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I don't think an online lottery works. The barrier to join the lottery is too low and thus many people would throw their hat in to see if they can win just in case. As has been shown by the numerous RSVP only events, people don't follow through and show up. Then those events are left scrambling for people to fill seats. If people have to wait overnight for a wristband, chances are they will show up. One way to deal with an online lottery is to have a penalty for not showing up. Then people will think twice if they aren't before going for the lottery. It could be something like you lose your priority status to get tickets next year. It could be a $100 reservation deposit. You show up, you get your deposit back. You don't and you lose. Either way, people will still camp out overnight for standby. Just like for Conan.
They could just have a waitlist or open it up to public to those who don't show. Similar in idea to what they do for the Conan tickets.
I love the RFID wristband idea because it covers a lot of what went wrong w/the system this past weekend. The only challenge here, and specifically w/the solution, is the edge case where a band just might not work as it should. You've now forced that individual to be removed from the line to "get it checked" and they lost their place to get in. If that was solvable, I think you have a great solution.ProsPrevents counterfeitingPrevents linecuttingConsIntroduces technical issuesAdded cost to purchase this type of bandAdded cost to purchase scanners for this bandIn my opinion the pros outweigh the cons, and maybe they could dry-run it on the Thursday panel, a panel that's not as crazy as the Friday/Saturday panels.My .02c
Why introduce another RFID chip? There's already one that can be used. It's our badges. That alleviates all the cons. There is no additional cost. There is no need to purchase scanners. You eliminate the bad RFIDs since they should have made sure their badges work already.When it's wristband time, just have someone with a portable scanner go through and scan everyone's badge. Then the entrance door can work as usual. People just tap to get in. If it's green, you go. If it's red, you are rejected. No line cutting possible. Sure people can still swap badges but that's body for body so doesn't effect anyone's place in line. Even if there's a dispute about someone cutting in further up in line, just scan the RFID code and note the timestamp of when they got "wristbanded". If it doesn't match the people around them. Reject them. To make it easy they can have a timestamp display at the entrance. The timestamps as people go in should be reasonably sequential.The technology to prevent counterfeits and prevent line cutting is already there. They just have to use it. If they wanted to go full bore, they could also do all this as people get into the overnight line. The only additional cost is to assign someone to be the scanner at the end of the line and move with it.
Using the current RFID chips was suggestion to the Comic-con President at the talkback. He brought up the "something could go wrong" argument.
I'll bring a shadow over this idea... how much more crowded would SDCC be if the Hall H lines went away? Where would all of these people go? Think about it...
That's definitely one possible reason why CCI would not make the change soon if at all. But I'm at a loss for how else to prevent the massive line explosion (including a not-insignificant percentage of line-cutters) just before wristbands are handed out.
I'll bring a shadow over this idea... how much more crowded would SDCC be if the Hall H lines went away? Where would all of these people go?