BlizzCon tickets: how it went, and what's next
by Mike Schramm 
May 18th 2009 at 5:00PM
Yes, if you were around on Saturday, you know that the first round of BlizzCon tickets sold out, and sold out fast. Tickets went on sale right around 10am PST (which was 1pm EST), and sold out just about 28 minutes later. If the queue numbers are trustworthy, over 21,000 people (we've heard as high as 25,000 at a time) logged in to buy tickets that day, and from unconfirmed reports around the web, it seems like about 5,000 to 8,000 tickets were sold: most people who got in line around number 5,000 were able to pick a ticket up, and that was a few minutes in already. Some of those people are already selling tickets on eBay as well.We believe (though aren't sure) that they'll be selling more than 15,000 tickets this year, since that's what they sold last year and they're using even more of the convention space. If that's true, then Blizzard probably went through only about half of the tickets, and will sell the rest during the second session on the 30th. But that's probably not much of a consolation -- given the frenzy around this last Saturday, there'll probably be more people trying for tickets, and given the prices on eBay, possibly more scalpers clogging up the queue. We'll see.
Update: Lots of people point out, rightly so, that I missed something in my guesstimates of how many tickets were sold: you could purchase up to five. My personal guess is that the majority of people bought only one or two, but even if you go with three as the average, 5,000-8,000 people in the queue is actually 15,000-24,000 tickets. Blizzard probably did sell the majority of tickets on Saturday then, not just half. So the process on May 30th will presumably go even faster.
BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We've got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there's some great looking costumes.For Blizzard's part, they tell the OC Register that they think it went pretty well -- their PR spokesperson says that from an anecdotal viewpoint, things worked fine. Which is what we see from our side also: while there is plenty of disappointment from people who couldn't get tickets, things went fairly smoothly, and at least it was only a half hour of waiting rather than a few days' worth. The Register also points out, though, that Blizzard never posted about the ticket sales on any of their pages until after the tickets were sold out. Of course we had lots of news (and we'll be covering it closely again on the 30th), but if all you were watching was Blizzard's official pages, you might have missed the whole thing.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Fan stuff, Blizzard, BlizzCon
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Cygerstorm May 18th 2009 5:04PM
I haven't missed a Blizzcon yet, but this year because of the stupid Queue system, I have to scalp my tickets off of E-bay.
Spooner May 18th 2009 5:21PM
It's not much of a condolence but I am giving away a free ticket/hotel room/air fare.
http://www.spooncraft.com/blizzcon-2009-contest/
Guido666 May 18th 2009 5:36PM
Why does everyone blame everyone else? You knew that gazillions of people were going to be competing for a few tens-of-thousands of ticktets. Last year, blame the server crashes. This year, blame the queue. How about you blame yourself, and figure out how you can get to your goal and get tickets?
We learned our lesson last year. This year we prepared ahead of time, and were ready the instant tickets went on sale. We got dozens of tickets. Half our guild is going. Yep, definately looks like you got screwed by the queues, maybe blame the RNG while you're at it somehow.
Zeplar May 18th 2009 6:17PM
Every other time I've asked, the posters here have said that you can't sell/give away tickets. Bliz asks for your credit card when you pick up your badge.
Nathan May 18th 2009 5:10PM
Of course if 5,000 people were in line for tickets and all got to order and they each ordered 2 each, that's 10,000 tickets gone already. Now count all the people that ordered 5 tickets, either for friends and family or to scalp...
Syd May 18th 2009 5:23PM
I know this sounds like QQ, but I really feel that 5 tickets per person puts too many people at a disadvantage.
Even reducing the total to 4 would help distribute the demand over more people.
Roger May 18th 2009 5:16PM
Just to clarify, the tickets sold out in a few SECONDS not minuets. As soon as you placed your order you were in the que. Assuming people entered the que in a more or less "first come first served" fashion (though this is somewhat questionable due to lag and the server configuration) if you didn't get into line a few seconds after the tickets went on sale you were well over the 5000th in line. For example, by the time I clicked "checkout" after the page refreshed to show tickets were available I was over 7000 in the que (needless to say I didn't get any tickets). While Blizz did a great job avoiding crashes the process was still mostly about luck. I also believe they sold a lot more that 5000 tickets, assuming 3000 people or so were able to purchase with 5 tickets per person possible that's 15,000 tickets sold.
Manatank May 18th 2009 6:31PM
"Just to clarify, the tickets sold out in a few SECONDS not minuets."
