Nnnrgh.

[candidgamera]

Registration for Origins is never easy. It used to be that they'd mail out a printed catalog of events, there would be an order form in the back, and you'd mail that in. It took forever to go through the book, mind you, and trying to make sure you didn't have a schedule conflict involved drawing some interesting time diagrams, but it was doable.

Then a few years back they went online. And there was much rejoicing - kind of. Spread-sheet based event lists make choosing and checking a snap. Limited bandwidth on the server makes signing up for events the first day.. challenging to say the least. Add to that some quirks in the registration system that results in events being overbooked fairly frequently and it still works, just not very well.

This year, it's gone to a whole new level. The online event search (to find them to add to your shopping cart) works inconsistently. And the checkout procedure will, ninety percent of the time, boot you back to your shopping cart without checking you out. Also, it seems to randomly assign you other people's shipping addresses.

I tried to register for events yesterday over the span of eight hours. I made dozens of attempts. Twice I got so far as the screen where I enter credit card information and click purchase. Neither of those attempts seemed to go through. I am extremely ticked off, but I did call them this morning and talk to a live person who told me almost everyone was seeing the same issues, and that they're very angry with the software provider.

Still doesn't get me into my events, but it's something, I suppose.

Comments

[lithera.livejournal.com]

This sounds somewhat familiar... Oh yeah. Sand Diego hotel time.

[candidgamera.livejournal.com]

heh. there's a hotel whose website works that badly?

[lithera.livejournal.com]

There is a company that does reservations for all of SDCC's hotels to make sure you get the special rates. Their website works that badly. This year was marginally better but still, you sort of have to go with whoever has the touch for it that year.