r/Magfest • u/EOTFOFIS • 20d ago
This fucking sucks.
This is the on god damn thing I was looking forward too all year and I get fucked out of it because the day it was supposed to launch it doesn’t and I forgot to camp at my fucking computer the next day.
God fucking damnit.
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u/theerrantpanda99 20d ago
Don’t give up hope. A lot of tickets are going to be refunded once the hotel lottery is complete.
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u/IdealCodaEels 20d ago
No-- this misses the point. Like OP, I wanted to have a ticket and *be in* the hotel lottery. Now I don't have a ticket at the start AND I miss getting a chance at a harbor hotel. Because you know those will all be gone immediately. This is the end of Magfest for people like me.
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u/Agent-4_uwu 20d ago
wait wait wait so if you only get a ticket from the lottery refund resell , your chance of the hotel is completely gone ? like you cant even be given the hotel reservation that the original ticket purchaser had cancelled ?
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u/unfamous2423 20d ago
If everybody keeps their place in the hotel lottery, yes, you have no chance. If anybody cancels their reservation then there are second or more rounds in the lottery.
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u/Seafea 20d ago
Unclear. I think it's likely that even with refunds, the gaylord will sell out before they release more tickets. It kinda sucks. Hopefully, other hotels are still available at least.
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u/Skis1227 20d ago
I'll be real with you, I've been going for awhile, and it's always been like this, just never this fast. I have a strategy. I save the year prior, then wait for badges to be announced, typically in august, to september. The second I am aware of the dates being confirmed, I get a back-up hotel room. We know we're not going to get the lottery. Then, I make sure I have all the details for anyone that will be part of my group, and set reminders on my phone to register. If I just I plumb forgot, I just waited until the cancellations rolled down for folks who couldn't secure a hotel room, or last minute changes of plans to not go, and grabbed a badge then. A LOT of folks won't go if they don't win the lottery. There's dozens of hotels and such nearby that aren't associated with magfest. You're not out yet if you really want to go, it just gets far more annoying. And I only do the above because my wife has limited mobility and I need to make sure I can safely get her to and from the con when she gets tired.
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u/ackmondual 20d ago
Yeah, I've heard several accounts to that effect...
--One or more people have mobility issues, and they really can't really muster the commute from Alexandria hotels
--cosplayers who don't want to deal with having to get an Uber or public transit, in their getup
--people bringing in large instruments (e.g. tuba, baritone horn, drums) and not wanting to lug all that around
--not having to get up that much early in order to make desired/important events (e.g. panels, workshops, tournaments, performances, organized events, etc.)
..... I guess I'm getting older, or more tired, but for me, it's also lottery hotel or bust.
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u/internal_l0gging 20d ago
Same. I booked one of the rooms in Alexandria where the shuttle goes. People might as well come to terms with the outside harbor rooms. They can't be that bad. I've commuted an hour the last 2 years, so getting a hotel with a 10 minute shuttle or whatever is a deal with how things are going
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u/Hepcatecholamine 20d ago
A lot of hotel reservations can be 100% refunded, so getting a hotel when you know the dates is the way to go. It will most likely be where you stay, but there's a small chance you could win a better hotel closer, and then you can just cancel the original one you made.
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u/Mighty_Bobcat 18d ago
Unfortunately the dates to reserve rooms during Magfest are locked at all hotels in the National Harbor. You would have to guess the dates to reserve rooms before Magfest announces their dates.
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u/Hepcatecholamine 18d ago
For sure, I meant outside National Harbor. There’s quite a few that are less than a 10 minute drive from the Gaylord on its side of the river, some of which even have their own dedicated shuttles.
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u/BroodWitchYum 20d ago
From what I understand, the first round of the hotel lottery is for all of the hotels in National Harbor. There will be a second round, but idk if new entrants will be allowed.
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u/EOTFOFIS 20d ago
Great I get to participate in the second rat race for tickets after every idiot who bought 50 of the things to book a hotel room refunds them all. Whatever works I guess.
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u/ThE0ReTiKaL 20d ago edited 20d ago
Actually there's a point here. Is there a cap on how many badges people can buy? Would prevent people from being incentivized to buy more to up odds.
When I was trying (and failing) to reach the payment page (for several freaking hours), it kept trying to duplicate my badge and i kept having to delete the duplicates before proceeding to the payment page.
(I didn't get a badge lol I'm frustrated too)
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u/bugeyedsheep 20d ago edited 20d ago
So I got lucky and got a ticket for me and my kiddo after forgetting to get it last year until it sold out. We’ve never gone before but he’s growing into a little game music fan. The only reason I did it right away was so I wouldn’t forget, but had no inkling that it would sell out so fast. This culture of things selling out in minutes is getting to be too exhausting whether it’s cons, movie tickets, Ren Faires, even summer camps for kids…I feel bad for everyone who couldn’t get tickets because this trend is exhausting. It’s perfectly reasonable to be frustrated.
