Ticketing issues: constructive criticism

[Silverhatch]

I have just tried purchasing a ticket for the Spurs game (10pm Tuesday) when I delieve I can't buy it until 10am tomorrow (1000 points).
The ticket apeared in my basket as soon as I logged in (together with Gillingham and Eastbourne which I don't want), but when I tried to check out nothing happened.
There was a very confusing message "A pre-requisite product must be purchased prior to being used to make a second purchase. Membership purchases may require approval before they may be used as a pre-requisite. You must have previously purchased the product '<<<pre_req>>>'. You will need to reallocate these items to another customer and update your basket."
Very confusing is the wrong term ... more like completely unintelligible! What the hell does any of that mean?
I was going to try and buy online tomorrow morning, but I now think I'll go down to the shop in order to hopefully ensure I get a ticket.

You get this message when you have reserved seats but they are still "embargoed" until you are entitled to purchase them. My wife's season ticket has been sitting in the reserved seats section for a few days and until 10am today if you pressed checkout you got your message. Hope that makes sense!

 

[Phat Baz 68]

Was extremely peeved this am about the ticketing situation but to be fair, new system glitches happen.
I agree that the SOLD OUT sign online is ridiculously confusing unless indeed they have sold out.
If you have time to put SOLD OUT on the website then surely they have time to put SORRY YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE YET , TRY ON (INSERT DATE) or words to that effect !! SEEEMPLES !!!
Also my other little gripe is that i was queuing on the old "dog & bone" for ticket starting at no 73 in the queue for over an hour so my phone call almost certainly cost as much as two of my tickets , effectively meaning i have literally " PAID TWICE" for EB and GILLS matches.
Not good ! But happy with purchases anyway.

 

[pottert]

I have managed to get a spurs ticket after spending 3 hours trying to get through.
I have just looked on website & it is saying that all 3 home matches are sold out which cannot be true as tickets are only on sale to st holders.

 

[VAL1850]

I have managed to get a spurs ticket after spending 3 hours trying to get through.
I have just looked on website & it is saying that all 3 home matches are sold out which cannot be true as tickets are only on sale to st holders.

I just had same message "SOLD OUT" clicked on reserve my seat option and bought tickets with ease

Now wheres my season ticket card??

 

[Rogero]

This.

Display that message only when a game has genuinly sold out, not when there are tickets despite the fact you're not currently in a position to buy them.

I thoughtb it had sold out!!!

 

[Triggaaar]

I thoughtb it had sold out!!!

It says sold out even when it hasn't, if you haven't got enough points to be eligible yet.

 

[Skaville]

Releasing a whole bunch of tickets at 10:00am on a Wednesday morning penalises those of us who work 9-5. I had no choice but to go online at lunch and could not get through during my lunch hour. Meanwhile, those not working are strolling up to the Amex and buying in ten minutes.

Also, this might sound like sour grapes, but after having a season ticket for seven or eight seasons at Withdean, plus going to the vast majority of home games (and the odd away) in the last three seasons how is my loyalty status the same as all the JCL's? Plenty of those fans will have tickets for the Spurs game. They may have never even been to a game at Withdean. Is that the value of my "loyalty"?

I actually manged to get online but the status of my tickets is now "pending", despite being asked for credit card details. I'd love to know if I have them or not, but I cannot get back into the system to check.

Overall... SHAMBLES

 

[Ozymandias86]

Sorry to ask a very amateurish question, but have tickets actually sold out now? I spent a good part of today trying on the website but couldn't get through, and when I eventually did everything was marked as sold out.

Releasing a whole bunch of tickets at 10:00am on a Wednesday morning penalises those of us who work 9-5. I had no choice but to go online at lunch and could not get through during my lunch hour. Meanwhile, those not working are strolling up to the Amex and buying in ten minutes.

I share your frustration, but I'm not sure there's anything around that. It's not the club's fault that some people don't have jobs (or the fault of fans that they don't have jobs) and if they'd released the tickets at the weekend then it would really have been meltdown - as opposed to the frustrating and imprecise experience so far...

Down to the Amex tomorrow I think.

 

[Rich Suvner]

Is it though?

There have clearly been some data issues, such as those you detail yourself. However, now those have been cleaned for you, it should be plain sailing. Multiply that by c18,000 (although many will be 'clean' already) and by the time the ramp-up/Gillingham process is complete 99% of fans should be well sorted to use the online ticketing system going forward.

Beyond that, there are some functional quirks to the site that could be improved but I don't think any of them are particularly significant.

The last thing is the ability to handle peak demands and even last week, I don't think it was that bad. What the site does well is protect those who have fully accessed the system from the hoardes still trying to get in. This is vital to ensure that transactions can be completed cleanly. I'm sure the site could have coped with higher volume but I think it was the case that everyone who wanted tickets on Day 1 managed to get them. And there were another 6 days to follow where demand has been low and the system has been fully available to those who didn't feel the need to join the unnecessary hour 1/day 1 rush.

Simply can't agree with this. The website clearly cannot handle volume - but that is what having a ticketing website is surely for? Otherwise people simply inundate the ticket line.

