Ticketing/Entry System Crash

[flynnibus]

What's irrational is expecting that the continuity plan must be what you want it to be and retroactively avoid the circumstances we saw last week. You can start bringing that up after the third time this happens. Then it would begin to have some small bit of relevance. But watch - the next time the same failures occur, I bet Disney will have an improved plan for dealing with it, because that's how things work in the real world.

You act like this is some corner case that was unlikely to foresee. It’s bloody simple... it’s the admission system... you simply say “in what ways can it fail and impact other things?”. The most obvious first condition you evaluate is “it’s not there/dead/off”... what do we do?

You say “what does this thing do for us? Ok, what happens if that is not working, then what?”

You act like this is some 5 level intermixed condition that is hard to foresee. No it’s not... it’s the most basic condition you evaluate... “it’s gone... now what?”

Of course you would think that. Another random person on the Internet hot-to-trot to incur risks onto the company without personal accountability for having made that decision. Yeehaw! All the reckless cowboys are coming out to play today.

Of course I would think that.... because its what the company did previously and makes sense unless someone brings up a reason why it wouldn’t work (which you have failed to do... you just chastise people instead of actually disproving anything).

The only reasons disney turns people away at the gate with their ticket are
1) to make sure you’ve paid admission
2) the park is full
(And an outcome of decrementing an admission on your ticket)

They know #2 isn’t happening based on overall trends and activity level on property. And #1 is a low risk because people had to make plans to be there before this... you don’t buy tickets at the gate anymore... so you are only blocking the people that have made mistakes. And what percentage is that?

Why do you stop your entire business over some tiny fraction of loss prevention? That’s moronic. You focus on making sure your making money from the 99.5% and ignore the small paper credit loss. You ignore decrementing admissions as just the loss... no significant amount would change their stay length because of it anyway... their admissions were already all planned out... and expire within a short time. It would largely have no impact.

You can’t make revenue reappear if people didn’t spend the money... so you always keep the cash til open! That’s what happens in the real world...

 

[lazyboy97o]

Honestly what's sad about this to me is that the solution of just letting them in would have worked (and has in the past). I would think you could even photo the tickets and get them scanned in later when the system was back on so that they couldn't just save that ticket for another day (if that was such a large concern). I think this just goes to the change in philosophy at the parks. Letting people in may have cost you some ticket sales, but would have ensured the guests were not inconvenienced. WDW decided that some people getting in for free (ie not getting that extra ticket money) was worth making guests sit in the sun for hours.

People getting in for free is really a non-issue unless there is a serious and prolonged outage. The sort of person who can quickly get to the park’s at a moment’s notice and is following the social media channels that would report such information probably have an annual pass.

You do realize that this is a fan site, and that nobody making "suggestions" on this topic actually believe they are making recommendations that Disney will read and follow? None of us, including you, have all the details and data needed to make an actual informed recommendation. On the other side of the coin, no matter you may believe, the idea of letting people in without validating tickets is no an absurd idea, I believe someone on this thread even said that it was Disney used to do.

Yes, it was Disney’s standard practice and not years or decades ago. More like months ago. The “experts” to whom we are supposed to defer were engaged in “reckless cowboy” behavior we are supposed to laugh at for it’s ridiculousness. Disney has also previously deactivated biometric confirmation to reduce congestion at park entrances.

 

[danlb_2000]

You act like this is some corner case that was unlikely to foresee. It’s bloody simple... it’s the admission system... you simply say “in what ways can it fail and impact other things?”. The most obvious first condition you evaluate is “it’s not there/dead/off”... what do we do?

You say “what does this thing do for us? Ok, what happens if that is not working, then what?”

You act like this is some 5 level intermixed condition that is hard to foresee. No it’s not... it’s the most basic condition you evaluate... “it’s gone... now what?”

Well said.

I am implementing a system right now that makes calls out to a third party tax calculation service every time an order is put it. You can be sure one of the first questions I asked is, "what happens when I can't reach that service for some reason". This will eventually lead to a discussion of the business impact of that, and what mitigation steps we want to take.

 

[LSLS]

People getting in for free is really a non-issue unless there is a serious and prolonged outage. The sort of person who can quickly get to the park’s at a moment’s notice and is following the social media channels that would report such information probably have an annual pass.

You are correct. Which is why it's so sad to see. The reason you would not just start letting people with bar code tickets in is that the dozens of people who may get in free outweighs your wanting to keep customers happy and getting them into the parks in a timely fashion. But again, even if this is the case and they refuse to let anyone in free because of it, it is truly sad that they don't have a manual plan in place to get people in if the machines go down. Be it pictures, ticket collecting, etc. Maybe I'm naive, but I'm pretty sure my local hockey team would not send everyone to guest services for an hour line if their scanners went down. I would think they have a plan in place if this happens.

 

[wannabeBelle]

From what I gather the MK (only) gate stopped accepting park passes (not bands).

I know someone who was instructed to join the two hour queue for Town Hall.

I was at Epcot and other than the green part of the entry touch point lighting up before I placed my finger to be scanned, I didn't notice anything odd. Marie

 

[peter11435]

They always let people in when the ticket entry failed. They try and get it back up, but if it's not back up and running relatively quickly, the CMs would just let the guests in. There is zero bidness reasons to keep people out like they did the other day. You can keep LYING and MAKING UP reasons why they didn't do that this time, but you should know, that's the back up to the back up. Just let them in.

This isn’t entirely true.

 

[xdan0920]

This isn’t entirely true.

Which bit?

 

[peter11435]

Which bit?

