FrightFest ticketing 2015

Taking place over the Bank Holiday weekend, August 27th - 31st 2015
ian
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by ian »

for what it is worth to the organisers my experience of the system was good. i was in the queue on my macbook and at 11:59 and thought i would try from another device in case the live system started a new queue or something. i wondered if, as mentioned above, the site would be smart enough to queue IPs if i used the same wifi - so i used my mobile on it's own network and logged straight in without any queue. I selected my tickets and checked out with no issue, all done by 12:05.

i appreciate it went badly for others, but i was glad for the online system giving me as much a chance of getting in as anyone else. if the bookings had only let me pick my seats from around the london based people who had had the means to queue up then yeah i probably would have got in eventually, but i would have had some misgivings about the whole thing and gone into my first frightfest experience grumbling about the unfairness of it all.
killer guinea pigs
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by killer guinea pigs »

i feel the pain and frustration of frightfesters who had problems. i feel really lucky in that i waited only 40 mins and got the tickets first go in the arrow screen.

i did have a back up laptop running one minute behind for back up but as my mrs was booking the tickets on her laptop i selected tickets on mine but got the wheel of death and timed out so maybe you couldnt have two going at the same time.

reading all the comments i was really lucky and got the seats i wanted but the system should be more reliable and not have done what it did

another thing... i thought we would only pay 5% on one ticket and if you bought more there would be no extra charge but i paid 18 quid for the two and not 9 for the two or did i misunderstand this?
sevcham
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by sevcham »

Eddie Krueger wrote:For me the frustration was more that after the wait I'd selected my tickets and then lost them (repeatedly, due to the system). They felt like they were mine! I accept that I'll have to wait in line for tickets, but felt really let down that the system failed me once I'd done my required waiting.
Yes, that was bad. It's that wait for so long to get something, only to be rejected and having to start all over again for another hour that acts as a slap in the face. Waiting an hour+ to get tickets without failure is fine - if that circle of death didn't happen I wouldn't complain - but waiting so long to then have to wait again and then pay for seats you didn't originally want because they're the only ones left? That's bad.

The 5% booking fee was unexpected too, not justified on tickets that cost so much to begin with. Not even £220 Glastonbury tickets charge that much for a booking fee; their fee is £5 per ticket, so around 2%.
Malky
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by Malky »

sevcham wrote:
The 5% booking fee was unexpected too, not justified on tickets that cost so much to begin with. Not even £220 Glastonbury tickets charge that much for a booking fee; their fee is £5 per ticket, so around 2%.
The booking fee was announced here in advance.
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by The Aylmer »

sevcham wrote:
Eddie Krueger wrote:For me the frustration was more that after the wait I'd selected my tickets and then lost them (repeatedly, due to the system). They felt like they were mine! I accept that I'll have to wait in line for tickets, but felt really let down that the system failed me once I'd done my required waiting.
Yes, that was bad. It's that wait for so long to get something, only to be rejected and having to start all over again for another hour that acts as a slap in the face. Waiting an hour+ to get tickets without failure is fine - if that circle of death didn't happen I wouldn't complain - but waiting so long to then have to wait again and then pay for seats you didn't originally want because they're the only ones left? That's bad.
Yeah, the hour+ wait wasn't a problem. When I go onto Liverpool's website this Wednesday to get tickets for the upcoming season I know I'll be watching that progress bar for a good two hours or more before I get through, and even then there probably won't be much in the way of tickets left. Been doing this for years now and accept, due to massive demand, that's how it's going to be. What won't happen when I do get my chance is seing the system fall over and being booted off and sent back to the start while I'm picking my seats. I'm sure Ian's in the same boat here as when you take on a company/software which allegedly delivers a ticketing scheme to a big football club you'd have every right to expect the thing to operate smoothly, especially when it's on a much smaller Frightfest scale. I'm sure Ian's as gobsmacked as the rest of us that the system consistently failed to perform as advertised. Believe me, if I was in his shoes I'd have been thinking "Liverpool FC? If they can handle that sort of demand it's job done". It was that expectation that led to my own personal disappointment and frustration, as the problems many of us had just shouldn't have existed.
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by scarebear »

Compared to some people i must have been quite lucky.

Here's my experience:-

I had to go out Saturday so the only chance i had was to use my Samsung S5 and hope the connection held out. I went on the site at 12.08 and it went straight into the queue, telling me i had under 45 mins to wait. This looked good i thought but the orange bar dragged itself slowly along and at 1 pm it stated i had "over 1 hour remaining"! Oh dear i thought, if the time schedule is going up, are some people managing to sneak in before me? An hour later at around 2.15 things started happening, 28 mins, 23 mins, 17 mins, then bugger UNDER 45 mins!!!!!. Dont start screaming like your in one of those paranormal activity films Steve i thought, be a little more patient. And then Suddenly at 2.50 BINGO! I WAS in!.

