2021 Grand Design National Rally Frustration

[MyRVRadio]

I would like to add something to this, as I said on some of the FB posts, too. I'm a 25+ year veteran of programming, and more web development than I can remember.

When you go through most online ticketing systems like Eventbrite, Ticketmaster, even movie theaters (remember those?), when you "grab" a ticket, you get to "hold" that ticket for a certain amount of time. With Eventbrite, it appeared to be 30 minutes. That is your "session" time, so once you get the ticket into the cart, you have time to do your checkout, etc. What happened here is that with the PayPal issues, folks would grab a ticket and try to pay. The payment wasn't working. So the ticket would be released after 30 minutes. Refreshing that main screen would then show 1 ticket available for an area. If you can "grab" it and get into the checkout process fast enough, then that ticket is yours for 30 minutes. (Or permanently, if you can get it paid for!)

When all tickets for an area are held in people's sessions, waiting for them to check out and pay, the tickets would show "Unavailable". This is NOT the same as "Sold Out". If a husband and wife, on two computers, are racing to get tickets, they both might, but they're only going to buy and pay for ONE of them. Then the other gets released after 30 minutes.

Now, since this was a "starting gate / starter pistol" setup, beginning at a certain time, everyone's lined up to get them. They get snagged fast, everyone's running the land grab. That doesn't mean they'll all stay gone. So refreshing the main screen (hitting the green "Tickets" button, then hitting ESC, then repeating until something is available again), is really the only way to do it.

It really isn't anyone's fault about PayPal, except in my opinion, PayPal's. They have done this so many times that if you have a lot of experience with them, and you're doing a limited amount of tickets that are going to sell *fast*, you might know to make sure they are notified ahead of time and not treat it like fraud. But if you've never had it happen to you, well, you don't know what you don't know. So no real blame here.

But with limited capacity of tickets they can sell (500, I think) and there being FAR more owners than this, and so many want to go to the rally, there really isn't any other way to do it than this method. Or some kind of lottery. Really is the nature of the beast. The Facebook rally event group has a ton of information, posts, rants, graciousness, etc. Just put your galoshes on before you wade in there!

[fmartinmn]

I would like to add something to this, as I said on some of the FB posts, too. I'm a 25+ year veteran of programming, and more web development than I can remember.

When you go through most online ticketing systems like Eventbrite, Ticketmaster, even movie theaters (remember those?), when you "grab" a ticket, you get to "hold" that ticket for a certain amount of time. With Eventbrite, it appeared to be 30 minutes. That is your "session" time, so once you get the ticket into the cart, you have time to do your checkout, etc. What happened here is that with the PayPal issues, folks would grab a ticket and try to pay. The payment wasn't working. So the ticket would be released after 30 minutes. Refreshing that main screen would then show 1 ticket available for an area. If you can "grab" it and get into the checkout process fast enough, then that ticket is yours for 30 minutes. (Or permanently, if you can get it paid for!)

When all tickets for an area are held in people's sessions, waiting for them to check out and pay, the tickets would show "Unavailable". This is NOT the same as "Sold Out". If a husband and wife, on two computers, are racing to get tickets, they both might, but they're only going to buy and pay for ONE of them. Then the other gets released after 30 minutes.

Now, since this was a "starting gate / starter pistol" setup, beginning at a certain time, everyone's lined up to get them. They get snagged fast, everyone's running the land grab. That doesn't mean they'll all stay gone. So refreshing the main screen (hitting the green "Tickets" button, then hitting ESC, then repeating until something is available again), is really the only way to do it.

It really isn't anyone's fault about PayPal, except in my opinion, PayPal's. They have done this so many times that if you have a lot of experience with them, and you're doing a limited amount of tickets that are going to sell *fast*, you might know to make sure they are notified ahead of time and not treat it like fraud. But if you've never had it happen to you, well, you don't know what you don't know. So no real blame here.

But with limited capacity of tickets they can sell (500, I think) and there being FAR more owners than this, and so many want to go to the rally, there really isn't any other way to do it than this method. Or some kind of lottery. Really is the nature of the beast. The Facebook rally event group has a ton of information, posts, rants, graciousness, etc. Just put your galoshes on before you wade in there!

Great explanation, thanks for posting. I now know what to do next year.

[Longshhm]

We, too, tried at 1:00 PM, and were unable to get a site to attend our first national rally (GD owners since May 2020). I retired from the rat race and got off the treadmill three years ago, so I’m not interested in having to “compete” for a spot to attend the national rally. If this is what registering for the national rally is like every year, then we will just be content to attend our local rallies, although I’d really like to do a plant tour. Maybe we can arrange one when, and if, we are on a trip in that area.
Now, back to my drink...

[el Rojo]

I would like to add something to this, as I said on some of the FB posts, too. I'm a 25+ year veteran of programming, and more web development than I can remember.

