It was a dark and stormy night... Alright, it was actually sunny afternoon, but I'm trying to sound DARK here! As many know, the New York Comic Con ticket system has gotten a little more difficult to use each year, due to a large increase of people trying to get tickets. Last year was already crazy enough: The website completely crashed at 12 noon, the minute tickets went on sale, leaving the people who didn't already have the ticket link bookmarked in the dust. After finally getting in, you were placed into a queue and put on somewhat of an e-line with other people, to organize everyone by the order that they each log in. Eyebrows started to raise when people saw 3 and 4 day passes already sold out after being in said queue for over an hour. Compared to last year (2013 at the time), this was INSANE! It took over a week for tickets to sell out the previous year, and here they were selling out in less than an hour! I settled for a Saturday pass, bowed my head in shame, and called it an afternoon.
Surely things would be better this year? Well, right off the bat, we all knew that was highly unlikely. The popularity of events like these only increases from year to year, and boy do people LOVE to get in on NYCC! But still, even with more people trying to get in, I figured I had a shot. After last year, they probably prepared their servers for the worst, so it all had to be good this time, right? RIGHT!? Holy freaking salamander on a stick Batman! How WRONG we were!!!
So the process was more or less the same. You click on the ticket link they provide at 12 noon and they place you into the queue line. Page loads, little squiggly circles move around the screen, and we play the waiting game... until...
Dun Dun DUNNNNNNNNNN!!! Well, that one's new. Will reloading help? ... No? Okay... Now what? I decided to check the Facebook page with the ticket link, to see if any other unfortunate souls were having this issue. Turns out, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM was having the same problem! Now, before going all screwy on us, the queue page did say that our place would be held in line, even if we did get an error message. But that error message just didn't sound right to me. And on top of everything else, it had the NERVE to blame MY browser for this problem! How rude!!! I will have you know my Google Chrome browser is a motherf@#king BEAST, thank you very much! The queue page also had one more little gem of a quote: "In the unlikely event that you get an error page..." HA. Ha. Haa... *sobs*
So how did all of THAT turn out? Was I still in the queue after all of this pandemonium? Turns out, I actually still was! About an hour and fifteen minutes later, I finally reached the ticket selection page... Or so I thought. These people had the nerve to put in a survey with questions I HAD to answer! Why the hell does it matter whether I'm a male or a female NYCC? I just want my damn tickets!!! And on top of that, the page kept crashing every time I entered the information!!! WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!
Okay, okay... So after about SIX MORE F@#$KING ATTEMPTS at reloading the survey page and refilling in the questions, I finally get to the ticket page. The moment of truth, I shout vehemently!!! We have at last arrived on the ticket page, and lo-and-behold! It still lists 3-day passes are available! I click the link for two 3-Day passes and rush to checkout, in the hopes this will somehow not give me a problem. Unfortunately, my life never quite works this way (as you may have noticed by my incurable CANCER and misadventures with Cable over the years). There was another error, and I had to reload the ticket page yet again. But OH NO!!! Now it says the 3-Day passes are sold out!!! ASKDFHKHAKDSNJDHFKAJNDKH123KHDAHRKJ!!1!!1!! What now!? Are there still 4-Day passes? Yeah? Okay, fine, let's just click that then. ANOTHER ERROR!!! WTFWHYISTHISHAPPENING!? Wait, now 3-day passes are available again!??? Okay, click... ERRORED!1! ... Aaaand, it's gone again. 4-Days again? Okay...
After doing this at least five more times, I finally got to the "payment method" page. "How can THIS go wrong?" I once again thought to myself, apparently causing the worst set of jinx's in the history of jinxing. First time, I clicked the Paypal option. PayPal is generally the safer route to go, so I of course clicked it. ERRORED B*TCH!! What now!? Back to the page. Click credit card?... SUCCESS! I had no idea why, but I'd run out of questions by that point and my arms were getting tired from all the flailing around.
SO, finally.. finally... FINALLY!!!! It freaking worked. After all the turmoil, the errors, the near heart attack, and my arm (literally) falling off from all the flailing, I finally obtained the coveted tickets!!! I was very glad that what I had read on the queue page was actually correct, and that my place in line WAS in fact held during all of the e-riots. However, I had heard that not all soldiers came out of this one alive, as many were unable to get tickets, and some even claimed that their friends (who logged into the queue later) got to the ticket page before people who logged in at 12:00 noon, and were still waiting. WAT!? I seriously hope this was not the case, but who the hell knows? Certainly not I.
I would like to thank the people at NYCC for making me feel such a crazy rush of emotions all at once. I don't remember the last time I felt anger, grief, anxiety, nervousness, and immediate relief all in the same few minutes. And those are the things that remind me I'm still a human being, let alone an ugly decrepit one.
5 Scalper-Sold VIP Badges Out Of 10
Now I can truly flash my tickets around town and look like a true bad-ass, and also have the joy of not having to have bought from scalpers! They're going to think I'm rich or something!!! Would suffer again.
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