Google I/O Sells Out In 20 Minutes 221
netbuzz writes "Last year it took almost an hour, but this morning Google's enormously popular conference for developers sold out in about 20 minutes, Vic Gundotra, Google's senior vice president of engineering, told his followers on Google+. 'While we're overwhelmed with the interest and enthusiasm around Google I/O, we know it can be very disappointing and frustrating when an event sells out this quickly,' he wrote. Those who did not get tickets were not only disappointed and angry, but mystified as to why they were left out of a first-come, first-served sale despite being online and ready to buy the second the bell rang. And, of course, tickets were quickly being scalped on eBay." Of course, everyone who gets in drives away in a free Tesla.
Better way to give out tickets (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe instead of an online first-come first-serve process Google should hold a ticket lottery for those who want to attend, That will help get the tickets into the hand of pre-qualified developers instead of eBay ticket scalpers.
Re:A Tesla? (Score:5, Informative)
The ever increasing "stuff" that attendees get, a few years ago everyone got a Nexus One, a couple years ago I forget but last year people got a XOOM tablet and some other multi-hundred-dollar gizmo.
From what I saw... (Score:5, Informative)
I ended up getting a ticket, though I'm giving it to a co-worker (who work is paying to send).
From what I saw, it wasn't actually a first-come first-serve setup. One of my co-workers who got in "queue" before me didn't get a ticket. I started about 5 minutes after they were posted and I got a ticket. So it seems that once you were in their queue, it may have been random who they gave the tickets to.
I can't speak for others, but I attended Google I/O for their GWT (Google Web Toolkit) and related talks. The GWT sessions were actually rather popular, even though Android is the hip tech that everyone is interested in. I'm guessing people also wanted to attend the Android talks in hopes of getting free phones (some of the talks last year gave phones to people who went to that specific session).
If I was a student in the Bay area, I would definitely fork over the money (only $300 for students) to get the free swag. But for a regular priced ticket ($900), plus hotel and travel, I figured it would have cost me around $2600. I couldn't justify that cost, especially since all the talks are posted to Youtube within a few days of the conference.
Re:Solutions to Scalping (Score:5, Informative)
There was an even better solution to Hannah Montana or one of those other Disney types a year or so back: buyer's name goes on the ticket, and only that person can get in.
The biggest problem is between bands demanding a certain amount of money per show to play, and the touring management companies who feed into it, raising ticket prices in the process. This mostly applies to older bands, but it's easy to see where it leads.
Re:A Tesla? (Score:4, Informative)