I think you can do it via showclix
Once the dust settles, Iām interested to hear the signup stats for this year. Iām especially interested in how many multi-ticket purchases were done vs. last year, and how many donāt include familial relationships (i.e., specially-coordinated 5-player ticket buying cabals).
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As much as the feature causes more disruption as adoption increases, it still has valid use cases. If you are traveling and staying together, that is a strong link, as much as a couple trying to get in together.
You canāt realistically police associationsā¦ are you family? Are you dating? Are you xyz?
So either you have it or notā¦ and you decide how disruptive you allow it to be.
If you had a pre registered lotteryā¦ you can elimate duplicatesā¦ and also weight a larger group accordingly.
Iād like to see it as a game. People pre registerā¦ the lotto picks winners and sends out. People have 24hrs to replyā¦ and if unclaimed it goes back to the draw. Let people see how many are claimed, how many are pending, and how many are free.
Heck, Sell ads on the status page 
sell extra draws and use that to feed the budget.
People have advocated for years how pump and dump is fineā¦ so let people pump the lotto picks tooā¦ with pricing based on the odds.
If Pinburgh wants to be āopen to allā - you must do away with the zero hour rush. That isnāt really open as long as demand is so much more than supply. Itās still the lucky onesā¦
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They have never tried to claim that everyone can play, just that everyone has the same opportunity. This isnāt some kind of Teela Brown situation. Luckiness is not a protected class.
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Technically it could be ~200 groups of 5 via coordinated efforts. Its not really everyone having the same opportunity.
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And I didnāt say that. My words were āopen to allā and they have no wanted preference for people in the past. You also canāt ignore they have tried to make the event more accessible by adding more capacity. Accessible has been a common theme. Itās just demand continues to outpace supply.
The idea that anyone can get in line is not the same thing as everyone actually having equal opportunity when the decision for who actually makes it is really quite arbitrary (Due to the technology).
The idea that anyone can get in line and get chosen is the same as fair and open is a farce. People can be excluded for no err of their ownā¦ there is no fairness in who makes it (between chances that are very close.). its simply everyone is exposed to the same risks. Equal exposure, but not the same as necessarily fair or open.
The idea that this becomes a competition in itself is a big red flag that itās not open and accessible. So own up to that reality and instead use a system that really is fair between all people who ante up and opt in.
You get a like for ācabalā!
No matter how we slice the bread, someone somewhere is going to be pissed they didnāt get a ticket. Thatās life. Last year I didnāt get in, this year I did. You win some, you lose some. I think everyone at PAPA is doing a great job running this massive operation. Last thing they need is bitching about ticketsā¦especially when they upped it to 1000.
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Refresh Better or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the F5
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anyone can setup their group if they choose!
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I expect that, this year, the number of 4- and 5-ticket purchases will be significantly higher than last year. (Elisabeth, once you have the stats, it would be interesting to know how it all panned out this time.)
Good move on the wait list too, IMO. Turns the whole thing into a little less of a clicking contest.
For me, Ctrl+click spam on a link to the ticket page as noon rolled over(to open a new tab each click), then Ctrl+tab to cycle through and find the first one with tickets available was pretty effective.
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Creative approach!
Also goes to show that people with some IT knowledge will have a better chance because something like this wouldnāt occur to a person who is less IT savvy.
Maybe a lottery really is the better way to go?
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And this did in fact happen. I know several people who got wait-listed when they couldnāt get tickets into the cart right at registration open, and about 15 minutes later were already receiving emails that their turn on the wait list has arrived. And at that point, have 48 hours to register.
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So IMHO thatās great, a big improvement over last year.
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Another thoughtā¦ I went to bed early last night, because I knew I had to get back up for the Pinburgh tickets. The VIP tickets went on sale at 2 am local time, the main sale started at 3 am local time. I missed out on the VIP round, but got in on the main round. Meaning that I spent an hour watching meaningless YouTube videos at 2 am because going back to bed wasnāt worth taking the pain of having to wake up again.
I do understand that it is impossible to find a time for the sale that doesnāt cause stupid local time for someone in the US, Europe, or Asia/Pacific. But it does mean that, besides being a clicking contest, it also becomes a contest of who is willing to sacrifice a nightās sleep (if in the wrong time zone).
So, seriously: what is it that is so important about the tickets going on sale at X hours on Y date? What if Iām an ambulance driver, policeman, or fire fighter? (āSorry mate, too bad, Iāll get around to putting out that fire in your house shortly, just gotta get those Pinburgh tickets firstā¦ā)
If, as lots of people assure me, things are a lottery already, why not make them a proper lottery?
What we have now isnāt a lottery. Itās an arms race of people who can organise enough co-conspirators to all try and buy the same five tickets at the same time. It becomes a clicking contest where the latency of my internet provider becomes a major factor in deciding whether I get a ticket or not. It assumes that ādedicatedā people will be able to press F5 on their computer at the relevant time, never mind that some of them literally would sacrifice lives to do so.
Wouldnāt it be more equitable to have a lottery? Let people register for the draw a few weeks beforehand. Then draw a thousand registrations at random out of the lot, plus another thousand or so for the wait list.
Yes, I understand that verifying peopleās identity does present challenges. I do understand that it probably would be more work. But it might be fairer, at least if the goal is to give everyone an equal chance.
What is happening now is not giving everyone an equal chance. Me being in Australia is enough to show that. Because the speed of light means that my internet latency is multiple times that of someone in the US.
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Will be interesting to see how many are on the waitlist once the 1000 tickets are allocated. Iād expect that the waitlist might be 100-150 people long? So really although demand is exceeding the available numbers, itās not by a huge margin.
I think the PAPA folks are doing a great job at expanding the tournament to try and meet that demand, and maybe now is the time to start considering how much larger than 1000 players in a single day it can really expand to. Could be worth exploring multiple qualifying sessions, though this would make the whole tournament run longer (and as a consequence seriously impact on ticket prices), or, as has been mentioned in previous years, run satellite tournaments.
If your estimate of 100ā150 people is correct, yes. But do we know that only that few people are on the wait list? I seem to remember that, last year, the wait list was quite long (although that was with 800 available spaces instead of 1000).
Adding an extra day for qualifying in order to accommodate more people is problematic, I suspect. It would significantly add to the cost of the event, both for organisers and for participants.
If people didnāt bitch about tickets last year, they might not of made significant changes to the cart process as they did this year. People bitch because they care and they do this because ReplayFX/Pinburgh is amazing (which includes the people running it).
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Changing the refund policy is something else to consider. There tends to be a lot of turnover of the waitlist because there is no consequence to just getting a ticket incase you are available (I think, I havenāt actually read the refund policy 
)
If you only got say 50% refund even from day one, it might reduce contention.