It's been 7 hours since tickets went on sale. As of this posting, there are still Friday and Sunday passes left for PAX East.
Saturday passes did not sell out until 4 hours ago. That's a 3-hour time window in which it is possible to buy tickets to the entirety of PAX. No matter what kind of situation you are in with work or life, a three hour window is big enough that anyone dedicated individual should be able to buy tickets.
All you have to do is configure Twitter to push a notification to your phone whenever the Official_PAX Twitter account tweets. Enable this only during PAX ticket season. Then just always have your phone on you, and always check every notification. That's something you should be doing anyway.
The PAX ticket buying site is actually extremely mobile friendly. You should be able to buy tickets straight away from anywhere with data service. You have three hours! Yes, it's a tight window, but it's not ludicrous.
If you can't afford a smartphone to use this method, you probably shouldn't be spending money on a big expensive convention trip. Even the cheapest of phones these days have a web browser and twitter apps.
Anyone who truly wants PAX tickets should be able to get them. If you just can't be bothered to check notifications on your phone, or take 10 minutes away from whatever you're doing to buy tickets on your phone, then you must really not want to go.
Whoever wants to go most badly gets to go. Barring some magical measuring device that can quantify a human's desire for PAX, this method works pretty well.
Thanks to a multi-layer contingency plan that we had set up, we were able to get a full set of 5 3-day badges. Since I live just outside of Boston, I would rather try extra hard to get these passes than have to travel somewhere else where the badges might easier to get.
That said, my friend's wife is having a baby, and her due date is a few days after East. I'm curious to see where that falls in the "important things that might necessitate not going to a PAX" discussion. (He is also going to South this year just in case he can't make it to East).
No matter what kind of situation you are in with work or life, a three hour window is big enough that anyone dedicated individual should be able to buy tickets.
Oh Scott. You are so funny. You clearly have no idea what jobs that aren't primarily done at a desk and a computer are like.
Here's a small example: I now work in disaster recovery. I can get deployed after a disaster to go assess damage. I could be there all day, in a place where there is no cell reception because all the towers got taken out. A three hour window? Please. I could be without internet access for 12 or more hours at a time.
No matter what kind of situation you are in with work or life, a three hour window is big enough that anyone dedicated individual should be able to buy tickets.
Oh Scott. You are so funny. You clearly have no idea what jobs that aren't primarily done at a desk and a computer are like.
Here's a small example: I now work in disaster recovery. I can get deployed after a disaster to go assess damage. I could be there all day, in a place where there is no cell reception because all the towers got taken out. A three hour window? Please. I could be without internet access for 12 or more hours at a time.
You clearly have no idea.
I know this sounds crazy, exaggerated, and stupid, but I'll say it anyway. I would honestly choose to be unemployed, and get connected in libraries or cafes, rather than take a job where I would have no Internet, or filtered Internet, for extended periods of time.
Obviously it is crazy to make such extreme life decisions based around tickets to a gaming convention. I wouldn't choose to be unemployed just for the sake of PAX tickets. That's insane. I would very much rather have a job and no PAX than the opposite.
It's about being a netizen. I consider myself a citizen of the Internet first. Connectivity is a higher priority than everything except food and water. There is a certain amount of power that a constantly connected person has. Being able to more easily acquire things like PAX tickets is just one small aspect of this power. The primary aspect is, of course, instant access to the near complete collection of all human knowledge.
What I'm trying to say is that even though the current system does favor people who want the tickets the most, it also favors people who live in cyberspace. There are definitely some people who are more dedicated to PAX having tickets metaphorically snatched from their hands by individuals who wield more technological power. This is a microcosm of a dystopian cyberpunk society, so I actually kind of like it.
I think you and I have a distinctly different definition of "extended period of time." 12 hours without internet is trivial. Hell, I do a 2-week camping trip where I can count the number of times I access the internet on my fingers.