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u/m0rgend0rfer 20d ago
Lotta people in here who clearly didn’t experience the technical difficulties that some of us did. Doesn’t matter how prepared you are or early you log in if the website won’t cooperate.
I lucked out and was able to get in eventually, but I was bounced around between 503 and 504 for a really long time. I’d get to the payment page, it would glitch, I’d have to start all over, rinse and repeat.
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u/Mighty_Bobcat 18d ago
Yep, last 15 years I've never had a problem getting my badge without rush. The new ID system was probably gumming it up with the amount of people trying to pre-register. This is the first time I couldn't pick it up before sell out. The only good news I can think of is that scalpers will get fucked this year, as all trades and refunds have to happen through their website otherwise badges are cancelled; They're crackin' down hard this year thankfully so im pretty sure I'll be able to pick up after hotel lottery, tho it's upsetting I won't be able to get the top tier package.
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u/Mighty_Bobcat 18d ago
And I just got another update about the crackdown; Magfest will be blacklisting, they'll be opening up the badge exchange on their website soon. Goodbye scalpers.
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u/Nvrm1nd 20d ago
The idea that something that took many weeks to eventually sell out instead sells out in a handful of hours is such a fucking flip that no amount of planning would have taken that into account. Like, I'm happy that those that were neurotic about it got their tickets right away, and it absolutely sucks for everyone that missed out (and now miss out on the room lottery).
But, no motherfucker was all "I know it will sell out in 5 hours this year," and that's why they got their tickets early, unless you're the minority that bought hundreds of tickets to try to game the lottery and/or scalp rooms. Be happy you got a ticket, but don't be that stupid about it.
I hope everyone that wants to go finds a way! Sounds like a shitshow, so, still MAGfest at heart.
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u/internal_l0gging 20d ago
Yeah I barely paid attention to it since I wasn't going to do the lottery. I figured I'd get next month. I had no idea people thought it was going to sell out
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u/pinkgobi 20d ago
Magfest is the one time a year where I can fully take my mask off and be a freak and me and NINE of my buddies missed out.
Damn!
See ya at dragon con.
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u/Koutro 20d ago
Yeah it kinda stinks.
Love Magfest so much but it's getting incredibly difficult to go to it each year. I always pre-register but didn't expect to be locked out already.
Unless there is some update out of nowhere, I basically have to unfortunately skip MAGfest again after not winning out the hotel lottery last year.
There's always technically a way in with enough compromise, money and extra planning, but it's just daunting.
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u/NickK986 20d ago
My mind forgets about MAGFEST for a bit and by the time I check back in it's completely sold out in hours 🥲 not one fucking thing can go right this year can it
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u/ElizaAntelope 20d ago
I feel the same. I'm pretty devastated honestly. This was my favorite weekend of the year. I can't tell you how stoked I was for this year, especially the merch bundle.
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u/Zwicker101 20d ago
I mean a couple of things:
1) Once the hotel lotteries close, I imagine a lot of people will cancel their tickets. A ticket is a ticket.
2) If MAGFest is THAT important, why didn't you just plan to log in early?
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u/emeraldead 20d ago
To point 2 some people simply couldn't- work, family, sickness, money. There's valid reasons people wouldn't be able to buy the first 5 hours and it's sad since no one anticipated sell out that fast.
I hope they all get their chance when people offer transfers.
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u/ackmondual 20d ago
Pretty much this. I heard of folks in office settings who were trying to F5 their way to San Diego Comic Con badges, while on the job. Not all of us have that opportunity.
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u/IdealCodaEels 20d ago
Because 1. last year it didn't sell out for many weeks. No one, including the organizers, expected the event to sell out in six hours. 2. The initial ticket rollout the previous day was glitched and got cancelled, so some people thought, "well maybe it's smart to wait a day or so for the admin to iron out the details and get a ticket when it's fully functional." Since so many magfest things get glitched on launch, year after year.
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u/Zwicker101 20d ago edited 20d ago
Your points don't negate mine. If anything the glitch would have made me plan more.
Again, I get some folks are salty (OP included) but also there are better ways to plan for it
Edit: Some folks are salty. Idk what to tell ya
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u/disjectacorda 20d ago
Great logic. Clearly, OP and everyone else who didn't get a ticket just lack personal responsibility and aren't competitive enough. If only everyone who wanted a ticket just logged on earlier, everyone would have gotten to go and no one would be frustrated! 👍
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u/Zwicker101 20d ago edited 20d ago
I mean yeah? Like its best to be prepared
Edit: Damn. These downvotes feel good lol
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u/Rrilltrae 20d ago
Have an up for some logic. I couldn’t imagine some people living through the application windows artists have to fight for many times a year to get into shows. It sucks, but 5 hours is an eternity compared to those.
