

Tickets For Apple’s WWDC 2013 Sell Out In Under 2 Minutes - sanj
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/25/apple-wwdc-2013-tickets-sold-out
Sorry, tickets are sold out.
However, you will still be able to take advantage of great WWDC content.
Stay tuned for exciting announcements on videos and more.
======
simonsarris
Why can't we stop this madness? I don't see how first-come-first-serve here
serves developers well at all.

Why don't they let anyone with a credit card join a ticket lottery? Just
trying for a ticket could cost say, $10 to discourage people from trying every
one of their credit cards. Perhaps to make it more fair, a winner _must_ take
their tickets, to discourage gaming.

This goes on for two days. Then the "real" tickets go on sale, the lotto
winners get their tickets.

This way if you run to the computer at 10:03 or get out the hospital the next
day or just simply forget until dinnertime, you still get a chance.

~~~
tolmasky
I honestly don't think the problem is _how_ you portion out the tickets. The
system you describe does not seem to be any better at getting the tickets in
the right hands. I'm not so concerned with the unfairness of the current
system, but with the fact that many of these tickets will be completely
wasted.

The real problem is that they've combined a 1 hour media event with a
developer conference. So many people every year use their ticket JUST for the
keynote. It's like combining the Super Bowl and JSConf, then reaching the
conclusion that obviously JSConf needs a bigger venue because millions of
people tried to get a ticket.

I'd be really curious to see how many developers would seriously be willing to
throw down $1600 for a keynote-less conference that notoriously offers no free
stuff (ala Google IO) and has many of the materials available afterward. Then
instead of trying to solve the intractable problem of a lottery that leaves
more people satisfied, you'd actually see who really cares about the content.

~~~
magicalist
> It's like combining the Super Bowl and JSConf, then reaching the conclusion
> that obviously JSConf needs a bigger venue because millions of people tried
> to get a ticket

JSConf also sells out in like 10 minutes, which is why they moved to a lottery
system. There are no media events or giveaways there (mostly), just a really
really good event that refuses to get larger because getting larger may
(probably will) spoil some aspects of the event that make it really good.

Think about the lottery this way: if WWDC sold out in two minutes, it's likely
that more than the number of people that can attend were on there trying to
buy tickets at the same time, so it was really down to a lottery of timeouts,
latencies, and overwhelmed systems. A real lottery at least makes it slightly
more civilized, doesn't give geographic or equipment-based advantages, and
spreads out the entry times over a day or two to let all timezones take equal
advantage.

So, there's not really a gain in the quality of the person who gets to go, but
it does call a spade a spade and takes some of the frustration out of the
physical process of getting a ticket (if not with the result of the attempt).

edit: I do like non-transferable tickets, however (with some negotiated
process of refundable tickets). This can be mostly enforced by essentially
requiring will-call for all ticket purchases. While some people might be
willing to let you borrow their credit card/id, not that many strangers will.
You will have to be prepared to be a jerk and turn people down, though.

~~~
tolmasky
Was this for some previous JSConf? I ask because from what I can recall of
JSConf "back in my day", the price was pretty cheap and the seats were
incredibly limited -- so I can definitely see ~200 seats @ $200 a pop selling
out in 10 minutes and a lottery being necessary. I'm not so sure the same
holds for WWDC however. I mention this because if I go to the JSConf US 2013
site right now, there seems to be 32 days till the conference and I am still
able to buy a $2000(!) ticket (no sellout apparent at this price point, which
leads me to continue believing my analysis of WWDC). This might be some sort
of "special" jsconf though so I don't know.

~~~
magicalist
This year was 100 early bird tickets at $650 with the usual ticket rush, then
200 tickets at $750 selected by lottery. I don't know what those $2000 tickets
are...maybe extras held in reserve for sponsors or something that they ended
up not needing.

I'm still not sure about your idea...it just seems to boil down to reducing
the incentives while keeping the price high, so of course there is some point
where you can adjust that mixture to where you will only sell the number of
tickets available.