Selected my day pass for Monday for the Horror Channel Screen, although i have to admit there were not too many seats left and couldn't get anything in the centre but took it. Fortunately, i remembered my Verified by Visa Password correctly and got the confirmation. So all sorted in 3 hours!!

Cant wait till Bank holiday Monday now, but i am gonna skip one film to see Howl in the discovery screen.

All i need to do now is wait until the individual booking opens as i want to see Landmine goes click, body and Never Let go on Friday and Road Games on Sunday.

Wonder how long the queue will be for that!
ian
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by ian »

The Aylmer wrote:I'm sure Ian's in the same boat here as when you take on a company/software which allegedly delivers a ticketing scheme to a big football club you'd have every right to expect the thing to operate smoothly, especially when it's on a much smaller Frightfest scale. I'm sure Ian's as gobsmacked as the rest of us that the system consistently failed to perform as advertised. Believe me, if I was in his shoes I'd have been thinking "Liverpool FC? If they can handle that sort of demand it's job done".
you reckon there is any chance the provider thought something similar and didnt dedicate enough resource to the frightfest ticketing? they probably know that liverpool requires x numbers of servers and have an idea of expected traffic volumes; perhaps they figured this was, say, a tenth of the size, and just planned on running off a fraction of their system proportionally to a job like the football sales?

all just speculation of course. only it seems odd that software developed for what, 10s of thousands of tickets?, failed to handle a thousandish.

edit: i probably wouldnt have signed up just using my own name if i had known it was the same as the organiser's!
Team Banzai
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by Team Banzai »

Hi everyone it's Paul here - hope all is good with you all..I just wanted to post my responses from FB earlier re ticketing issues and other queries.. sorry it's a long one but hope it explains a bunch of things..very best and hope you all have a great festival!

Hi Rebecca and any others who experienced the same problems/ troubles. I very rarely post on FB at all (even in a personal capacity) but I just wanted to put out a frank and honest reply to you and any others that had a bad experience over the weekend. Firstly the decision to not have the Sleepy Queue this year was not one that any of us took lightly. Endless hours and many sleepless nights (especially by Ian) of thought and problem solving went into this.. 1st Leicester Square and the closure of the Odeon not enabling queuing at that end of the square, coupled with the horribly busy north end (Vue end) being a very busy and not particularly secure area on a Friday night, then we had problems with the Vue themselves not being able to take bookings for the event which would have meant us setting up our own ticketing operations. Which although we would have thoroughly tested in advance never quite works the same in reality as in practice so we unavoidably had to cease plans for the SQ this year


So we went with the ticket agency who assured us that it would be a smooth operation.. which for many it was, the sheer demand caused some problems and we are going to investigate further all of the issues raised here and on Twitter to see exactly where the problems occurred and we will issue a full explanation for this once we have got to the bottom of the situation..The online sales were actually an improvement on last years system where the whole thing crashed almost immediately with no tickets being available at all for the entire afternoon while they worked to resolve the situation. By the way last year I tried to book some LFF tickets and that situation for tickets was even worse than our troubles but again I finally got some but not all of the tickets I wanted for that particular event.

As to the Film4 screen being the preferential screen re premieres etc that is simply not true - with the exception of the opening film THE GUEST where we only did the intro in one screen with the other 2 screens having the link up pretty much everything was done from a guest perspective in all 3 screens .. THE GUEST link up was something we copied from our friends over at Fantastic Fest who always have one screen with the 'live' presentation and the others with the feed. This clearly did not work satisfactorily for all so this year we have staggered the screening times for opener and closer so that all 3 screens will get exactly the same guests etc..

And the premiership status of the Film4 screen is not correct as over the weekend we are operating a rotation system so having a quick look through the 2015 schedule you will see that for example on Friday Film4 get HELLIONS 1st, Arrow Screen gets THE DIABOLICAL 1st and Horror Channel get LANDMINE GOES CLICK 1st - this pattern is repeated throughout the ENTIRE weekend so each screen gets the first look at various features in turn so no one venue gets exclusivity at all..

As I said we do very carefully read EVERY comment / good/ bad / indifferent and with tickets especially this is always our major concern and we hold FrightFest fans comments and criticisms and comments in very high regard. I hope that explains some of the things to you and that you have a great time this year. We will certainly be bending over backwards/ foreards/ any which way to ensure that you all have as good a time as humanly possible! And THAT'S a cast iron promise!!