That they always just let people in when the system fails. It really depends on the type of failure they were experiencing. They could and probably should have just let people in. But this is definitely not the first time something like this has happened. As I said earlier we were held outside Epcot along with everyone else for nearly an hour 20 years while the system was down.

 

[lentesta]

The MK was letting everyone in for morning EMH today without checking MagicBands. Apparently some sort of tech issue that prevented validation.

 

[mm121]

On Monday part of the ticketing system failed which resulted in only those with Magic Bands being able to gain entry to the parks and everyone else being trapped outside the gates! In around 2002 I was at the parks and the system wasn't working one day but they allowed us in the park with no fuss, is this yet another sign of poor customer service? As most people are using tickets that are going to expire anyway would it really cost Disney anything to have let these people into the park? Would they have spent more in the parks feeling Disney had treated them right and after all if they are stuck outside they are not spending and are not going to be in such a great mood when/if they did get in the park. In my view this was a total failure of Disney to have a backup plan or for on-site management to be empowered to make a decision to just let people in.
https://www.theticketingbusiness.com/2019/07/30/walt-disney-world-apologises-ticketing-debacle/

It does seem like there should be some kind of backup plan.

Like maybe once they know there's a problem make the issue known to people before they pay the parking fee. And maybe let in the couple hundred people right by the gate then cut it off after 30 minutes to prevent the whole it getting announced on social media insanity happening.

And definitely record the ticket numbers so the used day can be removed once the system is back up and possibly collect info from scanning an ID and a credit card so they can charge them if their ticket turns out to be invalid.

Probably could build an app or something to easily compile all this info in an "offline" system

 

[danlb_2000]

The MK was letting everyone in for morning EMH today without checking MagicBands. Apparently some sort of tech issue that prevented validation.

That can't be true because a certain member has assured us we would be naïve to think they would do that.

 

[mm121]

If it's important enough to keep people standing there for hours then there should be a backup system. Doesn't need to be a real time/hot swap / switchover/ multiple voting system. But a second system which can be brought online in a few minutes is not unreasonable. If the failure is such that you can't bring the backup on line - then you let the people in. I don't have hard data but I suspect the number of people who show up at the MK gates after parking/ monorail or ferry/ going through security without valid admission media ( just in the hopes that the system will be down) is rather small on any given day ( and will not materially affect the stock price)

They could maybe let in the few already by the gates or that have entered the parking lot then cut it off after an hour max to prevent the whole free entry thing getting announced on social media and the place getting swamped

And ideally have an offline system to collect the ticket numbers so they can be processed later. Should be reasonable especially for tickets purchased directly from Disney as they most likely already have an id and Credit card on file for the ticket purchase.

 

[larryz]

The MK was letting everyone in for morning EMH today without checking MagicBands. Apparently some sort of tech issue that prevented validation.

Again?

I bet Bob Iger's kinda upset, especially now that the cat's out of the bag about free entry.

 

[flynnibus]

The MK was letting everyone in for morning EMH today without checking MagicBands. Apparently some sort of tech issue that prevented validation.

What? Who put reckless cowboys in charge at Epcot? Who has the audacity to get customers spending when they SHOULD BE held outside and forced to suffer for our issue.

Man.. when I find out who told them to 'start the engine' instead of insisting on stopping everything... heads are gonna roll!

/s

 

[xdan0920]

That they always just let people in when the system fails. It really depends on the type of failure they were experiencing. They could and probably should have just let people in. But this is definitely not the first time something like this has happened. As I said earlier we were held outside Epcot along with everyone else for nearly an hour 20 years while the system was down.

I didn’t say they always just immediately let people in. But when the system fails and doesn’t look to be coming up, they do. As illustrated by the preceding few posts. Anyhoo.

 

[xdan0920]

FWIW. I have been a member here for a decade and the end result of this thread is my favorite event I’ve seen here to date.

Blustery know nothing screams till his lungs give out, then immediately gets proven wrong in the most convincing way possible.

Absolutely fantastic.

 

[The Mom]

Is the system back up? If so, nothing to see here - move along.

 

[BoarderPhreak]

Well said.

I am implementing a system right now that makes calls out to a third party tax calculation service every time an order is put it. You can be sure one of the first questions I asked is, "what happens when I can't reach that service for some reason". This will eventually lead to a discussion of the business impact of that, and what mitigation steps we want to take.

Queue the transactions and batch process when connectivity returns. Add bits to the record to store success/failure flags.

 

[bUU]

More LIES. You are lying. These are lies.

Now you're just spewing nonsense just to have something to say in response to comments for which you have not legitimate response.

I will spell it out for you. Iger makes wide edicts regarding the parks and delegates not to experts, but individuals who share his lack of experience.

So you claim. Like xdan, I think you're just making things up about which you have no actual knowledge.

Disney’s previous until this incident backup has been mentioned several times.

And labeled as different several times. The fact that that hasn't happened again is informative.

This is not the first time the system has gone down.

But it is the first time this system has gone down like this.

At this point you either have issues with comprehension or are lying and deliberately ignoring past events as they fail to suit your narrative that the change is most appropriate and better.

None of the above. I'm forcing you to look at the mechanics of what actually happened rather than fixate on the end-result, something that could be caused by dozens of different scenarios. If you can't do that, then you'll never understand anything in this regard.

So now Disney’s experts are also reckless cowboys?

No; the reckless cowboys I mentioned were random persons on the Internet hot-to-trot to incur risks onto the company without personal accountability for having made that decision.

 

[xdan0920]

Somehow it got better. Amazing.