STEP has launched... but server crashed immediately

[drutter]

At exactly 12:00 PST I went to the link provided in the STEP email I was sent a few days ago. Nothing connected. A few refreshes, and the same result.
I guess the best thing to do is keep trying? Not every second of course, but every couple minutes.
Anyone get through yet? Hopefully it won't be down long......

[vargaso]

I got in at about 12:05, hit the "Save" button, and then nothing. Not sure if it went through. Still trying until I get a confirmation.

UPDATE:
Got the confirmation screen at 12:18, which means I'm pretty well back in the line I'm guessing. Here's the text:

Thank you, your request to be added to the WANT List was successful! Being added to this list does not guarantee you a chance to buy tickets.

If tickets do become available, you will receive an email with a link to purchase tickets. You will have 72 hours to buy tickets using your unique link - nobody else can use it.

Please do not contact customer support asking about your status.

I started hitting the refresh on my link at 11:59. I do web development from home so I have a really good internet connection, it's just the luck of the draw. Good luck everyone!

[suicyco]

It is working, after getting the "save" button a few times and having the connection reset after hitting it, I finally got a confirmation page. It just has to wade through a great many connections.

[solemnraven]

Amazing.

I know someone who got in, but I didnt.

GOOD JOB BURNINGMAN ON KEEPING YOUR SERVERS UP.

[theCryptofishist]

It is working, after getting the "save" button a few times and having the connection reset after hitting it, I finally got a confirmation page. It just has to wade through a great many connections.

Ditto

[Clockwork_Wizard]

Confirmed on STEP. Now to wait for a ticket...

[BarShirley]

Thank you, your request to be added to the WANT List was successful! Being added to this list does not guarantee you a chance to buy tickets.

Not sure whats going on. Am I on the list ?

[indienial]

Yes you are BarShirley! Looks like you made it into the first 2000, before they closed the queue. Yay! Now the wait begins...

[drutter]

Follow up post, to help others who are working through the process:

I did manage to get through to the site after about 10 minutes of refreshing. I recommend refreshing once every minute or two.
When you get through, you'll see a blank screen with the BM logo up top, and in the middle of the screen will be a button that asks you to click it.
Once you do, assuming the server doesn't crash on you, you'll be taken to a screen saying:

"Thank you, your request to be added to the WANT List was successful! Being added to this list does not guarantee you a chance to buy tickets.
If tickets do become available, you will receive an email with a link to purchase tickets. You will have 72 hours to buy tickets using your unique link - nobody else can use it.
Please do not contact customer support asking about your status."

I then received an email:

"Thank you, your request to be added to the WANT List was successful! Being added to this list does not guarantee you a chance to buy tickets.
If tickets do become available, you will receive an email with a link to purchase tickets. You will be offered tickets at whichever face value is available, plus applicable delivery and service fees. You will have 72 hours to buy tickets using your unique link - nobody else can use it and it cannot be shared."

Now, I wonder if there's a way to view the WANT list I'm on? Or, at least find out how far down the line I am?

I'm also wondering if I can change the name on my request. When I signed up for the lottery, I had to use a relative's credit card because I didn't own one. I've been told these STEP tickets will not be transferable to anyone else, and that you have to be the person named on the order if you want to pick the tickets up at Will Call, at the gates in August. I hope people who had to use friends/relatives credit cards aren't going to be excluded from going Home this year!

In any case, keep refreshing, and soon enough you too will be in a virtual lineup, awaiting the chance to be added to a list, at which point you'll be in the running to be selected for the chance to potentially buy tickets! You're almost there!!!

[drutter]

Looks like STEP is closed. Took about 15 or 20 minutes before people started getting this:

We're sorry, but the STEP queue is now closed. You should have received an email from Burning Man with information about the limitations of the queue including if and/or when it will be reopened.

Oh boy.
Sorry to all of those who didn't win a place in the 2012 Black Rock City Lottery Lineup

[RevDusty]

Horrible.

Got the "Save" button twice, and had the server crash on me twice. No confirm email. No nothing.

I can understand that not everyone can get into line.

I can't forgive the continuing terrible way tickets are handled, year after year.

In-Ticketing has repeatedly proven they don't know how to architect a scalable ticketing solution.

