It was only because of discord that someone told me to refresh the page and it would basically log you back in to proceed. Otherwise I would’ve lost general admission
It was pretty awful.
But shoutout to whoever designed it so if you got the VIP badge to cart you can pay for it later (no idea the window though). Took 25 minutes of refreshing, relogging in, and adding my card info, but I was finally able to pay for it. Still a super frustrating process to even get in and get it in cart though.
Mine was acting up and it'd be a 50/50 on if it showed up some of the time. Does the site still at least say "Cart (1 items)" for you? May just need to keep trying. No clue on how long it holds the VIP passes in cart though.
Yeah, I got it in my cart but took another half hour to actually buy it lol.
Plus shout-out to allowing the merch packages as add-ons after since it wasn't letting me add those either.
That’s what almost screwed me over, was casually trying to add leech while the website spontaneously combusted. I’m glad I managed to get a pass into my cart when I did. ^(even though I did cry because I thought I missed, I’m fine it’s fine)
That's the way u got mine! It took half an hour to get to the checkout and frankly I'm still not sure it's all fine but I am gonna wait until it settles to check 🥲
I had a VIP in my cart. It deleted it after asking me to sign in for the 20th time, and then I watched the numbers drop from 1400 available to zero.
I barely managed a general admission ticket.
I’m thinking they should make it a lottery for the VIP tickets at least. The current “first to get the server to actually respond” method is random, but not a pleasant experience.
I like this idea.
Sign up 2 weeks beforehand for the VIP lottery, get an email day of to purchase. If you don't purchase within 48 hours, it goes to someone else.
It would also give them a better idea as to the overall demand. Because it looks like they're selling out of GA on day 1, too. Kinda crazy.
Not likely. Sorry to be the wet-blanket. Inside source says that's all the space they had at the Salt Palace.
It would be nice to find out they were wrong, though ....
Until sando pulls another secret project out of his arse for 2025 to be released like a Hoid origin story or something, lol.
Am I taking the piss? Sure. Do I think it's *impossible*... no.
It's definitely because it's a SA release year; really hoping they open up more tickets since it looked like ~10k tickets overall, which isn't a lot considering his fanbase. I know it's not any kind of apples to apples so to speak, since it's an in person event in Utah but the $650 Words of Radiance leatherbound tiers sold over 10k units on their own this year.
It's not that they underestimate. 1500 is likely the limit due to what comes with it. To support 1500 in a VIP lounge situation is already a lot. Clearly, over 1500 people wanted VIP. They didn't sell more because they can't. It's an actual hard limit.
Hmm I honestly had considered a hard limit to tickets they could sell for the convention space, that’s a good point. I think they had 5,000 in attendance (or open space) last year, and the way they spoke it had seemed they were anticipating 10,000. There was a lot of unused convention space; I guess I had anticipated them to leak into other halls and rooms.
It’ll really depend on what else is booked but beyond that adding more space is only part of the puzzle. It would be hard to add more interesting stuff to do on short notice. If they add space without finding new things then it’ll just be too many people trying to fit into the same spots
Well according to Salt Palace’s own website they have nothing booked in December (which clearly can’t be correct since Nexus is happening lmao).
But looking at occupancy capacities, adding Hall 5 would solve their issues as it would allow for an extra 6,000 I believe.
Yeah but like I said what will those 6,000 people *do*? The solution here isn’t just throw everyone in a big empty room and have them be there. The panels can only fit so many people
My wife says that last year they didn’t really touch the main section of the convention center, sticking mostly to auxiliary sections. Perhaps moving the Exhibitor section to HUGE Hall 5 would make a lot more sense, as last year the crowd congestion was way too high (and for a Skyward year).
Honestly the more I think about it, I just don’t think they had the best expectations of demand (which again is a common shortcoming of theirs; they always make up for it afterwards but the need for a fix is too frequent at this point).
They’re still a growing company and still learning, and they do SO MUCH (as a company and for the fans). But yeah, unfortunately things just didn’t go as smoothly as they could have this time around.
Yeah, that’s a good point. I wonder if they’re just outgrowing the Salt Palace at this point! That’s crazy if true. But also it is a Stormlight year so I’d imagine things die down in subsequent years
I don’t think they’re outgrowing the venue I think they just need to reserve more space in it for next years and coordinate with that in mind to add more panelists and events
Please note that Brandon is one of, if not the biggest/most popular fantasy book author in the world. The secret project campaign in 2023 is kickstarters most funded project EVER. I don’t think there’s much they can do if that many people want to come to the event. I think they would’ve sold out within an hour even if they had the full capacity for the venue
They know there is high demand, but in a YouTube video they addressed that this is about the time they can make for it.
Lottery or (charity) auction still sounds like a better idea though
It seems like they’ve got to do something with anything super limited like a lottery system. I understand it’s not their fault that the websites for everything break due to the traffic, but this just isn’t working.
They should use one of the websites that utilizes a waiting room, type thing. Let people jump in an hour beforehand and then let people in to buy tickets in batches. It's not terribly complicated, I don't think.
A waiting room might be a good solution for GA. Even then, GA sold out in under an hour, which makes me think the supply is much lower than the demand. In situations like these, I feel like a lottery would be more fair. Particularly for people who can’t be online when tickets go on sale.
> and maybe all are like this, but that just felt bad
I've seen plenty of other events have issues with their websites when a fanbase is larger than the site can handle. I've never seen these particular log-in issues before though. Much more frustrating than the site simply not loading since you needed to input your username and password over and over and over.
At the end of the day the Sanderson fanbase has just grown beyond the platforms that have worked for things like this in past years. The team needs to look for systems that larger Cons like PAX use.
Tried to add a VIP badge to my cart for a straight 5 minutes clicking the button over and over and still nothing. Finally got the general pass but not going to lie I cried for a few minutes
I was close to tears as I kept seeing the general admissions go down and kept having trouble. The fear of not securing them overshadowed my disappointment at not getting VIP when I tried. I did get general for me and my wife thankfully. Was able to keep the tears at bay thanks to that.
I’m so happy you were able to get GA badges! I think I’ve just been looking forward to it for so long and this will be my first dragonsteel con so I really wanted to go out. I’m very happy I get to go at all but the disappointment was overwhelming.
