The agony of Registration Day

16 FEBRUARY 2013



I know. I really do know. I am in this fight too. Between my and my friends, we had 6 computers and several phones on the job. Only one got in (me) and the others either got hung up, got the "waiting room is at maximum capacity and badges are likely sold out" message or had a server timeout message.

If you're new (like my best friend - this is her first Comic Con and today is her first taste of what I've tried to warn her about), this can all seem mind-blowingly incompetent. Believe it or not, previous Registration Days crashed the server so badly they had to be rescheduled. I thought that today might end up the same way, but people do seem to be getting in.


Tell me your pain. I'm trying to find out what badges are left and will post whatever I find out.

All times PST:

9:40 - I'm hearing reports that Preview Night is sold out - but I just bought two badges with it. Everything looked available and I am pretty much fainting with relief right now.

9:49 - Just talked to someone else who got Preview Night. Hang in there! My paranoia is telling me the system is broken and it's not monitoring the sold-out badges properly, but for now let's believe what the nice computer screen tells us. Maybe they made more Preview Night badges available this year? I don't know. But it's important not to give up.

9:53 - I'm seeing tweets from people in line offering to buy badges for other people - with a fat mark-up. Nothing like other people's anxiety and distress to bring out a profit motive.

9:55 - Remember how CCI warned that if your waiting room page freezes and your number doesn't change, to call them? That's actually happening to a few people. I love how they knew that would happen but couldn't apparently fix it.

10:07 - Someone I know just got four individual day passes. Which is nice that those are still available (and he started at like 40K). The waiting room numbers are way out of line with last year's.... either the system changed, more people are buying individually, or (my theory) some of the people who are hung up actually got a number assigned to them but they just can't get into the room. So people at higher numbers are getting good badges.

10:10 - Never mind, Saturday is sold out.

10:15 - Just heard Friday is sold out as well but that's not confirmed.

10:20 - Hearing a lot of complaints that the CCI help desk line isn't being answered. Shocking, I know.

10:30 - There still seem to be Thursday and Sunday badges left.

10:32 - The whole "frozen in the waiting room" thing seems to be happening to a lot of people. Not just a few. Apparently that's this year's new fail, like the weird name thing was last year.

10:38: Badge sales are now closed.

53 comments:

  1. I got a message at 9:02 saying the room was full. I got in again 33000 and refreshed kicking me out of the waiting room. Do you think they will do a resale next month like last year?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope so. I really hope so. This was just awful.

      Delete
  2. To be completely honest, I miss standing in a real line waiting for hours rather then clicking a button and hopefully getting in. This was extremely painful, even though at 10am (MST) I had clicked the registration button and it had already filled to maximum capacity. Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wait, did you just give up? That message went out to a lot of people but it was incorrect - people were still getting in. I got that message and got in about 2 minutes later.

      Delete
    2. Nope I've continued to try and get it in but I have yet to enter in to this magical land of badge purchasing.

      Delete
    3. At this point, you may need to rely on whatever resale they offer. So sorry.

      Delete
  3. I was ready t 9AM PT; I click the promising green button, my browser hesitated and I was promptly served a java script error; I fired off another browser window but it was too late, timeout until no joy message was posted. That was all of 5 minutes. Disappointed...

    ReplyDelete
  4. How long is the typical wait in the waiting room? My wife got in the waiting room, I didn't. She is still in the Registration Waiting Room... 40 minutes later.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. what's her number right now? That's going to determine what kind of badges she can buy.

      Delete
    2. I'm worried now... her screen doesn't show a number. It only says, "Registration Waiting Room." Is she not really in the room? Clearly, this is our first time.

      Delete
    3. I've got the same situtation, it says i'm in the registration waiting room but I don't have a number. Has anyone gotten in and found out if any days are already sold out?

      Delete
    4. This is a bummer if we aren't in the room. We were hoping to make this our family summer vacation trip (14 and 12 years old boy and girl.) If this is a bust, are there other ways attend?

      Delete
    5. Hmm, that's odd that there isn't a number. I think the system went haywire (as it does every year) and some people with numbers are getting frozen and other people aren't getting numbers at all. Hang in there and see what happens.

      If you don't get a badge today, your only hopes of attending (sorry to be so blunt) are if there's a resale - they held one last year after a similar registration day melt-down.

      One of the worst things about Comic Con's badge process is that it is becoming impossible to plan on this as a vacation - and the larger the family or group you're with, the more difficult it is to ensure you all get the same kind of badge. Good luck.

      Delete
  5. 9:45 and my browser shows the Registration room tab but the screen is blank. My sister's computer still shows the 'green button'

    ReplyDelete
  6. As someone who works with serious I.T., software and web app experts, I continue to be stunned by how incredibly weak the EPIC registration system is and how it could be improved.

    My son and I went last year (though preview night was sold out within minutes) and had to skip Saturday since that day was sold out too. My browser timed out 6 minutes in (got an ASP error...ASP.NET is Microsoft's web application framework and NOBODY serious uses it).

