Now that RetroWorld Expo is official, we have kicked everything into high gear.  The pre-planning phases have shifted into live planning and things are moving very quickly.  Throughout the process, it's important that we keep everyone informed about what we are planning and all of the work that goes into the show.  In this entry, I'll talk about our tickets, why they aren't on sale yet and when they will be on sale.



What's the deal with tickets? When can I buy them?

Good questions.  I'm going to show you how a small piece of the RWX sausage is being made.  Hopefully, you will find it interesting. 

We knew from the start that we wanted the admission media to be a badge, a hard, plastic, badge on a lanyard.  Almost all Expos use badges because they are cool.  We hang them up in our game rooms like a badge of honor (see what I did there?). And even as I sit in my office writing this, I turn to my left and there are all of the event badges from Expos I've attended.


Before we decided to hold the event at the Oakdale, it was explained to us that we had the option to use Ticketmaster if we wanted to, but we were not forced to.  We explored using Ticketmaster for the exposure and for the ease of just sending someone to Ticketmaster.com instead of implementing e-commerce on our website. We could then exchange tickets for badges at the door, but in the end we decided against it.  The biggest factor was cost.  Not cost to us, but cost to you.  If we had used Ticketmaster, a convenience fee would have been added to each badge that we sold.  How much would the fee have been?  We don't know.  An upcoming Bush concert at the Oakdale adds a $12 fee to a $35 ticket while an upcoming Sesame Street event adds a $17 fee onto a $22 ticket so it varies.  We were told that we could probably negotiate a very small fee in order to build a relationship with the venue, but at the end of the day, we did not want to ask our attendees to pay any fees. We told them thanks, but that we would take care of ticket sales.

The original plan was to have tickets available for sale shortly after the show was announced at the RetrowareTV MAGFEST panel.  After we announced our show, we solidified the ticket prices along with the pricing of a few premium ticket levels.  We got a few quotes from a couple of very reputable ticket vendors and created mock-ups on our website so that we would know what our options would look like.  We were ready to go live with ticket sales when we hit our first major(ish) snag of the process.  I'm sure it won't be the last. 

While we aren't forced to use Ticketmaster for our ticket sales, because Live Nation/Ticketmaster own the Oakdale theater, we aren't allowed to use anyone else either.


This was a major roadblock.  If we can't use another ticketing service or even any Popular online Payment broker (which really would have been a Pal) then how can we sell tickets?  Door to door?  Checks/Money orders in the mail?  Kris Krohn, who owns Retro Games Plus, is familiar with Merchant Services and contacted his payment broker to set up an account for RetroWorld Expo.  "No problem" they said.  "Not only do we do this all the time but we have an IT department who can help you with implementing the ticket sales on your website"

Sounds fantastic!  We agreed, signed up, and after filling out all of the appropriate paperwork and setting up the account, we were then passed on the that great IT department we were told about.

"Hello IT department, we're ready for you to help us with implementing the sales on our website"

IT Department: "Here is the API, good luck."


OK.  Deep breath.  We will get through this.  Serenity NOW!

As it turns out, the situation isn't all that dire.  Apparently, there are several great companies out there who specialize in implementing temporary Merchant Services accounts for organizations like ours: organizations who need to take direct online payments for about 6 months of the year without ruffling any feathers.

I'm happy to report that our payment processing system is being implemented in a test environment on our website right now and we plan to be selling badges by the end of the month.

PHEW!

Here is a sneak peak for the next RetroWorld update

Arcade and coin operated games hold a special place in every retro gamer's heart.  Coin after coin we pumped in the quarters for just one more life.  And one more, and one more).  More younger gamers are learning about the joy of coin-operated arcade machines and we plan to have a BIG coin-op presence at RWX.  Not only do we want attendees to play these games, but we want them to learn about them.  I hope to have more info to share with you very soon.

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