It's a travesty that we are still stuck with them, even though I am sure they are very nice burner people. They are not up to the job.

[randomgirl7]

Got into the STEP program. They sent a confirmation email too, so if you are second guessing make sure to check that.
They also mentioned in a later email that they are just allowing a certain amount of people in the program right now.. and to check back randomly to re-enter.

Seems like the crashing was due to the fact that they had a heavy amount of people logging into a ticketing website that's free. Maybe the re-stocking fee that was removed was going to go to a proper ticketing website so we weren't going to have the site crash.

Good luck fellow Burners

[Drawingablank]

Well at this point I'm in limbo.

Closed my shop at 5 minutes to to avoid distractions.

Started with a 500 internal server error, after that each refresh was an unable to connect message.

After refreshing numerous times I finally got the save link, which then gave me an unable to connect message when clicked.

On the next refresh it showed that the queue had been closed so not sure whats up now.

I don't have a good feeling about this, but I guess time will tell.

[feistypenguin]

Secure Ticket Exchange Program (STEP)

We're sorry, but the STEP queue is now closed. You should have received an email from Burning Man with information about the limitations of the queue including if and/or when it will be reopened.

That was after 15 minutes of "Connection reset."

My workplace is right on the backbone too! No love for the East Coast I guess...

[vargaso]

Horrible.

Got the "Save" button twice, and had the server crash on me twice. No confirm email. No nothing.

I can understand that not everyone can get into line.

I can't forgive the continuing terrible way tickets are handled, year after year.

In-Ticketing has repeatedly proven they don't know how to architect a scalable ticketing solution.

It's a travesty that we are still stuck with them, even though I am sure they are very nice burner people. They are not up to the job.

Agree 100%, they need to go and BMORG needs to partner with a reputable ticketing vendor. I understand server overload, but contigency plans should be in place, like redirecting to a page with verbiage explaining the situation. Again, this is standard best practices in the industry. Ah well.

[RevDusty]

...and why the fuck did I have to click a Save button!

More waste and traffic.

Poorly thought out.

[trilobyte]

It's pretty much expected. Same happens with every other hot ticket event going on sale, even when you've got the relatively unlimited ticketing server power of LiveNation/Ticketmaster. Coachella sold 160K tickets in 4 hours, and would likely have sold it in under 3 if they weren't having such terrible trouble with servers handling the load, and a couple weeks ago Bonnaroo suffered such a massive problem that they had to halt sales completely and re-schedule the rest of the on-sale for the following weekend. A week later they were able to resume, with massive amounts of server lag until they'd hit the point where it was only highest price left.

[mdmf007]

I feel your pain as well folks - I am sure the hundreds of thousands of queries sent in 5 minutes looked like an attack on the site due to all the refreshes. I made it in under the bar - got the confirmation im in the que, but no holy grail email you have tickets option... Time will tell.

MDMF

[redvixen]

i also clicked on the invite link at noon and got the server no connected message even after retrys. I thought it was on my end so unplugged and replugged my router but got the same message. I even tried a PC restart. It was not until 12:17 that I got a confirmation I was on the want list. I had similar issues even trying to get onto ePlaya to see if others had similar problems. This is bizarro!

[Sassy Britches]

After many "refreshes," got the screen to "click here." went to a blank screen, with URL of "burningman.tickets-secure.com/lottery/waiting list/save. Stayed blank for more than 30 minutes. Hit refresh only to be told it was closed.
Friend still on same blank screen on their computer. Will leave it that way for next several hours until they give up too. Yuk.

[CapnJoe]

Never got into the STEP line, then got the CLOSED message. Why can't a multi million enterprise get a company to handle the ticket process? Are they just too stupid, or just too CHEAP

[Robishop]

The Ticketing for STEP seemed to be hosted by Amazon Web Services, yes that Amazon... Did you notice the URL theat was in the addrwess of the links sent?

No matter, even Amazon is slow at times I guess.

Amazon Web Services
http://www.amazonaws.com/
Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivers a set of services that together form a reliable, scalable, and inexpensive computing platform “in the cloud”.

[snardy]

Got accepted at 12:10pm exactly and email confirmation immediately followed. I'm in Washington DC.
According to my non-scientific Facebook polling, it seems that 50% of my friends made it onto the list.

