Transformers fans left wondering about BotCon 2010 registration

It's getting to the point now that if they don't have registration up by the end of next week, I won"t be able to go, as I have other things to plan around it. Airfare that close to the convention is going to be way more expensive, and I am not certain where I will be flying out of. Looks more and more like this won't be my first Botcon this year after all.

I'm not gonna make it... sadly for the second year in a row Im not gonna lie though that I am a little worried that alot is gonna fall throgh the cracks for people... it seems like the registration has always been a little bit of pandamonium and making it this close to the con seems insane to me... especially the complete lack of info about guests etc.

the thing that worries me is; look at how they treat the JoeCon. Most years they reveal the next location during the current one, and they had their registration up waaay before the con this year. Oh and they already have their yearly free figure shipped, with most membaers already having them in hand. Sometimes it's like BotCon and the Collectors Club is an afterthought compared to the Joe Club.

Razorclaw0000 wrote:I've repeatedly defended the club and I'm getting tired of waiting. As a software developer, I do not comprehend the excuses regarding the code for registration not being ready. Did they genuinely build something from the ground up? There are several event services that could easily handle registration for a few thousand people without even blinking.

It boggles the mind.

As a website developer with almost 10 years of experience developing ecommerce websites (several of which were event registration websites), I have to agree with you. It's ridiculous that we didn't have online registration back in 2005 and it's unfortunate that 5 years later we still don't. It doesn't take this long to build something, even from scratch, unless that person has no experience building ecommerce websites. Kind of makes me a little worried about the whole credit card bit and whether or not this will be PCI compliant.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe ... =&gs_rfai=

Sheesh, guys! It'll be up when it's up. Just be patient.

Delicon wrote:

UltraPrimal wrote:Sheesh, guys! It'll be up when it's up. Just be patient.

I think those of us who have planned to go to BotCon have been in fact just that. However, when you are making a large financial investment to attend a convention such as BotCon I think you deserve a little more attention/respect than what he have gotten recently. Don't get me wrong, BotCon is an enormous endeavor and FunPub overall has done a good job but this would seem to be a very vital thing they are dropping the ball on.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we were promised that we would be able to register in late February/early March as I recall and right now we're about to run out of April in a matter of hours. Wanting a real explanation and/or some action is not being selfish on our part.

Seriously. My wife is going to a fan event in mid-May, and she was able to register in November, had all of her conformations in hand in Mid January, and had her entire itenerary before the end of January. We were able to save so much on airfare since we had so much time to play with, but I'm not planning on going to Botcon if I can't get the set, and have passed on several grat sets of non-refundable, no-changable airfare.

FACT: The registration wait as already cost me more than 150 bucks.

I consider that unacceptable customer service.

Maybe, they should work on 2 locations at once, one for next year and one for the year after. That way they'll have everything done a year in advance and can focus on the following year, and have plenty of time, for them and us, to plan.

All of the above is why I'm not going to BotCon. I had wanted to go and I had the Mrs. all set but, we wanted to plan for it in advance. They should take a lesson from the major comic cons.

youngku wrote:I have to agree with everybody. I don't understand how setting up a registration program can be so difficult. Why is this a problem every year? Are we re-inventing the wheel? There are literally millions of softwares out there that can do this. Simply put, this is ridiculous--if I was Brian Savage, I would be downright embarrassed. I can tell you that when registration finally does become available, there will be many unhappy people because the Botcon exclusives will be sold-out in a matter of hours.

While it is fairly easy (assuming you know what you're doing) to develop an online event registration with credit card processing, it does take time to build an application that does this. If building it from scratch, it should take a few months to build something of this nature, though I'm sure there are "freeware" things that they could use instead but I'm not a fan of those (things like the nightmarish osCommerce, Zen-Cart, and Magento all come to mind) ... especially when integrating it with an existing website.

I'm sure the biggest factor here is $$$$. E-Commerce websites and event registration websites are expensive. I wouldn't freelance a project like this for less than $7,500, probably more like at least $12,000 to $20,000 when I start thinking about all of the special line items they would need. Between the cost of the convention itself, paying for the convention exclusives up front with the factory (or however that works), paying in advance for the Club exclusive, covering all of their salaries, website expenses, website redesigns, packaging designs, etc ... I imagine they don't have a lot of extra cash sitting around to be paying for someone to build a website professionally.

Keep all of this in mind when you're thinking about this.

What I don't understand is if they're having such problems or delays with the online registration, why we don't revert back to the traditional fax method so that we can all get on with our lives and then worry about online registrations after the convention season.

What really pisses me off is that they do not have a set date anymore. The conventions use to always be in September/The Fall, so you could plan accordingly. Nowadays they have them whenever they feel like it. Sometimes giving people less than 5 months advance notice and that is not fair! Everyone works, has school, a wife/husband, kids and numerous other responsibilities. Having a floating convention date is not acceptable. If it were always in the same month at least, then people would be prepared as they would always have a year. Only the location would be a last minute addition. Supposedly the-powers-that-be behind Botcon think Botcon should be people's main or summer vacation each year, but that is just absurd! When people go on true vacation they go far away or exotic places like Europe, Mexico, or some Trpoical Island resort, not some random city in the US. For aside from the Botcons held in California, New York and Florida, none of the other locations are actual tourist or vacation destinations to begin with. So Botcon shouldn't consider their convention anyone's true summer vacation or family holiday.

Now personally I don't care too much about the guests not being announced. I don't go to Botcon for the guests. I go for my friends and the toys/exclusives. The conventions haven't ever really had anyone special aside from some of the G1 voice actor anyway. and it's not like they are going to get Megan Fox or Shia Labeouf to show up in person and sign autographs.

I think Botcon needs to pick a "set month" to always hold the convention and not deviate from this plan, or at least they need to pick a set date when they will always have "ALL" convention material available and resgistration up and running. Then people can always plan accordingly.