Pinburgh 2017 Tickets on Sale December 3rd!

Also, not to bust anyones chops but did entry quietly go up to $120 this year? Maybe I missed the announcement, but curious about that.

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Yes was $105 last year. Good catch.

And yet it still doesn’t cover the tournament prize pool ($120 x 740 = $88,800)

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You could argue it’s more like $120 + event pass $95 = $215 ($215 * 740 = $159,100)

But either way, I’m in for my third consecutive year. And the ticket price is like maybe 10% of my flight tickets alone, so I’m certainly not complaining. Best event on the planet by a country mile :smile:

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You guys have no idea what their expenses are for the convention center, trucking the games, etc. Huuuuge. I’m sure they’re still underwater on this. We’re all grateful they’re willing to do it anyway.

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Yes, for complex purchasing options with different product types (such as theatre seats where you can select the exact seat, or need adjacent seats in a block), “first to pay” doesn’t work very well. For a sale where there are n identical items, “first to pay” is viable. The user gets a message “You are not guaranteed availability of the ticket until you have paid for it” when they add tickets to the cart, which motivates them to pay quickly.

Or use “first to put in cart” with a short timeout, so tickets can’t hang around in the “presumed sold” pool for too long and block access for legitimate purchasers.

If an accurate view of ticket availability is needed, “first to put in cart” doesn’t work because it attempts to predict the future.

At any rate, I was responding mostly to the “Jerks” comment. People have no idea how the technology works or what the consequences of their actions are on the system as a whole. They simply will do what a system makes possible to do. If that is unwanted, it’s the system that needs to change (because the people most definitely won’t).

The airline industry has used “first-to-pay” for a long time. In fact, as most of us have probably experienced at some point, they’ve gone a step further by selling more seats than a flight can hold. Whether that’s a good thing is a another matter, but it does help them to improve cash flow and occupancy rates. This “find out after you show up” model also means that there are fewer customers who are disappointed when they can’t buy a ticket. They get disappointed at the airport instead… :frowning:

Michi.

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Hey Bob, I’m actually pretty aware of what convention center production costs are. It’s what I do for a living, and I’ve let Doug know I’m available should they need any help thinking through options, negotiating pricing, etc.

Again, I was just wondering because typically pricing increases are announced.

I am not complaining at all, and gladly paid my fee at 11:01AM last Saturday morning. Just curious.

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For what it’s worth, the pricing was definitely announced in advance. I agree with Bob, and thanks Austin for volunteering to help improve ReplayFX.

I don’t think this is correct, from experience rebooking in situations where there were a very limited number of seats – the agent on the phone reserves a seat, then takes your information.

Pinburgh, like almost all ticketing for concerts or other events that sell out, is “first to put in cart with a timeout”.

Lol. If this is the biggest thing to complain about Pinburgh… it’s because the organizers are AWESOME.

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[quote=“bkerins, post:48, topic:2208, full:true”]
I don’t think this is correct, from experience rebooking in situations where there were a very limited number of seats – the agent on the phone reserves a seat, then takes your information.[/quote]
I suspect it depends on the airline and the booking method. Booking agents almost certainly have more control than ordinary people coming in via a web interface.

Many of the web portals for flights hold a booking for some amount of time. But it has also happened to me that I’ve been told on check-out that the ticket in my cart was no longer available. And, as I said, even if an airline uses “first to put in cart”, it doesn’t really matter because, when I get to the airport, I may well find out that the ticket I paid for is no good because they sold more tickets than there are seats on the flight…

Anyway, I don’t think there is a problem as such with “first to put in cart”, provided the timeouts are short. But it’s not possible to have an accurate picture of available tickets with this model, because tickets in the cart have to be counted as “sold”, even though they may time out and become available again.

Cheers,

Michi.

I’m afraid you’re terribly mistaken regarding the ‘simplicity’ of booking an airline ticket – in fact, you’ve probably picked the industry with some of the most complex yield management processes in place, allowing for shenanigans like oversold flights.

I know I’d be a touch pissy to get to PIT only to be told “Sorry, we overbooked this year’s Pinburgh. Don’t worry, we’ve applied your entry fee to next year. Here’s a coupon for a pretzel.”

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It’s a pretty good pretzel tho

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Not sure where you got your pretzel. When I finally got to eat something on Saturday, mine was more like eating tree bark

I’d argue that the airlines have gotten quite good at this, and that their data driven management of flight booking (among other things) has had a huge impact on actually bringing the cost of tickets down in the last 20 years. So even though it can feel like shenanigans, it’s actually a huge benefit to the end consumer. It’s extremely unusual for someone that didn’t show up or check in way too late to get bumped from a flight without willingly accepting some form of compensation, be it a pretzel of varying quality, or a travel voucher.

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How about a voucher for Pretzel Multiball instead? :stuck_out_tongue:

And I agree completely on the airline industry (and hotel industry, too) having gotten VERY good at managing/predicting demand for booking and over-booking purposes. The data analysis behind how much to over-book, etc is fascinating stuff.

Missed last year to see Hamilton, but really looking forward to getting back. What an event and a guaranteed 40 games against so many new people.

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The Pinburgh player list has been posted.

http://replayfx.org/competitions/pinburgh/

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34 of the top 50, among other things.

How many dingers will Mark Mcguire hit?

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Probably in the ballpark of amount of jokes that Dana Carvey will tell

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