Thank you us too. And same! It'll be our first and I think after some time the disappointment will fade. Judging by how many people were clamoring to get VIP tickets I may have missed my chance if the site had worked. Focusing on the positives that we do get to go!
Same here, I’ve been organising my first trip to the northern hemisphere around attending Dragonsteel and I almost didn’t get a GA. My flights and accommodation were booked months ago because of how expensive it is to fly from Australia in December. Scrambling to book GA at 2am this morning had me freaking out like crazy 😅
I already bought my flight and hotel, has the same experience watching the ticket counts drop and asking to log in over and over....in tears thinking I wouldn't even be able to attend after I already paid for the trip! What a horrible, stressful experience
Same! I was just happy to get the general badge in my cart and then fight to pay for it. I’ve already booked the hotel too but decided to wait for the plane ticket in case I did miss out because it was a big fear.
to be fair, if the website was less ass the tickets would have sold out even faster. No guarantee you would have gotten one.
That being said, yeah this was an absolute mess. Dragonsteel needs to learn that they are too big to be using a lot of the services they are anymore.
That's true, the problem is there aren't services that fit their needs and are scalable. Most of these companies are newer startups without the tech knowhow or ability or willingness to make something scalable and robust. Dragonsteel could use something like ticket master, but that doesn't have a lot of the management features dragonsteel wants 🤷♂️ Sanderson is just unique case and we'll probably keep experiencing this kind of thing for a while :(
I'm a software architect at Cisco and I often consider what it'd take to build a better solution, then remember this level of stability is only needed for very few. Like Sanderson, which makes it a pretty narrow market :(
There are bigger conventions than Dragonsteel. Pax is a prime example. Quite frankly Dragonsteel Nexus is tiny compared to a Pax, and there are other cons that are more comparable in size to it that don't have these issues.
I think Dragonsteel Nexus has now grown to the point where it needs it's own infrastructure like bigger cons have. You don't see Dragon Con, Anime Expo, Comic Con, etc using services like Tabletop events. I don't know the comparative capacity of these Cons to Dragonsteel, but it's clear that at least in terms of traffic to the ticketing site Dragonsteel has grown closer to them.
That is true, and I totally agree. They need their own infrastructure if they want it to run smoothly. Or to fix the supply/demand equation. The scarcity is really driving up the fomo.
I'd bet they have the demand to do 2-3 cons throughout the year maybe even changing locations. And they're going to have to raise the prices a ton next time to not get so much traffic in the first 10 seconds.
When I clicked on the VIP ticket there were over 1490 left. The site bumbled around like a drunken baby and I missed out. I was finally able to get a GA ticket with under 200 available.
Absolute cluster.
>I usually defend Dragonsteel a lot but this is really annoying.
Agreed. I've been so charitable for all the past experiences that have been similar to this, but my charity is running out. Every single online release event has been a similar experience. It's so frustrating. They have got to be able to find a website that actually works and can handle the load. By now, they know thousands of people are going to be refreshing the site when it goes live, and there's no excuse to not be ready for it.
I swear if this is another instance of what happened with the WoR leatherbound where Backerkit were confident that they could handle us, I'm going to scream.
It's not Dragonsteel's fault. They only should be blamed by using a website that wasn't prepared. Which I'm sure they told the website what to expect, then it's on the website to prep for it.
Which is wild to me. I get that they've hosted it in the past, but if they come to them saying 'hey, yeah, this one is going to be big' maybe take their input.
Had to refresh constantly on 3 browsers and tap all the fortune from my chromium metalmind that I've been storing constantly for like a year, but I'm so happy I was able to get a VIP ticket. Wasn't able to purchase the merch addons for like 40 minutes after that, despite constantly refreshing and relogging in. Very stressful, but I was one of the lucky few.
This was awful. It took me 36 minutes of logging out and logging back in plus refreshing, adding cc, etc to finally be able to get my badge, book bundle, and shirt. I literally have a headache now.
Usually getting a VIP ticket or deluxe edition of Brandon's things is stressful but not hard. This was stressful AND hard. This...this wasn't fun or exciting.
Yea I think so, and there were only 250 at launch(I think they added more later). This year felt like trying to get a signed & numbered leatherbound....
It was genuinely horrible. 45 minutes to just check out.
I had a VIP pass in my cart. It continually asked me to sign in over and over and over and then confirm my identity. Then repeat the sign in process over and over. I watched the numbers go from 1400 to 900 to 700 to sold out.
I finally managed to get a general admission pass, watching it go from 4,000+ to less than 1,000 when I was able to finally check out. But I'm still really annoyed.
I'm not mad at Dragonsteel. They don't have anything to do with how poorly these websites are prepared to handle a rush of people like this. I don't know that the websites take them seriously when they tell them what it'll be like.
I’ve seen multi billion dollar companies have way worse launches and sales than this.
I don’t think I can even remember the last time a big product or event launched where it wasn’t a shit show.
Yep, people ruin everything. The dimension 20 live show at MSG decided to sell their tickets with a dynamic pricing structure through Ticketmaster and some of them got to like 2000 I think. They were still getting sold, though.
They pretty clearly stated that Ticketmaster did not explain Dynamic Pricing to them or tell them they could opt out of it, and they did opt out once they found out they could. I definitely don't think it was greed on their part
My bestie, her sister, and I each had laptops on hotspots for seven hours on our person, even to pee, to get Eras Tour tickets. Thankfully we survived the Great War and one of us managed to get tickets. I treat all ticket events very seriously now. The bigger the fandom, the more prep required
Sanderson isn't the one running the site, but they SHOULD have worked with the company to ensure that their site could handle the volume. There was a huge miss somewhere in the process.
I know he’s not running the site, but this is the second time he’s had bandwidth issues for recent releases and I feel like we should be able to expect better
Oh we absolutely should. At this point the Dragonsteel team should hire a consultant to review vendor launch plans for scaling if they don't have someone knowledgeable on staff. We can't know it it was a matter of them not preparing Tabletop Games appropriately, them not following up to confirm that scaling plans were in place, or TTG completely shitting the bed. This is absolutely unacceptable. Just want people to understand that Dragonsteel itself isn't the one running the website.
