Every year there is a mad rush for San Diego Comic-Con tickets (followed by a mad rush for San Diego Comic-Con hotel rooms, but that's another article). This year, ticket sales were meant to commence on-line on November 1 and they did… for but a few moments before the whole system crashed.
Sales were rescheduled for this morning at 9am EST.
At about 9am and thirty seconds the system crashed again and ticket sales were suspended. Again.
Epic Registration, the company that is handling the sales of tickets for Comic-Con clearly can't handle the load of traffic created by tens of thousands of comic fans who have been conditioned to rush the internet all at the same time to get tickets for Comic-Con. Not knowing anything about how well equiped Epic is, I will venture to say that maybe creating an event our of buying these tickets isn't the best way to go. There has to be a better solution than winding up thousands and thousands of comic book fans and having them attack (there's really no better word) one website all at the same time. I know from personal experience that the rush to get a hotel room is, even under the best conditions, a clusterfuck.
It might just be that there is no better option for selling tickets to an event that hundreds of thousands of people are trying to get tickets to, but creating the atmosphere that tells these people that they all have to get them at the same time and RIGHT NOW doesn't seem to be working. Of course, now that that atmosphere has already been created the horse might have already left the barn and now it's up to Epic and Comic-Con to figure out how to make this all work.
Find us on Facebook
Graphicly - Upload Once. Distribute Everywhere.
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Some rights reserved.
As media, are you guys subject to any sort of limited tickets? Do you ha e to jockey for the right to buy a table.
If only there was a tried and true method for purchasing goods outside of the Internet. Oh wait there is! The telephone!
I’ve basically given up on ever going to SDCC and I’m not particularly sad about it.
and what about WonderCon? Still no announcement of when those tickets go on sale. Maybe I’m just not used to the ebb and flow of the con season, but WonderCon is the one convention me and my new wife will be attending as part of our honeymoon/vacation.
Paul, come to DragonCon instead. It doesn’t sell out, because they have more space for everyone.
@paulmontgomery Agreed. SDCC is too much about things that aren’t comics for me. I am not a big enough fan of any other media, save video games, to want to fight those crowds.
Ugghh, as a San Diego native, I really wish we could go back to selling badges on site. But seeing as how SDCC has become a national, nay, international event, thats never going to happen.
I second @tomdpimp’s suggestion. Dragon*Con is a very mellow, fun experience.
I think if I ever go to SDCC I’m not even going to bother with the con itself. Just spend the days in SD and hang out with people at night.
Fooled me twice. Complaints aside, I’ll be one of the rabid clicking refresh when Round 3 starts.
Already got a cheap room a half mile away from the Center (I really am getting what I paid for; I think I have to bring my own pillow and comforter).
I was looking forward to finally going- credit card debt be damned.
Sounds like any expectation that I may have had for SDCC is quashed. I didn’t realize how highly sought after a ticket was. I assumed that as long as you purchased early you were ok. Seems like if you don’t purchase within the first few hours then you’re completely out of luck!
I prefer to attend ECCC and watch the iFanboy video wrap ups of SDCC…
I never would have guessed demand was that high – it’s like…rock-concert high. Do you guys think it’s entirely due to the movie/celebrity panel side of things?
Yes.
Why don’t they seel tickets through Ticketmaster. I would imagine they’re much better set up for selling massive amounts of tickets in a short timeframe.
Maybe they should get a real ticket site to sell the tickets – Ticketmaster or something similar.
Anything with high demand will always crash whatever site it’s hosted on, but something like Ticketmaster or seetickets are prepared due to having to deal with massive music events and festivals
Well as long as NYCC isn’t the same way then I’m glad. I’d rather go there then waste money on a flight to a place I have no idea I’ll get tickets to.
Oh, now now now–to dismiss SDCC as something not worth going to because of this is just silly. SDCC is so much fun, for so many different reasons..Paul–you gotta go, none of this talk, you get press access anyway!
It sucks with the registration stuff, but whatever–it’s still a fantastic time and well worth this kind frustration, at least for me..
They need to just take mail orders with a mail in form or something.
Other than getting to preview movies which will eventually be released (& might suck), All SDCC has been about is for Hollyweird & the comic industry to participate in tandem be self-congratulatory masturbation. All Marvel & DC do there on the comic side of things, is make "announcements" (they do that all year around anyway) which are usually overhyped & long-winded. Thanks to the media , we get to read them online almost immediately. I’m not getting stabbed in the eye just to hear Quesada cheerlead Bendis’ latest substandard product or hear DiDio play carny for Morrison.
@mikeromo: Sorry if my comment sounded harsher then it was meant to be. I’m just saying that, it looks more of a safe bet for me to go to NYCC at the moment then SDCC. It’d love to hit the greatest convention of the year someday…..But I’ll settle for 2nd….like always.
so as someone who hasn’t yet been to Comiccon is my only reasonable route to attending to go pro? (lucky for me my current startup may qualify…. though that would mean paying for a booth….)
It sure seems like ComicCon San Diego would be able to fill a much larger venue and/or more days – I understand that they have hit capacity – but it sure seems like there is far more demand than availability at the moment.
@rycaut — they haven’t hit capacity — they just keep hitting problems with online registration. Is this because the system’s overloaded with people trying to register? WE don’t know. But it could be that once they fix whatever problem they’re having, registration will resume as normal. last year wasn’t a problem to register for weeks after it was open, and the show still sold out. I don’t think anyone should panic yet.
I just wanna second Mike Romo’s comment above. SDCC is absurdly fun on all levels. I’m seeing a lot of backlash, often from folks who have never been, but I have to tell you that even at capacity, there is still SO much to do. You do not have to wait in endless lines if you don’t want to. And last year, with added events spilling out into the Gaslamp district, it really just made the whole thing feel endless. Endless and fun.
@daccampo: Is the gaslamp district next to the hammock district?