    A smart registration company would have a scalable solution that would let everyone get to a page with a counter on it, queue everyone up, and "let them in" as the "slots" opened up. All of us would know the moment we landed on the "counter page" whether or not we had a chance of getting in or not, rather than just have the system fail.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't even imagine their profit from this event either. This registration site as well as the Comic con site feel like they should be from 2003.

      Delete
    2. You know what kills me? That CCI doesn't take advantage of intelligent IT people like you who know what they're doing and have a strong motive to fix the system. Year after year after year of this, when hiring the right people could make this so much better.

      Delete
  7. Do I even have a shot at this point? I keep getting the waiting room is full message then hit the back button and clock on the green box repeatedly. This is ridiculous.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think people already in have a shot. I say that because some people already in the system are stuck with a frozen screen, and there are so many other tech misfires that badges are going more slowly than they did last year.

      But if you're not in at this point, you probably just have to hope for a resale. They did that last year.

      Delete
  8. Twitter feed from #SDCC: Preview night and 4 day badges are sold out

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I tried calling customer support, i got a busy signal

      Delete
  9. All I can say is they haven't said that all tickets are sold out yet, so if you're at least in queue, hang in there.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Just got into the waiting room, #22900

    ReplyDelete
  11. Sister just got into the waiting room, #22600

    ReplyDelete
  12. Sister just got kicked out

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm still in line, but Friday just sold out

      Delete
    2. Whoa, she got kicked out of the waiting room? That's my worst fear. What happened?

      Delete
    3. She was at position 22614 and after 2 minutes her browser refreshed and went to the EPIC overflow page.

      Delete
  13. I'm using Google Chrome and all I've had for the past hour is a white screen with the little blue loading wheel in the top left of the tab spinning around and around... Haven't gotten kicked out yet/server hasn't timed out for me/no messages or anything, though. Is there still hope?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. possibly, but my sister had that and then both her screen and mine refreshed simultaneously into the real waiting room, but on her first refresh she got kicked out (EPIC full) but i'm still in line, but no refresh of my line position yet.

      Delete
    2. Alright, thanks. I keep hearing that the whole thing is sold out, and generally when Chrome does something like this it's a bad sign, but under the circumstances I figure if I haven't gotten kicked out yet there's probably a faint glimmer of hope somewhere in all of this.

      Delete
    3. There's a glimmer of hope. It'll be over with shortly anyhow so just wait another 30 minutes.

      Delete
    4. I'm still stuck at 22900, it hasn't refreshed every two minutes like the instructions said it would

      Delete
  14. Saturday badges are now sold out

    ReplyDelete
  15. They should have had sales on more then one day from the get go cause some of us have to work today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Came home from work from 3AM to 8AM. Stayed up. Clicked at 11 am my time. Still clicking. Need sleep.

      Delete
  16. This is my first time and as naive as i am i would have never guessed it would have been this horrible. My page is half way loaded to get to the waitroom. Should i even keep waiting?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, there are only single day badges left for Thursday, Friday and Sunday and those will be gone quickly. Go ahead and wait, but don't get your hopes up.

      Delete
  17. If others are getting kicked out of line, is there still hope of the like getting shorter? Also, would the line clear out of the server was to crash before the 22,000 who are in it checkout? There is always a possibility.

    Been in overflow since 9:03 ...I am giving up ... I think I wore out my mouse click button ... someone can have my place in line...

    I live in San Diego and previously never got my ducks in a row to attend. This year I was all in. *Maybe* next year.

    Lesson learned: Don't tell your kids that you are taking them to Comic con next year... it likely won't happen.

    Steve E

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's always Wondercon (If it doesn't get canceled at the last minute like last year)

      Delete
    2. I am #6459 and still waiting

      Delete
    3. That's too bad that you're local and you still can't go. However, there is San Diego Comic Fest - it's new and it's just about comic books mostly. Probably not as fun for kids as the spectacle and grandeur of Comic Con.

      Delete
    4. #6549, when did your number last refresh?

      Delete
    5. #6549 What time did you get into the waiting room?

      Delete
    6. Officially with a # at 10

      Delete
    7. That's the exact same time my sister and I got a number. They must have some weird batching process that going on in the background where they process a lot and then free up the numbers.

      Delete
    8. At the bottom of the page it says that it hasn't refreshed since 10

      Delete
    9. Are you still at 6549?

      Delete
  18. #SDCC just tweeted that all badges are sold out. :(. I'm going to hang on for a few more minutes and cross my fingers.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Just posted this: Comic-Con’s EPIC Registration Fail http://iconnectdots.com/2013/02/comic-cons-epic-registration-fail.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Great account. Thank you for pointing out real, technical deficiencies and bad practices on the part of CCI - all too often, people chalk up the frustration to "too many people want to go" and leave it at that. It's great to have a real IT person point out the weaknesses and possible solutions.

      Delete
  20. thousands of complaint postings on the comicon facebook page. Guess when you're the only game in town you can create a farce like this.

    ReplyDelete