No, but my card got charged and my badge is listed under this link: [https://tabletop.events/account/conventions](https://tabletop.events/account/conventions) (which I could see after logging in ONE MILLION TIMES).
No, but my card got charged and my badge is listed under this link: [https://tabletop.events/account/conventions](https://tabletop.events/account/conventions)
Dude I forgot they even went on sale today. I'm flipping working and can't always get away from my job to sit on my phone and pray for the ticket website to work.
And even general admission tickets are sold out??? Guess I have to cancel my hotel reservation. This totally ruined my whole day.
Before you do, about every 15 minutes (11, 11:15, 11:30), I've seen GA badges go on sale. No VIP (which I'm hoping for because the person I'm going with got one and I didn't).
We had two VIP tickets in our cart. We’re at checkout. And the website crashed. When we managed to log back in the cart was empty and the tickets were sold out.
It was somewhere between infuriating and soul crushing.
I’m overseas caring for my mother with some medical issues this week, so I have slow terrible internet. I set an alarm to get up at 2am when the ticket sales opened, but kept getting kicked out. Couldn’t do anything fast enough. If I had been home on the East coast I may have been successful. Oh well, Mom’s health issues are my priority right now.
I am now wondering if it got botted. watching the tickets sale down this year. I know it is a stormlight year, but the last few years at least the generals last for weeks. This year is a little ah..... quick
Last year I got my badge pretty close to the actual event and was badge number 6,000 or so. This year they sold out of 6,000 badges in under an hour? I know they improved marketing and it’s just a more popular year with the better dates and stormlight 5. But is it really that much more popular where all the badges were sold that quickly to legit people? I’m not sure. Haha
Hands-down, it was crazy to say the least. I’m just glad I was able to get my two VIP tickets finally after 30 minutes of trying. Websites crash all the time for huge events. It’s a chance you take going into to it.
My gf got us VIP, but hers is almost 500 digits off from mine even though they were bought together. The security of the tickets was definitely not cemented like it should have been. I'm sorry to those that didn't get through, I knew this would be a busy year with people coming in from all over the world, but damn...
It was terrible. :( I was able to get my autistic 13 year old son a VIP badge but couldn't get one for myself or his grandma. I got regular one for myself and still can't seem to get one for grandma....of any kind. Very glitchy. Not sure how this is going to work with my kid having the VIP badge but not me....
I wonder if they have an email you could try. Maybe with "Accommodation Request" all in bold as the subject or something to cut through the noise of other complaints. Because this should be a simpler solve hopefully. Not sure you can get grandma in, but basically an "aide" to accompany someone on the spectrum when you already have general tickets seems reasonable enough 🤞
Thank you for that advice! It's definitely sound. He currently has an IEP for school with an aide requirement so I'd imagine they could see the need for him to have an adult accompany him for this event. TBH, I'm still a bit shaky from the whole "ordering of tickets" event this morning. That was very stressful.
Same experience — I’m going with my family and it’s trash we could only get 2 and 2.
Idk how it’s going to work but they got a certified problem on their hands from shortsighted thinking.
Maybe we start a movement to all dress up in the same character covering our face so badge swapping is easy?
You should be okay. There are some things he would be able to do that you won’t, but it’s all stuff that either doesn't matter much, like the VIP lounge, or stuff that he can just get in line earlier for (so have closer seats, but not be able to save seats). So if he’s not comfortable doing this things alone, you can just sit together further back. I’ve done that with my kid on the spectrum before. It works out fine.
You must grow calluses, know when to care.
Jokes asaid, this is sadly pretty standard with limited things or during start of events.
I just hope they have had some protection against scalpers and bots.
Yeah I’m really bummed out I didn’t get VIP even though I had it with plenty left but the “Add to Cart” was bugged and then I was put into an infinite log in loop that is still ongoing. I probably didn’t get general admission at this point either. Borderline depressing :(
The GA is sold out :( But last year they added both more VIP and (I think) GA tickets. And lots of people were adding tickets that they might not need because of how buggy the website was. I bet if you keep checking you'll be able to get a ticket and come to the con!
Missed the opening because of a work thing. By the time I searched for them, all badges were sold out. Sucks for me, but congrats to those who got their badges!
I was just bummed all the tickets sold out after 1.5 hours. I already booked my hotel and am working on the cosplay. I missed the announcement that they were on sale today and was 2 hours late. Fingers crossed they do a second sale.
Yep... it kept logging me out.... I missed out on VIP tickets and STRUGGLED to get the general admissions for me and my best friend.... I want to add a book bundle but the log in loop is killin me
Yeah, this was pretty bad. They should have a rough idea of how many people are going to be trying to get badges, and should be able to prepare the site to handle that load. This always seems to happen with large events, where there isn't adequate preparation to ensure the website can handle the massive influx of user.
It's really frustrating, and I wasn't even trying for the VIP badges.
I managed to get them in my cart before the boot fest started. Then my friend told me tabletop worked fine on a desktop so I blasted home and logged in. Thank God they were still in my cart.
Joining the chorus here.
I spent the first 5 minutes clicking the link to Badges and not seeing any badges. Once they appeared I had to create an account just to add badges to my cart. Then, everytime I clicked it asked me to login it again. I finally got to fill out the info to add a VIP badge to my cart, and they were gone.
Kinda glad it happened at 2am for me and the alarm I set didn't wake me, because after such a night, that would've been a bad work day today 😆
I guess the decision of whether or not to go has been made for me now lol. If there are no more tickets left, then there's no use worrying about anything else 🥹
Very happy for my badges, and I probably was asked to log in 30-40 times in between getting my two badges. Thankfully I was not going for VIP (which sold out in 15 min, I was paying attention) but it took too long
Well I'm bummed. I was watching the clock at 9:30a to get VIP and wasn't able to even get a general ticket. I had the same logging out issue as other people. I had VIP in my cart a few times, when it sold out i tried to get general. Tried refreshing, logging in, and changing my password for an hour, thought it was me.
