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Tickets For Apple’s WWDC 2013 Sell Out In Under 2 Minutes

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Re: Tickets For Apple’s WWDC 2013 Sell Out In Under 2 Minutes

#41
post #15

This is pretty unbelievable. Refreshed at 10:00 and the site was already down with a "we'll be back soon" message. Obviously, the bigger devs would have got their tickets days (weeks?) ago.

I'm not sure they will have. Perhaps a few of the really major companies like EA, but I know some pretty prominent developers for the platform and none of them have ever mentioned anything about getting priority tickets.

If you have contacts you definitely get tickets, but they don't always come early.

I think there's some subset reserved for Developer Relations and they give them out at will - I've never noticed a particular strategy with respect to app store placement.

Re: Tickets For Apple’s WWDC 2013 Sell Out In Under 2 Minutes

#42
post #28
post #15

This is pretty unbelievable. Refreshed at 10:00 and the site was already down with a "we'll be back soon" message. Obviously, the bigger devs would have got their tickets days (weeks?) ago.

Meh. I'm a developer of one of the top 3 grossing music apps in the iOS App Store, and Apple doesn't give us anything.

Developer of the #2 music app here, didn't get shit ahead of time (or just now).

Re: Tickets For Apple’s WWDC 2013 Sell Out In Under 2 Minutes

#43

When are they going to move to a bigger venue? This is crazy.

The limitation isn't really the venue. While the sessions are useful they're made available online and the patterns suggested become common practice pretty quickly.

In my experience the value of WWDC is getting to spend time doing Q+A with Apple engineers, and moving to a bigger venue with more competition for engineers reduces the overall value of the conference rather than increasing it.

Re: Tickets For Apple’s WWDC 2013 Sell Out In Under 2 Minutes

#44
post #28
post #15

This is pretty unbelievable. Refreshed at 10:00 and the site was already down with a "we'll be back soon" message. Obviously, the bigger devs would have got their tickets days (weeks?) ago.

Meh. I'm a developer of one of the top 3 grossing music apps in the iOS App Store, and Apple doesn't give us anything.

You should ask Developer Relations.

Edit: before dzlobin does!

Re: Tickets For Apple’s WWDC 2013 Sell Out In Under 2 Minutes

#45

When are they going to move to a bigger venue? This is crazy.

Honestly, I think the question is "when are people going to realise they don't really need to go?". Videos of the talks are being put online, and while access to engineers is great, the majority of people probably wouldn't need/want it anyway.

Same as Google IO, these events have become like popular concerts- people leap on tickets because they know they're going to sell out, not because they've thought through why they'd want them.

Re: Tickets For Apple’s WWDC 2013 Sell Out In Under 2 Minutes

#46
Why can't we stop this madness? I don't see how first-come-first-serve here serves developers well at all.

Why don't they let anyone with a credit card join a ticket lottery? Just trying for a ticket could cost say, $10 to discourage people from trying every one of their credit cards. Perhaps to make it more fair, a winner must take their tickets, to discourage gaming.

This goes on for two days. Then the "real" tickets go on sale, the lotto winners get their tickets.

This way if you run to the computer at 10:03 or get out the hospital the next day or just simply forget until dinnertime, you still get a chance.

Re: Tickets For Apple’s WWDC 2013 Sell Out In Under 2 Minutes

#47
post #25
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bigger than Moscone? Cowboys Stadium for the keynote?

Moscone North alone would be an improvement from Moscone West. Heck, just take over all of Moscone for the week! I've been told the reason the event has been kept small is to maintain the same ratio of Apple developers to attendees. But I think that overstates the value of the Apple devs a bit. The attendees at this event really are one of a kind.

They haven't done the traditional post-session question & answer time in years, so other than the "labs", there is no interaction with the Apple engineers. They could set up a more stringent reservation system for the labs and sell more conference tickets if they wanted.

But, like another poster said, selling out in under 2 minutes makes them look good.

Re: Tickets For Apple’s WWDC 2013 Sell Out In Under 2 Minutes

#48
Put bluntly: this is bullshit. The advance notice was slightly better than last year, but the website was intermittently down for the entire two minutes tickets were on sale.

I was there, trying to buy them at 9:59am, at 10:00:20am the website finally went live, pressed the buy button and was greeted by "unable to process your request."

Seriously, Apple needs to figure this shit out. Whether that means opening up more seats, making tickets more expensive, or even just having a website that doesn't go down on you… something.

Re: Tickets For Apple’s WWDC 2013 Sell Out In Under 2 Minutes

#49

For future reference, is it possible to login to the developer center before the tickets go on sale, so you don't have to login? I didn't think to do that until 9:45 pacific, and by then logging in got a 'we'll be back soon' message.

A guy in my office was logged in before it went live, but when it came back up the session had been cleared. So my guess would be no.

Re: Tickets For Apple’s WWDC 2013 Sell Out In Under 2 Minutes

#50

When are they going to move to a bigger venue? This is crazy.

Why would they do that? Selling out in two minutes makes them look good, and the limited number of slots make the attendees feel like they're special.

Are you suggesting that the reason they aren't moving to a new venue is because getting their tickets sold out quickly makes them look good and the attendees feel special? As opposed to countless logistical concerns that come with organizing an event of this magnitude and importance?

I'll give you a moment to let the sheer stupidity of your suggestion sink in.

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