E-ticket openhouse
Posted by nscott

Not sure if todays email should be read that interest in e-tickets is expected to increase drastically or if its a hint that everything will be e-ticketed next year. Sadly, if its the latter my GMing days are likely done, luddite that I am.

Posted by buffythecatslayer

They plan to move more events to e-tickets every year, but I think it will be at least a few years before they phase out paper tickets entirely, especially for the individual GMs.

Posted by cmegus

Curious -  Why would you be done with e-tickets?

Wouldn’t that just make things easier?

G

Posted by nscott cmegus

cmegus wrote:
Curious -  Why would you be done with e-tickets?
Wouldn’t that just make things easier?
G
my phone is attached to a wall in my house and my computer sits on a desk so I don’t own the right tech. Lol.

Posted by noone cmegus

cmegus wrote:
Curious -  Why would you be done with e-tickets?
Wouldn’t that just make things easier?
G
according to the emails I’ve received from gencon it’s a little more time consuming and complicated than just the paper tickets.  You scan the badge with you cell phone for the ticketed players and the ones with generic tickets which takes a little longer than “ok everyone give me your tickets”. Than there is the fact that by scanning the tickets you can sell tickets to those without any.  To participate you need to watch a video explaining how it works and attend a training session the weds day before the con.

Posted by austicke noone

miked wrote:To participate you need to watch a video explaining how it works

Is that video available publicly?

Posted by brooks nscott

nscott wrote:
cmegus wrote:
Curious -  Why would you be done with e-tickets?
Wouldn’t that just make things easier?
G
my phone is attached to a wall in my house and my computer sits on a desk so I don’t own the right tech. Lol.

Always nice to fine a fellow Luddite. 

Posted by buffythecatslayer

Sadly, if its the latter my GMing days are likely done, luddite that I am.

Maybe this will give you the incentive to catch up with the 3rd decade (by then) of the 21st century. ;-)

Posted by buffythecatslayer

according to the emails I’ve received from gencon it’s a little more time consuming and complicated than just the paper tickets.

It’s a bit more work for the Event Host, but it’s much better for the attendees. No more bits of paper to keep track of, and almost eliminates the need for generics.  Most importantly it will allow us to return the tickets at any time, so we no longer have the 6 week “dead zone” between shipping and the Con.

Posted by mjdomask buffythecatslayer

buffythecatslayer wrote:
according to the emails I’ve received from gencon it’s a little more time consuming and complicated than just the paper tickets.

It’s a bit more work for the Event Host, but it’s much better for the attendees. No more bits of paper to keep track of, and almost eliminates the need for generics.  Most importantly it will allow us to return the tickets at any time, so we no longer have the 6 week “dead zone” between shipping and the Con.


It’s probably a lot better for the large event organizers and Gen Con itself when it comes to reconciliation after the show. Much easier to push a button and get electronic reports of event attendance rather than sort, verify, and tally thousands of individual event tickets. True Dungeon alone is like, what? 8,000 tickets over 800 unique events? That’s a lot of little slips of paper to track and manage. 

Posted by boc_mage

So far e-tickets have been a pain for some of us who organize groups for stuff like True Dungeon. I'm still needing to find a way to transfer all 10 tickets from one badge to another. Friending folks is not a valid solution (my groups roster can and does change up til the time of the run unfortunately). I like e tickets just long as I as a attendee have a way to print an offline code as shareable backup.

Posted by jeannette boc_mage

boc_mage wrote:
So far e-tickets have been a pain for some of us who organize groups for stuff like True Dungeon. I'm still needing to find a way to transfer all 10 tickets from one badge to another. Friending folks is not a valid solution (my groups roster can and does change up til the time of the run unfortunately). I like e tickets just long as I as a attendee have a way to print an offline code as shareable backup.
If you have a bunch of tickets for an event (like True Dungeon) that you plan to attend with your friends, you don't need to transfer the tickets to them. You just go to the event with your friends, the Event Organizer scans your badge, and then scans the badges of your friends. It's that simple.

To avoid scalping and secondary market issues, functions that make is easy for people to grab up tickets to events they aren't going to attend, and transfer them to people who aren't their "friends" or family, won't be an option.

Again, you can still get all the tickets available for the TD run, you don't have to transfer the tickets to your friends badges in order for them to participate.

Jeannette LeGault
Sr. Director of Event Programming
Gen Con LLC
 

Posted by quarex

I really do wonder how the phase-out will go.  For as much as I personally am all-in with the paperless office, so to speak, I imagine they know they would immediately and permanently lose hundreds of older gamemasters by totally removing paper tickets.

Posted by boc_mage jeannette

jeannette wrote:
boc_mage wrote:
So far e-tickets have been a pain for some of us who organize groups for stuff like True Dungeon. I'm still needing to find a way to transfer all 10 tickets from one badge to another. Friending folks is not a valid solution (my groups roster can and does change up til the time of the run unfortunately). I like e tickets just long as I as a attendee have a way to print an offline code as shareable backup.
If you have a bunch of tickets for an event (like True Dungeon) that you plan to attend with your friends, you don't need to transfer the tickets to them. You just go to the event with your friends, the Event Organizer scans your badge, and then scans the badges of your friends. It's that simple.To avoid scalping and secondary market issues, functions that make is easy for people to grab up tickets to events they aren't going to attend, and transfer them to people who aren't their "friends" or family, won't be an option.
Again, you can still get all the tickets available for the TD run, you don't have to transfer the tickets to your friends badges in order for them to participate.
Jeannette LeGault
Sr. Director of Event Programming
Gen Con LLC
 

Not so hypothetical example, tickets are under a relative's account who will not be playing. Is there a way I can have TD folks just run the name and look up the run? I get and appreciate the doing stuff to avoid scalping but this is frustrating. Tickets were bought under my brother's badge as he had better time on event day and can't make the 2 runs booked under the badge. Would love to just be able to do a print out showing i've got the ru and tuck it in my badge holder for the 2 times it matters to show TD and have them check me and my group in.