Also, the confirmation page URL had "amazonaws" in the domain. So I guess Amazon provides the back-end servers? If so, Amazon could be the ones to blame for not being able to manage the traffic.

[CamSurf119]

I got my email at 3:21PM that I got in woohoo! Wonder how many people got in before me. Hoping something crashed and no one got in for the first 20 min.

[RevDusty]

Trilo,

Assuming they needed that Save button (which they don't), you move those people to different servers so that once they are in, they are taken care of. I shouldn't get the save button (twice!) and then get booted.

In-Ticketing does NOT know how to architect a viable solution. As an architect of large scale enterprise solutions (much greater volumes than we are seeing here on a regular basis), I do have some background on how these issues are handled.

[vargaso]

The Ticketing for STEP seemed to be hosted by Amazon Web Services, yes that Amazon... Did you notice the URL theat was in the addrwess of the links sent?

No matter, even Amazon is slow at times I guess.

Amazon Web Services
http://www.amazonaws.com/
Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivers a set of services that together form a reliable, scalable, and inexpensive computing platform “in the cloud”.

The Amazon cloud service is state of the art, it can handle very high volume, depending on what level account you have. As Trilo mentioned, it's pretty common to have server overload, it's how you handle that that matters.

[hellolinds]

phew. that was an exercise in frustration. They knew exactly how many people had links to the server - they couldn't spend enough money to deal with the 20 minutes of constant refresh traffic?!?! Come on!!!

We somehow made the list at about 12:18. Figuring we're probably near the back of the line. Now to cross our fingers that tickets actually make it down to where we are.

Some of our group got on - others did not.

Going to the BM facebook page to check the situation made me a bit sad. So much anger and frustration and despair again. A lot of mourning to be done about this process.

[drutter]

From people I've talked to on MSN, posts in this forum, and other info..... I'm seeing about a 1 in 3 success rate so far, in terms of number of people who successfully got into the STEP lineup, versus number of people who tried but didn't get in. If that's roughly correct, and assuming there are now 2000 people in STEP, somewhere around 6000 were trying to get in.

To the other 4000 (and the thousands who are at work or otherwise busy right now and hoping to sign up later today), remember that even us lucky 2000 aren't necessarily getting tickets. The vast majority are going to end up watching Burning Man on YouTube this year, just like you.

After many "refreshes," got the screen to "click here." went to a blank screen, with URL of "burningman.tickets-secure.com/lottery/waiting list/save. Stayed blank for more than 30 minutes. Hit refresh only to be told it was closed.

I'm very sorry that your patience (not refreshing when you got the white screen) is what cost you a place in the lineup. Patience should be rewarded, but in this case, it may have cost you a trip Home

[RevDusty]

The Ticketing for STEP seemed to be hosted by Amazon Web Services, yes that Amazon... Did you notice the URL theat was in the addrwess of the links sent?

No matter, even Amazon is slow at times I guess.

Amazon Web Services
http://www.amazonaws.com/
Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivers a set of services that together form a reliable, scalable, and inexpensive computing platform “in the cloud”.

Amazon can handle it, but InTicketing has to allocate the proper amount of resources to handle the load. Amazon is not going to do that for you automatically.

Again, it is InTicketing, not Amazon.

[suicyco]

The Ticketing for STEP seemed to be hosted by Amazon Web Services, yes that Amazon... Did you notice the URL theat was in the addrwess of the links sent?

No matter, even Amazon is slow at times I guess.

Amazon Web Services
http://www.amazonaws.com/
Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivers a set of services that together form a reliable, scalable, and inexpensive computing platform “in the cloud”.

The way it appeared to me was it was bouncing around several servers. The initial emailed link was to BM's servers. Which redirected to Amazon. The "SAVE" button page looked to be hosted on Amazon. However, hitting save seemed to redirect traffic back to burningman.com. I noticed that eplaya was very unresponsive during all of this. I got to the amazon page several times but it kept timing out when trying to redirect back to BM's servers. Eventually I got the confirmation message, but I think the big issue was the connection to BM's servers, not Amazon. Eplaya is working just fine again, so I would guess they shared the same connection. I doubt BM has as huge a pipe as Amazon.