Oh and we LOVE you all!
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by thatcambridgebird »

Just to add a differing view - our experience was fine this year, but perhaps we aren't as rabid about seats as others. We didn't want an aisle (would've been nice, but to be honest, getting tickets was the priority, not tickets in Row B seats 21/22 etc etc! :lol: ), preferred (and got) the Film 4 screen mainly because I like the running order in there, no other reason. As a few others said, we had to go out on Saturday so actually bought the tickets on the road, off a personal hot-spotted phone/laptop in the car. My other half did the transaction, around 2.30pm, and had to wait around 20 mins. Our seats aren't perfect by any means - we're off in one of the side areas rather than a central seat - but at least we have them for the screen and days we wanted.


So while I appreciate that a good number of people have been irked by the system, I for one have had way nastier ticketing systems to wrangle with for other events, and despite the waiting time in the queue (the temptation to treat it like some sort of Glastonbury sale day and refresh was strong!!) overall I think it went well, and I'm so so happy that this year we'll be back at Frightfest again - counting down the days already :green:
HeadOnAStick
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by HeadOnAStick »

Thanks Paul, it's appreciated. I know I speak for many here when I say how much we value Frightfest and you guys who put on the event every year. I imagine when the festival is your baby it can be hard not to take any criticism personally, I assure you I have never felt less than grateful for your efforts.

I, like others, encountered some extremely difficult moments during the online process but I did get a pass in the end and I'm looking forward to August enormously.

I hope you do get satisfactory answers from the ticketing company, and I shall be trying to buy you a drink at some point, even if I have to wake you up from your beer-coma in order to achieve it.

See you in August :)
anaana
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by anaana »

Saturday I was using a foreign credit card and I had a problem with the confirmation before timing out.
I started again and bought a festival pass, only to get a few minutes later confirmation for TWO festival passes, as apparently the first "timed-out" purchase had gone through.

a. Can anyone help with a phone number where I can get this sorted and one of my festival passes cancelled and refunded?
b. Or is anyone interested in buying my second festival pass at the same cost?

My "extra" pass is Horror Channel Screen E26

thanks
bree1981
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by bree1981 »

Hi all, I managed to get 3 tickets on Saturday using my i-phone, went on just after 3pm and got through after 25 minutes, had a small problem with the circle of death (more than likely because I faffed about for 5 minutes picking my seats) but eventually managed to get 3 seats together. My only problem being I haven't received a conformation email so I don't have a link to print off my tickets. Does anyone know whether it's common for the email to take a few days to come through or should I be worried?
wakko
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by wakko »

Hi All,

I got two tickets very late in the game after crashing browsers, re-queuing, etc. so I can understand the frustration. However there are two happy film fans now.

However, some of you are definitely overreacting with your drama. As we all know organising any event (film, music, etc.) is a right pain in the bum. I think sometimes you are more happy if you expect the worse and have a plan B. I was on the phone with my mate and I told him that I am struggling to get festival passes. We said that we will keep trying and otherwise get day passes, single tickets, etc.

What can happen in the worst case scenario? You end up missing out on few films, but you can still attend the event. However what is the point of reacting sore and missing out completely? Other festivals and gigs in London have the same problems. Someone mentioned LFF - I have issues every year, but end up getting few decent tickets. Sometimes you lose and miss out completely (the day I broke up with Kate Bush). However FrightFest is one if not the most amazing horror festival in Europe and it is taking place in the very demanded London where hundreds of people are going to try their luck ..and still you could find festival passes later in the evening.

I am not trying to lecture you how to react and hope that you will all have an amazing weekend! And big thanks to the team for organising this and selecting some very promising films. It's great to see that as founders you are still so involved and "hands-on". Perhaps other (more evil) organisers would just sit on the beach and sip cocktails with tiny umbrellas and laugh while film fans would watch the new Shockwave film disguised as a horror classic.

See you soon, I can't wait!
bloodlustbarbie
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by bloodlustbarbie »

Thanks anaana for posting, I had the same issue and was also going to ask if anyone has any ideas who to contact to try for a refund (given that the first transaction was never confirmed). The advance ticket website says to contact the sellers website so is that vue or is it something else i.e frightfest hosted by vue? Sorry if that is a stupid question but I don't really know where to start with this! Same goes for me if anyone wants to buy my spare full pass - it's for C20 in Horror screen (not sat next to me though unfortunately ;) second try got me in the Film 4 screen!).

Thanks for any help with this xxx
bree1981
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Re: FrightFest ticketing 2015

Post by bree1981 »

The frightfest guys have taken a bit of stick this weekend and to be fair most of it looks undeserved, from what I can tell by reading this thread everyone who wanted a ticket managed to get one, even though some may have not got the seats they wanted with these types of big events sometimes you just have to go with the flow.
I had a small problem regarding not getting a conformation e-mail after I bought my tickets, after e-mailing the ticket company directly I posted in here and within a couple of hours Ian had the problem sorted and I now have my conformation e-mail and a big weight has been lifted from my mind. So i'd just like to say thanks to Ian and the guys for always striving to do their best for us frightfesters.
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