San Diego Con (4-day badges sell out in < 4hrs)

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 3:47 pm

Send an SASE to Isotope in San Francisco & get a "FailFrog" button:

http://isotopecomics.com/index.php/san- ... ent-page-1

Trev · Post by **Trev** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 4:28 pm

BobBretall wrote:BTW --> You guys who will be at the con....CALL ME when you get in line to buy your tickets next year at the show, I'll come & hang out with you. I want to have the ticket before I leave so I don;t ever need to deal with this again.

That was the single best decision I made last year. This year is sure to be nuts. By the time I finally decided I could go last year, they were sold out except for one or two days and I was totally bailed out by somebody. With the refund policy i just decided to buy at the show rather than hassle with it online this year. Complete serendipity for me compared to the hassle this year.

July can't get here soon enough for me.

comicm · Post by **comicm** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 4:33 pm

Next year you should just buy your 2012 tickets at the con before you leave. No mess.

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 4:59 pm

comicm wrote:Next year you should just buy your 2012 tickets at the con before you leave. No mess.

Yes, I mention this on a post on Page 1......

When you people all swarm into line to buy badges, give me a call.....

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 5:00 pm

Tweeted just now.....

Comic_Con
Friday badges are now sold out. As refunds are processed additional inventory may be released to the public at a later date.

Comic_Con
Saturday badges are now sold out. As refunds are processed additional inventory may be released to the public at a later date.

Trev · Post by **Trev** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 6:09 pm

comicm wrote:Next year you should just buy your 2012 tickets at the con before you leave. No mess.

I will bet you 4 day plus preview sells out ny fri afternoon this year.

GABE! · Post by **GABE!** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 9:11 pm

BobBretall wrote:BTW --> You guys who will be at the con....CALL ME when you get in line to buy your tickets next year at the show, I'll come & hang out with you. I want to have the ticket before I leave so I don;t ever need to deal with this again.

here's my post on the forum

I'll save you a spot in line, Bob.

and by "I" I mean "my girlfriend, while I'm in the main hall."

GABE! · Post by **GABE!** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 9:15 pm

Trev wrote:
BobBretall wrote:BTW --> You guys who will be at the con....CALL ME when you get in line to buy your tickets next year at the show, I'll come & hang out with you. I want to have the ticket before I leave so I don;t ever need to deal with this again.
That was the single best decision I made last year. This year is sure to be nuts. By the time I finally decided I could go last year, they were sold out except for one or two days and I was totally bailed out by somebody. With the refund policy i just decided to buy at the show rather than hassle with it online this year. Complete serendipity for me compared to the hassle this year.

July can't get here soon enough for me.

I'm right there with you on this one. I got my last year just because I had nothing better to do and had money burning a hole in my pocket.

Also, if this is going to bet the norm for getting passes ( Total sale outs in hours, and the likely-hood that the pre-sale line for next years tickets will be a mess) I might just consider visiting another con instead, ECCC or NYCC

CoolBreeze · Post by **CoolBreeze** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 12:49 am

@Atomic99... I don't consider myself being troll-like or doing a 'drive-by' in my description of my experience with obtaining tickets. (I'll restrain myself from future posts.)

It was a horrible experience - in my opinion. SDCC has it's legacy and comic-fan loyalty as insurance to withstand what could have been a catastrophic event. Another company could have lost major business because of it.

This will be my 1st SDCC, but I almost walked away because of the experience. Reading posts like Bob's above made me give it another try to procure the tickets.

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 4:20 am

CoolBreeze wrote:@Atomic99... I don't consider myself being troll-like or doing a 'drive-by' in my description of my experience with obtaining tickets. (I'll restrain myself from future posts.)

It was a horrible experience - in my opinion. SDCC has it's legacy and comic-fan loyalty as insurance to withstand what could have been a catastrophic event. Another company could have lost major business because of it.

This will be my 1st SDCC, but I almost walked away because of the experience. Reading posts like Bob's above made me give it another try to procure the tickets.

I completely agree with you. I've been going for 20 years and love SDCC, but they royally bungled the ticket thing by going with small ticket agency after small ticket agency, each being completely incapable of handling the traffic.

After the 1st epic failure months ago, they should have just bit the bullet & gone with TicketMaster, who despite their negatives, at least know how to handle a lot of traffic (heck, they sell 100k tickets to stadium rock concerts all the time......)

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 5:02 am

All badges sold out as of ~9pm pacific time..... 12 hrs to sell >100k badges. Kind of sickening that TicketLeap made >$200k in fees given their crappy performance.

Comic_Con
All badges are now sold out. As refunds are processed additional inventory may be released to the public at a later date.

Trev · Post by **Trev** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 6:44 am

BobBretall wrote:All badges sold out as of ~9pm pacific time..... 12 hrs to sell >100k badges. Kind of sickening that TicketLeap made >$200k in fees given their crappy performance.

Comic_Con
All badges are now sold out. As refunds are processed additional inventory may be released to the public at a later date.

Surely sdcc put some kind of sla into their agreement and won't have to pay those fees. They should have arranged for folks to get refunds of their fees too.

Ticketleap published their triumphant press release before they even actually sold their first ticket yesterday. That was ridiculous.

Post by **JohnMayo** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 9:13 am

Fun facts about TicketLeap (from the TicketLeap.com website):

"TicketLeap is a lightweight online ticketing platform designed to make creating events and selling tickets easier than it's ever been.

"Chris Stanchak founded TicketLeap in 2003 to bring professional-grade ticketing to events too small to get the attention of the big ticketing companies."

"Today, TicketLeap is the fastest growing ticketing company in the U.S. for small-to-midsize events, helping thousands of event organizers increase their sales and simplify their ticketing."

"But Chris and Connie's two philosophies still define the company:

1. Bring cutting-edge ticketing to even the smallest events.
2. Treat every event organizer like they are the company's most important client."

TicketLeap is 25 people strong. At least that is the number of people listed on the http://www.ticketleap.com/info/team/ page. Given that they include interns, it is probably a complete list of the people in the company.

It is interesting that WizardWorld Comic Con is listed as a client too.

The bottom line is that Comic-Con International has a history of selling out faster and that results in a massive influx of traffic during the first few hours the tickets are available. TicketLeap is geared towards smaller event and not the best choice for the unique needs of Comic-Con International.

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 9:22 am

Given that description of TicketLeap, I can only assume that we have some real idiots making decisions about this on the Comic Con staff.

Post by **JohnMayo** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 9:32 am

On the other hand, TicketLeap does seem to have managed to sell *all* of the tickets already. All of the 4 day and all of the single day tickets are listed as sold out. So while it wasn't a painless process, it does seem to have done the job.