Prom Planner - booking today....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I tried.
I tried again.
I failed.

No tickets available.

[Petrushka]

On line booking for the Proms must present a challenge that is absolutely unique anywhere. 76 concerts concentrated into 8 weeks in a hall with a 6,000 capacity and another, much smaller, venue for chamber music. The logistics are absolutely mind-boggling and it's a wonder that the system copes as well as it does.

I'm puzzled as to why some posters have such trouble with the process. If a technophobic ignoramus like me can suss it out I wonder what it is that some are doing wrong? I think it is vital to shut down anything else on the computer (including this Forum!), kick everyone else out the room and concentrate on the task in hand. It's a simple enough process to go on the RAH site at 9am and keep on clicking the RAH web address on the right hand side until you get into the waiting room. I find this the most frustrating part as you have no idea when you will get in. Previous experience over the last five years has been around 15 - 20 minutes and so it proved again today.

I hope this doesn't sound smug or patronising but if you want those tickets this is what you have to do and it's no good moaning about it. Patience should come easily to classical music fans, after all, and it helps when going through this process.

One thing that does surprise me is that the RAH have not refined or changed the process in any way in the six years of online booking. It was the same today as it was back in 2010.

[Bert Coules]

I just got down to "You are number 1 in the queue" on the waiting list - and then the connection was lost again and the site flagged as unavailable. If I were feeling positive, I'd say that getting to the final position represents progress, but I'm afraid I'm not.

[Petrushka]

I just got down to "You are number 1 in the queue" on the waiting list - and then the connection was lost again and the site flagged as unavailable. If I were feeling positive, I'd say that getting to the final position represents progress, but I'm afraid I'm not.

Are you in a very poor broadband area? Are you on a mobile phone or tablet? There just doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why this should be happening unless we can pinpoint what's causing it. If I remember correctly, you made similar complaints last year. I've just tried again and got straight in.

[Bert Coules]

No, I'm using a desktop PC on a fibre optic broadband connection with excellent speeds. I've tried several diferent browsers, cleared caches and so on, and it's still happening. It wasn't I who mentioned this last year, though: you must be recalling someone else.

[teamsaint]

As of not long ago there was no queue, and just a few sold out concerts.

[Bert Coules]

I just tried again. This time I couldn't even get as far as the waiting list: "The connection was reset... The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments."

LATER:

I know what's wrong. It's the concert I'm trying to book for. I just tried the "buy tickets" link from several other dates and got through at once.

[teamsaint]

I just tried again. This time I couldn't even get as far as the waiting list: "The connection was reset... The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments."

LATER:

I know what's wrong. It's the concert I'm trying to book for. I just tried the "buy tickets" link from several other dates and got through at once.

Good news. Was just going to say that I was getting through fine, when my ipad completely froze.

anyhow, got through fine on my laptop, and there still seem to be relatively few completely sold out concerts.

( Sorry to hear of your disappointment EA, but there may yet be other routes. They are pricey on reseller markets ATM though.)

[Bert Coules]

I finally made it, via a sneaky back-roads path involving getting in to book a different concert and then managing (eventually) to change the date, only to discover there were no seats left in any part of the hall I was interested in. I can think of more enjoyable, not to mention more productive, ways to spend a day (off and on) at my computer.

I once made the mistake of letting my desire to see a show (not a Prom) get the better of me and using a ticket reseller; I shan't be doing that again. I might investigate returns nearer the time though.

[teamsaint]

I finally made it, via a sneaky back-roads path involving getting in to book a different concert and then managing (eventually) to change the date, only to discover there were no seats left in any part of the hall I was interested in. I can think of more enjoyable, not to mention more productive, ways to spend a day (off and on) at my computer.

I made the mistake of using a ticket reseller once; I shan't be doing that again. I might investigate returns nearer the time though.

I have never used them. I'm sure your cautionary tale would be interesting to others, Bert.

good luck on the returns.

[Bert Coules]

It was the Monty Python reunion. A friend and I were very keen to see it and we were convinced that legitimately sold tickets would be snapped up very quickly - a belief fostered by the news items about similar high-profile arena shows selling out completely in a matter of minutes and reinforced by the long queuing to get onto the official site. So while we were waiting and hoping, we investigated the resellers (who already had their tickets available for instant purchase) and were sort-of-panicked into paying well over the odds.