This is true. I actually think that anyone who pulled up the site at 10:00am PST was already too late. I happened to refresh the page about a minute early, and got into the queue at around 3500. Within 10 seconds of that my girlfriend got into the queue at about 4500. At that point it still wasn't quite 10:00am PST (My PC uses a time service to be somewhat accurate, but it could have been off a bit).
I got 2 tickets with my queue position of 3500. By the time my girlfriend got to the front of the queue they were sold out.
Seconds, not minutes.
In anycase, we are going to Blizzcon!
Guido666 May 18th 2009 5:16PM
5000-8000 people bought tickets, at 1-5 tickets each. That is significantly more than 5000-8000 tickets. I would say somewhere more around 20,000-25,000 is a smarter estimate of how many sold Saturday.
Guido666 May 18th 2009 5:20PM
And, they sold 20,000 tickets last year, not 15,000.
Syd May 18th 2009 5:23PM
I was 5600th position in the queue at the start, and from all of the posts I've read, the highest number anyone had & still bought tickets was mid 4000's.
So if we speculate that the average ticket purchased per person was 3.5 (because I think there were many who only bought what they needed) That means that there could have been up to 14,000 tickets sold.
But I'm not sure where Mike is getting his figures, so it very well could be that only about 8,000-10,000 tickets were sold. I do think that since Blizzard split the sale into two days, it is likely they split the number of tickets they would sell in half.
Let's hope so.
Neodarkmatter May 18th 2009 5:41PM
If you go off the floor plans of the convention center each hall holds between 9 and 12,000 people depending on the event. Giving a rough estimate of how much space they take up for the stage and booths I say there could be at most 30,000 tickets. Saying that Syd is probably right that they may have only sold half.
Mike Schramm May 18th 2009 9:08PM
The 5,000-8,000 number is a combination of different things I've seen on blogs, Twitter, and in our comments. The highest number I've seen so far of someone who was in the queue and still got tickets is about 5,000, and I'm presuming that there were a few thousand who went through before that.
You guys are right to say that I am not counting the fact that people could buy up to five tickets (I didn't think about that in the original estimate). *But*, my personal thought is that most of the tickets were sold in ones and twos. I'd be very surprised if the average number of tickets per transaction (which only Blizzard knows for sure) is three or above. Not impossible of course, but I'd be surprised.
Fangorus May 18th 2009 5:17PM
With a convention center that can hold 80,000 people, I'm still wondering why Blizzard doesn't sell more tickets. It must be to increase the exclusivity of Blizzcon, or they just hate running cons. I doubt the latter. No one is that stupid to sell so few tickets in such a large venue for no reason. Or is the profit difference between a $125 live ticket versus a $40 DirectTV/online package that much?
23 - 25,000 in que within MINUTES? Only 8,000 tickets available that day? Only 16,000 tickets available total (possibly 20k?) Hello, Blizz? Make more tickets, already.
Malkia May 18th 2009 5:21PM
They can only have so many people in there. Fire Marshall gives the numbers for that...
But I kinda wish they'd keep track of the tickets people buy, and ban their accounts if they put them on ebay or something. This scalping is what's killing the people who want to go.
shyrt May 18th 2009 5:25PM
I like to lean more on the exclusive-ness of it all about why they are only selling so many tickets.
personally, im gonna be doing things live stream and watching it from my computer. Whatever i miss ill read up on and whoever recorded it and uploaded it on Youtube ill watch.
jbg May 18th 2009 5:29PM
Why don't they personalize the tickets? They likely need your contact information, so why not have tickets with your name printed on them? Have a DL check at the door, the customer gets a unique "I was there" item and it prevents scalpers from taking up a lot of tickets. (still gotta deal with bogus IDs)
Just an idea...
Leslie May 20th 2009 4:52AM
The passes that you get always have your name on it. The problem with the tickets is that in a month or so after people order the tickets you will get an e-mail from Blizz saying that they need the names of the people who got the tickets in your group. I got 2 tickets and one pass will have my name and one will have my boyfriend's name but only because I'm submitting his name. I could submit my best friend's name if I wanted.
These people have to be there in person to pick up their IDs and prove that their name is the same that's printed on the pass. This is where it becomes difficult - people sell the tickets early and have the buyer's name printed on the pass so they can just pick it up themselves on the con.
WNxSajuukCor May 18th 2009 5:31PM
Anyone support the theory that they held back some tickets to see how well the system holds up for the first day and to sell more to people on the 30th?
Neodarkmatter May 18th 2009 5:36PM
I do but I think it is more for any orders that didn't go through after they put up the sold out sign. I do remember that they kept allocating and releasing more tickets even after they were sold out last year.