly increase your chance of getting the badges you want.
As zerzhul has said, advice and viable alternatives have been presented. They can and will help you next time around, so at least consider them as tools in your endeavor, not as excuses from PA.
It's funny that a person who got the tickets he wanted is oh so willing to give advice to people that didn't get the tickets they wanted. Any ticketing company that's been around a while knows what kind of load to expect with events like this. I followed twitter, I was on 3 different computers minutes before 12 noon, yet either got weird number error messages, got unexpectedly kicked out or que, or never got out of the que in the first place on any of them. I never even thought to check the forum for a work around to a problem that shouldn't have existed in the first place. It sounds like the only viable alternative is to have 5 to 10 different computers/tablets/cell phones each on different networks, and then you may have a minor chance of getting in.
I don't really care if they change the announcement style (waves, announcing a set time, lottery, etc.), I just want the system to work. I find it hard to believe the ticket company they chose wasn't aware that they would have tens of thousand of people hitting their sight at one time, wasn't able to control the influx of those people, wasn't able to take the sight offline when those problems arose, and wasn't even prepared to handle phone calls about those problems. I've heard many people compare this to a DDOS hacking attack. Well in a situation like that, you pull the plug, handle the problem, and put everything back in working order. This ticketing company can't handle it. I say move to Ticketmaster.
And I really feel that the "Official Response" that was posted on the site amounted to no more than a "We're really sorry that there were problems, but crap happens". That's pretty much the attitude they've had every year since ticketing problems have started.
Also, excuse me if i'm wrong, but wasn't PAX Prime extended to 4 days because the venue couldn't handle the large crowds of people wanting to attend? This should definitely be considered for any future Easts.
Jdixon:
I agree totally. The other guy acts as if I should have known that something was wrong, and that was not the case. Looking forward to him or someone picking apart your story and telling you what you did wrong.
There are ways to improve this. But people who got their tickets just sit here and argue that since it worked for them, the people who didn't get tickets are stupid and acting entitled.
And they arent special, i can totally see them stuck in this position next year.
The site refreshed. It wasn't obviously broken. Slow, but entire.
Until about 12:10 or so, it just said "coming soon". I'm not a psychic so I could only take them at their word that they weren't ready yet.
I don't see where desperation or back up plans come in. I dont even find it plausible. Updating a websites file system is not the same as serving a request. Plus It's not dire to get it done by 12:15. Stick to plan A. Do it right.
If they're all updated at the same time, I'm not sure how having *more* places tweet it is a bad thing.
Sure, yeah, but that's a big if. Realistically, if they're going to be updating them with a delay between them, the official PAX twitter account and forum should go first, if the website is drowning. I believe this year the official twitter account was 3-4 minutes behind #rkhoo and that time different was, apparently, critical (I don't know when the forum update happened in relation). I would have preferred it if #rkhoo (or whatever other personal account) tweeted "announcement for tickets coming in ~x minutes to <official pax twitter>" or some such, rather than announce the actual thing prematurely.
Or, alternatively, to have the main website have a message saying "check any of these twitter feeds for live updates" with links to the official twitter and any personal twitter they think an announcement might be coming from.
Really, this is mostly for the poor souls (myself among them) who didn't even know personal organizers' tweeter accounts were a valid conduit for official communication. Now I know, and maybe that'll help me save a few bucks next year, but I don't think that's the kind of knowledge you can assume to be public or basic.
There are services that allow posting to multiple social networks/websites at once. Nobody loses anything by having multiple places tweet/posted if they are at the same time.
I didn't say I disagreed with 4-days. Those of you still enamored in arguing about the badge sales brought it up though. It wouldn't actually solve the specific problems you've been mentioning (website crashes, launch philosophy, timing issues). It would absolutely allow more people to attend pax, which is always a good thing.
Despite all the issues I just hope the early announcement of the time of ticket sales becomes the standard from now on. As someone who is at work everytime these go on sale the early announcement at least gives me a chance to plan for it. I even cleared my calendar a bit to be able to keep watch on the site
i agree with an 'if': if they say they will give a heads up.
this time i checked the website religiously every day, multiple times a day. Between the 'sales tomorrow' and them not updating the website until after the 3 day passes were sold out, this was all wasted time.
It would be good if they gave us a 'week estimate/ no earlier than' date after Prime. And then sometime after that point, what day it would be.
Despite all the issues I just hope the early announcement of the time of ticket sales becomes the standard from now on. As someone who is at work everytime these go on sale the early announcement at least gives me a chance to plan for it. I even cleared my calendar a bit to be able to keep watch on the site
I can't agree with this more. This is one aspect that does improve things because it allows the people that really want to go a chance to be prepared. Granted there were technical issues, but those can be ironed out.
