That's an interesting approach. San Diego Comic Con takes the approach of making you jump through so many hoops that only obsessives can make it through the processes.
To buy a ticket, you have to create an account to buy a ticket before the ticket sale date is announced. Once the date is announced, you are no longer allowed to create a new account for that year's sales. Then you get assigned an hour-long time slot in the far future during which you have to be actively present online to enter a lottery to see if you have the chance to even buy a ticket. Then you have to buy the kind of ticket you want before that batch sells out.
And if you went the previous year, there's a whole different set of rules to figure out of how to maintain your eligibility to buy a ticket the next year with it's own different set of dates and forms to fill out.
All of this is incredibly hard to figure out if you don't spend your life trying to figure out how to buy Comic Con tickets. There are multiple dates you have to plan around and you have to show up during your 1-hour purchase window even if it's in the middle of the night for your location.
So while it prevents most scalping effectively, I personally think it's a crappy experience and a crappy solution.
I just don't get it. For almost any event I can barely gather the enthusiasm to raise myself from my rather pleasant sofa, cope with the trauma of travel and missing that night's TV not to mention the "oh god how do I get home again" nightmare.
I guess it’s a choice between watching show X in comfort or standing in line for 6 hours for a chance to spend 10 seconds with an actor/actress from show X. Probably not even the main star as they have better things to do. Put it like that and it’s a no-brainer.
To buy a ticket, you have to create an account to buy a ticket before the ticket sale date is announced. Once the date is announced, you are no longer allowed to create a new account for that year's sales. Then you get assigned an hour-long time slot in the far future during which you have to be actively present online to enter a lottery to see if you have the chance to even buy a ticket. Then you have to buy the kind of ticket you want before that batch sells out.
And if you went the previous year, there's a whole different set of rules to figure out of how to maintain your eligibility to buy a ticket the next year with it's own different set of dates and forms to fill out.
All of this is incredibly hard to figure out if you don't spend your life trying to figure out how to buy Comic Con tickets. There are multiple dates you have to plan around and you have to show up during your 1-hour purchase window even if it's in the middle of the night for your location.
So while it prevents most scalping effectively, I personally think it's a crappy experience and a crappy solution.