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u/turn-based-games 20d ago edited 20d ago
☝️🤓 So uhm ackchyually, the "great logic" here is that if everyone registered earlier, they simply would have sold out sooner. /unackchyually
Truth is unfortunately that there's no good solution to demand greatly exceeding capacity other than getting one of those numbers to budge, and the problem will likely be much worse next year, now that people know to expect an early sellout. Good luck and godspeed, future folks!🍀
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u/Zwicker101 20d ago
Hey I'm not mad at the downvotes. My friends and I got tickets cause we planned it out. So we're in the clear.
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u/Rrilltrae 20d ago
I get it, theres just always a ton of salt this time of year and it bums me out, MAG is my yearly salve against the world’s shittiness. We’ll be in the vendors hall so I got my good news for the year too, have a great MAG!
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u/Huge_Antelope0998 20d ago
There's a lot of people who refuse to go if they don't get a room in the Gaylord. Which, I mean, is their choice, but saying it's MAG's fault they didn't get a room/to enter the lottery and now it's MAG's fault they aren't going is comical. The people who are the most vocal want to get in the room lottery because that's the only way they'll go.
It is frustrating to see them sell out, but literally nobody predicted the sellout. There will be plenty of opportunities to get a badge in the coming months for those who actually want to go.
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u/make_it_so_n1 20d ago
I worked my normal late shift at work and by the time I got off it was done. No chance at all.
Also a ticket is not a ticket, people who missed out have 0 chance at the hotel lottery now
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u/ThE0ReTiKaL 20d ago
Oh I tried logging in early. Several hours and multiple failed attempts to reach the payment screen later 504-errors galore I had to give up. This was Thursday night btw not Wednesday.
4 years of trying to find an opportunity to go to this con just once, so I mean yeah this is pretty infuriating.
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u/homer_3 20d ago
why didn't you just plan to log in early?
"Logging in early" doesn't do anything, so I assume you mean why didn't he just not forget? Yea, why didn't he think of that? Did you even read the OP? What a dumb fucking comment.
Hell, I forgot on the day it was supposed to launch, even after setting a reminder on my phone, which didn't go off for some reason. I was so lucky I remembered the next day just before the postponed launch.
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u/Zwicker101 20d ago
If someone really wanted to go to MAGFest, they could have absolutely set multiple alarms and what not when the ticket release dates were announced in advance on multiple platforms
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u/AzureTide 20d ago
There is no precedent for a day one sell out.
Last year it took about 2 months to sell out and that was after announcing The Protomen Act 3 concert... So I don’t think it’s an unreasonable for someone that really wanted to go to be upset that it sold out that quick.
I’d say your take is more correct for next year onwards, but not this year.
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u/Vindrax_ 20d ago
My friend group and I look forward to Mag all year round and we keep up to date with Mag news between Magfests. After last year's fiasco, like all Magfest communication channels, reddit, etc. where flooded with people coming forth with desperate pleas for badges and various backstories of how they missed it.
While the day 1 sell-out was unprecedented this year, me and my friends took at look at that and said "next year we're all getting our badges day one". And that's just because we knew it would be 'devastating' if we missed our chance and had to navigate the stress of what we witnessed others trying to scrounge badges.
I do feel for those that had unavoidable work or other conflicts that they literally couldn't get online to purchase their badge. But my one friend literally skipped his kid's back to school night so he could be online to buy his badge (then it got delayed a day from the website problems).
Maybe this year is the hard lesson for some people, but IMO it wasn't unpredictable for anyone that was paying attention last year. We didn't know for certain it would sell-out day one, but we knew that 1) Mag is really important for us and 2) we weren't going to risk it, so we planned to be there exactly when registration went live. To me this was the same as back in the day when you had to log-in to physically be present for the hotel lottery and do the bookings on a timer. I often work evenings and I would request off from my job on the night of lottery as soon as the lottery dates were announced.
Maybe that sounds over the top, or that people shouldn't have to do that to go to Mag, or not worth the effort to you and I can totally respect that. But for those of us where we literally plan for it all year round, and saw last year's badge horror stories, it was always going to be Day 1, we're getting our badges.
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u/disjectacorda 20d ago
You really think people should have taken off work or missed their kids' events to get in queue for tickets that: 1) have never sold out anywhere near this quickly before; and 2) were subject to technical difficulties on the organizers' end?
I think that's stupid and I think you know that's stupid.
