DELAWARE STATE FAIR TICKET UPDATE

Harrington, DE

DELAWARE STATE FAIR TICKET UPDATE

About two months ago, after researching the field of web-based E-commerce ticket selling agents, Fair staff selected California based E-Tickets Software, Inc. to handle on-line ticket sales for all grandstand events for this year’s fair.

As the date for the commencement of on-line ticket sales approached, Fair and E-Tickets staff worked together to try to ensure the creation of a thoroughly tested, secure and fully functional internet based portal for the Fair’s ticket sales.

Despite round-the-clock technical adjustments and tweaks leading up to Monday’s on-line ticket sales start time, the Fair made a judgment call that the vendor’s web site was not capable of performing as we required. This forced a postponement of Monday’s ticket sales. It was announced at that time that ticket sales would resume on Wednesday May 9, 2007.

Prior to making that decision, Fair staff engaged local web programmers from Inclind, Inc. of Georgetown, DE for purposes of creating a new alternative web ticket sales portal for the Fair to use beginning Wednesday in the event the previous vendor (E-Tickets Software, Inc.) was not able to fully satisfy our requirements for designing and hosting our on-line ticket sales.

On Wednesday May 9, 2007, senior Fair staff made the judgment call to go with the back-up web portal from Georgetown. Starting precisely at 9:00 am Wednesday, demand was so great in terms of the sheer volume of “hits” to the Fair’s on-line ticket sales web site and associated links that our new vendor’s servers struggled to keep up.  Had Inclind been provided more time from the Fair, it is the Fair’s belief that sufficient server capacity would have been secured by Inclind. No one associated with the Fair was able to predict the level and magnitude of interest generated by first day ticket sales. Within the first hour the site sustained 3 million inquiries or hits. Total ticket sales for the first day were 23,951. Inclind has performed far beyond the Fair’s expectations given the brief time for them to start from scratch and implement a replacement E-commerce web site for ticket sales. 

Throughout the day on Wednesday, our programmers worked diligently to increase our capacity to accept on-line orders.  Because of the extreme volume of orders, our servers were unable to complete all the transactions and unfortunately some of our patrons were not able to confirm their purchase. This became very obvious as we reviewed all the ticket purchasing data which contained hundreds of repeat orders. On the other hand, many thousands of orders went through correctly and are in the process of being fulfilled.

The exchange of credit card information between the Fair’s patrons and our on-line website is protected by the most modern and up-to-date form of encryption and at no time was there any chance this information could be compromised.

Due to a misunderstanding between the Delaware State Fair and E-Tickets, for a brief 20 minute period on Monday, grandstand tickets were briefly and erroneously made available through the E-Tickets website. The tickets and seat assignments made by E-Tickets for approximately 1,200 orders cannot be recognized in the Fair’s ticketing system due to inconsistent bar coding and seat assignment issues. An e-mail was sent to all fair ticket patrons who received confirmations from E-Tickets explaining this situation and instructing them about refunds. These patrons were also provided with a special order form that will be used by the Fair’s ticket office to issue replacement tickets for their initial order.

Ticket sales for five shows were temporarily halted in order to allow Fair and programming staff the opportunity to cull out duplicate orders and to reject many orders placed by individuals attempting to exploit or circumvent our ticket quantity limits.  It has now been confirmed that Carrie Underwood is definitely a SELL OUT. It is expected that the Fair will re-open on-line ticket sales for Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, Daughtry and Sugarland once ticket sales for existing orders are processed and ticket counts verified which should take through the weekend. Fair patrons seeking tickets for any of these four shows are invited and encouraged to check the Fair’s website for ticket availability.

Because of the resulting confusion, the Fair has ramped up the ticket offices’ customer service department by placing as many as 12 service representatives who are handling telephone call and e-mail inquiries. 

Customers with questions are encouraged to call the Fair’s Ticket Office at 302-398-5020.

###