Yeah, apparently they are raising the price over time. Like the first X people who bought tickets only paid $59, then $69, and it will eventually max out at $85.
That is not cool. It’s ok to do something based on date to encourage people to register far in advance. Like, give people who register 6 months in advance a lower price than someone who registered 1 month in advance. That is great. But people who registered 10 minutes apart paying a different price is not cool. It’s even worse with their bad tech not holding up.
It’s also dumb of them. They could have just charged everyone the max price of $85, and nobody would complain. They would also make more money. By doing this discount method and creating an unfair situation, they just give people a reason to be mad.
It shouldn’t be done by time, it should be done by how many people register.
Say there are 10,000 tickets. The first sells at $50.00 exactly. For every person who purchases a ticket, raise the price by 0.005 cents, and round up to the next cent. Then the 10,000th person to register pays $100.00 exactly.
At that point the price can ramp up even more severely each ticket. Maybe by the time the event comes round, each ticket sold at the door goes up by one dollar.
All this means people are incentivised to get in as early as possible, but it’s not decided by arbitrary date cutoff but by demand.
No, that’s bullshit. Why should I pay more than someone who bought something a few seconds before I did? If you go to the grocery store and someone gets in line with their apple before you do, so you get charged more than they do, that’s horse shit.
It is much less convenient for an attendee to buy tickets far in advance. They might not even know if they can get the days off work yet. They might not be able to arrange travel plans that early. It’s very risky. They might be buying tickets they can’t use. They also give up the opportunity to change their mind without having to go through the hassle of selling the tickets. If something won’t sell out completely, attendees are best off buying tickets at the last possible second when they definitely know they are going to attend.
For events it is best if tickets are sold far in advance. Knowing attendance figures. Getting the cash money ASAP. All of these things are a great benefit to the event at the expense of the attendees convenience. This is why events will often give discount prices far in advance based only on time. People buying tickets 6 months in advance helps them out more than people buying tickets 4 months in advance, so they get lower prices.
The only reason not to charge everyone the same exact price is to create this incentive. Giving someone a benefit for getting through an internet ticket system 10 minutes faster than someone else is complete horse shit.
I do not have any pull in the registration policy but Luke is right once the tickets hit X next teir pricing begins. The estimates are set due to trending information in the years prior so that there is a gap between so that people can pace it out.
However they tied this to room reservations so any semblance of logic is thrown out the window, should be one fixed price or a slight discount after a hard date time of about a month and a half.
This is one of those things that I could have seen coming but since I have no say in the silo I leave it be to the powers that be.
Okay, so either you are complaining about their business model or my own suggestion, which are quite different. Jumping up $10 after a certain number is passed isn’t much like creeping up 0.005 cents per attendee.
If an event is going to sell out, or they want to restrict numbers to a lower number, I have no problem with using time and money as a way to officially work out who wants to attend the most.
People with lower money but are more enthusiastic can sign up as soon as possible to get the lowest price. Good for them! People with more money but aren’t interested enough to know they should sign up as far ahead as possible? They pay more closer to the event.
This already happens at 99% of popular events with scalping and reselling tickets at a profit. In this case it’s third parties taking the extra money, not the event. Officially increasing prices over time is like having an auction where early bidders win, not later bidders. It benefits everyone.
It’s unfortunate that time and money are the deciding factors when it comes to scarce items like event tickets, but until the entire world works differently, it’s kinda what we are stuck with.
It was time and money all along. My opening statement:
My closing statement:
Again, I’m not saying this is the way I want the world to work, and calling something unfortunate is the opposite of championing it.
If we were talking about healthcare access or some other service that I think should be available to everyone, I’d be 100% against using money or free time as a indicator of who should get what. However, in this case we are talking about event tickets and entertainment options. This is a gaming and music event, as far as I understand.
Maybe you could propose that they have a certain number of tickets set aside for people with young children, with children under a certain age free entry?
Simple solution is just - as is well known and mentioned - sell tickets at a given price within a given date range. Even if the discounts are only up for a day.
There is NO solution to this. Y’all don’t even have to deal with PAX West.
There’s one price. The badges are sold out within seconds. Literally the only way to get them at face value is to be watching twitter constantly and IMMEDIATELY buy them. There’s no way to expand the capacity. Every hotel sells out.
Nothing can fix that short of raising the price to the point that they wouldn’t completely sell out. I still think PAX could sell $300 weekend badges and sell out almost as fast.
Escalating prices are actually just receding discounts. I would argue it’s completely pointless to offer any sort of discount on badges to a large con that is mostly selling out. Either raise the prices over time to ensure it never sells out (maximize profit) or keep prices fixed and let luck sort who can attend.
Have anyone who wants to go to the con send in their verified income tax records. Then charge everyone Iron Monkey style. Homeless? PAX is free for you. Bill Gates? Your pax tickets are a billion dollars… each day.
Hello my name is Billionaire McRealestate, I actually am a super rich dude and live a super rich lifestyle but because taxes nonsense I actually made -$3,500,000 last year. You should honestly be paying me to attend.
Would note that Magfest hasn’t actually sold out yet. So their ticket buying policy has been geared towards prior years. As they commented in their twitter feed they are selling tickets at some extremely increased rate this year.
That being said, The convention I help run has time periods for discounts on tickets. The reason you want to encourage people to buy early is it gives you a better idea what your overall budget/staffing/cap needs. Magfest is still operating with this model because they don’t sell out. If they sell out this year, you’ll see them change their behavior to a universal price.
I honestly don’t understand how the Gaylord can possibly not have enough hotel space. I mean, I have seen with my own eyes that it doesn’t but why does it not?
Do you know what the Gaylord’s business model is?
Con after con after con every week all year. Just talk to the lovely people behind the desk at the hotel or the guy at the cvs or literally anyone who actually works there. Week after week they pull in thousands of people to hang out in the biodome and do whatever con they were planning. MAG for the gaylord is probably like, an average or slightly above average attendance con.
I mean the RNC was there this year. It hosts the Scripps national spelling bee every year. Probably countless business cons that cost a fortune for things like doctors, and coders in specific languages and, leaders in certain industries.
How is it that a place who’s entire business model is grab a bunch of people for a weekend, give them a big room to play in and give them places to sleep has failed on 50% of the things it was literally built for the express purpose of.
I mean, does Vegas have this problem? I know they kinda do the same thing, sorta anyway? Anyone who’s been to Vegas con. Do the guys who run defcon have issues with ticket pricing related to lack of hotel space?
and do whatever con they were planning. MAG for the gaylord is probably like, an average or slightly above average attendance con.