We wanted to give some context to Golden Ticket sales now that we have gotten a chance to look at the numbers from the other night. First, we want to say thank you to everyone. If the sheer volume of traffic that we received is an indicator of the popularity of Dark Lord Day, this year will be better than any other, and we are doing our best to make sure that we can meet expectations. After reading through the beer forums, it seems that most of you understand that it’s very difficult for us to anticipate demand for our limited number of Golden Tickets, and that we are making a good faith effort to fix any problems that have arisen. We tried a number of different things this year to try to make the process as painless and smooth for everyone involved. As Lincoln said on Beer Advocate,
Will we learn from our mistakes and work to avoid them next year? Absolutely. Will other mistakes be made along the way? Most likely. As an organization of only 9 people, we appreciate the patience and understanding a lot of people on this site are showing. At the end of the day, We’re just trying to throw a fun party for thousands of people and do it in a way that is the most fair we can manage.
So with that being said, here are some numbers to consider.
- Our store had 50,423 hits by 5,115 visitors in less than one hour effectively crushing Shopify’s servers
- The majority referred through twitter
- darklordday.com had 16,963 unique visitors
- 3floyds.com had 12,542 unique visitors
- #DarkLordDay and “Golden Tickets” were both trending topics on Twitter at the same time.
Pretty big numbers when you take a step back and look at them. And again, thank you all for your patronage and most of all patience while we sort everything out over the next few days. The shipping charges that were erroneously added during the melee are being removed. A whole lot was happening and we were trying to fix the charges on the fly while the site was crashing.
So with all of that in mind, please don’t forget that we are a comparatively tiny brewery trying to plan a kick ass time for a whole bunch of people, and we don’t even know how many people are going to show up. Even with all of the planning in the world a successful Dark Lord Day still depends on all of you out there making it a great time for everyone else that shows up. Keep an eye on Darklordday.com for updates and we’ll see you on April 24th.
Curious how many tickets were sold?
How many golden tickets were sold?
Guys, appreciate the update, the thing you didn’t mention is the thing that I think most people were the most upset about. Most folks understand, technical issues can happen anytime, even google has outages sometimes.
What was way more upsetting was how the golden ticket release update was handled. On one of the biggest drinking days of the year, people stayed up all night, waited ALL day, only to finally have a chance at 7pm. There really was no reason to string people along all day. I’d suggest you owe an apology for this, and to be a bit more forthcoming next year with respect to when the tickets will go on sale to keep people from wasting an entire day hitting F5.
That said, I know DLD itself is going to be an amazing time, and everyone appreciates all the hard work that goes into it.
We gave those servers what for all right!
Through all the chaos and server outages, the one question I still have is why did you release them at 8/7pm on St Patrick’s Day? That seems like the worst possible time to expect beer-loving people to be near a computer.
Thank you all for the hard work behind this and the details behind it all. As such a small org. You are doing an amazing job and producing amazing beer. Looking forward to DLD.
It would be interesting to see from the shipping addresses entered for the Golden Tickets sales what states and even what countries people are coming from to take part in DLD.
thanks for keeping everyone up to date in the wake. personally, i’m impressed by what you’re able to pull off.
quick question. nothing to worry about if we have a confirmation, but our credit card hasn’t been charged yet? just part of your going through each order, i presume.
thanks again
Thanx for my favorite day of the year. Because of you guys I now tweet. Can’t wait to see everyone on DLD.
Cheers,
Dan
Thanks for the update. I’m sure Golden ticket day must have been both overwhelming and frustrating – judging by the number of hits and sales. Having said this I’m almost hesitant to ask – when will the tickets be shipped? Electronically or snail-mail?
it took me 53 minutes to purchase the tickets i wanted. personally, i didn’t give a fuck if it took 2 days. it’s the best beer in the world. not to mention the best party of the year. i have some suggestions for your own server for next year.
[...] Update: New blog post from Three Floyds Brewing on the [...]
It’s 2010, no one cares about numbers like that. They are not much compared to other sites.
I know I am not the only person who missed out on tickets because of the server crash. While there is little you can do to avoid a server being crushed by traffic, losing out on the tickets because of something out of my control has left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth – I had the tickets in my shopping cart within 2 minutes of the sale going live, and got nothing out of it.
THANK YOU. You may not hear it enough. I attended last years DLD, and it was one of the best times ever, especially for me, a first timer. The hits are a barometer of how happy people are with what you do, i reckon, and even through server failure, people hung in there, which is more validation.
[...] whats really astonishing right now is the amount of traffic that they have had to their site, blog, and twitter for people trying to buy tickets to Dark Lord Day (which is not until April [...]
Shopify is one of the worst ecommerce solutions to use for anything in high demand like the golden tickets. Unless they have made some major changes recentlty it has an underlying problem which explains why I was unable to complete my purchase. Shopify does not take an item out of inventory until payment has been completed. We saw this issue on a friends website that crashed with fewer users because of the issue. What happen is people like me got their items in their shopping Cary but by the time they tried to pay the items were no longer available.
I’m really going to miss attending Dark Lord days this year. I had some friends who had never attending that won’t be able to go either. It would just be too much of a letdown not being able to take any home
Will Dark Lord be available on tap at the event?
Part of what makes the Golden Tickets great is the ticket itself… you will receive them in the mail.
You are correct. You will receive confirmation as each order is processed.
If you actually got to order.
Thank you for you efforts. All we could ever ask is that you do your best to make it as fair as possible and to try to keep “what’s best for the beer lover” in mind.
To err is human, to drink Three Floyds is divine.
If it took you to long to purchase tickets than you were to slow i had three people on my single computer that all got tickets. Stop your bitching, lifes a bitch.
My husband had to work St. Patrick’s Day (5 PM to 2 AM) so the “getting” of the tickets was dependent upon me and refreshing my browser. I was panicky that I would miss the opportunity, as I had work to do as well (although, luckily, it is on the computer.) I was grateful for the “after work” heads up and within seconds I saw the announcement when tickets were available. Of course, it also took me just shy of one hour to successfully obtain the tickets. It would have been horrible to have missed this, as vacation days are set and hotel rooms are reserved. Someone has to watch the kids, so I will remain in the hotel room, while he partakes of his bliss. Maybe he’ll let me smell it on his breath later.
For someone that missed the opportunity to buy a ticket, do I have any chance in hell in buying a bottle(s) of DL at the event?
Still no charge on my credit card for my DLD tickets, despite confirmation e-mail. Trying to be patient; I hope all is well. Looking forward to DLD!
I don’t understand why people are so upset. If you really wanted the tickets and they were important to you, waiting 19hrs to be able to get them isn’t a big issue. Further, you could have set up an alert to your phone to let you know when it was posted. And for those who didn’t get tickets clearly don’t know what Dark Lord Day is ultimately about…the comraderie and festivities that ensue. I personally didn’t get tickets or even concern myself with them but I’ll be down there to have fun and I’ll find a way to get a bottle or three. The world needs fewer complainers and more people who actually like being at Dark Lord Day (not days…).
Thank you for all your hard work and dedication to the happiness of our collective taste buds.
xoxo