It was strictly a coincidence that our ticketing system (running on Paciolan software) and the Colorado Rockies’ World Series ticket sales (running on Paciolan) failed on the same morning.

In our case, technicians at the University of Tennessee’s Tickets Unlimited had been trying all night to install a new router in order to add new capabilities to the system which serves not only the Thompson-Boling Arena but the Knoxville Civic Auditorium and Coliseum, Tennessee and Bijou Theatres, Broadway in Knoxville, Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Knoxville Opera, and us, the Clarence Brown Theatre at the University of Tennessee.  Something went wrong, and they had to put the old router back on line.  Meanwhile, we had to put a few patrons’ sales on hold until the system was restored.

In the Rockies’ case, the online portion of the ticketing system was overwhelmed with demand for Rockies World Series home games.  The system crashed, and less than 500 of about 60,000 seats were sold on Monday, Oct. 22.  According to the Rocky Mountain News,

The Colorado Rockies will try again to sell World Series tickets through their Web site starting on Tuesday at noon.

Spokesman Jay Alves said tonight that the failure of Monday’s ticket sales happened because the system was brought down today by an “external malicious attack.”
…

The Rockies opted for an online sale of fewer than 20,000 tickets for each of the games in Denver, saying it was the fairest method for fans.

Paciolan Inc., which provides ticketing networks to Major League Baseball and 700 college and professional teams, was “amazed and overwhelmed” when it was flooded by 8.5 million hits for tickets in 90 minutes, Alves said.
…

Meanwhile, technicians at Irvine, Calif.-based Paciolan scrambled to fix the glitch.

“Right now, we have a couple dozen engineers that are in the back office trying to figure out exactly what the technical problems are,” Shaw Taylor, spokesman for Paciolan, said late this morning.

The head of the firm took responsibility for the crash, saying it affected the company’s entire North American system.

“This is not the Rockies’ fault in any way whatsoever,” said Paciolan CEO Dave Butler said. “We are working hard to address it.”

Paciolan’s Web site says the firm’s network systems sold 120 million tickets last year — about one-quarter of all live event tickets sold in the U.S.

Understandably, those wishing to buy tickets to the Rockies’ first-ever appearance in the World Series are not very happy.  YourHub (Denver) notes that this isn’t the first time that Paciolan’s internet sales have raised hackles before:

In a blog posting titled “eVenue Can Suck My B***” ( link) on Oct. 28, 2004, author sbutler summed up his frustration with the site after being denied tickets to a football game:

“Throwing together some stopgap, Band-Aid, horrible solution is never a good idea in the long run. If you haven’t sat down and thought seriously hard about the planning of your program, then someone needs to take away your keyboard and replace it with a whiteboard and markers.”

Alexa.com, a site that monitors Web sites reliability and global rank, listed evenue.net as “Very Slow (83% of sites are faster).” ( link)

Secondary ticket marketplace StubHub late Monday night had Saturday and Sunday Colorado home game tickets for sale at prices ranging from $712 to $17800 each. 

It’s still a developing story, but a cartoonist for the Rocky Mountain News has already captured the feeling of fans in Denver:

Boston Red Sox officials are preparing for the first game of the World Series on Wednesday night.  Their ticket sales (via Tickets.com) had already concluded without incident.  Tickets.com uses a different approach to high volume ticket sales, including a “virtual waiting room” in which those wishing to purchase tickets sit until the system is ready to process their ticket requests.  The virtual waiting room automatically checks the status at regular intervals, so there is no need for potential buyers to keep logging onto the web pages to try to buy the tickets.  It has been used successfully for several years for a number of venues — for example, they process over 600,000 tickets on the first day of single ticket sales for the Chicago Cubs each year. 

The World Series ticket problem rippled into other areas – ticketing at other Denver facilities also served by Paciolan was knocked out, and in fact Paciolan says their entire nationwide network was affected, as noted in this email from CEO Dave Butler:

Dear Roger,

Paciolan is currently experiencing technical difficulties with all Internet applications. We believe this is due to unprecedented response to the World Series onsale this morning. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. We are also investigating the possibility of a large-scale denial of service attack.

We know that this has impacted your business negatively and apologize for this. We will communicate with you later in the day after we resolve the current issues and determine the root cause.

Sincerely,

Dave Butler
CEO, Paciolan

Actually, I haven’t been able to tell that our Internet sales were actually down at all, but some in other area were hurt.  I suppose we’re lucky that Hannah Montana didn’t bring us down a few weeks ago.  We were without our ticketing system for an hour or two this morning; the Rockies’s sales were delayed a least a day, and much goodwill was lost. 

It is not surprising that there was a lot of demand from Colorado fans for their first-ever World Series tickets, but I believe it unreasonable to think that that the demand was “unprecedented”.  Everytime my Cubs get into the playoffs they gobble up every ticket in sight within an hour or two.  (In the other team’s town too!!!)  Rockies’ ticket demand was heavy, and whether it was due to faulty design of the ticket processing system or to a lack of controls to mitigate a malicious attack, the system just didn’t work.

These two breakdowns were a coincidence.  That we must take a fresh look at our ticketing partners is not.

