One Benefit From NYCC’s New Ticket System
Like many of you reading this, I was at my computer today at Noon Eastern, logging in to the New York Comic Con ticket purchasing queue, hoping to get that ticket counter to appear before me so I could buy a pair of 3-day tickets to help increase our coverage team for this year.
Like last year, however, I stared and stared at the queue page, and despite more frequent refreshes this time, it looked bad for me. So I put out a call on Facebook — anyone in the checkout who can spare them, please buy me two 3-day tickets and I will reimburse you via PayPal. And people responded within minutes. By the time 12:30 rolled around I had my two tickets (OK, the two other team members will have them, a point I will clarify later).
In case you missed it, or don’t ever care about tickets for NYCC, this year the management company that helps run the convention, ReedPOP, launched a new way to buy tickets in an effort to reduce those scarfed up by scalpers or resellers. Between mid-May and mid-June anyone wanting a ticket had to register in the new Fan Verification system. Only those registered would get a link to the ticket queue (in which I waited oh so impatiently). And only those who had registered as a Fan could register a ticket, no matter who bought it, but whoever registers the ticket must be the one using it (how they verify this is still unclear). Which is why the team members will be the ones to have the tickets, not me — if I register them using my Fan profile I have to use them.
This new system meant you couldn’t buy a fistful of tickets (NYCC limited the sales to four of any given type and 12 total per registered Fan) and sell or give them to anyone. And that meant the regular annual statement of “Man, I missed getting tickets — I’ll just buy some before the con from someone” was nowhere to be found.
What was found often on Facebook today — at least in my personal experience and my observations — was people asking for friends to help out with buying tickets if a friend got in the ticket checkout part of the queue first.
Whether intentional or not, NYCC’s new ticket system had the side effect of making social media more social. For at least one hour in late June, Facebook friends were asking for and giving help to each other — and for something that had nothing to do with a tragedy for once.
For those who didn’t get a ticket and didn’t think to reach out to others to get help, I am sorry if this makes getting to NYCC tougher (or impossible) this year. But if ReedPOP uses the same system next year, know that your friends can be counted on to help you get to the biggest comic con in the United States.
