Ugh.
I miss talking to TomAz.
We all do. I live in the same city as him (unless he relocated) and rumor has it that at 3:15am if you listen closely and its really really quiet you can hear him telling you to go fuck yourself.
I really like Glastonbury's system of pre-registering with a passport-style photo and upon entering the festival grounds they check your ticket which has your picture printed on it. Then, if everything adds up, they lock a wristband onto your wrist. It's probably severely cut down on scalpers.
Obviously, GV doesn't need to change anything. They're selling out the festival. They have no real incentive to invest more money in a better system, but I think they do *care* a little bit about alienating festival-goers. Glastonbury's system is a lot of infrastructure, from the pre-registration with passport photos (they need to be individually approved and they must get 100s of thousands of applicants) to the gate workers who check each individual ticket and manually lock the wristband onto your wrist.
Here's my suggestion:
-- 2 wristband limit for each buyer
-- No wristbands are sent out
-- They use Tennis Garden as the pick-up location. (yes, they'll have to hire a few more people. If they raise the price by $1 that's ~$150k to hire additional staffing).
-- Swipe your CC to confirm your order (similar to Ticketmaster's Ticketless system). You get your wristband and a +1 if you ordered one.
-- They immediately install the wristband onto the buyer's wrist.
-- Key is to have enough staff to keep the wait time short.
-- Yes, it's possible to remove the wristband. Maybe they can use Glastonbury's massive metal staple. That one cannot be removed without cutting the wristband. In either case, it will make it harder for scalpers.
--This will also cut down on fake wristbands.
Last edited by zeppelin77; 05-19-2014 at 10:47 AM.
Yes....and the lines are long enough just to get IN to the festival sometimes.
Why can't they just stick to their policy of only allowing 2 wristbands per shipping address? I don't think it would be hard to write that into the system - to deny an order if one was already placed with the same address.
I don't think they enforce this at all.
BTW - Frontgate was very nice today on the phone and switched me to a payment plan with absolutely no hassle.
How many headlines can you make out of the 2016 lineup? i.e. "Young monsters moon strangers for pure horror."
For once, the capt and I are in full agreement.
All of the "status messages" on the wait room page are a lie.
The statements of "You're getting close, chances are looking good" and "It's not looking good for you to get tickets for this weekend" are just approximations, and not indicative at all of your actual situation.
Those statements are based upon a formula. Basically, if there are relatively few people in the queue, it will assume you will probably get through to get tickets, so it reports you as being "close". However, if a bunch of people show up in the waiting room after that, you will no longer be "close", which makes the message highly misleading.
The negative messages that "chances aren't looking good" are also not proper, because it makes it look like they will sell out before your place in line is reached. In reality, your "chances" are based upon the number of tickets left versus the number of people waiting, but it's still a random drawing, so you always have a shot. While their statement could be said to be legally accurate, it's very misleading.
Finally, sometimes it will be reported sold out, when in reality there will be tickets becoming available when certain people time out from purchasing them. They should make a distinction between "mostly sold out" and "actually fully sold out".
It's also dishonest of them to promote the waiting list as an actual waiting list, when they should remind everyone that it's a random lottery, and that it's not at all based upon the amount of time you're waiting. At 11:00am, for example, a person waiting since 10:00am has the same chance of getting through as someone who just joined the waiting room at 10:59am.
Last edited by Archie Bunker; 05-19-2014 at 12:12 PM.
This space for rent.
It's a ton of work for Glastonbury.
For whatever reason, they decide to do it this way regardless. That's their decision, but you can't expect Front Gate to invest immense resources into this. Furthermore, the Glastonbury system isn't perfect, as it makes life miserable for people who want to buy tickets for friends/family, or who want to give their tickets away last-minute when they suddenly can't make it.
It's not going to happen. Front Gate will probably fix their system (to some degree) in January, but that's about it.
This space for rent.
100% THIS.
They are doing random selection in order to thwart scalper bots from hammering the system at exactly 10:00am and getting most of the tickets.
Fine.
But there also has to be some sanity to the process. There are ways to still make it random, yet give preference to the earlier people. They are employing no such algorithms.
All they do here is piss people off when customers show up promptly at 10:00am, wait for 2 hours without success, and find out that their co-worker who logged in at 11:45 got tickets within 5 minutes.
This space for rent.
Love how some of you knock ideas...but you don't have one single solution
any fuckhead can complain...it's the ability to try and create solutions is where intelligence comes in...
what are your ideas...as many feel the current situation doesn't work
I don't know why I'm asking and expecting intelligent answers....it'll never happen here
I have lots of solutions -- both from a technical and conceptual standpoint.
Tell Front Gate to hire me as a contractor and I will clean this shit up once and for all. Not joking.
I don't really need a job or the money, but I am totally serious about doing this if they want an expert to take care of this fiasco.
This space for rent.
Anyone who says that the loyal customer base doesn't have a right to complain about a comically-inept, unfair presale is absolutely clueless.
This was a royal screw up.
This space for rent.
I have a pair of passes for weekend 2.
email me for more info
lo.lise@gmail.com
Thanks all.
For those still looking for car camping, give it a try....
https://coachella-weekend1.frontgate...bfrmil314r2z86
Tent camping anyone?
https://coachella-weekend1.frontgate...9akgo9idr5hfmd
We need a snazzy name to rival "the reddit ticket link!"
4/15: Tama Sumo @ Seattle
4/25: Rolling Coastal Blackout Fever, Sloucher @ The Crocodile
4/27-30: Stagecoach
5/16: Mount Kimbie @ Neumo's
5/25-27: Sasquatch
car camping is still available. wow. I might actually get that.