61–70 of 108 posts
Everybody's reporting this "sold out in 2 minutes" number, but I got nothing but errors the instant they went on sale. I think they actually sold out immediately (where "immediately" means "as long as it took for the transactions to process).
They should raise their prices. A lot. So the people who value it the most get tickets. This is not an ideal solution but it's much better than the current one.
The problem with raising prices should be obvious -- it preferentially selects wealthier attendees, not necessarily those who "value it the most".
> This is not an ideal solution but it's much better than the current one.
I don't think you've thought your position through. All raising prices achieves is to limit attendance to those who didn't care about the high price.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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" ticke…
I'd prefer a solution that scales the cost so as to make tickets available for every level of 'desire':
-first 1000 tickets cost $500 to get people in who may have never been able to otherwise -the next 4000 cost $1500 -the next 2500 cost $3000 -the next 2000 cost $4000 -and the final 500 cost $6000 or more so there are ALWAYS some tickets at the upper end available if you REALLY have to go.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
The one on one with apple developers can actually be very much worth the 1600 alone.
Everybody's reporting this "sold out in 2 minutes" number, but I got nothing but errors the instant they went on sale. I think they actually sold out immediately (where "immediately" means "as long as it took for the transactions to process).
I got an error in Chrome, then immediately switched to Safari which worked. They were all sold out by the middle of my buying process though... tickets definitely weren't saved in your cart until you buy.
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" ticke…
I honestly don't think the problem is how you portion out the tickets. The system you describe does not seem to be any better at getting the tickets in the right hands. I'm not so concerned with the unfairness of the current system, but with the fact that many of these tickets will be completely wasted. The real problem is that they've combined a 1 hour media event with a developer conference. So many people every ye…
JSConf also sells out in like 10 minutes, which is why they moved to a lottery system. There are no media events or giveaways there (mostly), just a really really good event that refuses to get larger because getting larger may (probably will) spoil some aspects of the event that make it really good.
Think about the lottery this way: if WWDC sold out in two minutes, it's likely that more than the number of people that can attend were on there trying to buy tickets at the same time, so it was really down to a lottery of timeouts, latencies, and overwhelmed systems. A real lottery at least makes it slightly more civilized, doesn't give geographic or equipment-based advantages, and spreads out the entry times over a day or two to let all timezones take equal advantage.
So, there's not really a gain in the quality of the person who gets to go, but it does call a spade a spade and takes some of the frustration out of the physical process of getting a ticket (if not with the result of the attempt).
edit: I do like non-transferable tickets, however (with some negotiated process of refundable tickets). This can be mostly enforced by essentially requiring will-call for all ticket purchases. While some people might be willing to let you borrow their credit card/id, not that many strangers will. You will have to be prepared to be a jerk and turn people down, though.
The tickets were in my cart. So close. The videos are going to be released during the show. Anyone in NYC going to set up a WWDC East event?
Back in 2011, there was one guy who waited a few minutes before deciding to purchase, checked the site again minutes later. Then Apple gave the "we're all sold out" message. He goes to check the Apple Store. It still says that there's something in his shopping cart. So, on a whim, he decides to complete the checkout process. Put in his address, name, info, credit card, clicked through a few screens. And he got in. Al…
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" ticke…
The problem with a cheap Lotto is it levels the playing field TOO much, everybody and their mother who has any interest at all even considering going to the event will put their name in the hat, why not? Now, people who make their living for themselves or are representing a multi-million dollar company have to compete with hobbyists or really anybody who just wants to hang out I'd prefer a solution that scales the co…
Geez back in the Microsoft heyday there were many different conferences. Sure, the PDC had 20K attendees if you wanted to go to that but there were other smaller conferences as well.
Hell, I'd settle for an east coast conference so I don't need to hang out with the skinny-jeans hipsters :)