Thursday, March 26, 2009

White House Easter Egg Roll Blues



When I saw that the White House was going to distribute tickets online to their annual Easter Egg Roll, I was excited for the chance to bring Benjamin, seen here at our Easter Egg hunt last year in Virginia Beach VA, to this great tradition that has been going on at the White House since 1878.

I logged on at various times in the early morning. Finally at 8:03 I got on and I was directed to a wait room. The page times out, so I had to repeat the process again and again. Finally I got in the site to get tickets! I placed the order for the both of us, filled in the letters for verification and then the site, which was very slow due to the demand, crashed again! I kept on trying and trying, each timed entry period showed no tickets were available. I even looked for the last entry of the day, the 3:00-5:00 PM slot and nothing.

Folks complained about their frustrations on NBC Channel 4's web site

I liked the idea of getting these tickets online. I admit I did get to the party late at 8:03 this morning and supply and demand got me and I was just as frustrated with the many others out there. It happens, I guess. No way could I camp outside the White House for these which was how it was done in the past.

I did see that the White House had an outside company do this as you were re-directed to a place called Front Gate Tickets and they just couldn't handle the demand.

Right now there is a message saying Tickets for the 2009 White House Egg Roll are no longer available at this time. Tickets will be available at various times throughout the day. If you are unable to order tickets at this time, please check back later.

A polite way of telling you to wait until next year.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'd keep trying, I read on the News4 site that people got them later in the morning.