 

Posted by truedungeon

As the EO for True Dungeon, we were a "test" last year, and I can tell you that e-ticketing was AMAZING and saved me TONS of time counting tickets and labeling/organizing envelopes.  I understand that for some it's an unknown situation, but it worked really well for us, so my suggestion is to give it a try and know that THIS change has been a VERY GOOD ONE!  

Be prepared for hiccups (that's just the way it goes with anything new, right?), and be patient.  We had a fairly smooth transition into e-ticketing, and if we can do it, I'm sure you all will be fine!

Good luck!

Lori

Lori Martin
True Dungeon Executive Director

Posted by kiyote

Not so hypothetical example, tickets are under a relative's account who will not be playing. Is there a way I can have TD folks just run the name and look up the run? I get and appreciate the doing stuff to avoid scalping but this is frustrating. Tickets were bought under my brother's badge as he had better time on event day and can't make the 2 runs booked under the badge. Would love to just be able to do a print out showing i've got the ru and tuck it in my badge holder for the 2 times it matters to show TD and have them check me and my group in.

Wouldn't your brother have you as a friend in the system and he could just buy you your ticket and have it appear in your account?

I mean, I guess there's a loss in some flexibility here, but the benefits they're reaping from making the tickets electronic are probably going to heavily outweigh those edge conditions that can't be satisfied by the mechanisms that are available to attendees.

Posted by boc_mage kiyote

kiyote wrote:
Not so hypothetical example, tickets are under a relative's account who will not be playing. Is there a way I can have TD folks just run the name and look up the run? I get and appreciate the doing stuff to avoid scalping but this is frustrating. Tickets were bought under my brother's badge as he had better time on event day and can't make the 2 runs booked under the badge. Would love to just be able to do a print out showing i've got the ru and tuck it in my badge holder for the 2 times it matters to show TD and have them check me and my group in.

Wouldn't your brother have you as a friend in the system and he could just buy you your ticket and have it appear in your account?
I mean, I guess there's a loss in some flexibility here, but the benefits they're reaping from making the tickets electronic are probably going to heavily outweigh those edge conditions that can't be satisfied by the mechanisms that are available to attendees.

I really like and use Td.events site for all the other cons where it's digital but if need be i can have a paper printout with QR code that they can scan and check me in with. I'm a edge case but far from unique as again as this effects those of us who buy out full runs and then organize tickets/class roles internally. 

 

Posted by andrewj.rager

I honestly can't wait until everything goes e-tickets. Super easy for an attendee's perspective. No paper to ever worry about or lose. Sounds great.

Posted by selene314 kiyote

kiyote wrote:
Not so hypothetical example, tickets are under a relative's account who will not be playing. Is there a way I can have TD folks just run the name and look up the run? I get and appreciate the doing stuff to avoid scalping but this is frustrating. Tickets were bought under my brother's badge as he had better time on event day and can't make the 2 runs booked under the badge. Would love to just be able to do a print out showing i've got the ru and tuck it in my badge holder for the 2 times it matters to show TD and have them check me and my group in.

Wouldn't your brother have you as a friend in the system and he could just buy you your ticket and have it appear in your account?
I mean, I guess there's a loss in some flexibility here, but the benefits they're reaping from making the tickets electronic are probably going to heavily outweigh those edge conditions that can't be satisfied by the mechanisms that are available to attendees.

Your brother can transfer the tickets to you.
You need to friend each other in the system. Then when he opens the event page, over on the right where he would buy a ticket for your badge, there's a red button that says "transfer ticket."

If you can't receive the ticket because you've booked an overlapping event that he'll be using... then I think your only option is to swap badges for that hour.

Posted by boc_mage selene314

selene314 wrote:
kiyote wrote:
Not so hypothetical example, tickets are under a relative's account who will not be playing. Is there a way I can have TD folks just run the name and look up the run? I get and appreciate the doing stuff to avoid scalping but this is frustrating. Tickets were bought under my brother's badge as he had better time on event day and can't make the 2 runs booked under the badge. Would love to just be able to do a print out showing i've got the ru and tuck it in my badge holder for the 2 times it matters to show TD and have them check me and my group in.

Wouldn't your brother have you as a friend in the system and he could just buy you your ticket and have it appear in your account?
I mean, I guess there's a loss in some flexibility here, but the benefits they're reaping from making the tickets electronic are probably going to heavily outweigh those edge conditions that can't be satisfied by the mechanisms that are available to attendees.


Your brother can transfer the tickets to you.
You need to friend each other in the system. Then when he opens the event page, over on the right where he would buy a ticket for your badge, there's a red button that says "transfer ticket."If you can't receive the ticket because you've booked an overlapping event that he'll be using... then I think your only option is to swap badges for that hour.

It was more having to friend 9 others as i have to send the request, they accept and then i can transfer tickets. I get i'm a edge case, i'm more resigned at this point as other cons TD has a better in place system but i get this is a Gen Con thing not a TD thing.

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