November 21, 2005
No Luck With Butterstick
We should have expected it.
This morning DCist dutifully logged onto the National Zoo website minutes before the 9 a.m. hour, when tickets for Butterstick's first full public viewing were set to be made available. We refreshed and refreshed, waiting for that magical link to appear, that final step between us and our loved little panda cub.
Suddenly, there it was. We clicked on it. We were in. We chose a date. We chose the number of tickets. We entered our name and email address. We hit "Submit."
And then it happened. The ever-feared "Service Unavailable" message appeared. We refreshed. Same thing. Refreshed one last time. "This Page Cannot be Displayed."
Why must the National Zoo toy with us like this?
|
Advertisement: DCist Continues Below!
Post a comment (Comment Policy)
I spent the last half hour refreshing and refreshing my computer screen to get to the time reservation page only to be told that the time I asked for were filled while I submitted the form. I finally did get a reservation after about 5 different date/time tries.
The zoo can't keep animals alive, I didn't expect them to keep a website alive either.
Bitterness aside, it took me half an hour, but I was able to get the time I wanted. I just hope all the traffic weren't people who are just going to sell the tickets on Craigslist or something.
It took me an hour. First 15 minutes of trying to get onto the zoo webpage until I finally got to select a date, the first three didn't work. I finally got a time after an hour then, when it came time to print my ticket ... friggin' little red X. When I refreshed it told me that I had already printed my ticket and to call the FONZ office. I called and the line is busy. The one time I did get through it told me to leave a message, but after the beep it said that the box was full. Arghhh.
Re: the voice mail box being full, email FONZ and tell them what happened. I am a FONZ member and had trouble when I was getting my FONZ viewing tickets, and they called me that day and solved the problem.
Do they give out money when you go there? Free beer? Otherwise, i don't get it. It's just a a bear.
Thanks KG, emailing worked.
I'm having the same problem with the 'Stick tix - got to the page to print, then refreshed and they were gone. Anyone have the FONZ email address so that I can sort this out???
Looks like they are all gone, only a matter of time now before people start selling their tickets on craigslist: "My holiday plans have changed and I can't see butterstick when I wanted, I have 25 tickets available for multiple dates, $100 OBO, my loss is your gain!"
Took me about 15 minutes. I, too, was a bit annoyed by the error messages, but I finally got 4 tickets for Saturday, December 17th. The ticket form took FOREVER to load, though, and even when it did complete, there were no images. I'm hoping there's no missing barcode that should be visible - there is text about some sort of coupon that I've apparently missed out on.
Finally got into the Web site, but all the Stick tix are gone ...
Andrea,
Try rob@fonz.org that's who sent me my tickets.
the parade of douches has begun:
"12/17 (Saturday) 4,5 or 6 available $125 each
12/21 (Wednesday) 3 or 4 available $95 each"
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/tix/112792141.html
Finally got someone on the phone and they emailed me the link to the ticket page. If anyone else got to the point where you could print the tix - and then hit refresh and lost the page - don't worry. The person on the phone with FONZ just looked up my name and emailed me the link.
Is the zoo going to do anything abut the scalped stick tix?
I don't know if the zoo is going to do anything, but I do know that you can flag the scalpers on Craigslist. I know of one posting that has already been removed. FLAG THE SCALPERS!
I got the same "submit" error DCist did, but after 20 minutes of trying even the Natl Zoo main page wouldn't load. Utter crap (as I should have expected from the zoo). Oh well, I believe Wonkette when she says you get a better view on pandacam.
If you got the "already printed your ticket message" and you can't get through by phone, I emailed nationalzoo@nzp.si.edu and gave them my email, time, and number of people. They emailed me a link to my ticket within an hour.
no luck here either, damn zoo site. over an hour i tried and every time i did make it to a ticket offering i got the error that said the tickets were gone before i submitted the form. very poor execution on such a hot event! they should have known better!!