CTA Doomsday Schedule: Day 2
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Calumet Fisheries Wins James Beard Award
How To: Roast a Chicken (If You're an Idiot)
30 Percent Chance Of Hailey
We know you probably think Chicagoist has our own luxury box at The Cell, but that's just not the case yet. So Chicagoist spent our lunch hour desperately trying to land some tickets to the American League Championship Series so that we can watch our beloved White Sox beat the Yankees or Angels on the way their eventual World Series Championship. However, TicketBastard had other plans.
We logged onto Ticketmaster's site a few minutes before the Noon sale time for ALCS tickets. We learned the hard way trying to get Jimmy Buffet tickets that you can't keep refreshing the event page to catch it the moment they come available -- too many refreshes and you get locked out, no tickets. Of course, such tactics wouldn't be necessary were they to give a clock someplace on the page that shows their servers' exact time. When big concert or playoff baseball tickets are at stake, every second counts!
We used the government's atomic clock as a guide and a about 20 seconds after that flipped past noon, a refresh of the page for Game 1 of the ALCS suddenly allowed us to select tickets! We made sure to fill in the quantity and level of tickets we wanted. Smooth sailing so far. On the next page we filled in the scrambled word thing...
Shit! Proxy Error?!?! That's no good and we're losing valuable time. A refresh of the page gives us a new scrambled word to fill in and then we're thrown into a que. Wait time estimated at 15 minutes or more! WTF? We watch in anticipation for the number to get smaller and after a few minutes, it does. Now it says 11 minutes. A few minutes more, and it's down to 7 minutes.
But wait! Now it says 14 minutes! What's going on here? We think something fishy's going on, so we open another browser window to see what those wait times do. It remains at 15 minutes. The first one keeps jumping from a short as 6 minutes all the way back to 15 minutes again. Not good
Finally, we seem to be getting close. Now this is about 25 minutes after Noon, but it's finally at 4 minutes. Then 2 minutes, back to 4, then 2, now 1 and then...
We get some sort of warning because another Ticketmaster window is open! We close that window, but in the meantime the first window sends us back to the original event page to select quantity and level again. We're shit out of luck! There will be no ALCS tickets for Chicagoist, all because Ticketmaster's computer system isn't built to handle exactly the type of transactions that are most critical to their business. So unless Brooks Boyer takes pity on Chicagoist or somebody else has a pair they'd like to sell, we're stuck watching the game on TV.
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I'm stoked that I only went for one, and got 9th row on 163 for game 2.
I feel your pain. My wait time actually made down to 1 minute. Then, it went back up to 15 minutes. After about 30 minutes, my browser was not being refreshed anymore. I hit the refresh button and was greeted by a message saying I have another Ticketmaster window open. Another SOL Sox fan! Go White Sox!!!
Same thing happened to me. I used the official time as a guide to link to the page and did everything then it said you have less then 1 minute to get your tickets, the next thing I know PROXY ERROR! What the hell is a PROXY ERROR!
Get one off a scalper in the 3rd inning. Or you could email one of the opportunistic assholes on CL or Ebay, like the tool in my URL link:
Several words of wisdom. When important tickets are at stake...walk your butt to an actually ticketmaster location. You'll have better luck.
Next, please reread your post. I understand that you were "upset" blah, blah...but that's no reason for writing errors.
For these tickets, there were no sales at Ticketmaster outlets -- only online or phone.
The same thing happened to me! As the wait time got down to 2 minutes, Ticketmaster kicked me out of line with a "Proxy Error." When I tried again, tickets were of course sold out.
www.stubhub.com this cracks me up, some opportunistic asshole is selling a parking pass for $100 as a ticket to tailgate.
Lots of people got a "Proxy Error". I, however, did not and was able to secure 4 lower box seats. Huzzah.
I still think the whole process stinks - big time. This was laaaaame.
Cubfan, shut up.
Rock on Erin!
Wow Erin, last I saw we were all entitled to our own opinions. I thought the writing was sloppy and could use a little editing before posting. No? Nice use of "shut up." I'll remember to resort back to childhood behaviors next time something bothers me too...
I'd just like to know when it was considered socially acceptable to use freedom of expression as a tool to cloak uppity self-righteousness. I'm not sure it's any less childish to point out errors in writing than to make the errors themselves.
It was pretty much b.s. I was unable to get tickets. I sat and waited for the whole count down (or is that a.hole countdown?). Finally get past the virtual line, after it bumped up a few times (how the hell do I go from 4 minutes to 9? Did some bastard cut in line?) and then no pairs of tickets are available. Makes me wait a half hour, during which I could have been trying to land game 6 instead of 2. By that time 6 was done, and by the time I waited through game 7 ticket window, it was full too. grr. FU ticketmaster!
Erin, I second your intial statement. CubFan, SHUT UP! You're making us look bad.