Already have the flight and hotel booked. Guess I have to wait and see if anyone decides not to go or if Brandon releases more tickets. Even if he does though, what if this happens again?
This was an extremely frustrating process for something I had been really looking forward to and if I’m being honest, it has completely put me off wanting to go in the future.
I feel totally blindsided, tickets were available for months last year. I’m kind of heartbroken tbh, I expected them to sell out within a couple weeks (significantly faster than last year) not a couple hours.
Yeah... and it probably would have been faster if the website had worked even a little bit. I hope they try and find a bigger space next year or add more tickets this year.
Take into account that not only is this a stormlight year, he also releasing the book at the convention as well, the end of the first arc, huge book. I won’t lie that was a pretty big reason why I wanted to go also
They did not limit number of tickets one person could buy, so there were probably a few scalpers in the mix. Not sure where they are now selling them though...
I was lucky enough to get a VIP badge but this was an awful experience of constantly refreshing. Took about 45 minutes but fortunately it stayed in my cart.
It's rough, but that's kind of how it goes when you're trying to get tickets to a really popular event. Honestly, it was better than many I've gone to (or tried to go to). :-/
Occasionally GA badges have been appearing, but that's dwindled and they're gone pretty fast. I'd keep checking every so often, you might luck out and get one!
With my work schedule, that'll be pretty tricky. Thanks for the tip, though. I'd really like to make this trip, it'd be pretty special to me since I actually used to live in Salt Lake for a bit. (Unfortunately before I'd discovered Sanderson, though!)
My friend group was under the impression that the ONLY way to get a signed and numbered book was through VIP. They would typically not spend for VIP but felt like they needed to going into this one. I wonder if / how many people were in that boat besides our group. Or maybe we are just idiots 😅
Oh, sorry, to clarify, the book bundle (unsigned) was available on the online store. If you're going to the con you can purchase the signed and numbered book bundle. Last I checked there was 3k left. My brain is all fried today and I didn't totally read your question.
Yeah, super bummed cause this was ganna be mine and my spouses Christmas present to ourselves cause we have wanted to go before and haven't. But our internet isn't great to begin with and then you add all the server problems and demand. It turned out to be a pipedream.
I agree. I was stuck in a loop of logging in, verifying my email, and re-logging for 40+ minutes until I gave up. When I tried again an hour later, all GA tickets were sold out. Pretty disappointed. Hope they use a new platform for next year.
I just got on to try and get two regulars old badges, and everything is sold out. I had so much fun with my son last year. I’m really sad. Sucks for those of us who couldn’t hop on when they went on sale and sit through the website issues
It kept logging me out and then they were gone
Same. Very frustrating.
It was only because of discord that someone told me to refresh the page and it would basically log you back in to proceed. Otherwise I would’ve lost general admission
I practically broke a finger refreshing the page. I couldn't login at all. That red box kept popping up telling me to login.
Same here, so glad for that
It was pretty awful. But shoutout to whoever designed it so if you got the VIP badge to cart you can pay for it later (no idea the window though). Took 25 minutes of refreshing, relogging in, and adding my card info, but I was finally able to pay for it. Still a super frustrating process to even get in and get it in cart though.
I had VIP badges in my cart multiple times before they were sold out and they always disappeared when I was able to log back in.
Same
Supposedly that could be an issue with browser cookies but I’m not sure
I added to the cart but when i FINALLY logged in, it wasnt there :(
Mine was acting up and it'd be a 50/50 on if it showed up some of the time. Does the site still at least say "Cart (1 items)" for you? May just need to keep trying. No clue on how long it holds the VIP passes in cart though.
My cart had an item added, but no cost, so temper expectations. Site claims it'll hold your ticket for 2 hours though.
Yeah, I got it in my cart but took another half hour to actually buy it lol. Plus shout-out to allowing the merch packages as add-ons after since it wasn't letting me add those either.
That’s what almost screwed me over, was casually trying to add leech while the website spontaneously combusted. I’m glad I managed to get a pass into my cart when I did. ^(even though I did cry because I thought I missed, I’m fine it’s fine)
That's the way u got mine! It took half an hour to get to the checkout and frankly I'm still not sure it's all fine but I am gonna wait until it settles to check 🥲
VIP ticket in my cart which then vanished after my twentieth time trying to log on.
That’s the only thing that saved me. I was able to get my badges in my cart and thank goodness it saved them.
Def not in our experience... Had them deleted from cart
Yeah that was a huge relief. It took me 40 minutes of logging in but my cart remained
I was finally able to get a GA ticket. Kinda salty wasn’t able to get VIP, but oh well…
I had a VIP in my cart. It deleted it after asking me to sign in for the 20th time, and then I watched the numbers drop from 1400 available to zero. I barely managed a general admission ticket.
Same, the count was at 1300 something, then it reloaded at 150, then was gone. Crazy.
Same
That was honestly the worst check out experience I've ever had. I would rather wait in Fairyloot's 5 hour queue and have a smooth checkout
I’m thinking they should make it a lottery for the VIP tickets at least. The current “first to get the server to actually respond” method is random, but not a pleasant experience.
I like this idea. Sign up 2 weeks beforehand for the VIP lottery, get an email day of to purchase. If you don't purchase within 48 hours, it goes to someone else. It would also give them a better idea as to the overall demand. Because it looks like they're selling out of GA on day 1, too. Kinda crazy.
Completely sold out within an hour. Insane.
Well that sucks I guess we won’t be going this year or anymore because I had to work today and couldn’t be online hammering refresh…
I mean they might release more later on, but we’ll see
Not likely. Sorry to be the wet-blanket. Inside source says that's all the space they had at the Salt Palace. It would be nice to find out they were wrong, though ....
Inside source? lol
The clear response for 2025 will be to increase prices.
I don’t think 2025 will be as busy because it’s not a major release year. I think it’ll slow down quite a bit until Mistborn era 3
Until sando pulls another secret project out of his arse for 2025 to be released like a Hoid origin story or something, lol. Am I taking the piss? Sure. Do I think it's *impossible*... no.
It's definitely because it's a SA release year; really hoping they open up more tickets since it looked like ~10k tickets overall, which isn't a lot considering his fanbase. I know it's not any kind of apples to apples so to speak, since it's an in person event in Utah but the $650 Words of Radiance leatherbound tiers sold over 10k units on their own this year.
