The virtual waiting room strikes again.
Fans have been facing difficulties purchasing presale tickets during Ticketmaster’s virtual waiting rooms; fans typically receive a code and wait in a virtual queue, but never make it to checkout. We’ve seen it with Taylor Swift’s Lover Fests presale and Billie Eilish’s presale for her Where Do We Go? Tour. Now, frustrated Washington Nationals fans are complaining about the process while trying to purchase NLCS presale tickets to the World Series, which was run through tickets.com – a subsidiary of Major League Baseball Advanced Media.
The Nationals and Houston Astros are set to face-off in seven games starting tomorrow, October 22 through October 30. Tickets went on sale Friday, but many fans took to Twitter to explain how the site kept crashing and they received error codes. After waiting for nearly an hour, no more tickets were left.
@Nationals guys your webpage just crashed , its a shame that even us loyal fans can’t have access to the WS . there was never tickets available @granthpaulsen @funnydanny #nats pic.twitter.com/IfGDvOque4
— ROL (@ROGL83) October 18, 2019
WELP, sounds like the NLCS presale was a bust for a lot of people. I’m still in the system where it’s showing available seats for 10/27, but crashes every time I try to purchase. Heads up @Nationals, when I watch the games on tv… it doesn’t go well. #getmeinthestadium
— TROMBONE SHOUTY (@CorporateMonkey) October 18, 2019
Nationals World Series presale is a joke. Game 4 is the only game on sale. And when you log in, you can’t even get one ticket in “best available” which leads to conclusion that whole thing is a farce and no tickets were actually available @ScottSAllen @dcsportsbog
— Jeremy Rachlin (@JeremyRachlin) October 18, 2019
#Nationals presale for World Series tickets was a sham. No tickets actually available. And not at a price point for a normal person.
— Dylan Hecox (@Hecoxanator) October 18, 2019
@Nationals pretty disappointed/poorly executed presale/promo for World Series tickets…should have been if you buy 1 NLCS ticket = you have access to 1 WS ticket not 1 for 2 & access to all games…wonder if it’s been like this for other @MLB WS tickets…feel like I/fans got ?
— Matt Chang (@ChangMatt) October 19, 2019
The #Nationals pre-sale has, quite literally, been the worst & most frustrating ticketing experience. The Bullpen DC it is..
— Lizzy Becherano (@lizzy_becherano) October 18, 2019
Just spent 45 minutes on the Washington Nationals pre-sale site to buy World Series tickets and could not get further than the ticket selection. It kept telling me I couldn’t get tickets together so choose another option. ONE SEAT?! @Nationals My wallet was open
— Natasha Smith Cady (@lassoyh) October 18, 2019
@Nationals pretty disappointed/poorly executed presale/promo for World Series tickets…should have been if you buy 1 NLCS ticket = you have access to 1 WS ticket not 1 for 2 & access to all games…wonder if it’s been like this for other @MLB WS tickets…feel like I/fans got ?
— Matt Chang (@ChangMatt) October 19, 2019
Similar to Eilish and Swift’s presales, the waiting rooms left people waiting for nothing. When people eventually got through the estimated wait time, either no more tickets were left, or they were for sale at inflated prices. Some weren’t even lucky enough to make it through the wait time and were met with error messages or were unable to add tickets to their cart. Even if tickets were available, many fans could not purchase them, calling the situation a “mess.”
It seems that these virtual waiting rooms cause more grief than relief. While ticketing sites aim to make the process simpler, it may be easier to just go back to how things used to be.
I’m seeing a lot of tweets that suggest this morning’s World Series ticket presale for fans who bought tix to the NLCS was a cluster. It might be time to go back to the days of people lining up at the box office.
— Scott Allen (@ScottSAllen) October 18, 2019