I agree with the argument that the keynote attracts some people that otherwise
don't care (though the WWDC is always super crowded post-keynote), but
considering the other conferences that have this problem, the volume of people
buying tickets, and the volume of people upset with the process that denied
them tickets, I'm not convinced that going keynote-less would be sufficient to
erase the issues with ticket buying. And that's really the only knob you have
except for raising prices, which certainly does your attendee demographics no
favors.

I also really have to agree with saurik that, even if you can reduce demand to
have tickets sell out in, say, an hour, simple distractions that morning
(kids, forgotten meetings, car problems) still mean you miss it, which will
again heavily skew your demographics to the set of people glued to twitter who
would never have missed the 30-minute, 15-minute, and 5-minute warnings of
impending ticket sales. Some of those people are going to indeed be the true
fans, but many will just be seeing those by virtue of attributes that bring no
advantage to the conference, and may limit its reach. It takes all types :)

------
SeoxyS
Put bluntly: this is bullshit. The advance notice was _slightly_ better than
last year, but the website was intermittently down for the entire two minutes
tickets were on sale.

I was there, trying to buy them at 9:59am, at 10:00:20am the website finally
went live, pressed the buy button and was greeted by "unable to process your
request."

Seriously, Apple needs to figure this shit out. Whether that means opening up
more seats, making tickets more expensive, or even just having a website that
doesn't go down on you… something.

~~~
schwa
Worked perfectly for me. Sucks for you.

~~~
SeoxyS
Lucky :).

But that's my point: It's not even first-come first-serve anymore, it's a
server-load-powered lottery.

------
dionidium
Everybody's reporting this "sold out in 2 minutes" number, but I got nothing
but errors the instant they went on sale. I think they actually sold out
immediately (where "immediately" means "as long as it took for the
transactions to process).

~~~
pkamb
I got an error in Chrome, then immediately switched to Safari which worked.
They were all sold out by the middle of my buying process though... tickets
definitely weren't saved in your cart until you buy.

------
twistedpair
Is the world becoming a smaller place? Google I/O has been impossible to get
into the last couple years selling out in minutes, now WWDC too.

But it is not just dev conferences. As an avid runner I've run a number of
races every year. Recently a number of them have gone from selling out 12K
slots in months to hours. In grad school classes filled up in seconds as well
when registration opened.

This is a manifestation of our JIT culture. No longer do you mark the
registration date in your calendar. No, now your call family and friends and
have everyone raring to go at 11:59 PM before registration opens. If you're
keen, you might probe their API and reverse engineer the site to get a jump on
others.

Now that everything is in the ether, there is no concrete queue. You can't get
there early if you're diehard. It is simply the roulette wheel of HTTP errors
that determines who gets what today.

------
CoffeeDregs

        Apple’s tickets sold out 95 percent faster than Google’s tickets
    

Wow! Apple is totally kicking Google's ASS!

WTF kind of statistic is this? The measure of two tech giants is how
ludicrously quickly they sell out tickets to their conferences?

~~~
mistircek
I believe they were just being funny, reporting how ridiculous these event
ticket buying process became, instead of reporting this as a comparison
between two companies.

------
maqr
I tried to log in as soon as the site came back up, it offered me team
selection for _another company_ , and even then wouldn't let me continue. I
switched browsers to try again and they were already sold out. Very
frustrating.

------
collias
I had a ticket in my cart, billing/shipping info filled out and everything. I
hit the "Purchase" button, and the ticket was gone. It kicked me back out to
the store page.

------
yardie
Logged in at 10:04. Fuck me.

I thought I barely missed the cut, now I see that I wasn't even close.

------
chrisdinn
I was refreshing constantly after 1pm. I saw the sign-in button but got an
error trying to access the store.

Looks like it sold out in the exact amount of time it took to process a
transaction.

------
kemiller
When are they going to move to a bigger venue? This is crazy.

~~~
EvilLook
Why would they do that? Selling out in two minutes makes them look good, and
the limited number of slots make the attendees feel like they're special.

~~~
enraged_camel
Are you suggesting that the reason they aren't moving to a new venue is
because getting their tickets sold out quickly makes them look good and the
attendees feel special? As opposed to countless logistical concerns that come
with organizing an event of this magnitude and importance?