It simply isn't good enough when a website is practically unavailable to all but the people with time to sit and hit F5 all day! It's not Glastonbury, and we should have a system that can handle the volumes required. I'd be very interested to know how many concurrent users this system is genuinely able to handle.

 

[Birdie Boy]

Releasing a whole bunch of tickets at 10:00am on a Wednesday morning penalises those of us who work 9-5. I had no choice but to go online at lunch and could not get through during my lunch hour. Meanwhile, those not working are strolling up to the Amex and buying in ten minutes.

Also, this might sound like sour grapes, but after having a season ticket for seven or eight seasons at Withdean, plus going to the vast majority of home games (and the odd away) in the last three seasons how is my loyalty status the same as all the JCL's? Plenty of those fans will have tickets for the Spurs game. They may have never even been to a game at Withdean. Is that the value of my "loyalty"?

I actually manged to get online but the status of my tickets is now "pending", despite being asked for credit card details. I'd love to know if I have them or not, but I cannot get back into the system to check.

Overall... SHAMBLES

If you have had a season ticket for the last 7 or 8 seasons at Withdean then you could have bought your tickets at anytime between Wed 6th @ 10am and Wed 13th at 9:59am, before all the new STH's, thats the loyalty bit. You didn't have to go to the shop, you didn't have to try and login during lunch, you could quite easily have got a ticket after work online or in the shop at the weekend.

I just bought tickets for Spurs & Gillingham online and it took 2 minutes. I can't believe all this panic people have over getting tickets, ALL previous STH's were guaranteed them and then there were at least 7,000 left for the rest.

With regard loyalty, BHA would not be buying multi-million pound players if it weren't for the 14,500 JCL's!

 

[Drumstick]

Bozza if you would kindly mention in brief the trouble with certain seats at the back of the north stand.

 

[Skaville]

If you have had a season ticket for the last 7 or 8 seasons at Withdean then you could have bought your tickets at anytime between Wed 6th @ 10am and Wed 13th at 9:59am, before all the new STH's, thats the loyalty bit. You didn't have to go to the shop, you didn't have to try and login during lunch, you could quite easily have got a ticket after work online or in the shop at the weekend.

I just bought tickets for Spurs & Gillingham online and it took 2 minutes. I can't believe all this panic people have over getting tickets, ALL previous STH's were guaranteed them and then there were at least 7,000 left for the rest.

With regard loyalty, BHA would not be buying multi-million pound players if it weren't for the 14,500 JCL's!

Re-read my post. I had a season ticket for seven or eight years at Withdean, but didn't for the last three seasons. I've probably been to fifty home games in the last three years while I try and balance family life with supporting the Albion. I'm delighted that there are more people watching the Albion, I really am (I'm sitting with a Spurs fan and a guy that normally goes to one game in a year in the WSU) but a bit pissed off that some people may have never even been to a game have the same loyalty points as people like me. That's bullshit.

The club has a database with all the purchase history. It would not have been difficult to use a little common sense and give last years season ticket holders number 1 priority, then rank the rest in some way based on their custom over the past few years, at least as a starting point and tickets could then have been released on a piecemeal basis rather than creating this ridiculous stampede.

 

[ngood77]

Despite the SSC Final being on general sale, when ordering online you still seem to have to select a different F&F name for each ticket being bought. Surely that's not general sale ?

 

[Bozza]

Despite the SSC Final being on general sale, when ordering online you still seem to have to select a different F&F name for each ticket being bought. Surely that's not general sale ?

I think, from now on, each ticket sold will have to be to a named Albion fan.

 

[Acker79]

Have you passed on the feedback, yet, Bozza? Any reply from them?

 

[trueblue]

My experience of just buying 1 ticket for the Sussex Senior Cup Final, North Stand...

Go through the process of selecting the ticket etc without having logged in. At the end of the process, get told I need to login. Start all over again.
Second attempt at buying the ticket - select American Express for payment from the dropdown menu. Enter all the details. System says it's not recognised as an Amex card.
3rd attempt. Check all the details (they were correct) and resubmit. System takes me to an error page.
4th attempt. Decide to try my other Amex card. After clicking on the match, get taken to a page listing all the details of my account. It won't let me do anything until I have 'updated' these even though there is nothing to update.
5th attempt. Try my other Amex card. As before, the system claims it's not an Amex card (though I've been using it with no hassles elsewhere for the past 5 years).
6th attempt. Pay with a Visa card. Success.

Sadly this tallies with my experience of the ticketing website in the past. It is useless.. not fit for purpose. I can't believe they have continued with the same company.

 

[Bozza]

Have you passed on the feedback, yet, Bozza? Any reply from them?

Not yet, no...

1. I was waiting for answers to the transport questions to come back
2. I wanted to allow those who bought this week to be able to contribute too

I'll wrap it up into a bundle for the club this weekend.

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

Not yet, no...

1. I was waiting for answers to the transport questions to come back
2. I wanted to allow those who bought this week to be able to contribute too

I'll wrap it up into a bundle for the club this weekend.

Bozza - In case you weren't aware, the B&HCC planners have picked up on these and asked the club to respond.