The only thing I really wish they did different is if you have to order 3 ( 1 day ) passes, they give you the option to convert it to a 3 day pass. It's not like any less people are going to be able to go, and the only real reason they don't, is so they can scam you for the extra money.
Professional assassination. It's the highest form of public service. - Chiun
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whypick1PAX [E] Info Booth Manager~2' from an LCDRegistered Userregular
Well-reasoned argument as to why converting singles to 3-day badges is A Bad Thing:
Offering 3-days @ full-price or giving people an option at checkout to convert 1xFri, 1xSat, and 1xSun pass into 1x3-day so they don't have to juggle badges all weekend seems like a perfectly reasonable option and would likely save some printing costs. I can see such a system moving into place at some point, especially if a decision is made to nix any 3-day discounts somewhere down the line.
A part of the job of Info Booth is to tell people that lost their badge somewhere (often they say it fell off their lanyard in Expo Hall) that it can not be replaced (usually). When someone loses a multi-day badge on Friday, they can't come back for the whole con. If they have single day badges, losing a Friday badge on Friday means they can still come on Saturday and Sunday with those badges (assuming they left those badges somewhere safe like in the safe in their hotel room and not on their lanyard where they can get dropped/lost before they are usable). I hope it's never possible to convert single day badges into one multi-day badge for this reason.
Regarding overall fairness of pricing, my opinion is that multi-day badges and discounts should be removed entirely; just single day badges should be sold.
@Gaus I find the thought that they are scamming you out of money to be truly laughable. That's one more vote for having all single day badges all the time.
Well-reasoned argument as to why converting singles to 3-day badges is A Bad Thing:
That's not a well-reasoned argument at all. It's just as easy to argue that by having 3 badges, you have 3x as many "things" you can lose, forget to pack, or have something go wrong with.
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Both Polygon and Kotaku announced the day before, that tickets would be on sale.
The staff members of PA and the Official PAX twitter accounts also announced that they would be on sale the day before.
In fact, this is the first time they've announced a date for ticket sales prior to sales going live.
The issue isn't how/when they announce the ticket sales: the issue is that there are more people that want to come to PAX than they can fit into PAX.
http://east.paxsite.com/news/the-pax-east-registration-faq <-- This is a good read.
Now I don't feel too crazy for having the registration page as one of my startup tabs to check every time I open chrome.
Also, with all this discussion about how the tickets were sold this year, I was wondering whether or not a wave system was considered; like how they do with blizzcon. It would in no way prevent any level of scalping and how they conduct the release of each wave can still put the site under heavy loads, but it would have been more "fair" for people who happened to not be at the right place at the right time.
This is probably one of the few suggestions I've seen that offers what appear to be fairly clear benefits without significant drawbacks. Obviously any system is just musical chairs (taking badges from one, giving them to another), but this particular system doesn't seem to damage any particular group systematically at the expense of others, aside from "people available at one specific time and not another" which isn't really a valid concern. I don't know that I'd go too far with this...2 or 3 "waves" would probably be sufficient to address any true "I was working the safety shift at the nuclear power plant and couldn't possibly be available" concerns.
Just have to call this out again. Refusing to check twitter doesn't really make you a luddite. At its core, twitter is merely a website. You don't need to be "on the twitters" or "get your face booked" to get the update, you can access the official PAX feed with no login whatsoever. If you are posting on this forum you've already shown a willingness to do what is necessary to get the information you want, and you are just actively choosing not to use the most efficient method to get the information you want while minimizing the load on those you want to get that information from.
Actually, that may fit one of the dictionary definitions of "luddite" I'm looking at, but not the more common definition of "technologically averse." It's just straight up pigheaded, self-destructive behavior. Stop it. Go to twitter.com, I promise you your computer will not explode, nor will you inherit a sudden love for teenage pop music. Skip the registration, and look at PAX's feed. Hell, do it now, before it's crucial, to convince yourself that it's harmless so that you won't be afraid to next year. You'll thank me.
I mean, call me a dick all you want right now, I'm fine with it. But next year take my advice, and you will be happier. I promise this. It still won't insulate you from all the technical fuckups and stress, mind you, but it will put you way, way, way ahead of the curve. "The curve" being comprised, at the moment, of the group you are presently a part of.
EDIT: If you merely didn't know about the twitter feed, disregard some or most of the previous statement, btw. This isn't just for you personally. There are a lot of people, though, who have made an active choice not to check that feed, then complain when they don't get the information elsewhere in a timely fashion.