Then again, I do a lot more things in meatspace than you seem to, so I am not reliant on the internet to function in the short term. In the long term... I like my internets. I wouldn't want to do 2 weeks without internet access in regular life. It's actually pretty impossible to do my job without access to it every few days at minimum. I could live without it assuming everyone else around me was in the same position, but it would be a major adjustment.
what the fuck are you guys even arguing about? It sounded like you guys agreed. If you can be on top of getting tickets then you have other priorities. End of story. If you really want tickets coordinate with someone who you know will buy them and tell them to get you tickets too. I do this all the time with people I know who want to go but don't have Internet acess 24/7. I buy tickets and they just pay me back. Pretty simple.
Remember: PAX uses an entirely arbitrary means to distribute the extremely limited badges and hotels. They happen to choose (as almost every fan convention in the world also chooses) "ability to be at a computer when the thing is randomly and suddently made available."
It's entirely arbitrary.
A few cons give priority instead to people who have attended previously. That turns the cons into awful aging circlejerks over time.
One option would, instead, be money. If they charged $500 for a three-day badge, the con would probably still sell out, but there wouldn't be nearly so much immediate demand. The same number of people would be excluded: it would just be different people.
They could use a big lottery. But then, it's actually completely random, instead of arbitrary.
For whatever reasons, they have chosen to reward people who are deeply connected online all the time, people who are Enforcers, and people who collectively are trying to attend PAX as a large group. Those people are the most likely to benefit from their current arbitrary means of distribution.
No con has done better in my opinion. Mark my words: MAGFest will have the same problem in the near future.
Actually a sliding scale of cost for admission would be a interesting experiment. Like either have the price go up as it sells out or even more interesting lower the price as the tickets sell out. Wonder if that would effect the rate at which it sells out and by how much. Start the price at 500 dollars and lower it as time passes over the course of a couple days. I wonder how that would be exploited. hmmm. Since they figure it's going to sell out regardless they could do a lot of experiments with little risk to the overall business.
The thing is, they have talked about all of these crazy ideas as far as I can tell. But they have a guiding first principle that makes them extremely unwilling to try any of them.
They never want money to be a determining factor if at all possible.
If the choice is between charging time or charging money, they will charge time.
Yea I just think it would be fascinating to actually do. And would create a lot of data for the convention scene on different ways to handle the issue. Honestly I could care less what they do because as a enforcer I can probably get in if I want by just volunteering. Would be interesting to have it start at 250 and then go under the price of a 3 day badge as time goes on. The solution I assume they are doing is probably cutting the number of 3 days badges in favor of more single day badges because theoretically would get more people in and overall have more happy people.
I don't know. I kind of like a self-selection aspect based on Internet-connectedness. A lottery will almost definitely skew much more toward more casual gamers and people who primarily are there only for the expo hall.
CIP, I have an anecdote that has repeated multiple times in my life. Someone who isn't super Internet wants to go to cons (like SDCC/NYCC), partly for their kids who are into "those sorts of things."
They go for the expo hall, and that's basically it. Walk around for half a day, and then leave. That is literally what a "comic con" means to them ("comic con" being the generic term most non-nerd people use to refer to any fan convention).
These are the kinds of people who ALWAYS ask me a month or two after badges go on sale "if they should go to that PAX comic con." Of course, the badges are sold and gone and done long before they are even aware the con has a date.
I have in the past told these people the day badges go on sale. They almost always buy just a Saturday badge, or maybe Saturday/Sunday, and plan specifically on spending a couple hours at the con each day total. This literally just happened again this year with PAX East.
If there is a lottery with a multi-day signup period, several side effects occur:
1. Scalpers organize far more than you have ever seen with the current system
2. All the people who normally don't even know badges are on sale until they're gone enter the lottery to buy Saturday badges to "go see the comic con"
3. Of the people who know PAX exists, want to go, and will spend most of their time at the con actually gaming or seeing panels, a smaller total percentage of those people will be able to attend.
Basically, everyone on this forum will have a much lower percentage chance of getting a badge.
That "adult only" anime con in Rhode Island did something like what you describe.
Sorta missing the point that it would have to be a convention that is having issues with selling out within minutes or hours of openning ticket sales. considering the adult only convention bombed.
