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MJNL was talking about the Bryan Adams concert that was going to take place on September 4th and 5th but mentioned how we would be on vacation then so we would not be able to make it.
I wanted to surprise her by buying tickets for the 4th because we would still be in town. The tickets apparently were going to be on sale at 11AM today, so I decided to get them from ticketmaster. I got on early, and found out that the tickets were on sale twenty minutes before 11AM! Lucky! So I picked two front of the line tickets and clicked OK. It came back with a message that there were none available, so I went back, clicked on two regular tickets, and clicked okay.
The web page told me that,
We are currently working on your request.
If you refresh this page or hit the back button, you will lose your place in line!
We'll continue to update the page to let you know approximately how much time you have to wait and we'll tell you if we're able to find tickets.
So I waited..
..and waited..
..and waited.
Buy the time I figured that something was amiss, it was already quarter after eleven. I decided to connect from another location to see if any tickets were available, and none were. Curses!
I tried checking other websites, but the prices were three to five times the ticketmaster prices! I cannot afford those tickets! Highway robbery!
*shakes fist*
Sunday, August 03, 2008 at 19:14:04 (UTC)
Reminds me of last year when I tried to do Boxing Day shopping online. Both Futureshop and BestBuy were having sales and, as expected, both servers were hammered by the demand. Yes, there was the "don't hit refresh or back button" message but you also can get "time out" errors as well! I decided to get several purchase orders in flight in an attempt to increase my chances of success. I figure that a number of people were doing the same thing which would increase the server workload even more! Hmm, maybe we should call this the "Online Shoppers Dilemma". Talk about a vicious circle! -- HKL
Grinning Reaper
Monday, August 04, 2008 at 15:58:58 (UTC)
I've found for big names, it's best to both call and go online, and if one works out before the other, you're set. Alternatively, you could support smaller bands. :)
llamatron
Wednesday, August 06, 2008 at 11:10:02 (UTC)
This was a bit of a last minute decision actually. I was curious about it so I looked it up and realized that the tickets were going on sale later in the morning. I figured that I would try and get some. Unfortunately, I had never done this before so I did not know what the best methods were.
Well, next time I should be a little more prepared..
QYV