After many weeks of failed registration attempts, Comic-con finally announced a date for registration for hungry event goers: February 5, 2011 at 9 a.m.

This author was definitely ready to buy his badge on the dot. I woke up at 8:30. When 9 a.m. finally hit….massive clicking, refreshing, and capacity overloads began. This time, the Web site used TicketLeap, which was supposed to ease the purchase of tickets. For the first hour, I could not get past the first screen!!

I decided that it was impossible for a while, so I took a nap. Big mistake. I woke up at 11:30 and tried again. I finally got to the purchase screen, but 4-day passes said “Not enough tickets available.” What does that mean?? Does it mean that we could still purchase or that they are sold out? I also made the mistake of using Mozilla. It’s not made for something like this. After a while, it would not allow me to click “Proceed to Checkout.”

The solution came from my friend also buying tickets. He used Google chrome, then clicked refresh, instead of back and clicking “Proceed” like I did. I tried that method, bought a Friday 1-day pass through his computer, then a Thursday and Sunday 1-day pass through mine. Saturday was also exhibiting “Not Enough Tickets.” If only I knew…

I then found out that “Not enough” is different than “Sold Out.”  After refreshing a couple of minutes later, I decided to give up on Saturday passes and walk away with what I had. I spent $100. A normal 4-day pass is $105, so I guess it’s ok. TicketLeap also charges you $2 extra. Can you just refund that for psychological distress from the process?

Within the day, badges were sold out. If you didn’t get them today, you’ll probably have to settle for Ebay or it’s possible that there will be a later registration date once all the refunds are in. Everyone else and their mom was trying to get these tickets, and it just created frustration and anger throughout the process.

Another concern is the confirmation e-mail. I did not get one yet. My friend did. Does that mean my purchase didn’t go through? I have the confirmation numbers, so I’m hoping that it’s just a server delay. I’m happy I got my badges, but I do not want to go through something like that again. And now I hate frogs.

Image Sources: comic-con.org, ticketleap.com, sfgate.com,