Later and calmer, looking into it properly, I discovered that the promoters of the show were working with the resellers, making tickets available to them in advance of public sales and presumably sharing the inflated profits. There's a damning investigative TV documentary on the subject on YouTube.

[mrbouffant]

One thing that does surprise me is that the RAH have not refined or changed the process in any way in the six years of online booking. It was the same today as it was back in 2010.

Just to pick up on this point and the more general one about the frustrations of the process, I have problems in trying to work out what exactly they could do to improve things, other than

- Increase the capacity of the queue : would one be happier to know that one was in the queue immediately but at some particularly high number?
- Increase the number of ticket-allocation worker processes which do the hard work once you are released from the queue : this must be a hard thing to scale given the data structure behind the scenes, there would probably be a maximum number of workers which could be efficient without reaching deadlock on the back end

It is certainly true that the ability to get in the queue seems extremely random -- this year I ran two computers side by side and one got in at position 450 at about 9.02 and the other never got anywhere near it in the 15-20 mins I was waiting to reach the head of the queue. I am on fibre etc. so it is not a function of bandwidth or linespeed.

In my view this system is an improvement on the old days where you sent off your form (cut neatly from the prospectus) and a cheque to a postal address and sat and waited and hoped for a number of weeks until some/all/none your tickets came back. IIRC, allocations were not done on a first-come first-served basis, but were somehow 'random'. Surely the current system is 'better' than that?!

[Norrette]

The mention of splitting off the popular proms to an earlier day - say Thursday, could include the following:

8 Late night music BBC asian,
16 Late night music Radio 1,
27 Late night Radio 6,
30 Frank Sinatra,
35 Story of Swing,
37 Late Night Radio 1xtra,
41 Sherlock Holmes,
59 Life Story,
74 Jarvis Cocker (erm perhaps not),

I wonder how many people that bought tickets for these also bought for the other concerts. And if so, would they be bothered if they had to repeat the process then.

[Petrushka]

Just to pick up on this point and the more general one about the frustrations of the process, I have problems in trying to work out what exactly they could do to improve things, other than

- Increase the capacity of the queue : would one be happier to know that one was in the queue immediately but at some particularly high number?
- Increase the number of ticket-allocation worker processes which do the hard work once you are released from the queue : this must be a hard thing to scale given the data structure behind the scenes, there would probably be a maximum number of workers which could be efficient without reaching deadlock on the back end

It is certainly true that the ability to get in the queue seems extremely random -- this year I ran two computers side by side and one got in at position 450 at about 9.02 and the other never got anywhere near it in the 15-20 mins I was waiting to reach the head of the queue. I am on fibre etc. so it is not a function of bandwidth or linespeed.

In my view this system is an improvement on the old days where you sent off your form (cut neatly from the prospectus) and a cheque to a postal address and sat and waited and hoped for a number of weeks until some/all/none your tickets came back. IIRC, allocations were not done on a first-come first-served basis, but were somehow 'random'. Surely the current system is 'better' than that?!

Agree absolutely that the current system is better than the old days. It was impossible to book days off work then because you didn't know until early June whether or not you had your tickets. Having said that, I rarely failed to get the tickets I wanted.

Would I be happier to know I was in the queue immediately? Yes, most certainly. The most frustrating part of the whole process is actually getting into the waiting room. The rest of it is pretty well plain sailing.

One other frustration is that the booking form does not differentiate between side stalls on the left of the stage (G-H) and the right (M-O). I strongly prefer the right side and in the old days used to staple a bit of paper to the booking form requesting that side. Now I can't do that and end up all over the place.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Dream of Gerontius VPO/Rattle appears to be sold out If anyone is nearish or greatly wants to hear it, the same forces (ex Gerald Finley for Roderick Williams) perform at Symphony Hall, Birmingham on Thurs 8 Sept. General booking from 21 May. Not cheap but it'll sound wonderful!

Thanks very much Zucchini. Gerontius is one of the concerts my 3 hour wait meant I didn't get. I very much admire Roderick Williams, but I have to say the R A Hall is a very big space for his voice to fill...... I would be equally pleased to hear Finley so lets hope Symphony Hall have a ticket selling system that is more humane to purchasers (speaking as someone who didn't get to join the queue after a mere 20 minutes today). I heard Toby Spence as Gerontius before his "health event" and I'm hoping his voice is fully restored to the glorious sound and interpretation I experienced before.