Is this any way to run a world class comic con?
So, got my New York ComicCon 2015 tickets. Hooray, not.
I don’t like to quibble much if in a random drawing I don’t get picked, but today I must quibb. My fave hobby is going to NYCC, and has been for the past decade. The ups and downs of securing a ticket were minor, and I always got tickets. This year, it was a major mess. The queue system, which in 2014 utterly, totally whacked out the fair chances for tickets for hundreds, was used again this year. And produced exactly the same results.
Hit the NYCC order ticket button and nothing happens. You must go on Twitter or Facebook to find out there’s a different link, which the NYCC site should have taken you to. That ate up a good 5 seconds which was enough to send your aspirations into the black queue hole.
After getting in BQH at 12:02, I watched this overly congratulatory digital queue message as the show clix tab spinned eternally for the next 30 minutes. All the while I itched to refresh despite the queue page assuring me I didn’t need to, that my place in the line would forever be marked and I only needed to wait my turn but if I did refresh I would return to launch point. It was torturous to just sit and watch as tickets ticked away.
At about 12:22 or so, NYCC posts a message on Facebook that although demand has slowed the process, all is well with show clix although the NYCC site has frozen. Then they direct folks to show clix directly. Deja vu hit me hard. At 12:40 I knew I’d lost hope for VIP tickets and dropped to hopes for 4 day at least. And the show clix tab keeps on spinning, minutes just keep on ticking.
By 12:55 my hopes were on fumes. Can ANY mass ticket handlers have servers this slow? I was at a commercial computer and it was quickly getting expensive to watch a static screen. NYCC flashed another message to NOT use their site, and again provided a link to show clix. At this point I wondered if show clix even knew we were coming.
My spirits vacillated with the posts to NYCC Facebook page. Very few posts were about success. Most were screaming at error after error message in the queue; some people even got timed out! A repeated refrain: “This is f***g ridiculous”. I liked one response: “how can a site run by and for nerds not work?”
Like I said, I at least got tickets, after I finally got to the order page and plugged in for 4 day and got dropped into BQH and then back twice until the 4 day were sold out and managed to get Sat & Sun only to get a white screen of death for 25 more minutes, and then “can’t display page” twice. Then and only then did the page allow me to finally give them my money. So kind of them.
All told, I was online attempting to order NYCC tickets for 2 HOURS. And scrounged out only single day tickets. Really, I love you guys at ReedPop, and Fensterman the Man. But after being propelled from deja vu to groundhog day this is straining my affections for NYCC. The first convention had its crisis but NYCC learned quickly how to manage ticket holders and wannabe ticket holders. Yet last year’s gum-up is repeated with fanfare.
Let’s add hot sauce to this cooked goose: eBay and StubHub had tickets on sale while many of us were still in BQH. Scalpers pose as fans faster than fans, I guess. Let’s not forget that on a timed application you are required to complete a survey. No pressure, though.
Yes, some people were going to get tickets and some won’t, that’s a given. But listen to the howling of your fans on Facebook and Twitter and know that ya gotta do better. Going with show clix again seemed a tactical faux pas; they still couldn’t handle the traffic which we were assured they could. The energy and disappointment and bad feelings around this consecutive ticket buying mess will be a blot on an enterprise that used to bring such anticipation. Now it brings the dreads, jitters, and worse – second thoughts.
Bring back the fun before the fun, NYCC. Help us look forward to going again in 2016.
Urban Mage Page 