Virtual Heart Attack Room
Red Sox tickets went on sale today, and I managed to get tickets to all the games I wanted… eventually. But it wasn’t easy!
It’s frustrating enough to stare at the Virtual Waiting Room windows refreshing over and over on three different computers, but it’s even worse to get in and then spend half an hour getting “Unable to process due to a high volume of transactions. Please try to submit your request again by pressing the Continue button.” Of all the games I was trying to get tickets for, I figured the series against the Mets in May would sell out quickest, so I tried for that first. After fifteen minutes of pressing “Continue… Continue… Continue….” every couple of seconds, I finally got some in the upper bleachers. I added a couple of other games (a few dozen “Continue”s later) and went to check out. But the page where you’re supposed to enter your credit card info never loaded. I waited and waited, afraid to refresh because in the past that has just stuck me back in the VWR again. Eventually I got up the nerve and refreshed, but it was past the 3 minute, 30 second limit, so the tickets were no longer reserved. Argh!
I got through again shortly thereafter, and while I was in the process of pressing “Continue… Continue… Continue…” over and over, I got a popup: “Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and is closing. Would you like to tell Microsoft about this problem?” Then all my browser windows shut, including the one I was in the process of selecting tickets in. Stupid Bill Gates! (It’s not even like I was trying to get tickets for Seattle or anything!)
Tried to get in again and went back to the Mets game. This time upper bleacher seats weren’t available anymore, and it kept offering me standing room. Instead I went back to one of the other games I had had in that order, and wound up with the same exact seats (3rd-to-last row) I had had before it dumped my transaction. After selecting those, I went back to the Mets game, and this time it did give me upper bleacher seats. And this time I was able to check out.
But the funny thing is that because at the end of the day we wound up with all the games we wanted (and only one has us scattered in a couple of different rows) I’m excited and consider it a successful – albeit heart-attack-inducing – day.
Now all we need to do is sign a catcher and get the 2009 season started!
