Proms dates 2019

[mrbouffant]

Lucky you so it seems that the idea you have to wait till dead on 9 is false - I am at about 5500 still !

Been stuck at the same position (66) for the last 10 minutes. Has the system crashed?...

[Norrette]

Likewise. Think it has. This is worse than ever. Yet the touts are home free!

[Barbirollians]

Been stuck at the same position (66) for the last 10 minutes. Has the system crashed?...

Seems so people reporting on Twitter their planners accepted but they cannot pay

[mrbouffant]

What makes you say that about the touts?

[Simon B]

It's a clusterflump (sic) as usual:

System officially broken:

"Royal Albert Hall

Verified account

@RoyalAlbertHall
Follow Follow @RoyalAlbertHall
More
Yup we've had to pause the queue for now. Please stay in it and bear with us. We'll post updates on the live blog"

Best bet is to follow https://twitter.com/RoyalAlbertHall/...29181895168000

Reading between the lines the actual vending part of the system had keeled over (I've had this repeatedly in the past - get your tickets in the basket, try to pay - crash) so they've done a "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" and are having another bash now.

By 2037 we'll have a reliable system...

[Petrushka]

Lucky you so it seems that the idea you have to wait till dead on 9 is false - I am at about 5500 still !

I was logging in and out from 8.57 so it would take me seamlessly through the 9.00 start. My computer clock changed to 9.00 just as I got in at 135. All so different from the nightmare that was last year when I had problems paying by card and lost the booking.

[Barbirollians]

What makes you say that about the touts?

On twitter people reporting seeing tickets for VPO/Haitink on viagogo at inflated prices already .

Surely BBC and RAH should consider making all tickets that appear on such sites as void.

[Norrette]

What makes you say that about the touts?

People reporting tickets on sale at 9:10

[Norrette]

I was logging in and out from 8.57 so it would take me seamlessly through the 9.00 start. My computer clock changed to 9.00 just as I got in at 135. All so different from the nightmare that was last year when I had problems paying by card and lost the booking.

I tried the same this year - didn't even get into the queue until 9:08 - now at 4940 45 mins later

[mrbouffant]

People reporting tickets on sale at 9:10

Oh that's interesting. Are these tickets with actual seat numbers? If not, they may just be posted speculatively in the hope that the original buyer is successful via the Proms Plan. Such postings can easily be taken down if the tickets were not successfully acquired..

[Simon B]

On twitter people reporting seeing tickets for VPO/Haitink on viagogo at inflated prices already .

Surely BBC and RAH should consider making all tickets that appear on such sites as void.

Some of those are likely to be from the many debenture holders who've got increasingly savvy about maximising profit on their asset via the internet in recent years. That said, a legion of bots hammering the RAH site may be part of their problems this morning.

Personally I think they should go back to a pen and paper system which was much more civilised. Trying to scale an IT system to cope reliably once a year with the task at hand is firmly in the "hard problem" area and despite the now swingeing booking fees the RAH probably doesn't have the resources to do it robustly enough.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Surely BBC and RAH should consider making all tickets that appear on such sites as void.

How would they do that, though? And who would suffer? Not the Touts, because they've got their money - only the punter whose only means of getting a ticket was through the Tout.

How do Touts get hold of multiple tickets? Can the RAH refuse to sell Proms tickets to anybody who buys more than - what? Six? - tickets for one event? And would that mean that a group of eight friends going to a Prom would have to split the booking and hope that their seats weren't too far apart?

Do the Touts have special arrangements with venues? The touts ensure that the venue gets paid for tickets, ensuring sales - thus taking away an element of risk for the venue that tickets won't sell?

It is a problem, but one that I don't think can be solved by venues dishonouring tickets that have been legitimately bought. I can only imagine some success if there were government legislation that said that no ticket for any event can be sold at more than (say) 10% above its printed price. I don't know if the venues would benefit from this, or support it.

[Rcartes]

What a total effing shambles! I managed to get in the queue at only (only!) position 1331 in the queue, proceeded through the system, launched my planner, got the two concerts I wanted (Barenboim and Haitink), made the relevant choices (deliver by post or email? Donate?), entered the payment details, until I finally reached the page that said:

YOUR ORDER IS BEING PROCESSED

Please do not refresh this page

It reached this point when the little sign at the top said "16:30 remaining to complete purchase" until it ran down to 00:00, when this appeared:

Your basket has expired.

So did they take the money? No confirmation email from RAH, no sign of it with the bank, so presumably they didn't and the thing failed: no tickets.

Not surprisingly, I'm FURIOUS!

OTOH, at least I saved £110 and I'll listen to the concerts at home for nothing. S*d the RAH!

[Simon B]

How do Touts get hold of multiple tickets? Can the RAH refuse to sell Proms tickets to anybody who buys more than - what? Six? - tickets for one event? And would that mean that a group of eight friends going to a Prom would have to split the booking and hope that their seats weren't too far apart?

Bots. Sophisticated ones at that. It's a technology problem and a difficult one to address. It's a technical arms race between the vendors and the touts - a bit like internet banking fraud.

[Norrette]

Going to use the telephone next year.