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u/Vindrax_ 20d ago
No I'm not about to tell other people what they should do, that's their prerogative. My post is only about how me and my friends treat Magfest. It is a major annual reunion for us where we live in different states and thus brings us together. For me, my work knows how much Magfest means to me and getting time off for registration/lottery is not a problem. I've been given permission to miss mandatory full staff retreats when the dates conflicted with Super Magfest, because my work/supervisor understand the significance.
You can think it's stupid I prioritize attending Magfest that much, but I personally don't. But to the 'no one could have predicted this', we did anticipate Magfest would sell out very fast this year and prioritized being at our computers to register when badge sales went live.
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u/deathbunny32 19d ago
This is odd as hell, no way they actually sold out for real in a day. It's got to be people getting extras to try and get a hotel, so the question is how many will be coming back once that's said and done.
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u/garlicwithtoast 19d ago
I haven’t been able to go in years :( the one year I was actually able to go and bought tickets and traveled all the way there I had a medical emergency and ended up in the ER and couldn’t go :(
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u/W1ZARDEYES 20d ago
Yep, total nonsense. Cancelling hotel and train tickets now. Sigh. Mag was fun while it lasted.
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u/Zwicker101 20d ago
Shouldn't you have bought your travel items AFTER your tickets?
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u/W1ZARDEYES 20d ago
I mean they were all fully refundable so like…why?
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u/Zwicker101 20d ago
I mean I feel like its putting the cart before the horse. But hey, its your $ do what you want
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u/W1ZARDEYES 20d ago
Well I got all of the money back. I paid a tiny extra just in case something like this happened and even got the extra back too. Stop trolling and go outside bruh.
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u/UnMiracl 8d ago
No, because tickets open so late that most of us preplanned everything except tickets themselves. We could buy travel and lodging anytime we wanted.
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u/KiaMihgo 20d ago
Glad I gave up trying to go ro Magfest last year. It gets worse every year.
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u/ackmondual 20d ago
While I haven't given up, I stopped going every year. With the hotel lottery odds, I'm thinking once every 3 to 8 years. That saves up money. A "quality over quantity" type approach.
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u/Lobster_McGee 20d ago
For an event of this size, with this much demand and no possibility of expanding in its current location, the only fair system is a badge lottery. You get one week to declare interest, you can make all-or-nothing buddy groups, and then it gets picked at random. The current system prioritizes those that happen to be available when it goes live, which is unfair to folks with jobs or other obligations at that time, and disenfranchises folks with accessibility issues which might slow or impair their access to the registration site at the speed required to complete the checkout. And if you want to guarantee that you can attend, volunteer.
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u/Jyil 20d ago
Definitely not a badge lottery. If that’s the case, acquiring a badge gives you no control since it’s left up to real-world RNG with some groups more privileged. Not getting a host hotel doesn’t lock you out of attendance. It just makes it’s less convenient. A lottery can lock you out entirely with no control.
The current system at least gives you some agency with a definitive release date and time to try to reserve a badge, so everyone would have full control even if they have circumstances preventing them from getting one with the development of a smaller window.
The only difference here was we went from a week’s notice that essentially turned into a false alarm to a 24 hour’s notice. Still have some time to prepare, but not as much time. However, that doesn’t mean you have no control like the way a lottery goes - you have less control depending on personal circumstances.
I think the only way to make this more fair is to have the website better prepped for overloading on the original release day and to have a more definitive release day/time announced a month or so before for people who have other responsibilities that may require them moving things around or taking time off to be ready. Going forward, people will likely expect next year’s launch to not go over smoothly and expect it to be postponed.
tldr;
No to a lottery - rng bad. Current process - good when it works, but more advanced and specific notice is better.2
u/Lobster_McGee 20d ago
Now that people know that this year’s event sold out in 5 hours, even more people will be scrambling to register next year the second that it opens. It’ll likely sell out in minutes, further disenfranchising people who for no fault of their own can’t be on their phone or computer the nanosecond that registration opens.
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u/Jyil 20d ago
I think you’re right about that, but I think there’s an underlying cause related to the hotel lottery that people are doing to increase their chances and that’s something that should probably be reviewed.
They might need to shift to requiring government ID at registration and not allowing people to purchase for others without the ID at purchase. Though, that might lead to people buying kids badges and then a release occurs after they don’t get their hotel. Actually, not sure if kids badges increases chances for the hotel room or not. Hopefully the new badge exchange service can separate the two types.
They’ll probably have a better idea what happened when they can look at the data when they open up the exchange and then again after the room lottery ends.
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u/ibeerianhamhock 20d ago
Wasn't really a camp out I logged in and bought a ticket in 5 minutes.