Blizzcon 2011 Ticket Advice/Help

[Crusader88]

Hey everyone,

I'm not exactly sure if this is the right forum to put this thread in but I thought it would be the best place. If it isn't and needs to be moved please go ahead and do so.

Anyways, I just have a quick question from those members that have been to Blizzcon and have bought tickets when they went on sale through Blizzard. I really want to get some tickets this year so I want to give myself the best chance I can. What in your experience is the best way to go about paying for the ticket (ie. the quickest). PayPal, Credit Card, etc. Also is it better to go to the Blizzard Store or the Blizzcon website itself to have the best chance to get through the fastest.

Finally, how fast do they normally sell out? 5 minutes? Less? I know I will have to be on literally the second they go on sale for a chance.

Any other tips would be hugely appreciated. I really want to get some tickets this year I've never been before and would absolutely love the opportunity to go.

Thanks in advance!

[Quinafoi]

When the Blizzcon ticket queue is about to go up, the Blizzard Store site is replaced by the queue. In fact I don't even know if you can log in and make other Blizzard Store purchases at this time because the system is entirely shifted to handling the load for the Blizzcon ticket sales.

It doesn't matter how fast you pay, all that matters is how fast you are queued. Once you are at the front of the queue and finalizing your order you have about 30 minutes to actually do so. That is more than enough time to enter payment information.

You should pay with a credit card. The credit card used to make the purchase can assist in the process of proving you paid for the ticket if there is some issue with your claiming it (I've never had to use those customer assistence lines myself because information on the ticket always matched my ID exactly).

The sell out time is actually significantly less than 5 minutes. Generally it is a matter of a few seconds (if you're 15 seconds late getting in queue, you won't get a ticket).

You should log into your account before hand. Not only does this save on time, but if you log in first and happen to have an issue where your browser crashes, it remembers your spot in line server side and it is possible for you to reload the browser and reclaim your spot in line. That same luxury isn't afforded to those that don't log in first. This happened to myself in a prior year (I believe 2009, last year the queue was a lot more stable).

[Kazeyonoma]

also, call in ahead of time to your credit card company and inform them of your purchase that may happen. Sometimes users have had their CC company block the purchase and thus lose out on the ticket purchase because it is a suspicious multi hundred dollar purchase for a gaming website. other than that though, have your cc ready, wake up early, and get your f5 button ready to refresh like a mad man and pray for some good luck.

[Crusader88]

When the Blizzcon ticket queue is about to go up, the Blizzard Store site is replaced by the queue. In fact I don't even know if you can log in and make other Blizzard Store purchases at this time because the system is entirely shifted to handling the load for the Blizzcon ticket sales.

It doesn't matter how fast you pay, all that matters is how fast you are queued. Once you are at the front of the queue and finalizing your order you have about 30 minutes to actually do so. That is more than enough time to enter payment information.

You should pay with a credit card. The credit card used to make the purchase can assist in the process of proving you paid for the ticket if there is some issue with your claiming it (I've never had to use those customer assistence lines myself because information on the ticket always matched my ID exactly).

The sell out time is actually significantly less than 5 minutes. Generally it is a matter of a few seconds (if you're 15 seconds late getting in queue, you won't get a ticket).

You should log into your account before hand. Not only does this save on time, but if you log in first and happen to have an issue where your browser crashes, it remembers your spot in line server side and it is possible for you to reload the browser and reclaim your spot in line. That same luxury isn't afforded to those that don't log in first. This happened to myself in a prior year (I believe 2009, last year the queue was a lot more stable).

So the website I will be wanting to sit on spamming F5 will be the Blizzard Store website itself? I just want to make sure that I am on the right website to be when spamming the refresh button.

Thanks again for the help guys and wish me luck.

[Crusader88]

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone that gave me a little bit of advice on how to get the tickets. I was just barely too far back in the queue on Saturday (5/21). Was in around 500th spot when they sold out. However, after doing some research I found out that you could change the ticket quantity at checkout so I actually got in with two accounts. My friend came over to help and we both got in to get tickets. I am definitely excited it'll be my first Blizzcon. Anyways, thanks to all that helped me again it was much appreciated.

[Kazeyonoma]

yurp, glad to see you got tickets. moving this to off topic btw.

[Crusader88]

Hello again everyone,

I have another question in regards to Blizzcon and the tickets. So as you can see if you read the posts above I was lucky enough to get in quick enough on the second day of ticket sales to get 5 Blizzcon tickets. As I also said I had a friend come over, who also plays WoW, to help me try to get tickets. Since this was my first time buying tickets to Blizzcon, even though I had read everything on the website, I wasn't 100% sure how the process worked exactly. Namely, how when you buy the tickets you have to the attendees information entered on or before June 10th if I am remembering correctly.

Anyways, my friend was into the ticket queue before I was that day so I bought 4 tickets using my CC and billing address but on his account. I than bought one more ticket using my account with a different CC and billing address. Since I'm a college student I was able to use a card registered to my home address and another to my apartment on campus. Before I blabber on too much (I've been up all night so that isn't helping) let me get to what I am concerned about.

So my friend's account, who I bought 4 of the tickets with, wanted to come but wasn't sure if he could or not and this was also the case with some others that were interested but unsure. In turn, I put my name, my battle.net account e-mail, and character name on all four of the tickets I bought using his account. With my one ticket on my account I just didn't fill anything out because I knew it would get defaulted to me although I guess in retrospect I should have just for my character name sake but that's not all that big a deal for me since I have my main characters name on all four of the other tickets. Please forgive me I feel like I am dragging this out way longer than it needs to be but being this tired I want to make sure I am explaining it clearly lol.

So I just want to make sure that I will be able to get all four of those tickets I bought using my friends account since I put my name and battle.net e-mail address on all four tickets come Blizzcon because he himself cannot make it out. I think, if I have read things correctly, since I have my name and battle.net email address entered on the attendee information on all four tickets even though they were purchased on my friends account I will be able to get all of them without a problem since he will not be able to make it out there unfortunately. Including the goodie bag and what not. I have a two friends who have told me they can for sure come now but I need to make sure I can get these tickets and than be able to give them the tickets and I'd like to also give them the goodie bag of course. I guess they just wouldn't be able to get the badge with there name on it though?

I apologize if I dragged that out to much and I hope I made sense. Hopefully someone will at least understand what I am getting at. If you need to know more from me please let me know and I will be happy to answer so that you can better help give me an answer.

Thanks so much.

[Quinafoi]

In order to change the registration at the event you need to stand in a service line to change the information before you stand in the ticket pickup line. As I've never had to use this service myself I do not know the full extent to what is required. Since you do not have the battle.net account holder which the purchase was made under you may run into issues in changing the registration. Since you are the card holder for both transactions and will have the card used to make both purchases they may be able to still assist you. You should be able to pick up the tickets under your own name fine provided the information matches your id regardless.

This is a question better suited for Blizzard directly rather than the community.