Squawk
Friday 31st Oct 2008, 09:29 AM
Picture the scene. I am sat at home last night watching a few vids on youtube. I have a beer in front of me. I've fed myself. I am warm, happy and content. Clearly, this could not last.
The phone rings. Tis my sister. She wants tickets for take that. She won't have access to a computer/phone this am to try to get them. Can I do it for her instead.
Squawk!
Sod it, lets get some good will. I agree.
Turns out there are two potential sources. ticketmaster and ticketline. Both have websites and phone numbers
I now call them. www.youlousypieceof&%$_().co.uk and www.whatmorecanyouwantfromme.co.uk
Actually they have more apt names than that now, but those would definitely not be serviceable on a forum.
Tickets go on sale at 9am. At 8:59:50 I am poised. I know that somewhere in the Uk sits a server. Its shaking, it knows whats coming. It's fearful, but its going to do its best.
9:00:00
GO GO GO.
Die!!!!!!!
At 10 seconds past the tickets going on sale time, two things have happened. The ticketline server has died. Well, maybe its not died completely, but 9 out of 10 refreshes its ignoring my syn's, the other one its just sending a rst back at me. 2 mins later, it dies properly.
On ticketmaster, I'm in. I have to specify the tickets we want. 2 tickets seated, sil vous plait. And now I get put into some queue. Actually this isn't too bad a feature. The server itself can handle the load while some other server just keeps everyone waiting in line. My queue time is "greater than 15 minutes". Hmm.
After a couple of minutes it occurs to me that I do not trust this queue, so I fire up another browser and get into presumably the same queue, further back, for the next days show.
Now I start to hammer the phones. Call it 20 odd redials to each of 3 numbers. All engaged, wonder if I get charged 5p a call or summat. Eventually I swear at the phone and leave it, only trying it again every 5 mins. One of my wait times starts to show a bit of progress and eventually ticks down to 0. Yay. Or not.
A page gets displayed "no tickets match your EXACT description" please try again.
You have got to be kidding me. I don't get onto the server and have the ability to change my ticket, I joined the queue with a ticket request and thats it. I ended up getting into the queue with four different ticket types, each one now coming up with the same result. The first queue, the one I got in at about 5 seconds past 9 o clock finally took me through at 9:40 ish, the rest after. Presumably all tickets had now gone.
The ticketline server never came online. It briefly showed me a text only page, saying it did that when server load was heavy to speed up loading. If you then clicked on the link to reserve tickets, it dies some more.
Why can't they design these systems properly? It's gonna be a lottery on the day, why don't they let everyone register in the week or so before and then just draw the names out?
No doubt tomorrow I will read in some newspaper that Take That in Manchester sold in in 55 minutes. What a crock of ****. Take that in Manchester would have sold out in 50 seconds if they had enough capacity to service everyone trying to get tickets. The speed of sell out has nothing to do with popularity, its a measure of how fast they could churn people through the system.
I am now thoroughly pissed off. I hate the music industry. I hate the film industry. They rip me off at every turn, they have tried to load root kits onto my puter, they prevent me from making mp3's from their cd's. When I buy a DVD I have to wait through a message telling me not to pirate DVD's (IVE BOUGHT THE FECKING THING), and now I get dumped into a crappy queue and have to sit listening to an engaged tone.
And all this for Take That. Aren't they about 50 by now?
I am a pissed off parrot.
The phone rings. Tis my sister. She wants tickets for take that. She won't have access to a computer/phone this am to try to get them. Can I do it for her instead.
Squawk!
Sod it, lets get some good will. I agree.
Turns out there are two potential sources. ticketmaster and ticketline. Both have websites and phone numbers
I now call them. www.youlousypieceof&%$_().co.uk and www.whatmorecanyouwantfromme.co.uk
Actually they have more apt names than that now, but those would definitely not be serviceable on a forum.
Tickets go on sale at 9am. At 8:59:50 I am poised. I know that somewhere in the Uk sits a server. Its shaking, it knows whats coming. It's fearful, but its going to do its best.
9:00:00
GO GO GO.
Die!!!!!!!
At 10 seconds past the tickets going on sale time, two things have happened. The ticketline server has died. Well, maybe its not died completely, but 9 out of 10 refreshes its ignoring my syn's, the other one its just sending a rst back at me. 2 mins later, it dies properly.
On ticketmaster, I'm in. I have to specify the tickets we want. 2 tickets seated, sil vous plait. And now I get put into some queue. Actually this isn't too bad a feature. The server itself can handle the load while some other server just keeps everyone waiting in line. My queue time is "greater than 15 minutes". Hmm.
After a couple of minutes it occurs to me that I do not trust this queue, so I fire up another browser and get into presumably the same queue, further back, for the next days show.
Now I start to hammer the phones. Call it 20 odd redials to each of 3 numbers. All engaged, wonder if I get charged 5p a call or summat. Eventually I swear at the phone and leave it, only trying it again every 5 mins. One of my wait times starts to show a bit of progress and eventually ticks down to 0. Yay. Or not.
A page gets displayed "no tickets match your EXACT description" please try again.
You have got to be kidding me. I don't get onto the server and have the ability to change my ticket, I joined the queue with a ticket request and thats it. I ended up getting into the queue with four different ticket types, each one now coming up with the same result. The first queue, the one I got in at about 5 seconds past 9 o clock finally took me through at 9:40 ish, the rest after. Presumably all tickets had now gone.
The ticketline server never came online. It briefly showed me a text only page, saying it did that when server load was heavy to speed up loading. If you then clicked on the link to reserve tickets, it dies some more.
Why can't they design these systems properly? It's gonna be a lottery on the day, why don't they let everyone register in the week or so before and then just draw the names out?
No doubt tomorrow I will read in some newspaper that Take That in Manchester sold in in 55 minutes. What a crock of ****. Take that in Manchester would have sold out in 50 seconds if they had enough capacity to service everyone trying to get tickets. The speed of sell out has nothing to do with popularity, its a measure of how fast they could churn people through the system.
I am now thoroughly pissed off. I hate the music industry. I hate the film industry. They rip me off at every turn, they have tried to load root kits onto my puter, they prevent me from making mp3's from their cd's. When I buy a DVD I have to wait through a message telling me not to pirate DVD's (IVE BOUGHT THE FECKING THING), and now I get dumped into a crappy queue and have to sit listening to an engaged tone.
And all this for Take That. Aren't they about 50 by now?
I am a pissed off parrot.