We Go Again.

Okey doke.

If you’re interested in the screenings of The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church please do me a sweet, sweet, solid and read this whole email before clicking on anything.

So, if for reasons related to spam filters or lack of interest you haven’t received the previous emails towards the end of last week and remain unaware of the kerfuffle, you can get fully up to date by reading back over the last few posts on the NEWS* page of my website.  

But in brief, I put tickets for some screenings of an old show on sale, the ticketing site (in spite of a warning, I might add, actually**) underestimated the scale and voracity of the DK2000 marketplace™ and the site crashed in a very unseemly fashion for a few hours until we took the shows off sale on Friday night in order to find a solution.

IF YOU BOUGHT TICKETS ON FRIDAY - THEY ARE STILL VALID.

That much you possibly already know but from here on in, it’s fresh info.

The ticketing site, Citizen Ticket, got in touch on Friday night. Apologising a lot for the debacle, quite graciously expressing regret and embarrassment and essentially asking for the opportunity to sort it all out. They had plans to work through the weekend,  implement changes and perform some “load tests” through Saturday night and Sunday morning and were basically very keen to finish the job.  

Now, without wanting to flap my dangler about, the DK2000 marketplace ™  has, over the years, caused various, pretty large scale, venues and organisations to collapse temporarily under a relatively brief but pretty hefty spike of traffic. Those venues and organisations have then taken steps and made changes and been able to cope afterwards.

I am aware that Citizen Ticket doesn’t look like the slickest of websites, and primarily seems to be populated by online life drawing classes but there is a lot that I like about them as a  platform. Their booking fee is pretty low for ticket buyers. They pay out very speedily, so the money can get to where it needs to be within days. I, personally, can instantly confirm OR DENY refund requests. Ticket holders can transfer their tickets to other people. There’s something about planting trees. They’ve worked through the weekend to get on to of this particular shtorm***.

So – we are going to try again.

They’ve not only increased the capacity of the site and will have people monitoring the traffic in real time but they’ve also put a queueing thing in place – like at the supermarket websites – you’ll get a place in the queue, you’ll be told how many people are in front of you and whether there are still tickets left. You’ll be able to have that window open on your browser whilst continuing to work in a separate browser window and when it’s your turn it will, apparently, make a little noise and then you’ll have five minutes to proceed into the site.

Once you’re in the site, you can take you time.

So – in terms of what tickets are left – there are some left for the London shows. LOADS left for the Australia shows and the US shows were never activated on Friday so all those tickets are still available.

It is VERY likely that the London shows will sell out way before the others do, if indeed they do. So, I would remind you that you can watch any of the shows from any location, which is to say – You can watch the 9pm Australia shows in the UK at noon. Should that suit you.

I would also take this chance to reiterate that these shows are not your only chance to see this show. I may well screen it again in this way for the Tobacco Factory Theatre in the not too distant future and I will certainly release it through Vimeo at some point, I imagine. Pretty much anyone who wants to see it will get a chance to see it. And there will be a number of releases of other work in the coming months, both old and new, digital and (I think) physical.

Finally, if you’ll forgive me for repeating myself, I’d just like to say again that this way of releasing shows (capped screenings with tickets released at a specific time) isn’t the product of my contraryist egotism****. It is, I genuinely believe, a practical and exciting model for releasing work in a way that is flexible and sustainable at a time when almost every existing model of making stuff, is buggerooed*****.

I know that having a specific time creates a kerfuffle but having a specific time seems fairer to me than having tickets go on sale before half the mailing list has opened the email or even got out of bed.

Right.

All that being said.

Tickets will go back on sale on Monday 18th May at 9am Local time. Which is to say, Melbourne shows will go on sale at 9am in Melbourne, UK 9am in London and New York will go on sale 9am in New York.

9 am Monday morning seemed best to me, because that way you can have a queuing window open whilst you work rather than sitting by your computer for a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon.

Here is the link, you’ll need.

https://www.citizenticket.co.uk/events/daniel-kitson/

Obviously if it goes wrong again, you’d be well within your rights to unsubscribe instantly, burn your DK2000 Marketplace ™ tracksuit and spend up to an hour wishing me ill. But fingers crossed, that can be avoided. Genuinely, thanks for bearing with it all, I reckon we’ll get there. I’ve just today exported the final edit of the show and it’s pretty nice, I think.

So that’s something.

GOODBYE FOREVER

Daniel

*It’s news about me, not the actual news. Ther’s better places for that.

** Actually. Okay?

***A useful new contraction of an apposite phrase in order to bypass spam filters.

****Good name for a band.

*****High end theatre lingo.