Welcome again folks to another edition of Pull List! Work and life in general have been a bit hectic in recent weeks forcing me to miss a few posts but luckily I have returned for another week of comic-themed goodness. One of the biggest news stories last week was the majority of the New York Comic Con tickets went on sale to the general public and things got ugly very quickly for everyone involved. This was an event last year that I bought tickets for about a week after they came out without much of a fuss. I say that because the experience this year was a tad bit more confusing, a good deal more frustrating and at the end of the day left me much less satisfied.
This all began about a week ago when NYCC announced three day and single day tickets would go on sale at noon last Thursday. Expecting much higher demand as the profile of the convention has grown leaps and bounds in just a few short years they would be using a system instead where hopeful ticket purchasers would find themselves in a virtual queue where they would wait for the system to be ready for them to buy their tickets. This would hopefully alleviate the constant refreshing and reloading of sites by the tens of thousands looking to buy tickets at the very moment they go on sale. If you have ever tried to buy hard-to-get tickets on Ticketmaster you know the problems I'm talking about and the idea of a better and less frustrating way to get tickets is infinitely more appealing.
So Thursday rolls around and I'm out running errands (read: buying my physical comic books) when I realize I won't be at a computer when noon rolls around. I doubt my computer at work will support/allow the ticket website so instead I decide to go at this task with my phone. Modern phones are pretty capable machines that many sites design their pages for the mobile platform and, again, I had no problem getting tickets last year so there was nothing to be worried about. At about 12:05 as I'm walking back to my car I proceed to link to the ticket page through Google and I immediately hit with one of those 'page cannot be loaded at this time' messages. As panic takes over my body the pace to my car quickens so I can sit down and do some further investigating into the problem. After a number of failed tries to reach the site I head to twitter to see any updates as to what's happening with the situation and immediately my heart sinks:
Although I do love ninjas and are exceedingly confident in their ability to solve the problem not only am I worried I severely underestimated the demand for tickets but that have not taken the proper steps to ensuring my attendance at the event. One of the drawbacks of completing this purchase on my phone, besides the thought that I am no longer 100% confident it can handle this issue, is that I am also on a deadline of around 1 pm when I need to go into work where my phone has absolutely zero reception/uses.
Before I could even get word of this potential catastrophe to my wife she apparently had already been texting me about her own, simlar problems attaining tickets. She too is going at this task with her phone as her work computer was not be able to access the site and is having the same issues. I was apparently so focused on getting the ticket page to work I was unaware of the number of messages I had received from her in the meantime. We decided to each stay on the mission to have double the chances of getting the Friday and Saturday tickets we wanted and soon after I was eventually able to get into the virtual queue:
Contrary to everything I have ever learned about buying tickets at a busy time or just trying to access a very slow website I have to resist the urge to refresh the page for fear of losing my 'virtual' place in the 'virtual' line. Without any number or sign of progress that the 'virtual' line is moving the waiting is shockingly unnerving for me. I began my time in the line while still parked and by the time I arrived at work about 30 minutes later was still in the queue. Again, it's hard to explain how stressful it can be to look at the same screen for 30 minutes and just hope you're actually moving in the 'virtual' world. My wife at this point was about 15 minutes behind me in the queue so although we were on track to buy our tickets we had no idea how much longer we would have to wait and, more importantly, how many tickets were left.
Soon after we realized we were both in the queue I realized I had only minutes left to move tot the next phase of the process or else my attempt would come to an unsuccessful end. As I glanced at my phone every 15-20 seconds to see if I had moved on from the queue I was soon hit with the reality that today was not my day and that calling and saying I'd be late for work despite sitting in the parking lot was not going to be met with the kindest of welcomes when I did go in. I wished my wife the best of luck, turned off my phone and bagan my walk of shame. Making things worse, I basically had no contact with the outside world while inside so I would be unable to find out if we were able to get tickets to the event for another 9-10 hours(!!!). Upon from my release from work I rushed to turn my phone back on and get in contact with my wife and find out how it all went. Turns out she was only able to get Friday tickets but Saturday apparently sold out in minutes (alongside the many other options) and thousands of fans were left wanting.
When reading about the whole debacle afterwards it's obvious that, like me, NYCC simply did not anticipate the demand for the event this year. 4-day passes, that took over 6 weeks to sell out last year, took only 40 minutes this time around and individual day sales even faster. I did myself no favors trying to do the process on my phone when going at it from my Mac may have allowed my to join the queue earlier and thus emerge from the whole fray victorious. All hope is not lost however as there are a number of comic shops which will be receiving tickets to sell at their store and it just so happens one not far from our residence is on the list so they will be receiving calls from me and my wife on a regular basis to see when they will be released. We are far from hopeless and at the end of the day I am not above Ebay or StubHub if the price is not too outrageous in order to go to attend this event on the days we have planned for.
Is anyone else planning to attend NYCC this year? If so did you have better luck getting tickets? If so which package did you get? I would really like to get together with other IGNers (and members of the 'IGN Assemble' Facebook group during the show some night or on the show floor so getting names and info is much appreciated!
This Week's Pull:
Green Arrow #33
East of West #13
Magneto #6
Daredevil #.1
Superman Unchained #7
Green Lantern #33