Also, I'm noticing a LOT of complaints, at least this year, center around "I didn't get three day badges" moreso than "I didn't get badges for all three days." Might want to consider some perspective...if the technical snafu's just meant you had to pay a few more dollars to get in, that still puts you ahead of a lot of people who are now instead dealing with uncertainty and scalpers. And given that it appears that PAX is moving away from multi-day badges and the significant discount that comes with them, and moving towards more attendees having to buy an individual badge for each day, you might take it as an opportunity to get used to that prospect.
But color me amused at anybody holding three legitimate single-day badges and complaining because their voluntary refusal to go to a specific website cost them a few more bucks to get them.
Btw a "few dollars" is about three hundred dollars because I buy for my friends. Is that trivial to you? It's not to me.
Are your friends not going to pay you back? I understand being financially set back initially but your friends should have budgeted for this possibility. That's what I did when I went to Prime this year.
The real place to check for information was social media: Twitter, PA forums, PA website, friends, etc.
My workplace also blocks twitter. I also have limited access to my phone during work hours. That doesn't mean MY problem invalidates twitter as a viable platform for the other tens of thousands of twitter users/people with access to it.
And you had to buy single day badges instead of three day badges. I'm sorry, but who said that you were guaranteed 3-day badges? Or that you had the right to a 3-day badge over anyone else who wanted one? Should PA wait until everyone's out of work and has nothing planned, before they start selling tickets?
If you weren't budgeting for the possibility that there might be a ticketing-snafu or that 3-day badges would sell out, that's your misjudgement.
Just because something is unfair to you doesn't mean that PA should bend over backwards to cater to your specific needs.
You will never find me disagreeing with the sentiment that all the informational locations should be updated at once. I'm also not really a fan of suggesting that people are making a judgement error for assuming that would be the case. Anyone reading this thread that was in that position, however, has now learned that while they did not do something "wrong" there are additional things they can do for next time to improve their chances for being earlier in the queue (miniscule as they might be, just like everyone else), while also giving the feedback to PAX (through the official channels that I have posted in here a few times) that it would really be great if all the places were updated at the same time.
That said, I got into the queue a minute after the tweet on the official twitter account and was able to get separate 1-day passes which is good enough for me.
My main personal complaint is that they didn't update PA's site until well after the other places. And well after it was possible to get a three day pass.
Is this just a misunderstanding? I just felt like I wasn't on equal footing.
Unless advertised, I dont think that all ways must be monitored. if you do, brace yourself for when it sells out because #dickwolves or something you are totally unaware of tells everyone but your friends and you are forced to pay almost double. Or worse, not able to go a day or at all.
I am cool with twitter but they should have updated the site first. If only because there is a bigger bottleneck there.
As far as budgeting, that's irrelevant.
I'm saying that the PA website was Plan A for information. Plan B/C was Twitter/PA forums.
Yes, they didn't update PA's website, because of what I am assuming was technical difficulties on their end. However, I'm not sure how they could have fixed it while people were bum rushing the living daylights out of the PAX website. By tweeting out links and posting it to the forums, and subsequently word of mouth, it helps to offload the number of people checking the main webpage. You're insinuating that they actively didn't care to update their website, which I think is untrue, and definitely unfair to say without any substantial evidence.
Could they have had a backup page redirecting people to Twitter/PA Forums? Yes, but I'm also assuming that it wasn't anticipated as an issue (possibly a lack of foresight). This is something that PA will have to look to remedy next year for PAX East 2015. PAX East has traditionally been less chaotic than PAX Prime in terms of sales, so I don't think they were anticipating such a breakdown of their servers.
If a website is crashed, laggy, or otherwise unresponsive, why keep trying? Chances are, by the time they fix/update a broken website, thousands of people will have already been in the queue/finished purchasing their badges. I would try alternate methods of checking in the meantime. I would check Twitter to see if anyone has tweeted out a link or gotten their badges already, or I would look to the forums. Failing both those methods, I would reach out to my friends who are planning on attending PAX.
If you were unaware that Twitter was a method used by many PAX attendees and staff, and that there wasn't a PA forum where a community shares information, then yeah, that would be totally unfair! However, you're saying that, yes, you are aware that there were alternate methods of being informed, yet you didn't bother to check either method, because "it wasn't advertised". If that's the case, should I not have bothered to check with my friends to see if they have found out any information, just because nobody told me to?
The means of finding out information are out there, some more reliable than others. Next time, if PA decides to announce the ticket sales in advance again (once again, it was the FIRST TIME they ever did that), then perhaps they can announce that Twitter and the forums are also good places to check for information.