I'll give you a moment to let the sheer stupidity of your suggestion sink in.

~~~
EvilLook
I'm not saying that it's the ONLY reason. I am saying that it is A reason.

------
xenophanes
They should raise their prices. A lot. So the people who value it the most get
tickets.

This is not an ideal solution but it's much better than the current one.

~~~
lutusp
> They should raise their prices. A lot. So the people who value it the most
> get tickets.

The problem with raising prices should be obvious -- it preferentially selects
wealthier attendees, not necessarily those who "value it the most".

> This is not an ideal solution but it's much better than the current one.

I don't think you've thought your position through. All raising prices
achieves is to limit attendance to those who didn't care about the high price.

~~~
xenophanes
You "don't think you've thought your position through" despite me predicting
the complaint you made and pre-including an acknowledgement of the problem?

The fact is -- contrary to your claims, compatible with mine -- raising prices
does both. It slants things towards people who value it more in dollars.
People get a higher score for this both by valuing WWDC more and by valuing
dollars less. That is better than random.

Next time leave out the meta discussion insults.

Note also that, "if demand exceeds supply, raise prices" is basic economics
and standard advice on HN for many other things. e.g. if you're a freelancer
with too many people trying to hire you, patio11 would say to raise prices.

you would not then reply saying he didn't think things through because all
that is going to accomplish is having price-insensitive clients rather than
good clients.

EDIT and how many people go to WWDC as a hobby? how many are really price
insensitive? a lot of them, even if they have money, want to get business
value exceeding the ticket price, or they will not go. filtering by who can
get the most business value by attending would not please certain people with
certain egalitarian mindsets, but would still actually be way better than
random.

lots of people look price insensitive because the business value for them
attending is $25,000 or whatever -- far more than the ticket price. but that
isn't actually price insensitivity and it's a good thing to use a system that
makes sure those people get to attend.

~~~
lutusp
> Note also that, "if demand exceeds supply, raise prices" is basic economics
> and standard advice on HN for many other things.

Yes, if the point is to maximize profit. If you have any other goal in mind,
then maybe it's not the best strategy. For example, if you want diverse
attendance at a conference, raising the prices to what the market will bear
may not be the best approach.

> ... you would not then reply saying he didn't think things through because
> all that is going to accomplish is having price-insensitive clients rather
> than good clients.

And? Where's the counterargument?

> and how many people go to WWDC as a hobby?

Feel free to change the topic.

> Next time leave out the meta discussion insults.

It's only insulting if you've thought your position through. Clearly you
haven't.

~~~
xenophanes
So you repeat the same insult. You're a troll and should be banned. Flagged.

------
olgagalchenko
Did anyone get in?

I got the error page that said to restart my browser at 10:00 am. Then the
maintenance page at 10:01. At 10:02, it was sold out.

Should they go to a lottery system? It seems like who gets in is pretty
arbitrary already, at least it would take the stress out of it. I was nervous
about it all morning, and my heart was racing just before 10. Such craziness.

------
lsllc
I heard there was a pre-sale yesterday for the "blessed" companies (you may
have noticed that the developer centers were down for a bit yesterday as they
were again today). So there were probably not that many tickets actually
available today.

------
MaxGabriel
For future reference, is it possible to login to the developer center before
the tickets go on sale, so you don't have to login? I didn't think to do that
until 9:45 pacific, and by then logging in got a 'we'll be back soon' message.

~~~
cleverjake
A guy in my office was logged in before it went live, but when it came back up
the session had been cleared. So my guess would be no.

------
dannowatts
i felt that i had good timing for getting wwdc ticket last year. after seeing
how quickly they sold out this morning, i know i was _very_ lucky to get a
ticket this year!

like last year, i'll make a stop at the alternative wwdc
(<http://altwwdc.com>) conference that has some good people from appsterdam
spitting out the truth.

for me, wwdc is a great time to meet some cool people in town for the
conference, but it's easier to meet people (and have a conversation) at the
get togethers/parties/bars over a beer versus during the conference itself.

------
harshaw
Our guess in how this went down:

first 5000 connections with using account/session where the credit card was
_already_ on file. This didn't work for us since we were attempting to pay
with the corporate credit card.

~~~
smackfu
The way competent ticket sellers work is that they give out tokens to people
as they start the process. Once all the tokens are given out, new people get
denied. The token has to be refreshed as they go through the purchase steps,
otherwise it gets put back in the pool.

