Royal Opera House website booking problems

[GTL]

The ROH website is currently headed as follows:

"WEBSITE ALERT: INTERMITTENT NETWORK CONNECTIVITY ISSUES AT OUR ISP MAY CAUSE DISRUPTION TO PURCHASES, PLEASE KEEP TRYING."

 

It wasn't showing when I logged in on the trusty ipad (using the Chrome browser with my email account open in Safari) at 10 am to do a subscription booking for 2014/15 period 3.

I proceeded problem-free until I hit the "pay now" button and was taken immediately to the next page to await payment confirmation - and waited with the internet connection symbol spinning for nearly an hour. Eventually I thought to look in my email account and found that an "order confirmed" email had arrived within seconds of my pressing the "pay now" button. Abandoning the still-loading payment page on the ROH website for my ROH account upcoming performances page, the relevant bookings were showing with their order confirmation number.

So all was well but I thought that if it spares anyone the anxious hour I had this morning, it's worth posting here.

[alison]

WEBSITE ALERT, 2PM TUESDAY 17 NOVEMBER: NETWORK CONNECTIVITY ISSUES ARE CURRENTLY AFFECTING ONLINE PURCHASES, PLEASE CALL THE BOX OFFICE FOR TICKET QUERIES ON +44 (0)20 7304 4000.

[alison]

Blasted site has been telling me lies!  I was trying to get at Friday Rush for next Thursday's Giselle, but first I got a "page cannot be displayed" message.  Then when I did the main Giselle page said there were 9 tickets available, yet the seat selection page suggested that probably most of the Rush seats were still available, so I assumed everyone else was having the same problems.  But then when I looked for the alleged 23(?) amphi seats none were showing up, nor any in STalls Circle or Balcony.  Then it was claiming there were some tickets available for the Friday performance, but again the total on the main page didn't tally with the one on the selection page

 

So, no ticket for Nunez/Muntagirov

[bridiem]

15 minutes ago, alison said:

Blasted site has been telling me lies!  I was trying to get at Friday Rush for next Thursday's Giselle, but first I got a "page cannot be displayed" message.  Then when I did the main Giselle page said there were 9 tickets available, yet the seat selection page suggested that probably most of the Rush seats were still available, so I assumed everyone else was having the same problems.  But then when I looked for the alleged 23(?) amphi seats none were showing up, nor any in STalls Circle or Balcony.  Then it was claiming there were some tickets available for the Friday performance, but again the total on the main page didn't tally with the one on the selection page

 

So, no ticket for Nunez/Muntagirov

 

So sorry Alison! I've often noticed that in fact - the booking page says there are x tickets left, but when you go into the seat selection page it doesn't tally (or there are no tickets showing). I suppose if someone else is booking at that moment it could sometimes happen, but it happens regularly even when there are supposed to be a number of tickets available.

[bangorballetboy]

1 minute ago, bridiem said:

 

So sorry Alison! I've often noticed that in fact - the booking page says there are x tickets left, but when you go into the seat selection page it doesn't tally (or there are no tickets showing). I suppose if someone else is booking at that moment it could sometimes happen, but it happens regularly even when there are supposed to be a number of tickets available.

 

If a seat is in someone's basket, it will still show as available on the landing page (the one that lists the area of the theatre and the number of seats available) but not on the seating plans.  The landing page doesn't update until a ticket is actually purchased.

[alison]

I think I'd worked that out, but does it still account for the discrepancy between the landing page and the production page?

[RuthE]

BBB's statement is true, and Friday Rush tickets can go within seconds, so it takes the landing page and seating plan a while to catch up.  However there is an actual intermittent website problem at the moment during Friday Rush which I have complained about and the ROH has acknowledged, whereby certain users can see the tickets at certain points and others cannot.  Last week I was trying to book for Salome; I refreshed for over half an hour, with others on Twitter saying THEY could see the Rush tickets, before experimenting with logging in and then suddenly I could see them, not that there was anything left worth mentioning at that point.  This week, by way of an experiment and in need of a ticket for Tosca, I used two devices - logged into my account on my PC, and left my phone not-logged-in - and had the opposite problem; nothing appeared at all for a few minutes, though I was already able to see the Rush tickets for one of the other Tosca performances, and then eventually my non-logged-in device suddenly showed me what was left of the Rush tickets for the one I wanted, while my logged-in device still wasn't able to "see" them for a couple more minutes.  I did look at that Giselle a few times as an experiment, not that I needed a ticket for it, and never saw anything other than "sold out".

 

They are aware of the problem and I have given them a detailed account of the specific issues I had, which they have promised to pass onto the web developers who are trying to fix it.

[SPD444]

I can testify to the Friday Rush Tickets sale. I was watching the clock tick down to 1.00pm for the Marianella Giselle performance to change from "Sold Out" to a red "Buy" I immediately clicked. The next page then displayed the tickets available in each area but, no matter which area I went to, all of the tickets had been grabbed. Given the you can only buy 2 tickets and 49 are made available that means that at least 25 people were quicker than me. I do not believe it. I suspect there were no tickets there at all.

[bangorballetboy]

32 minutes ago, SPD444 said:

I can testify to the Friday Rush Tickets sale. I was watching the clock tick down to 1.00pm for the Marianella Giselle performance to change from "Sold Out" to a red "Buy" I immediately clicked. The next page then displayed the tickets available in each area but, no matter which area I went to, all of the tickets had been grabbed. Given the you can only buy 2 tickets and 49 are made available that means that at least 25 people were quicker than me. I do not believe it. I suspect there were no tickets there at all.

 

It's highly likely that there were 25 people who were indeed faster than you. 

[LinMM]

I'm just agreeing with this because whenever I booked when I used to be a friend everything I really wanted would be gone and I decided that I must be too slow somehow! Although it fascinated me how if everyone was poised for the off and all clicked at more or less the same time how the ROH computer decided which order everybody was in as if 50 people all poised say even if bit slow....not 50 secs slow if you get my meaning so it's still all a bit of a mystery to me!!