Even if you do a lottery, how do you do it? Let's say you have 10,000 tickets. 100,000 people "buy" lottery tickets. Do you choose 10,000 numbers giving one ticket to each? Two tickets each? What if they wanted Saturday only? What if they wanted Sunday only? What if they have 5 friends? What if they have 2 friends, one of which can only go Saturday? What exactly does a winning lottery ticket allow you to purchase? You'd have to constantly redo the lottery until all the tickets were gone.
How do you stop scalpers from getting tons of lottery tickets and stuffing the ballot box? They will have tons of names, addresses, credit cards, etc. You think the extremely small percentage of scalping now is a problem, imagine how bad it will be with a lottery.
If you can come up with a way to fairly allocate scarce resources, congratulations. You have solved economics. The way they do it now is the best way anyone has ever thought of for this particular case. It's worked well for many years. It's been long enough now that people need to just deal with it.
A decreasing changing price just means that the poors have to constantly refresh at the end run when the fewest badges are actually available, and likely spend even MORE time constantly watching the current price. The riches just buy badges day one.
An increasing changing price has exactly the same problems it has now: poors are punished for not watching the site/feed constantly to jump in at the earliest low price. The riches just buy a badge whenever, because they're guaranteed to get one.
Both of your changing price models make the situation the same or worse for the poors, while making it significantly better for the riches.
The price stuff is pure economic testing for a convention that is going to sell out. The true equalizer solution is to have more then one time when the tickets go on sale to off set the fact that no matter how much you want the tickets you maybe in the bathroom for those 15 minutes crapping your brains out and miss the 3 day tickets :-p
The price stuff is pure economic testing for a convention that is going to sell out. The true equalizer solution is to have more then one time when the tickets go on sale to off set the fact that no matter how much you want the tickets you maybe in the bathroom for those 15 minutes crapping your brains out and miss the 3 day tickets :-p
More opportunities for fewer badges at a time just means that anyone who doesn't get one in the first round is obligated to spend even MORE time watching for subsequent rounds. More time is spent by everyone involved for basically the same net outcome and same chance of actually getting a badge.
They're not really interesting tests, because (IMHO) the results of any specific ruleset are easily predicted.
I think the price thing is interesting. It would be interesting to see how high you could make the price and have it still sell out quickly and at the same time you could lower the price over time if it wasn't selling out.
Also the timing thing is to help with the concern that some people have that they miss the one chance to get 3 day badges due to other stuff, if you have two chances and you miss it (or three) it's all you bro.
Comments
Saturday passes did not sell out until 4 hours ago. That's a 3-hour time window in which it is possible to buy tickets to the entirety of PAX. No matter what kind of situation you are in with work or life, a three hour window is big enough that anyone dedicated individual should be able to buy tickets.
All you have to do is configure Twitter to push a notification to your phone whenever the Official_PAX Twitter account tweets. Enable this only during PAX ticket season. Then just always have your phone on you, and always check every notification. That's something you should be doing anyway.
The PAX ticket buying site is actually extremely mobile friendly. You should be able to buy tickets straight away from anywhere with data service. You have three hours! Yes, it's a tight window, but it's not ludicrous.
If you can't afford a smartphone to use this method, you probably shouldn't be spending money on a big expensive convention trip. Even the cheapest of phones these days have a web browser and twitter apps.
Anyone who truly wants PAX tickets should be able to get them. If you just can't be bothered to check notifications on your phone, or take 10 minutes away from whatever you're doing to buy tickets on your phone, then you must really not want to go.
Whoever wants to go most badly gets to go. Barring some magical measuring device that can quantify a human's desire for PAX, this method works pretty well.
That said, my friend's wife is having a baby, and her due date is a few days after East. I'm curious to see where that falls in the "important things that might necessitate not going to a PAX" discussion. (He is also going to South this year just in case he can't make it to East).
Here's a small example: I now work in disaster recovery. I can get deployed after a disaster to go assess damage. I could be there all day, in a place where there is no cell reception because all the towers got taken out. A three hour window? Please. I could be without internet access for 12 or more hours at a time.
You clearly have no idea.
Obviously it is crazy to make such extreme life decisions based around tickets to a gaming convention. I wouldn't choose to be unemployed just for the sake of PAX tickets. That's insane. I would very much rather have a job and no PAX than the opposite.
