I’ve just returned home after a few days away, so I haven’t had time to weigh into the Prince ticketing debacle. That might be for the best, as it allowed me a few days to cool off!
You’ve probably already read about the dramas in the news, but I thought I’d chime in with my own perspective. I was nervous about scoring these tickets. It’s unusual for concerts to go on sale without a presale these days, and I was concerned about the volume of prospective purchasers flooding the site. I’d read the stories about Ticketek’s system crashing for other popular concerts, and I was anxoius I’d encounter something similar here. It turned out my fears were true.
The site was painfully slow from the get go, but eventually it spat out some great tickets. I attempted to pay for them, only to be told there was an “unspecified error.” And again, and again as the site’s timer counted me down before logging me out and releasing those coveted tickets back to the masses. And so I remained logged out, seeing only a message telling me of high traffic, for another 15 minutes. I called frantically on the phone at the same time with no success. Finally I was in the site again. And along it crawled until it spat out some nosebleed tickets. Disgusted, I threw them back and persevered until at 10:30, an hour and a half after my Prince concert ticket buying adventure began, I secured two reasonable tickets to the Brisbane show. They’re not as good as the ones I was first told were mine, but after reading some horror stories I feel like one of the lucky ones. My gal pal Lisa and I will undoubtedly have an awesome time at the show.
What troubles me most is the lack of responsibility Ticketek’s taken for the whole affair. Its managing director said “We are aware that some customers experienced a ‘timed out transaction’ and whilst we understand this can frustrate eager fans, it is important to understand that a limit on the time allowed per transaction is one of the key measures put in place to ensure fair access to as many fans as possible.” Fair call, but it says nothing of the way the site crawled and refused to accept the payment of countless fans. We all were doing our level best to complete our transactions in a timely fashion, but the site glitches made it an impossibility.
While Ticketek refuses to take any responsibilitybfor the whole affair it seems little will change. I’m admittedly a tech novice but it seems the site needs an upgrade to cope with those high demand days. Presales help ease the demand, but where there isn’t time to allow one offering different sale times for different cities seems a sensible measure. It’d also be nice to somehow see scalpers stamped out. I hated thinking they were buying the good seats while I was locked out of the site. eBay seems to suggest they were.
Infuriated fans have suggested a boycott, but while Ticketek continues to sell for some of the biggest local and international touring acts such measures seem like cutting off a proverbial nose. And so I’ll persevere, but I really hope Ticketek gets its act together soon. Music fans deserve better.
Image source: Scott Penner @ Wikimedia Commons