I couldn't even get the the scrambled word page for the half hour I tried, but what you described is the exact thing that happened to me, repeatedly, when I was trying to get U2 tickets. Except I actually had the screen, where they listed the seat location and I immediately selected the option to buy, and it told me I waited too long. Ticketmaster is the Devil.
But I was at game one of this series and it was the most amazing baseball experience of my life. It was just a little bit of heaven.
my favorite part about CUBFAN's criticism is that it contains a TYPO.
fucking hilarious.
i got the proxy error too. a co-worker who tried at the exact same time squeezed into one of the top sections for game 2.
so you didn't get a ticket - take that hundred bucks that you would have spent, head to bar and buy a round of shots for anybody who's there to watch the game = you'll make a ton of new friends and have a great time.
This happened to me as well ... there is no way that Sox fans were given the opportunity to buy them. Brokers and others made out like bandits here, and I'm very upset.
BUT, I will also be upset if we don't make the next round ... still one game to go, so I'll cross the bridge of no tickets when I get there.
It may have contained a typo...but I'm not the "news" site...you guys are. So I'd think their should be some level of professionalism.
Either way...the subject would have been dropped after the initial comment, but of course people are sensitive and take offense. So not necessary. I would have respected it if it was at least civilized. But "SHUT UP" ??? NICE!
Actually the mission statement of Chicagoist is that it's a "website about Chicago." News is only a single component.
Cubfan, I understand that the Movable Type platform doesn't allow for spelling and grammar checks for comments, but when you do basic things like mistake "their" for "there" and grossly misuse ellipses you become subject to criticism yourself. And when Erin gets peeved, she
shoots from the hip. That's why we love that saucy wench.
I hope that was civilized enough for you.
Matt Clement just hit a ticket taker!
I tried to get tix and was on 2 computers and still nothing! But, here's my problem: how is it that when I went to 25 Sox games this year and of course maybe only half were sellouts, I try to get tickets to see my beloved team and it's the nay-sayers that are going?! You know the people who make fun b/c we never have a packed place? Why do they get tickets? I sat in front of those damn computers for almost 30 minutes and nothing!!
Ok, sorry, enough bitching... Go White Sox, screw the naysayers!!!
I agree Vanessa, this was a shame to those of us who show up every season. I can not afford season tickets, so I try to go to as many as I can. I went to 9 games this year, about 2/3's of which were NOT sell outs. I'm not knocking the stadium capacity filler, it's nice to make Sox Park loud ... but I feel like I should be there. I was there before it was fashionable.
So now the White Sox fans know a little bit about how it feels to be a Cubs fan - getting tickets wise - not the heartbreak wise. Here's to hoping you never have to feel that!
exact same thing happened to me. used the same atomic clock... the tickets went on sale just a bit late... I had two windows open for different games, and after watching the timer go up and down for 20 mins, it freaked out and dropped both windows, just as noted in the post. Tried two more times and got proxy errors both times. two of my roommates from different computers tried repeatdly again and again, with no luck.
but i guess if I can come up with $500+ for upper decks seats to give to some jerk on ebay who lives in florida, then I can go.
i guess the playoffs are only for the hyper-wealthy.
serious question though: why not run a ticket lottery? instead of dealing with this ticketmaster crap.
Ticketmaster only sells to "Ticket Brokers" aka scalpers.
Ticketmaster only sells to "Ticket Brokers" aka scalpers.
Ticketmaster only sells to "Ticket Brokers" aka scalpers.
Matt Clement must have hit Lobotomy Jones in the head!
:D
Yes, only Cubs fans have the corner on heartbreak
I miss the days when you could camp out for tickets. At least then the most dedicated had a good chance of getting tickets - and good tickets too. Besides, it's social & you are sacrificing for your team/favorite band with other fans. It beats PROXY ERRORS and endlessly changing "wait times".
Proving that Ticketmaster is indeed the devil:
If the Sox don't advance, those who bought tickets through Ticketmaster will still have to pay a $10 fee per order. The base ticket price and the $5 per ticket convenience charge will be refunded, said a White Sox spokeswoman.
Yeah, I remember getting shafted that way by TicketBastard on World Series tickets when I was living in Atlanta. I had tickets for a game 6 of the 1999 World Series and was still out like $20 in fees, etc. for a game that didn't occur.
I had my worst experience to date with TM today. I actually got through to the World Series ticket screen and was given a seat, but when I went to finalize the order, I got an error message that derailed the whole process.
Add me to the list. Trying to get WS game 6 tickets and the word I have to type in won't load for anything. Just a red X. Then after countless attempts it only lets me select 1 ticket instead of 2. The phone number is a joke. I guess they don't have to care about the online experience because the tickets will all get sold anyway.
I can't believe it, my co-worker just bought a car for $62353. Isn't that crazy!
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