‘Avengers: Endgame’ breaks online ticket record in six hours
By Jack Murphy// A&E Editor
Welcome to the latest edition of “I complain about something in the world of entertainment” and, hopefully, someone finds it enjoyable. Now, what is it that I’m covering this week? Recently was the release of online tickets for the most anticipated film since “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and is the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “Avengers: Endgame.”
The hype has been building ever since Thanos snapped and wiped out half the universe. The second trailer for the film came out on March 14, and since then, the video has culminated 85 million views on Youtube. As the hype built, everyone wanted to get their hands on tickets as soon as humanly possible, and on the morning of April 2, tickets were released online for the Thursday opening night showing, and that’s when all hell broke loose online.
Tickets went on sale on both Fandango and AMC Theaters, and both of them weren’t prepared for the amount of traffic that was going to hit the sites. Almost everyone who tried to get their tickets were met by crashes, bugs and wait times. The chances of anyone acquiring more than two tickets were slim to none, and many are still left ticketless. I was one of the lucky ones to get tickets, but it was not without a heavy burden.
I woke up at 10 a.m., knowing that the tickets were coming out, but I didn’t really think it would be difficult to buy the tickets online because it’s never been that hard in the past. High Point isn’t New York City, so I thought tickets wouldn’t be scarce. Then I checked Twitter, and my priorities immediately changed. I was greeted by a bunch of people complaining about how difficult it was and how few tickets there were. I decided to take a look at Fandango to purchase my tickets in advance. I knew if I did not go to see this movie on opening night, someone on Twitter would spoil it for me. What followed was the worst experience I’ve ever had trying to buy movie tickets in my entire life.
At first, all I wanted was one ticket for a late night show at the Regal Palladium, but every time Fandango would let me pick a seat in the theater, it would tell me that seat was not available. When I actually was able to get a seat, put my email and credit card information in, the site would crash, again, without completing my purchase. This lead to even more frustration and anger on my part.
This process repeated itself for another 50 minutes until I was able to get two tickets, somehow, for a 10 p.m. show. But to say there were barely any tickets left is an understatement unless you wanted to sit in the very front row. Fortunately, I was one of the lucky few to say the very least.
My overall experience of buying tickets is most similar to buying Yeezy’s online, as it is an awful experience that no one should ever have to go through. All the waiting, all the crashing and all the overall failure on the part of Fandango and AMC Theaters to prepare for such an event is mind-blowing to me. Their sites literally couldn’t handle the traffic, and it made the experience of buying tickets a chore for most people involved.
Overall, the tickets sales record was broken in six hours, which is insane, and this doesn’t even include Friday, Saturday and Sunday, just Thursday of opening weekend. My advise for anyone trying to buy tickets who wants to see “Avengers: Endgame” and doesn’t have tickets for Thursday night is to just keep yourself updated with when they come out, and try your best to get them as soon as possible to avoid even more of a issue than what I had to go through.
The highly anticipated culmination of this era of the MCU “Avengers: Endgame” opens in theaters on April 26. Photo by Forbes.com