I recently joined the forum group, noticed this thread, and figured I'd put in my $0.02, howver belatedly. I'll keep it clean.
On whatever day in July it was, I attempted to get Virgin Mobilefest tickets. I got onto the site before 10:00 a.m. and refreshed the screen every few minutes until it was after 10 and the reservation process was open. I entered the security word, only to be told that it was a mismatch and that I had to request a new one. This happened 4 or 5 times. I can believe that I entered the word incorrectly maybe once, but I do not believe that I entered the word incorrectly 4 or 5 times. After being told 4 or 5 times that the security word was wrong, and waiting a few minutes each time for a new one (a new one was not automatically generated), I was told that I had been timed out and to close the window. The tab? The browser? Maybe reboot the PC? Who knows. Anyway, I closed the tab, opened a new tab, and tried again. The system immediately accepted the security word and told me that all the free tickets were gone. That was at 10:17 a.m. Just for the heck of it, I got onto the site again 10-15 minutes later, and the same thing happened. No tickets left, I was told.
The following week, I read on the WaPo blog that there were technical problems and that thousands of tickets, maybe the majority of them (I don't remember exactly) were given away between 11 and 11:15. This was about 45 minutes after I was first told by Ticketfly software that they were all gone.
I fully realized going in that there would be more requests for tickets than there were tickets to be given away, and I fully realized that there was no guarantee that I would be one of the lucky few. After being told not once but twice that all the tickets were gone, I accepted the fact that I was not among the lucky few. What infuriates me is that what I was told by Ticketfly was flat-out FALSE. It was obvious that the demand would be high - WaPo reported beforehand that last year, 35,000 tickets were given away in 1/2 hour. Ticketfly can not say that they did not know there would be a great demand, only that they were not prepared for what they knew would happen. Also, if there are system problems, satisfactory software would tell the user something like "We are experiencing system problem; please try again later". Satisfactory software would not reject valid security word entries, nor would it say that all the tickets were gone when that was not true. Even minimally satisfactory software would not LIE.
If the 9:30 club chooses to use garbageware from a garbage company to conduct its business, that is a choice it is free to make, and it seems to be the choice that the 9:30 club has made. If I choose not to give my money to ticketfly, and if I choose not to put my credit card information into software from ticketfly because I know that ticketfly software is lying garbageware, those are choice which I am free to make. I will continue to go to the 9:30 club for shows as long as I can buy tickets at the club, because it it a great venue and has great bands. But I will never trust ticketfly with my credit card information. The fact that the 9:30 chooses to use garbageware to conduct business leaves a really sour taste in my mouth when it comes to the owners and management of the club, and I am unlikely to be particularly sympathetic to them in other areas, such as the issue of the Fillmore in Silver Spring. On the one hand, it looks like what is going on is wrong, but on the other hand, it seems to just be a case of Mr. Ticketfly being hard-nosed about conducting business. That is his right, but he'll get little sympathy from me.