Yes, the PAX website if it was unclear
Until about 12:10 or so, it just said "coming soon". I'm not a psychic so I could only take them at their word that they weren't ready yet.
I don't see where desperation or back up plans come in. I dont even find it plausible. Updating a websites file system is not the same as serving a request. Plus It's not dire to get it done by 12:15. Stick to plan A. Do it right.
I don't know why you insist I did something wrong. There clearly were technical and (a lot of people agree) philosophical problems with this sale. As a personal result I have to pay much more than I likely would have otherwise. I believe there are many less outspoken people in this position. Can I afford it? Barely. Could i afford 200 a pass? Doubtful A grand.... eh? point is lots of people got them cheaper than me. And to a degree, what blocked me is a gaffe (I say) or panic (you say). Either is kind of crappy.
Then just stick to Plan A and best of luck next time. Unfortunately, Plan A (the official PAX website), isn't infallible. For me, the site refused to load or simply crashed, and so, to cover my bases, I checked the forums. And I immediately found a resolution.
I can see how if you saw the "Coming Soon" from 12:00 to 12:10 was very misleading, and yeah, it was absolutely BS if you only knew about the PAX website. However, I think everyone can generally agree: checking Twitter or the PA forums on the day of sales can greatly increase your chance of getting the badges you want.
As zerzhul has said, advice and viable alternatives have been presented. They can and will help you next time around, so at least consider them as tools in your endeavor, not as excuses from PA.
I don't really care if they change the announcement style (waves, announcing a set time, lottery, etc.), I just want the system to work. I find it hard to believe the ticket company they chose wasn't aware that they would have tens of thousand of people hitting their sight at one time, wasn't able to control the influx of those people, wasn't able to take the sight offline when those problems arose, and wasn't even prepared to handle phone calls about those problems. I've heard many people compare this to a DDOS hacking attack. Well in a situation like that, you pull the plug, handle the problem, and put everything back in working order. This ticketing company can't handle it. I say move to Ticketmaster.
And I really feel that the "Official Response" that was posted on the site amounted to no more than a "We're really sorry that there were problems, but crap happens". That's pretty much the attitude they've had every year since ticketing problems have started.
Also, excuse me if i'm wrong, but wasn't PAX Prime extended to 4 days because the venue couldn't handle the large crowds of people wanting to attend? This should definitely be considered for any future Easts.
I agree totally. The other guy acts as if I should have known that something was wrong, and that was not the case. Looking forward to him or someone picking apart your story and telling you what you did wrong.
There are ways to improve this. But people who got their tickets just sit here and argue that since it worked for them, the people who didn't get tickets are stupid and acting entitled.
And they arent special, i can totally see them stuck in this position next year.
Four days would be an improvement.
This, extra hard.
Sure, yeah, but that's a big if. Realistically, if they're going to be updating them with a delay between them, the official PAX twitter account and forum should go first, if the website is drowning. I believe this year the official twitter account was 3-4 minutes behind #rkhoo and that time different was, apparently, critical (I don't know when the forum update happened in relation). I would have preferred it if #rkhoo (or whatever other personal account) tweeted "announcement for tickets coming in ~x minutes to <official pax twitter>" or some such, rather than announce the actual thing prematurely.
Or, alternatively, to have the main website have a message saying "check any of these twitter feeds for live updates" with links to the official twitter and any personal twitter they think an announcement might be coming from.
Really, this is mostly for the poor souls (myself among them) who didn't even know personal organizers' tweeter accounts were a valid conduit for official communication. Now I know, and maybe that'll help me save a few bucks next year, but I don't think that's the kind of knowledge you can assume to be public or basic.
Maybe not, but then more people could go to at least a day or 2, and those who get the whole weekend, get even more PAX fun.
That's one hell of a giant, honking "if."
this time i checked the website religiously every day, multiple times a day. Between the 'sales tomorrow' and them not updating the website until after the 3 day passes were sold out, this was all wasted time.
It would be good if they gave us a 'week estimate/ no earlier than' date after Prime. And then sometime after that point, what day it would be.
It would save the devoted hours of checking.
I can't agree with this more. This is one aspect that does improve things because it allows the people that really want to go a chance to be prepared. Granted there were technical issues, but those can be ironed out.
I understand what you are saying but the cons outweigh the pros
FWIW, I'd like to see this as well.
That's not a well-reasoned argument at all. It's just as easy to argue that by having 3 badges, you have 3x as many "things" you can lose, forget to pack, or have something go wrong with.