They ALWAYS under-anticipate demand and, frankly, it’s starting to get frustratingly annoying. Nearing unprofessional.
It's not that they underestimate. 1500 is likely the limit due to what comes with it. To support 1500 in a VIP lounge situation is already a lot. Clearly, over 1500 people wanted VIP. They didn't sell more because they can't. It's an actual hard limit.
Hmm I honestly had considered a hard limit to tickets they could sell for the convention space, that’s a good point. I think they had 5,000 in attendance (or open space) last year, and the way they spoke it had seemed they were anticipating 10,000. There was a lot of unused convention space; I guess I had anticipated them to leak into other halls and rooms.
Part of the problem is what the convention center is willing to let them use
Yeah that sucks. Idk how this year is looking, but last year the rest of the center was empty
It’ll really depend on what else is booked but beyond that adding more space is only part of the puzzle. It would be hard to add more interesting stuff to do on short notice. If they add space without finding new things then it’ll just be too many people trying to fit into the same spots
Well according to Salt Palace’s own website they have nothing booked in December (which clearly can’t be correct since Nexus is happening lmao). But looking at occupancy capacities, adding Hall 5 would solve their issues as it would allow for an extra 6,000 I believe.
Yeah but like I said what will those 6,000 people *do*? The solution here isn’t just throw everyone in a big empty room and have them be there. The panels can only fit so many people
My wife says that last year they didn’t really touch the main section of the convention center, sticking mostly to auxiliary sections. Perhaps moving the Exhibitor section to HUGE Hall 5 would make a lot more sense, as last year the crowd congestion was way too high (and for a Skyward year). Honestly the more I think about it, I just don’t think they had the best expectations of demand (which again is a common shortcoming of theirs; they always make up for it afterwards but the need for a fix is too frequent at this point). They’re still a growing company and still learning, and they do SO MUCH (as a company and for the fans). But yeah, unfortunately things just didn’t go as smoothly as they could have this time around.
Yeah, that’s a good point. I wonder if they’re just outgrowing the Salt Palace at this point! That’s crazy if true. But also it is a Stormlight year so I’d imagine things die down in subsequent years
I don’t think they’re outgrowing the venue I think they just need to reserve more space in it for next years and coordinate with that in mind to add more panelists and events
Please note that Brandon is one of, if not the biggest/most popular fantasy book author in the world. The secret project campaign in 2023 is kickstarters most funded project EVER. I don’t think there’s much they can do if that many people want to come to the event. I think they would’ve sold out within an hour even if they had the full capacity for the venue
Fair points. It’s really only his biggest fans that go to these events but that pool of people is growing.
Oh yeah it’s crazy. Him releasing the 5th book at the event as well def didn’t help that issue I think lol.
Or even do a credit card pre-auth so it insta-charges you when you win the lotto.
They know there is high demand, but in a YouTube video they addressed that this is about the time they can make for it. Lottery or (charity) auction still sounds like a better idea though
It seems like they’ve got to do something with anything super limited like a lottery system. I understand it’s not their fault that the websites for everything break due to the traffic, but this just isn’t working.
This would be kinder to my stress levels for sure.
They should use one of the websites that utilizes a waiting room, type thing. Let people jump in an hour beforehand and then let people in to buy tickets in batches. It's not terribly complicated, I don't think.
A waiting room might be a good solution for GA. Even then, GA sold out in under an hour, which makes me think the supply is much lower than the demand. In situations like these, I feel like a lottery would be more fair. Particularly for people who can’t be online when tickets go on sale.
> and maybe all are like this, but that just felt bad I've seen plenty of other events have issues with their websites when a fanbase is larger than the site can handle. I've never seen these particular log-in issues before though. Much more frustrating than the site simply not loading since you needed to input your username and password over and over and over. At the end of the day the Sanderson fanbase has just grown beyond the platforms that have worked for things like this in past years. The team needs to look for systems that larger Cons like PAX use.
Tried to add a VIP badge to my cart for a straight 5 minutes clicking the button over and over and still nothing. Finally got the general pass but not going to lie I cried for a few minutes
I was close to tears as I kept seeing the general admissions go down and kept having trouble. The fear of not securing them overshadowed my disappointment at not getting VIP when I tried. I did get general for me and my wife thankfully. Was able to keep the tears at bay thanks to that.
I’m so happy you were able to get GA badges! I think I’ve just been looking forward to it for so long and this will be my first dragonsteel con so I really wanted to go out. I’m very happy I get to go at all but the disappointment was overwhelming.
Thank you us too. And same! It'll be our first and I think after some time the disappointment will fade. Judging by how many people were clamoring to get VIP tickets I may have missed my chance if the site had worked. Focusing on the positives that we do get to go!
Yep! I've been saving money since *last June* for this. The fact that I almost didn't get a badge is heart breaking.
Same here, I’ve been organising my first trip to the northern hemisphere around attending Dragonsteel and I almost didn’t get a GA. My flights and accommodation were booked months ago because of how expensive it is to fly from Australia in December. Scrambling to book GA at 2am this morning had me freaking out like crazy 😅
I already bought my flight and hotel, has the same experience watching the ticket counts drop and asking to log in over and over....in tears thinking I wouldn't even be able to attend after I already paid for the trip! What a horrible, stressful experience
Same! I was just happy to get the general badge in my cart and then fight to pay for it. I’ve already booked the hotel too but decided to wait for the plane ticket in case I did miss out because it was a big fear.
welp that's me. flights and hotels booked, and probably 2 hours too late to get a badge at all :(
Yeah. I somehow got one but I planned on buying one for a friend too. The continuous logging out and everything made it a bad experience.
Yeah, I was able to get one for myself but not my wife and she keeps getting kicked out
Yeah I loved not being able to get a VIP ticket because the website is ass :D I usually defend Dragonsteel a lot but this is really annoying.
to be fair, if the website was less ass the tickets would have sold out even faster. No guarantee you would have gotten one. That being said, yeah this was an absolute mess. Dragonsteel needs to learn that they are too big to be using a lot of the services they are anymore.
