Zarhym promises BlizzCon ticket sales will be better
by Mike Schramm 
Mar 19th 2009 at 6:00PM
BlizzCon 2009 tickets will likely go on sale soon, and before then, Zarhym is here to reassure you: Blizzard is doing what they can to make sure things will not go the way they did last year. Unfortunately, he doesn't go into detail on exactly what that means. We'd have to think that they wouldn't just open up the floodgates on a site that wasn't ready again, but while most thought that the lottery that ended last year's ticket sales worked pretty well, it looks like that may not be the plan just yet. Whatever they plan to do, we hope it works out in a fair way and with a minimum of fuss for those who do try to go. Anything without the Failoc or the FailSCV is a plus in our book.Zarhym also says that they will be giving us advance notice before the tickets actually start selling, so people will have time to make travel arrangements if necessary (and/or ask the wife or parents for the money to go if need be). And he says that a pay-per-view type of event, as they did last year, or even a live stream of some of the events online, is not beyond the realm of possibility.
Of course, even if you don't make it for whatever reason, you can be sure that WoW Insider will be there and covering everything that happens, from the awesome costumes to the possibly blogger-threatening danger. Stay tuned for more info soon.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Virtual selves, Blizzard, BlizzCon
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
InsaneAssault Mar 19th 2009 6:09PM
Call me a pessimist, but I really can't see this going smoothly this year.
tonedeff Mar 19th 2009 6:10PM
Any idea what ticket prices are or have been in the past?
Only reason i would buy a ticket is for the mount :D (way to far for me to travel to the event)
madfigs Mar 19th 2009 6:14PM
Ugh, I kinda wish there wasn't a special reward for attending - it's only an hour drive for me to get there, so it kind of sucks that I may not be able to get a ticket thanks to people who don't even plan to attend.
InsaneAssault Mar 19th 2009 6:19PM
I thought you had to attend to get the code for mount(or whatever the ingame reward is). Isn't it contained in the goodie bags?
Azbulldog Mar 19th 2009 7:07PM
You have to attend to pick up your swag bag, do us all a favor and do not buy a ticket unless you are going to attend. Buy the pay per view if you only want the virtual items..
Sella Mar 19th 2009 7:40PM
The tickets last year were $100 a pop, and as others have said, you do need to attend to get your swag bag (you get it at the registration desk). Just buy it on Pay-Per-View for the goodies.
I wish I could go this year, but it's being held three day's after my due date...
Chuddy Mar 19th 2009 10:30PM
sella, can I say early gratz on the newborn?
:-)
NekoDaimyo Mar 19th 2009 6:35PM
They should borrow a page from BotCon, and offer up swag bags alone. A limited number, of course, with associated limits when ordering/registering.
Hoggersbud Mar 19th 2009 6:35PM
All they have to do is contract with somebody who is used to handling lots of ticket sales.
If only there was a company that had mastered selling tickets.
If only.
Wrenzo Mar 19th 2009 6:46PM
Yeah...hmm...if only there were someone who you could consider a Master of that.
Oh well, I guess no one exists! ;)
Kitari Mar 19th 2009 7:16PM
But... Where would we find such a Ticketmaster, one who is a master of tickets.
Brownjohn Mar 19th 2009 8:48PM
Yes, because ticketmaster is wonderful, isn't it?
Well, no, its not.
If they sold through ticketmaster, the final price per ticket would reach somewhere around $150 due to the outrageous charges ticketmaster adds in to each sale.
Blizzard, do us all a favor and just get a better web host.
Wrenzo Mar 19th 2009 6:36PM
I believe that in the past you have to actually attend to get the goodies in the goodie bags. But I may be wrong. I wouldn't know.
My comments are that I'm glad they say they've learned a lesson, but we'll see if it's true. It astounds me what a cluster it turned into last year. Advance notice was NOT the problem, it was that they ran it on TRS-80 servers with cassette drives.
Also, I have zero interest in watching live streaming footage of a convention I'm not at. Even if watching it gave me free game time, I wouldn't even turn it on for my dog. Poor girl would leave me for sure. Take the time, effort, money and technical know-how involved in building a streaming video set-up and redirect all of that into building a bullet-proof ticket sales system.
kuri Mar 20th 2009 1:45AM
Ah, you see, they contracted that work to local California studios and DirecTV. In terms of allocating resources, they made the right move there.
Whether we'll see DirecTV on the floor of Blizzcon this year, though, is questionable. Loneliest booth ever.
Rob Mar 19th 2009 6:50PM
Many high demand events use a lottery system, they should really do this. Have everyone who is interested submit some info, when it's time, generate emails to a random portion of the list. How hard can it be?
PopeJamal Mar 19th 2009 6:51PM
"to the possibly blogger-threatening danger. Stay tuned for more info soon."
Drama-queen much?
novayluna Mar 19th 2009 7:12PM
I have a feeling blizzard is trying to stay away from having a big company handle the ticket sales in order to make sure people are not going to get screwed from them. LiveNation or as they were known as Ticketmaster has a well known history of charging obscene fees on top of the ticket price along with scalping them in advance than placing them on sale at their own scalper site for a huge markup.
I just hope they this time around they do some serious testing on their stores capabilities to handle the load. Also do what someone else mention and other the goodies bags.
Justin Mar 19th 2009 8:31PM
IMO I would rather have to pay an extra $25 bucks (random number) then let Blizz fail train this again... I hate the idea of a lotto as well, the last thing I want is to let the blizz RNG F me over like it always does. ;-) I would much rather have a smooth buying experience and not buy them fast enough then feel kicked in the face by the company I pay every month because they are a GAMING company not a high volume online retailer. Like I said though, just my opinion.
stefanovick Mar 19th 2009 7:37PM
Madfigs- I hear you man. I am just about an hour from Blizzcon, and I tried like H*LL last year to get tickets... I mean, really, we live so close - why would we NOT go?
And yet, I couldn't get a ticket at all. I refused to buy it on ebay, and I didn't want to show up and try to scalp a ticket....
I hope the ticketing process this year lets me get in on the action, and I also hope it will be worth the two years I've been looking forward to it.
AlexW573 Mar 19th 2009 8:32PM
The title of this article is misleading. He didn't promise it would be better, he said, "With regards to ticket sales last year, I will say that everyone involved in the process is committed to prevent repeating what happened. >.< "
While hopefully it means ticket sales will go smoother, he is NOT promising they will.