Saturday, February 5, 2011

San Diego Comic Con Rant

After 4 hours of trying and trying, I got my passes to SDCC!  Yes, I said "passes" cause stupid 4 day passes were sold out due to "server overload."  This was the worst registration I've ever gone through.  THE WORST.  Server kept crashing and this is the third time registration was re-opened.  The first time was a disaster, as was the second.  I had no idea how the trial registration went, as I forgot about it it; however, since this time was disaster, I would assume that the staff thought the trial went ok and chose how they did it that time for this time.

Worst discussion on the staff part.  I truly understand that SDCC is SUPER popular and such, but registration was utterly ridiculous and unprofessional.  You had a better chance of getting into Capcom Fight Club events if you arrived late than registering for SDCC this morning.  I thought smart people were on SDCC registration staff but apparently, I was wrong.  Granted, at least this time people were able to get on to the SDCC site, but we kept hitting Ticketleap's "server overload" page and was told, via Twitter, to keep refreshing the page.  I spent hour 4 trying to get tickets and when I finally was able to chose my tickets (4 day), BAM "server overload!" and "We are processing tickets right now, please hit "check out" again" or "Not enough tickets for the select package" (or something along those lines)  And then the server couldn't decided whether a selection was sold out or not.  So we were told to keep refreshing the page until we get to the next page.  Talk about poor management.

So I manage to get a Friday and Sunday badge.  I wasn't going to pay for 4 individual day passes, nor was I going to pay for 3 individual passes either (too freakin expensive).  So I settle for 2 day individual passes.  I originally was going to get Saturday and Sunday, but the server crashed and Saturday was sold out.  GRRRR!!!  So I'm going to check back every now and then to see if I could get a Saturday pass and then get a refund on one of my other passes.

I swear, I get it, SDCC is popular, but either move the con to a bigger convention (so more people can go) or get a company with a server than can handle the popularity of registering for SDCC!!  RIDICULOUS I TELL YOU, RIDICULOUS!!!  Not to mention that according to Comic Con's twitter, they weren't doing anything.  All they were basically saying was "We know that registration is slow and that Ticketleap's server is being overloaded.  Please try again." Ticketleap kept saying "Hit refresh until you get to the next page."  Which is basically saying to me (and I'm pretty sure to a lot of other people) "We're gonna sit on our lazy asses and eat donuts all day instead of closing down registration to figure out how to work this out again.  We give up on working on a new registration system.  If you can't get tickets, it sucks to be you."

After going through registration today, I am so pre registering for SDCC 2012 at the con or volunteering next time.