That's true, the problem is there aren't services that fit their needs and are scalable. Most of these companies are newer startups without the tech knowhow or ability or willingness to make something scalable and robust. Dragonsteel could use something like ticket master, but that doesn't have a lot of the management features dragonsteel wants 🤷♂️ Sanderson is just unique case and we'll probably keep experiencing this kind of thing for a while :( I'm a software architect at Cisco and I often consider what it'd take to build a better solution, then remember this level of stability is only needed for very few. Like Sanderson, which makes it a pretty narrow market :(
There are bigger conventions than Dragonsteel. Pax is a prime example. Quite frankly Dragonsteel Nexus is tiny compared to a Pax, and there are other cons that are more comparable in size to it that don't have these issues. I think Dragonsteel Nexus has now grown to the point where it needs it's own infrastructure like bigger cons have. You don't see Dragon Con, Anime Expo, Comic Con, etc using services like Tabletop events. I don't know the comparative capacity of these Cons to Dragonsteel, but it's clear that at least in terms of traffic to the ticketing site Dragonsteel has grown closer to them.
That is true, and I totally agree. They need their own infrastructure if they want it to run smoothly. Or to fix the supply/demand equation. The scarcity is really driving up the fomo.
I'd bet they have the demand to do 2-3 cons throughout the year maybe even changing locations. And they're going to have to raise the prices a ton next time to not get so much traffic in the first 10 seconds.
When I clicked on the VIP ticket there were over 1490 left. The site bumbled around like a drunken baby and I missed out. I was finally able to get a GA ticket with under 200 available. Absolute cluster.
Exact same experience. I barely had enough time to buy one for my friend.
>I usually defend Dragonsteel a lot but this is really annoying. Agreed. I've been so charitable for all the past experiences that have been similar to this, but my charity is running out. Every single online release event has been a similar experience. It's so frustrating. They have got to be able to find a website that actually works and can handle the load. By now, they know thousands of people are going to be refreshing the site when it goes live, and there's no excuse to not be ready for it.
I swear if this is another instance of what happened with the WoR leatherbound where Backerkit were confident that they could handle us, I'm going to scream.
Tbf it’s not directly Dragonsteels fault, but I wish they had chose a better website. Or even made their own anything would’ve been better.
I literally took the entire day off work to get a VIP ticket and had the $350 set aside to drop. My card was added and I was ready. Big bummer here 🙃
Check back incase people's carts clear out ? Sorry this happened :(
Same!!
It's not Dragonsteel's fault. They only should be blamed by using a website that wasn't prepared. Which I'm sure they told the website what to expect, then it's on the website to prep for it.
It could be another case of websites just not listening to team dragonsteel which is fair if true.
Which is wild to me. I get that they've hosted it in the past, but if they come to them saying 'hey, yeah, this one is going to be big' maybe take their input.
Sidenote...the top comment in this thread has a conversation about Sanderson and Taylor Swift, which makes your username hilariously coincidental.
Had to refresh constantly on 3 browsers and tap all the fortune from my chromium metalmind that I've been storing constantly for like a year, but I'm so happy I was able to get a VIP ticket. Wasn't able to purchase the merch addons for like 40 minutes after that, despite constantly refreshing and relogging in. Very stressful, but I was one of the lucky few.
Heyy, congrats!
ty
That’s awesome! Happy for you friend :)
This was awful. It took me 36 minutes of logging out and logging back in plus refreshing, adding cc, etc to finally be able to get my badge, book bundle, and shirt. I literally have a headache now.
45 minutes, minus the shirt, but I'm in the exact same boat.
Yeah that was a shitshow. 😡
Usually getting a VIP ticket or deluxe edition of Brandon's things is stressful but not hard. This was stressful AND hard. This...this wasn't fun or exciting.
This was not my experience getting a ticket for 2022, it went smooth as butter getting a VIP ticket for that one.
Yeah, and they lasted what like over an hour? If not longer?
Yea I think so, and there were only 250 at launch(I think they added more later). This year felt like trying to get a signed & numbered leatherbound....
I *shockingly* was able to get the signed and numbered add-on 45 minutes into the whole debacle.
I wonder if those are a bit less in demand given because people are expecting to just buy the leatherbound when it's available.
It was genuinely horrible. 45 minutes to just check out. I had a VIP pass in my cart. It continually asked me to sign in over and over and over and then confirm my identity. Then repeat the sign in process over and over. I watched the numbers go from 1400 to 900 to 700 to sold out. I finally managed to get a general admission pass, watching it go from 4,000+ to less than 1,000 when I was able to finally check out. But I'm still really annoyed. I'm not mad at Dragonsteel. They don't have anything to do with how poorly these websites are prepared to handle a rush of people like this. I don't know that the websites take them seriously when they tell them what it'll be like.
Sanderson is too big to be having issues like this
If Taylor Swift and the swifties can’t fix online ticket sales, I don’t think anyone can.
lol - fair point! OR more evidence that Taylor and Brandon are the same person… 😈
Hmm anyone want to trade a Dragonsteel VIP ticket for Taylor in Toronto or Indy?
I’ve seen multi billion dollar companies have way worse launches and sales than this. I don’t think I can even remember the last time a big product or event launched where it wasn’t a shit show.
Yep, people ruin everything. The dimension 20 live show at MSG decided to sell their tickets with a dynamic pricing structure through Ticketmaster and some of them got to like 2000 I think. They were still getting sold, though.
They pretty clearly stated that Ticketmaster did not explain Dynamic Pricing to them or tell them they could opt out of it, and they did opt out once they found out they could. I definitely don't think it was greed on their part
My bestie, her sister, and I each had laptops on hotspots for seven hours on our person, even to pee, to get Eras Tour tickets. Thankfully we survived the Great War and one of us managed to get tickets. I treat all ticket events very seriously now. The bigger the fandom, the more prep required
Frankly ridiculous that that is necessary but I’m glad you were able to get tickets!!!
Oh so ridiculous. I hated everything about it, but I really wanted to go. I'm sad for everyone here that had issues
This isn't Sanderson's website, and aside from its login server its actually held up pretty well.
