BlizzCon Tickets Sell Out in 28 Minutes

At 10am today, thousands of people were frantically refreshing their browsers in hopes of scoring tickets to BlizzCon, a video game convention hosted by Blizzard.

Blizzard, the maker of games such as StarCraft, the Diablo series, and the insanely popular World of Warcraft, puts on BlizzCon in Anaheim, CA each year. The sale date for tickets was announced on May 5th, 2009. Also introduced at that time was the new queue system, in order to avert the disaster of previous years.

Last year, many hoping to purchase tickets for BlizzCon were met with disappointment as server crashes, browser freezes and an overloaded system prevented many from purchasing tickets. This year, Blizzard introduced a new queue system to their store. Those wishing to buy tickets selected the appropriate number and were then sent to a secondary page, where their place in the queue and estimated time until purchase were available and continually refreshed.

The system worked smoothly, but lead to a lot of nail biting as prospective buyers watched both their position in the queue and percentage of tickets left available tick down. Within 28 minutes, all BlizzCon tickets had been sold. However, while it took 28 minutes for the final batch of purchasers to be allowed to check out, those who were not in the ticket queue within the first moments of the sale were left out in the cold.

Joining the queue mere seconds after tickets went on sale, many would-be buyers reported queue positions in the tens of thousands, knowing within moments that their chances of purchasing BlizzCon tickets would be slim. However, for those who did make it through the process to the final sale, the system went off without a hitch.

For those who are still interested in purchasing BlizzCon tickets, there will be a second chance sale on Saturday, May 30th. The same process will be used, so anyone who would like to go to BlizzCon will need to have their lightning-fast fingers ready.

Disappointing to some, the popular "swag bag" offered at each BlizzCon was seen for sale on eBay within minutes of tickets going on sale. These bags contain various Blizzard trinkets and tokens, as well as a much sought after code for a special in-game item. This year, the in-game item offered at BlizzCon will be a non-combat pet named Grunty the murloc marine. Those interested in obtaining the pet have the option of ordering the BlizzCon pay-per-view on DirecTV, which will also come with a code for the BlizzCon pet.

Despite the large number of disappointed people who were unable to purchase BlizzCon tickets today, the new system has already garnered rave reviews from those who were impressed with the process. Hopefully, those still interested in purchasing BlizzCon tickets will have better luck on the second chance sale date, May 30th.