I just got an e-mail from Arclight announcing this event as an exclusive members only thing, stating tickets are now available:

“To purchase tickets, please click here. During this brief pre-sale period, tickets are available ONLY through this hidden web-page and are not on-sale at the theater or by phone or kiosk.”

Of course it’s sold out already, which is par for the course with Arclight. In fact every time I’ve ever gotten a “super exclusive, tickets on sale now!” e-mail from them the tickets are sold out.

Ditto. And I checked the Arclight page less than thirty minutes after the email blast.
Love the Arclight, but by being the best they continually set themselves up for failure by resting on their laurels.

My morning: Check the email, see this in my inbox, be pissed off that I’m on the East Coast, get my head together and think “my friends would love this,” IMMEDIATELY panic and head to the website only to find it’s already sold out, and mope my way on over here to blogging.la for some consolation. I figured there was at least one other moper out there. :) Colleen – did you get tickets? I’m a jealous bastard if so!

David: I don’t understand how the Arclight could have done this any better. They probably have thousands of people on their members e-newsletters list (myself included), and it takes less than a hundred people to snatch up all the tickets and sell out the show. I suppose they could have sent out the email at a more reasonable time, but if I were the planner of this event, I’d want to get this out ASAP. I guess I’m not sure what you mean by resting on their laurels = setting up for failure.

Hey Al’s going downtown right after that show to make an appearance at the FREE screening of an Inconvenient Truth at Grand Performances.

I checked my e-mail at 6:33 this morning, clicked the link right after and saw it was sold out. I wonder if any of the tickets have shown up on Craigslist or other such resell kinda places yet. Don’t feel like bothering to check myself :-P

aninconvenientlady:
Basically, the Arclight is the best theatre… ever. That said, their online ticketing system frequently crashes, usually when hot tickets go on sale. I’ve also frequently not received bulletins about hot upcoming screenings, and then only hear about them after they sell out… Arclight personell apologize for the glitches, but since the Arclight remains the greatest theater ever, they have little incentive to correct these sorts of problems.
The Al Gore screening was just one disappointment. But how can I really complain? I get into the vast majority of screenings I want. So, today I’m just pouting and stomping my feet.

Please don’t hate me, but I was able to get four tickets by purchasing them online around 8:45 a.m. Tuesday morning. And, yes, I am an Arclight member, but with no special connections at the box office. AL GORE ROCKS!

David: Ah, I gotcha. Totally know what you mean… I’ve had my fair share of glitchy purchasing problems with them. I agree, they are the number one theater of all time and their customer service is always super friendly and apologetic, but maybe they’ll get their act together if these glitches occur this frequently. Maybe. Err… here’s hopin’.

I did catch the film at Le Arclight opening weekend though, and I’ll try my best to spread the word while I’m here in conservative, I.D.-lovin’ country. Enjoy the screening, Andrew Burgess and others!

(*mini-pout*)