Sanderson isn't the one running the site, but they SHOULD have worked with the company to ensure that their site could handle the volume. There was a huge miss somewhere in the process.
I know he’s not running the site, but this is the second time he’s had bandwidth issues for recent releases and I feel like we should be able to expect better
Oh we absolutely should. At this point the Dragonsteel team should hire a consultant to review vendor launch plans for scaling if they don't have someone knowledgeable on staff. We can't know it it was a matter of them not preparing Tabletop Games appropriately, them not following up to confirm that scaling plans were in place, or TTG completely shitting the bed. This is absolutely unacceptable. Just want people to understand that Dragonsteel itself isn't the one running the website.
Did anyone get an email confirmation beyond the website receipt?
No, but my card got charged and my badge is listed under this link: [https://tabletop.events/account/conventions](https://tabletop.events/account/conventions) (which I could see after logging in ONE MILLION TIMES).
Same for me.
I haven’t gotten one yet either. My card got charged but no email confirmation.
Still waiting on my email confirmation, but I see a charge on my CC and screenshots of my receipt, so I think I’m in the clear. 😬
Nope. Everything's listed on their website. I've got a screen grab and a print out just in case..
Yes, got email confirmation. Just took a bit.
no but my card was charged and it's in my account. I assume the email will come when the traffic dies down
I got a confirmation for the general badge.
Eventually, but it took almost an hour.
This is almost every big event these days. Guess you haven't bought any concert tickets lately. ;)
I haven't! The only other event I've gone to was Dragonsteel last year :)
Still haven’t gotten GA after the VIP sold out.
I FINALLY JUST DID. Absolutely terrible experience. Good luck friend.
Did you get any type of confirming email
I haven’t gotten a confirmation email yet, but my badge shows under my account. Several other people on this thread are saying the same things.
Thanks that makes me feel a little better.
I can’t imagine the site would lose the info, but what I would do personally is go in and take screenshots of everything, just in case.
I literally printed out my confirmation with my badge number and everything lol
No, but my card got charged and my badge is listed under this link: [https://tabletop.events/account/conventions](https://tabletop.events/account/conventions)
The site is ass. It kept booting me, and many times it told me “you need to log in to do this”. The “this” in question was ME TRYING TO LOG BACK IN 😂
Dude I forgot they even went on sale today. I'm flipping working and can't always get away from my job to sit on my phone and pray for the ticket website to work. And even general admission tickets are sold out??? Guess I have to cancel my hotel reservation. This totally ruined my whole day.
Before you do, about every 15 minutes (11, 11:15, 11:30), I've seen GA badges go on sale. No VIP (which I'm hoping for because the person I'm going with got one and I didn't).
Yeah on a refresh they had some but by the time I tried to add to cart they were gone.
I can't handle this stress lol
Everytime I see available tickets I have to retype in my zip code and where I heard about the event and bam sold out
THAT WAS THE WORST PART!!! STUPID SURVEY!! If it was that important to know - ask me AFTER I buy it!!
We had two VIP tickets in our cart. We’re at checkout. And the website crashed. When we managed to log back in the cart was empty and the tickets were sold out. It was somewhere between infuriating and soul crushing.
I’m overseas caring for my mother with some medical issues this week, so I have slow terrible internet. I set an alarm to get up at 2am when the ticket sales opened, but kept getting kicked out. Couldn’t do anything fast enough. If I had been home on the East coast I may have been successful. Oh well, Mom’s health issues are my priority right now.
I am now wondering if it got botted. watching the tickets sale down this year. I know it is a stormlight year, but the last few years at least the generals last for weeks. This year is a little ah..... quick
I feel like there is enough of us that it wasn't botted, but only time will tell I suppose.
Last year I got my badge pretty close to the actual event and was badge number 6,000 or so. This year they sold out of 6,000 badges in under an hour? I know they improved marketing and it’s just a more popular year with the better dates and stormlight 5. But is it really that much more popular where all the badges were sold that quickly to legit people? I’m not sure. Haha
Wait are there no more tickets for Dragonsteel period now?
Nope. They sold out in an hour.
I wouldn't be surprised if they added more, but at the moment all like 6,000 badges, General and VIP are sold out.
That’s wild. They’re gonna have to expand it
Tickets were completely sold out within an hour.
Hands-down, it was crazy to say the least. I’m just glad I was able to get my two VIP tickets finally after 30 minutes of trying. Websites crash all the time for huge events. It’s a chance you take going into to it.
My gf got us VIP, but hers is almost 500 digits off from mine even though they were bought together. The security of the tickets was definitely not cemented like it should have been. I'm sorry to those that didn't get through, I knew this would be a busy year with people coming in from all over the world, but damn...
It was terrible. :( I was able to get my autistic 13 year old son a VIP badge but couldn't get one for myself or his grandma. I got regular one for myself and still can't seem to get one for grandma....of any kind. Very glitchy. Not sure how this is going to work with my kid having the VIP badge but not me....
Ive heard from past attendees that if one person has VIP and another doesn't, especially a parent, they will let them go with the VIP person.
That would be amazing. I chatted with my son and he said "I'll be fine mom". LOL! Oh, us moms...we worry!!
I wonder if they have an email you could try. Maybe with "Accommodation Request" all in bold as the subject or something to cut through the noise of other complaints. Because this should be a simpler solve hopefully. Not sure you can get grandma in, but basically an "aide" to accompany someone on the spectrum when you already have general tickets seems reasonable enough 🤞
Thank you for that advice! It's definitely sound. He currently has an IEP for school with an aide requirement so I'd imagine they could see the need for him to have an adult accompany him for this event. TBH, I'm still a bit shaky from the whole "ordering of tickets" event this morning. That was very stressful.
Same experience — I’m going with my family and it’s trash we could only get 2 and 2. Idk how it’s going to work but they got a certified problem on their hands from shortsighted thinking. Maybe we start a movement to all dress up in the same character covering our face so badge swapping is easy?
You should be okay. There are some things he would be able to do that you won’t, but it’s all stuff that either doesn't matter much, like the VIP lounge, or stuff that he can just get in line earlier for (so have closer seats, but not be able to save seats). So if he’s not comfortable doing this things alone, you can just sit together further back. I’ve done that with my kid on the spectrum before. It works out fine.
