Before sleeping last night, I had prepared two browsers and several notepads containing various info (e.g. user login, password, credit card number, etc.) just to be ready for the online tickets for the 2012 UAAP Cheerdance Competition.
It was slated to be distributed at 10 AM and I was already awake by 9:30 AM. Our tactic was for me to be the one purchasing online, while Mon will go straight to SM Bacoor near his place for the tickets. I thought that our plan was superb — turned out, it was not.
I was under the illusion, or better yet delusion, that this year’s ticketing system would be more organized and reliable. I’m normally a cynical person but have foregone this attitude for this day’s ticket distribution. Mon and I were constantly BBM-ing and calling each other for updates because apparently, there was some sort of system failure as online buyers had a hard time buying tickets and people queueing in SM Malls were also faced with the same problem. I can’t fathom enough on how infuriating the experience was. I couldn’t recall a time when I have pressed F5 this much. And I felt a bit guilty for making Mon go to SM because even if he was third in the queue, he was still unable to secure anything palpable.
It was really sad because I had my hopes up. I knew that it would be tedious securing the tickets, but one can feel how seriously lacking in organization this year’s distribution was. Just check the Facebook pages of SM Tickets and the UAAP Cheerdance Competition and you will be overwhelmed by the discontent and disappointment over purchasing the tickets.
Upon getting these two, I really lost my drive to watch. The farthest I sat was in Upper Box B way back in 2003 during my Freshman year in Diliman when I was still a fan and aspiring member of the squad. I can’t even recall sitting in the Gen Ad (unless you count helping the drummers for familiar beats). Last year’s tickets in Araneta were in Upper Box and even if the seats were more comfortable, they were not reserved (contrary to what the scalper has purported) and we had to sit in the NU side. Good thing we had no problem there because they were a really nice company in general.
I resorted to the scalpers and I was already on the point of meeting up with one. But a nagging feeling on my head kept on telling me that it was NOT worth paying Php 1,800 for an originally-priced Php 300 Lower Box ticket just to watch the competition. Php 1,000 was my limit and Php 1,800 was stretching it.
But a last minute savior came in the persona of my friend and batchmate, who I half-heartedly asked the night before for spare tickets (because I did not want to bother him with this stuff as he already has LOTS of things to worry about). He replied that he still had two tickets and will reserve them for me. I could have done a fronthandspring-roundoff-backhandspring-backhandspringstepout-backhandspring-fulltwistinglayout on the spot! I also got my tickets in 2010 from him and I can’t be more grateful again.
I can’t be choosy now as Mon and I finally have better seats. Now, all I need is to find a decent maroon shirt for Saturday’s event. Good luck to the UP Pep Squad and wishing for a perfect run (to prevent naysayers from faulting us for minor mistakes).