It's about being a netizen. I consider myself a citizen of the Internet first. Connectivity is a higher priority than everything except food and water. There is a certain amount of power that a constantly connected person has. Being able to more easily acquire things like PAX tickets is just one small aspect of this power. The primary aspect is, of course, instant access to the near complete collection of all human knowledge.
What I'm trying to say is that even though the current system does favor people who want the tickets the most, it also favors people who live in cyberspace. There are definitely some people who are more dedicated to PAX having tickets metaphorically snatched from their hands by individuals who wield more technological power. This is a microcosm of a dystopian cyberpunk society, so I actually kind of like it.
Then again, I do a lot more things in meatspace than you seem to, so I am not reliant on the internet to function in the short term. In the long term... I like my internets. I wouldn't want to do 2 weeks without internet access in regular life. It's actually pretty impossible to do my job without access to it every few days at minimum. I could live without it assuming everyone else around me was in the same position, but it would be a major adjustment.
It's entirely arbitrary.
A few cons give priority instead to people who have attended previously. That turns the cons into awful aging circlejerks over time.
One option would, instead, be money. If they charged $500 for a three-day badge, the con would probably still sell out, but there wouldn't be nearly so much immediate demand. The same number of people would be excluded: it would just be different people.
They could use a big lottery. But then, it's actually completely random, instead of arbitrary.
For whatever reasons, they have chosen to reward people who are deeply connected online all the time, people who are Enforcers, and people who collectively are trying to attend PAX as a large group. Those people are the most likely to benefit from their current arbitrary means of distribution.
No con has done better in my opinion. Mark my words: MAGFest will have the same problem in the near future.
They never want money to be a determining factor if at all possible.
If the choice is between charging time or charging money, they will charge time.
EDIT: not better for me, though. If I needed to get tickets to PAX Prime or PAX East under the current system I'm quite sure I would get them.
CIP, I have an anecdote that has repeated multiple times in my life. Someone who isn't super Internet wants to go to cons (like SDCC/NYCC), partly for their kids who are into "those sorts of things."
They go for the expo hall, and that's basically it. Walk around for half a day, and then leave. That is literally what a "comic con" means to them ("comic con" being the generic term most non-nerd people use to refer to any fan convention).
These are the kinds of people who ALWAYS ask me a month or two after badges go on sale "if they should go to that PAX comic con." Of course, the badges are sold and gone and done long before they are even aware the con has a date.
I have in the past told these people the day badges go on sale. They almost always buy just a Saturday badge, or maybe Saturday/Sunday, and plan specifically on spending a couple hours at the con each day total. This literally just happened again this year with PAX East.
If there is a lottery with a multi-day signup period, several side effects occur:
1. Scalpers organize far more than you have ever seen with the current system
2. All the people who normally don't even know badges are on sale until they're gone enter the lottery to buy Saturday badges to "go see the comic con"
3. Of the people who know PAX exists, want to go, and will spend most of their time at the con actually gaming or seeing panels, a smaller total percentage of those people will be able to attend.
Basically, everyone on this forum will have a much lower percentage chance of getting a badge.
How do you stop scalpers from getting tons of lottery tickets and stuffing the ballot box? They will have tons of names, addresses, credit cards, etc. You think the extremely small percentage of scalping now is a problem, imagine how bad it will be with a lottery.
If you can come up with a way to fairly allocate scarce resources, congratulations. You have solved economics. The way they do it now is the best way anyone has ever thought of for this particular case. It's worked well for many years. It's been long enough now that people need to just deal with it.
An increasing changing price has exactly the same problems it has now: poors are punished for not watching the site/feed constantly to jump in at the earliest low price. The riches just buy a badge whenever, because they're guaranteed to get one.
Both of your changing price models make the situation the same or worse for the poors, while making it significantly better for the riches.
They're not really interesting tests, because (IMHO) the results of any specific ruleset are easily predicted.
Also the timing thing is to help with the concern that some people have that they miss the one chance to get 3 day badges due to other stuff, if you have two chances and you miss it (or three) it's all you bro.