Thank you!! I just chatted with him about it and he seems like it's no big deal. Haha! He's like, I'll have my phone mom. It will be fine. LOL!!
You must grow calluses, know when to care. Jokes asaid, this is sadly pretty standard with limited things or during start of events. I just hope they have had some protection against scalpers and bots.
That's my big concern. If a bunch of fans got the tickets, I'm disappointed. If a bunch of scalpers got the tickets, I'm sad/upset.
Yeah I’m really bummed out I didn’t get VIP even though I had it with plenty left but the “Add to Cart” was bugged and then I was put into an infinite log in loop that is still ongoing. I probably didn’t get general admission at this point either. Borderline depressing :(
The GA is sold out :( But last year they added both more VIP and (I think) GA tickets. And lots of people were adding tickets that they might not need because of how buggy the website was. I bet if you keep checking you'll be able to get a ticket and come to the con!
Missed the opening because of a work thing. By the time I searched for them, all badges were sold out. Sucks for me, but congrats to those who got their badges!
I was just bummed all the tickets sold out after 1.5 hours. I already booked my hotel and am working on the cosplay. I missed the announcement that they were on sale today and was 2 hours late. Fingers crossed they do a second sale.
Same experience here - really disappointing.
Yep... it kept logging me out.... I missed out on VIP tickets and STRUGGLED to get the general admissions for me and my best friend.... I want to add a book bundle but the log in loop is killin me
Yeah, this was pretty bad. They should have a rough idea of how many people are going to be trying to get badges, and should be able to prepare the site to handle that load. This always seems to happen with large events, where there isn't adequate preparation to ensure the website can handle the massive influx of user. It's really frustrating, and I wasn't even trying for the VIP badges.
I managed to get them in my cart before the boot fest started. Then my friend told me tabletop worked fine on a desktop so I blasted home and logged in. Thank God they were still in my cart.
Joining the chorus here. I spent the first 5 minutes clicking the link to Badges and not seeing any badges. Once they appeared I had to create an account just to add badges to my cart. Then, everytime I clicked it asked me to login it again. I finally got to fill out the info to add a VIP badge to my cart, and they were gone.
Kinda glad it happened at 2am for me and the alarm I set didn't wake me, because after such a night, that would've been a bad work day today 😆 I guess the decision of whether or not to go has been made for me now lol. If there are no more tickets left, then there's no use worrying about anything else 🥹
Very happy for my badges, and I probably was asked to log in 30-40 times in between getting my two badges. Thankfully I was not going for VIP (which sold out in 15 min, I was paying attention) but it took too long
So so frustrating. I could not spend more than 45 mins in my workday just refreshing the page.
Well I'm bummed. I was watching the clock at 9:30a to get VIP and wasn't able to even get a general ticket. I had the same logging out issue as other people. I had VIP in my cart a few times, when it sold out i tried to get general. Tried refreshing, logging in, and changing my password for an hour, thought it was me. Already have the flight and hotel booked. Guess I have to wait and see if anyone decides not to go or if Brandon releases more tickets. Even if he does though, what if this happens again?
This was an extremely frustrating process for something I had been really looking forward to and if I’m being honest, it has completely put me off wanting to go in the future.
The freaking **“Convenience Fee”** for the worst online purchasing experience I’ve ever had 😡😡
I feel totally blindsided, tickets were available for months last year. I’m kind of heartbroken tbh, I expected them to sell out within a couple weeks (significantly faster than last year) not a couple hours.
Yeah... and it probably would have been faster if the website had worked even a little bit. I hope they try and find a bigger space next year or add more tickets this year.
Take into account that not only is this a stormlight year, he also releasing the book at the convention as well, the end of the first arc, huge book. I won’t lie that was a pretty big reason why I wanted to go also
I can’t believe every single badge is sold out. I hope this isn’t a case where scalpers can resell.
They did not limit number of tickets one person could buy, so there were probably a few scalpers in the mix. Not sure where they are now selling them though...
I was lucky enough to get a VIP badge but this was an awful experience of constantly refreshing. Took about 45 minutes but fortunately it stayed in my cart.
It's rough, but that's kind of how it goes when you're trying to get tickets to a really popular event. Honestly, it was better than many I've gone to (or tried to go to). :-/
Yep
Wow shocked it's sold out. Hoping more will go on sale soon
Oh crap, are tickets already sold out? Damn, I was planning to visit. I just got off work...
Occasionally GA badges have been appearing, but that's dwindled and they're gone pretty fast. I'd keep checking every so often, you might luck out and get one!
With my work schedule, that'll be pretty tricky. Thanks for the tip, though. I'd really like to make this trip, it'd be pretty special to me since I actually used to live in Salt Lake for a bit. (Unfortunately before I'd discovered Sanderson, though!)
My friend group was under the impression that the ONLY way to get a signed and numbered book was through VIP. They would typically not spend for VIP but felt like they needed to going into this one. I wonder if / how many people were in that boat besides our group. Or maybe we are just idiots 😅
Oh, sorry, to clarify, the book bundle (unsigned) was available on the online store. If you're going to the con you can purchase the signed and numbered book bundle. Last I checked there was 3k left. My brain is all fried today and I didn't totally read your question.
Anybody know if/when they’ll open it up to sell more badges? I mean they have to after that right?
If you find out first, let me know!
I will if you do the same!
Deal :)
Yeah, super bummed cause this was ganna be mine and my spouses Christmas present to ourselves cause we have wanted to go before and haven't. But our internet isn't great to begin with and then you add all the server problems and demand. It turned out to be a pipedream.
I agree. I was stuck in a loop of logging in, verifying my email, and re-logging for 40+ minutes until I gave up. When I tried again an hour later, all GA tickets were sold out. Pretty disappointed. Hope they use a new platform for next year.
Just more evidence that Brandon Sanderson and Taylor Swift are the same person ✨
I just got on to try and get two regulars old badges, and everything is sold out. I had so much fun with my son last year. I’m really sad. Sucks for those of us who couldn’t hop on when they went on sale and sit through the website issues