The Tennessee Theatre Conference is the one event in our state that brings together all manner of theatre folk — children, high school, community, and prospective professionals.

Our UT students attending should know all about this already, but here’s a link with complete information for whomever might be interested.

2007 Tennessee Theatre Conference in Jackson, TN? 

It’s next weekend, Oct 24-28 and the website for more information is www.tn-theatre.com.

This is the precursor to SETC in the state of Tennessee, and it will feature:
• The TTA Secondary School One-Act Play Festival
• The TTA High School Scholarship Auditions
• The Tennessee Theatre Association Community Theatre Festival
• The Southeastern Theatre Conference Tennessee State Screening Auditions
• 2007 Annual Business Meeting
• Workshops, Discussions, and Networking Events
In addition, new this year is a special Theatre for Young People Festival, highlighting the great opportunities for Children’s Theatre in Tennessee.

If they have questions they can visit the website or contact Barry Wallace at bwallace@tn-theatre.com.

Want to get a role in professional theatre?

Maybe you should act like a professional.

This is one of the tidbits that Larry Getlen covers in “Turn Around Your Casting Conundrums” in the Sept/Oct 2007 issue of DramaBiz.

The article is written to assist theatre companies in solving their casting challenges, but offers insights to actors as they approach things from the other side.  In addition to the “professionalism” aspect, the author covers such alternatives as regional casting calls and the role of casting directors, such as Stephanie Klapper, who serves as Casting Director for the Clarence Brown Theatre (we’re mentioned in the article.)

Merri Shaffer in the UT Daily Beacon has written a review of the Clarence Brown Theatre Company’s production of Major Barbara.  A couple of snippets:

Clarence Brown Theatre held its preview showing of George Bernard Shaw’s satire “Major Barbara” on Thursday, Oct. 4. The cast of graduate students, faculty and professional actors used great skill to fulfill the personas of the characters while keeping up with the themes of morality, religion and class.

Overall, CBT presents an entrancing performance of Shaw’s play. Though it may have felt like it was 30 minutes too long, it is definitely a play that can raise questions about morality in the world — then and now.

Major Barbara continues in the Carousel Theatre on the UT Campus through October 21st.  Tickets avalable through the Clarence Brown Theatre Box Office at 974-5161 or online at http://ev8.evenue.net/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/SEGetEventList?groupCode=CLARENCE&linkID=tixunlimited&shopperContext=&caller=&appCode=

If you’ve waited to reserve your seats for the Thursday, October 18 presentation of Macbeth by the Actors From the London Stage at the Clarence Brown Theatre, you’re too late.

We’re sold out for the Thursday performance.

We still have some seats available for the Friday evening performance (Oct. 19), but they’re going fast as well, so come by or call the CBT Box Office (974-5161) without delay!

Fortunately, we have tickets for the remaining eleven performances of George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara, running through October 21st in the Carousel Theatre.

There’s an piece by Doug Mason in Saturday’s Knoxville News-Sentinel (‘Major Barbara’ a Major Hit) about Major Barbara.

Notice, it’s not really a review of the Clarence Brown Theatre Company production of Major Barbara (read what Doug says to see why), but he does include two sentences about it:

So, kudos to Shaw for the excellent production of his “Major Barbara” playing through Oct. 21 at the University of Tennessee’s Carousel Theatre.

But allow me to go off the reservation and also praise the company of actors and director Paul Barnes.

That’s all this collection of typographical characters had to say about the performance itself. 

Now, in my opinion (and almost any intelligent observer) there is more to producing live theatre than merely having actors say the words of the playwright, but we are happy to get whatever praise there is, even if they could be said without the production even being seen.

So, if you want to see what’s good about this show, you’ll have to see if for yourself.  If you like, share your thoughts with others — we’re always interested in seeing objective reviews of the job we do in presenting the work of a playwright.

It was an interesting year for the Chicago Cubs.

Early in the season, things went from mediocre to simply bad.  Team members started punching each other in the dugout and the locker room.  Then Lou Piniella took action in his unique style:  he kicked infield dirt on an umpire.  In some wierd way, the team got inspired and the Cubbies started winning.  There were still ups and downs, but at season’s end (with two games to spare!) the Cubs won the National League Central Division.

Now they only had to win eleven playoff games to capture the World Series crown that had eluded them for the last 99 years.

Unfortunately, they won no playoff games — swept by the Diamondbacks.

But the Cubs Nation will be back next year.  The ending will be different — this time, we shall prevail.

Eamus Catuli!

I learned a couple of things today.

First of all, pay close attention when FTP’ing files — notice what directory’s files are being overwritten…

Secondly, if you’re going to do something stupid like not noticing that you’re uploading a very important file in the wrong directory, thereby disabling your blog, make sure you have the important files backed up on the computer from which you just made such a blunder.  Otherwise, your precious blog entries will be out of sight while you wait for your web hosting company to restore the file (still waiting!), or you get home to the computer where the backups are.

So, my apologies to anyone who tried to access The Callboard Blog between 10 a.m. and 5:45 p.m. today.  There will be extra backups tomorrow.

And learn from my mistakes.  Make the backups.  And backup the backups.