For the third time since Springfest 2008, online system tickets.com failed when students tried to obtain tickets for comedian Jimmy Fallon’s Oct. 24 Northeastern show.
The system had failed when students tried to purchase pickets for Springfest 2008, then for Jon Stewart last October.
The tickets will be made available again on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
Student Government Association (SGA) President Ryan Fox said he was told throughout the process by tickets.com, the vendor, that the problems had been solved.
“We had every indication that it would [work],” he said. “We were reassured that every issue we’ve had in the past wouldn’t occur.”
However, before the corrected website was pulled down, 87 students were able to get tickets at 9:40 p.m.
“They added the code they needed in order to have it work through myNEU, which they didn’t have on it for Thursday,” Sprague said.
The same error message was given last year when students tried to get tickets to see comedian Jon Stewart, though for a different reason, Sprague said. Last year it was because an initial large group of buyers rushing to the website, but tickets.com, the vendor that set up the system, created a virtual waiting room so this wouldn’t happen again. However, due to a coding issue, once students were through the waiting room, the tickets were still not made available.
Kat Sprague, president of Council for University Programming (CUP), said last year’s overload issue had been resolved.
“Ticketing has been working really hard to make sure the system is up and running and working,” she said in the Sept. 24 issue of The News, seven days before tickets went on sale. “I know we had a lot of problems for Jon Stewart ... hopefully that doesn’t happen this year.”
The tickets went on sale at 6 p.m., but students received an error message saying tickets were unavailable. Sprague said the vendor was then contacted, and said they would have it running at 8 p.m.
“The system didn’t sync with myNEU ... We don’t know why it happened,” Sprague said. “It wasn’t anything on Northeastern’s end.”
When the system failed again at 8 p.m., Sprague said they wanted it pulled down but tickets.com insisted it would be fixed by 9 p.m.
“I can’t say why they [tried again], I think to some extent they wanted to verify that it would work,” Fox said.
The system is the same one used for NU Athletics Department tickets, who haven’t had issues with it. Sprague said this is because athletics tickets are available to anyone, where as Jimmy Fallon tickets are only available to students and parents.
The malfunction was unexpected, and Fox said he was unhappy with the errors.
“I was just disappointed,” he said. “It was just disappointment that so many students were counting on this system to work, we were counting on this system to work ... and again we had issues with it.”
Students said they were also disappointed with the system, especially after last year’s experiences.
“It was just annoying because at 6 p.m. just like last year and the tickets for Jon Stewart I went online right on time and it didn’t work,” said Jennifer Knispel, a middler political science major.
Since this is the third time the system has not worked as hoped, Fox and Sprague said they may discontinue use of tickets.com
“I can’t make a decision on that yes or no, but that is a discussion we will be having once again,” Fox said.
The system will still be used for the Jimmy Fallon performance, and Fox said Northeastern employees will perform extra testing.
At this point all we can do is hope for the best,” Fox said. “It will be tested both Monday and Tuesday by Northeastern staff to make sure it is working as expected.”
However, after these experiences students said they were dissuaded from purchasing the tickets at all.
“[I probably won’t try again] because it’s just so annoying to me,” Knispel said.
Ticket issues delay Fallon sale
Published: Monday, October 5, 2009
Updated: Monday, October 5, 2009
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