Registration line

[mir280.livejournal.com]

Dear Dragon Con,


THANK YOU FOR THE BARCODE SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!! When I first got in line for registration the line was all the way around the building. I was almost in the exact same place that I started standing in line last year. Last year I stood in line for four hours. This year, I stood in line for 50 minutes!!!!! :)))))))))) THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!!!!!!!!!

Comments

[jarissa.livejournal.com]

Amen!

[astralfire.livejournal.com]

I will pass your thank you's and explanations marks on to the staff that built the system.

:)

[hmsjohnston.livejournal.com]

Please do! It was amazing!

[loveyousave.livejournal.com]

my experience was the exact opposite. last year, I came in and waited for roughly 45 minutes. Today, I stood in line for over three hours, and had to miss my photo opp with Tom Felton. Horrible day, nightmare experience :( Seems to be really touch and go, half of the people I encountered breezed in, the other half waited for hours. Glad you made it in so quickly! :)

[deborak]

Yeah, it was really bad for me this year too. First time I ever had to wait 2 1/2 hours on a Thursday.

[petzilla.livejournal.com]

That rocks, on Thursday it took me 3 hours which was better than last year & I had heard as little as less than 15 minutes; I have no complaints!

[sweetnovicane.livejournal.com]

It took me 2 hours on Thursday, but part of the reason was that the system crashed during my wait. Otherwise, it was a rather quick experience for me.

[noitsnotrandal.livejournal.com]

It was an improvement for me, last year I waited close to 5...this year was only 2.

[charismaryllis.livejournal.com]

Dave (? Dave?) mentioned in eugie's registrtion post below that the system crashed for a few hours thurs. (2 hours for me too.)

Do we know if it stayed up the rest of the weekend? When I walked past the sheraton yesterday morning, the badge line was *epic.*

[awillis2.livejournal.com]

Disability services is still horrendous. Maybe scanners there next year? Please???? Why should the volunteers there have to run back into the registration area to get badges & print labels????????
If they had scanners up front it would have cut time drastically there.

[lupintonks85.livejournal.com]

I agree! If they had just one scanner the wait wouldn't be near as bad.

[abby-i.livejournal.com]

Over two hours for me, I wasn't impressed. Saying that, the system did seem to work a little quicker, and thr process was a lot easier to go through. Perhspz next year have more scanners to get that wait time right down?

[shivilowy.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry for yall that had to wait so long that bloody sucks.I didnt it took me 1 min to get from the back door to the front on friday morning.

[burnslikeice.livejournal.com]

I think this barcode thing has potential...but still needs work. When it was up and running Thursday, the line went really fast. But it didn't seem to stay up all that long before crashing (again). And it took forever to get things moving. I hope whatever was going wrong with it is fixed for next year. When it was working, it was great.

[dirty-grrl.livejournal.com]

I second this whole post.

Great Job!

[dragoncondude.livejournal.com]

Got in line at 4 was done by a little past 5. We were further around the building by at least double this year. Last year 3.5 hours getting in line at 4. My friends got there later than us. Got to the Sheraton at around 6 and was done in 15 minutes. Great job!

[iheartmyblog.livejournal.com]

Last year I waited about an hour (i got there incredibly early on Thursday) and this year I arrived around 3:30 on Thursday and had my badge by 5:00, so I don't really have any complaints. Again, apologies to those of you who had issues. I found it a vast improvement, as the line really kept moving especially one we got into the inside snake.

So, at least from my experience I wanted to wish y'all a big big big thanks!

[melonaise.livejournal.com]

This year was the longest I had to wait for my eternal badge. I guess there aren't enough of us to rate barcodes?

Thank you so much!

[hmsjohnston.livejournal.com]

This new system was AMAZING for pre-reg!!!!!!

We went from 4 hours last year to 20 MINUTES!!!!! We actually timed it since the line never stopped for us. And from the sidewalk to walking out with our badge was exactly 20 minutes.

THANK YOU DRAGONCON TEAM AND STAFF, YOU ROCK!!!!!!