~~~
neop
This was certainly not the case here. Many people (including me) were able to
add the tickets to their shopping cart and start the checkout process, only to
be received by an error after entering shipping and billing information.

~~~
neop
Disregard that, I contacted Developer relations and apparently they may be
holding tickets for all those in my situation.

------
jordanthoms
I don't believe that it actually took 49 minutes for Google I/O to sell out -
that's just when they put the notice up. I started trying to buy a ticket the
second orders opened and still didn't get one.

------
dzlobin
Anyone else get this screen in Chrome? <http://cl.ly/image/2E2a1y0u1g0N>

By the time I pivoted to Safari one minute later it was sold out.

~~~
MaxGabriel
I got it in Chrome as well, though a sister comment got it in safari. Any
ideas on the cause? Would want to avoid this in the future.

The only exceptional thing about my account was that I'm a member of two dev
programs, a business and an enterprise, on the same account.

------
n9com
This is pretty unbelievable. Refreshed at 10:00 and the site was already down
with a "we'll be back soon" message.

Obviously, the bigger devs would have got their tickets days (weeks?) ago.

~~~
collias
Meh. I'm a developer of one of the top 3 grossing music apps in the iOS App
Store, and Apple doesn't give us anything.

~~~
dzlobin
Developer of the #2 music app here, didn't get shit ahead of time (or just
now).

~~~
collias
Hello, competition :D

------
melling
The tickets were in my cart. So close.

The videos are going to be released during the show. Anyone in NYC going to
set up a WWDC East event?

~~~
nglevin
Back in 2011, there was one guy who waited a few minutes before deciding to
purchase, checked the site again minutes later. Then Apple gave the "we're all
sold out" message.

He goes to check the Apple Store. It still says that there's something in his
shopping cart. So, on a whim, he decides to complete the checkout process. Put
in his address, name, info, credit card, clicked through a few screens.

And he got in. All thanks to a cookie.

Alas, it doesn't seem like 2013 will have any "saved by a cookie" moments.

~~~
melling
Maybe I shouldn't have taken the time to type in my email address and phone #
right before I clicked my final submit? :-(

------
smackfu
Well, seems like quite a few of the iOS developers I follow on Twitter with
thousands of follower seem to have missed out.

------
radley
Respectfully: this demonstrates that Google IO isn't selling out quickly just
because of the toys...

------
blueprint
2 minutes after they went on sale…

~~~
dzlobin
One minute. I was on the checkout screen at 1:01 and it was sold out.

~~~
blueprint
Same as us here. Just entered our info and bam, request failed.

~~~
ryanlbrown
Same here.

~~~
ggualberto
Me too.

~~~
gluemonkey
Same thing happened to me and I just got off the phone with Apple support -
they are saying that this has happened to a lot of customers and since it is a
"developing story" they can not provide a lot of details. They did say however
that if you made it to the checkout process your ticket was in fact reserved
and once they get things sorted out they will e-mail you at your Apple ID to
allow you to actually purchase your ticket.

~~~
collias
I had a ticket in my cart and then got an error when I tried to actually buy
it. I hope you're right!

------
xoail
In reality they were sold out in 2 seconds. There needs be a better way to
handle this.

------
jfb
Under two minutes. Bonkers.

------
wesnerm2
I personally think that this is all a charade. Apple most likely preselected
top developers for this conference. This is a conference with a non-disclosure
agreement. Given how secretive Apple is, they probably wouldn't want to tip
off competition.

------
Kaedon
Feels ridiculous that this sold out so quickly. It's a shame.

------
danpalmer
1 minute 8 seconds.

------
ikt
Blizzcon also sold out pretty fast. What's the point of this again?

~~~
umsm
The point is to take your money to be "the first"... akin to camping outside
the apple store?

------
gesman
Tickets were sold out way before the actual formality (such as opening website
for crowd that is thinking that they can buy the tickets too).

~~~
pandaexpress
I was sitting at my Mac Book refreshing like crazy. I got a ticket.

