If you are a PC gamer and a M.O.B.A fanatic then you more than likely know that League of Legends has the biggest online community followed by DOTA and Overwatch. Today, Riot Games released tickets to the League of Legends World Championship finals at the Staples Center through the Staples Center’s website AXS. com and by phone but everything did not go so smoothly.
Tickets for the League of Legends World Championship Finale in Los Angeles went on sale at 10 AM PST but the waiting room for the event started much earlier. In order to make the process smoother, Riot Games told potential ticket buyers that it would be best to make an account on the AXS website before the tickets went on sale .
In order to make certain that everything was ready, we created an account on Saturday night which included filling out general purchasing information such as: name, address, credit card information, and phone number. When we entered the AXS website this morning at 8:30, the site had us pick the tickets that we were looking for and threw us into a waiting que. The AXS website set a cap of 6 tickets per customer and gave the option of splitting the tickets, which would have the tickets be located in different sections. In order to secure tickets, we selected the best available ticket option and waited patiently until 10:00 AM PST. While we waited, the AXS website told us to be patient and that the que would be randomized in order to allow for everyone to have a fair chance at purchasing their desired tickets.
At 10:18 AM PST, we were allowed into the purchasing portion of the AXS website, however when we went to select our tickets the website stated that no tickets were available in the selected group and that we should try splitting the tickets. Following their advice, we selected the split ticket option and clicked find best tickets available; again the site said no tickets available although the different sections were still highlighted as available. Determined to purchase tickets for the League of Legends World Championship finale, we selected the P1 option and clicketed on the 101 section by the stage that was open. After clicking the 101 section a window opened up prompting us to make certain that we were not a bot and had us click on all the pictures that had trees in the picture. After completing the anti-bot test, the website stated that no tickets were available in that section please select a different section.
Rather than trying our luck with the P1 section again, we attempted to purchase tickets in the P2 category, section 216. Again the anti-bot window came up asking us to select all the pictures with a store front in it, so we did. Again the AXS site came back with a window stating that no tickets were available for the desired area please select another section. Once we closed the no tickets available window, we refreshed the page in order to look at what sections were still available and discovered that the two sections we had previously selected were still available but filling up. With determination, we dropped our ticket count just to 1 because we could always purchase a second ticket on Ticketmaster or Stubhub at a later date and at an additional cost. We again tried the P1 category
We again tried the P1 category but this time selected the 102 section hoping that we could get at least one ticket. This time, it gave us a checkout option and thinking that we had finally succeeded, we clicked it. The refreshing icon in the URL started to swirl and with it so did our hearts with excitement, but just seconds later we would feel disappointment yet again when the page popped up with an anti-bot window followed by the same menacing window stating that no tickets were available in that desired section.
Angered, we selected the P3 option and clicked on the 301 section since it had the largest assortment of seats still available, although all the section 300 seats were still available, and selected the two ticket option. Again the website gave us the anti-bot window, however this time, it gave us the check out option again. Thinking that this last attempt might be where we achieved victory we clicked the checkout option to then be defeated again by the notorious anti-bot window.
Infuriated we called the Staples Center in order to see if we could still secure tickets for the League of Legends World Championship finale and to complain about the difficulties we had gone through using the AXS website. The line said that they were experiencing a high volume of callers and lines may be busy….. they were. At this point hopelessness started to sink in, so we closed the AXS ticket page. At 10:40 PST we received a call from a close friend saying that he saw tweet regarding our difficulty with the AXS ticketing site and that he was having the same problems we were; he went on to say that there were still tickets available in the 300 Section. Reinvigorated, we went back into the AXS site and saw that eleven 300 section areas were still available and that they had seats next to each other open. Again we tried to purchase Section 301 seats, but this time it did not give an anti-bot window it just said no tickets available. We tried for another 10 mins but we failed to secure any tickets in the 300 section.
The overall experience was a disaster using the AXS system through Google Chrome. The AXS system did not allow select individual seats to purchase for the League of Legends World Championship Final. Ultimately the whole experience was a failure, making it feel like we crashed and burned. After failing to secure a ticket for the League of Legends World Championship Final, we went to stubhub.com to check out what tickets for the event were being sold for. On Stubhub, Section 301’s tickets are listed at $169 compared to their original price of $35. Section 101 is now listed at a whopping $300 compared to its original selling price of $55.
Riot Games plans to release tickets sometime before the League of Legends World Championship Final on October 29th, so if you were not able to get your tickets today then there is still hope.