[rjdaae.livejournal.com]

I picked my badge up on Friday (pre-reg), and I couldn't have been in line for more than five minutes (and I'd forgotten my postcard, so it probably could've been even faster!)! Similar story for my brother who picked his up on Thursday, and it took him over five hours to collect our badges last year. Thank you for working to improve the system! :D

[ninepointfivemm.livejournal.com]

Six minutes from door-to-door getting my badge on Thursday. It was amazing.

[thestargatekid.livejournal.com]

Wasn't so amazing for me. It was all in the timing. I was there at 10:56AM and didn't get through the line until 1:00PM. The computer system broke down. I am glad others had a good experience though.

[fluffydragon.livejournal.com]

We were in line at around just before noon and not done until 2:20. Longer than last year.

[braidedmane.livejournal.com]

We got in and out in 15 minutes. It seems that when it worked, it worked wonderfully, but some attention needs to be put on making sure it stays going!

registration

[suz-e-q73.livejournal.com]

I got my badge on Friday morning - In and out in less than 10 minutes!!!!! It was absolutely AMAZING!!!!! This was my first D*C and I was prepared to wait for a while. I just walked right in the room, meandered through the herding lines and had to wait about 1 minute for an available person. I am VERY VERY pleased with the whole process.

[brak42.livejournal.com]

I was in line when the system was down, but even then my wait was half of what it was last year. So I am quite pleased.

[dotyertees.livejournal.com]

I have to concur: last year, I waited 5.5 hours for my badge and that standing still for so long is what absolutely ruined the convention for me as my knees were shot.

This year, yes, there was about an hour and a half wait to get into the building. But once inside, we did not stop. In whole(as the fellow behind me timed it) we waited one hour and 39 minutes. I joined the line shortly after the system had come back up, so I think as long as the computers keep going, things will be fantastic, but when they crash it was probably the biggest hangup and caused the most problems.

[orcapotter.livejournal.com]

Well, it was an improvement.

My group and I waited close to 4 hours last year. This year it was 2. Two hours is still too long, IMHO. This seemed to be more of a direct result from the system crashing, however. Up until the crash, we were wrapped around the building, but moving. By the time the crash happened, we had been waiting about 40-45 minutes. Friends who I had seen hours earlier in the day who had then left to get their badges were only JUST leaving when I was getting in line. Then, we were waiting out in the sun for so long, my best friend literally fell asleep on the sidewalk for a good 30 minutes. Once finally inside, it was another 40 or so minutes before we finally got our badges.

The plus was that without the need to line up alphabetically, it did go noticeably faster. The minus is that there are still not enough booths to process everyone. Large anime cons tend to have over 30 pre-reg booths with the computerized systems to process 500 attendees in 30 minutes. So this is a step in the right direction for D*Con ... now it just needs to keep walking.

[abby-i.livejournal.com]

I agree that they need more booths to cut down the time more, though I understand they probably didn't know quite how many they'd need this year.

I have to say when I got to the booth though, it was very quick, and they staff were looking far less run down than they had in previous years too. :)

[glasscannon.livejournal.com]

Had to add my voice to this. Hubby and I got in line Thursday probably around 6pm (it's all a blur now, lol). From when we got in line outside to walking out the door with our badges was 24 minutes. It took us about 17 minutes to make it inside and through the twistbacks and up to the desk -- where they told us there was some sort of problem and we had to go to Solutions. Waited just a couple of minutes in the very short Solutions line, then waited while they looked us up the old-fashioned way. I still don't know why the scanner wouldn't print either of our badges, but 24 minutes in line total, given that we did have to go to Solutions, was absolutely amazing. Sorry to hear the system crashed at least once, but I think this was a VAST improvement from previous years.

[asta77.livejournal.com]

Last year it took my friends and I four and a half hours to get through registration and this year - from the door of the ballroom to our badge being handed to us - six minutes. It took us longer to circle the Sheraton looking for the registration line that didn't exist.

My friend was monitoring line times via a FB page and we hung out in our room until the problem seemed to be resolved. We did get a bit lucky with timing. But I have to say the amazingly speedy registration process was a great start to the weekend and helped keep our stress levels down.