When you go through most online ticketing systems like Eventbrite, Ticketmaster, even movie theaters (remember those?), when you "grab" a ticket, you get to "hold" that ticket for a certain amount of time. With Eventbrite, it appeared to be 30 minutes. That is your "session" time, so once you get the ticket into the cart, you have time to do your checkout, etc. What happened here is that with the PayPal issues, folks would grab a ticket and try to pay. The payment wasn't working. So the ticket would be released after 30 minutes. Refreshing that main screen would then show 1 ticket available for an area. If you can "grab" it and get into the checkout process fast enough, then that ticket is yours for 30 minutes. (Or permanently, if you can get it paid for!)

When all tickets for an area are held in people's sessions, waiting for them to check out and pay, the tickets would show "Unavailable". This is NOT the same as "Sold Out". If a husband and wife, on two computers, are racing to get tickets, they both might, but they're only going to buy and pay for ONE of them. Then the other gets released after 30 minutes.

Now, since this was a "starting gate / starter pistol" setup, beginning at a certain time, everyone's lined up to get them. They get snagged fast, everyone's running the land grab. That doesn't mean they'll all stay gone. So refreshing the main screen (hitting the green "Tickets" button, then hitting ESC, then repeating until something is available again), is really the only way to do it.

It really isn't anyone's fault about PayPal, except in my opinion, PayPal's. They have done this so many times that if you have a lot of experience with them, and you're doing a limited amount of tickets that are going to sell *fast*, you might know to make sure they are notified ahead of time and not treat it like fraud. But if you've never had it happen to you, well, you don't know what you don't know. So no real blame here.

But with limited capacity of tickets they can sell (500, I think) and there being FAR more owners than this, and so many want to go to the rally, there really isn't any other way to do it than this method. Or some kind of lottery. Really is the nature of the beast. The Facebook rally event group has a ton of information, posts, rants, graciousness, etc. Just put your galoshes on before you wade in there!

Thank you for your explanation. That's exactly what happened.

Red.

[minnow101]

I’ve said before those that have never attended a National rally attendees should have first priority. That’s the group that will glean the most with the seminars. Someone who apparently is in the “I attend every year” hierarchy responded in another venue stating that “only” 40% of the attendees are year after year returnees. Well 40% of 500 sites is still a big number and closes off a huge number of newbies from attending. I suggested that 40% could rent a nearby campground and gather there.
We attended in 2016, had a good time, learned much and even were rally volunteers in the kitchen. But have not gone to another since.

[ThePowells]

We were going to attend this year but health challenges have changed our 2021 plans. I have spent the last 4+ summers in Elkhart and would suggest if you REALLY want to attend the rally, look into a different RVP to stay in. Then drive to the rally-it will be well worth it. Elkhart Campground is my favorite, has a whole new section open with 50A pull-thru sites, and is only a 25+ minute drive to Goshen. And sometimes a cancellation pops up for the rally location at the last minute as well. As RVers we often are met with "No Availability" in our travel planning - but when we stay flexible, look for options we often discover an ever BETTER Plan B than our Plan A was. Ya never know, but I suggest you focus on ways to MAKE it happen and be there! Stay for a couple of weeks+, go the RV/MH Museum, take an RV manufacturing tour, shop for RV goodies, enjoy an Amish dinner + show, ride in an Amish buggy, eat a Ben's Soft Pretzel, tour the South Bend Chocolate Factory and appreciate the beautiful area around The RV Capital of The WORLD

That may be a consideration in the future. Not knowing for sure about this year created a problem for Kelly with her work since it is part of her "silly season" so we have to plan for 2022. We knew going in that the fairgrounds would be like a zoo at feeding time and that was part of what I wanted. We also wanted to be close if Kelly needed to take care of something for work and keeping a better check on the fur babies. Along with that would have been the ability to not have to drive back to where we were camping after the evening "festivities".

I do want to thank Red and everyone else for what they have done and what they are doing. I know that the last thing that the last thing that they needed was this PayPal FUBAR thrust upon them.

[Russ Coble]

I patiently waited today until 1:00 PM when I could log in and register for the 2021 Nation Rally. I clicked on the registration link at exactly 1:00 PM. I was extremely frustrated when all of the full-hook up sites were already booked up. I know that there could not have been that many folks who could have logged in prior to me and it is really frustrating that we are not going to be able to attend our first National Rally. There must be some kind of secret to getting registered for a full hook-up site. After a few minutes of trying to find a full hook up site, all of the sites were gone.

For those of you who were able to get registered and obtain a site, I am happy for you and hope that you have a great time.

Sincerely,

Bill Davis

I too had issues. I watched the website like a hawk and the minute registration opened I jumped in with my pre-prepared list of desirable sites, prioritized based on my liking. I ended up getting my last choice, a 30amp site in area H. I thought I had a good game plan in place with the sites and tours my wife and I wanted to take. After missing out on my first several site/tour preferences, I decided to forgo the tours and just focus on acquiring a camping site. Once I was able to acquire a site, I then focused on purchasing the tours my wife and I liked. By this time (only minutes from the initial registration opening), the site was having major issues. Every time I tried to purchase our tours and would get to the final PayPal event, the Eventbrite site would indicate there were issue and I had to try again. So back to the start I'd go....the site was really in a tizzy by now, sometimes the site would indicate the tours weren't available and other times the site indicated they were available. I'm assuming this was because after about 30 minutes of no activity on the purchase the transaction ended and I believe your purchase was put back on the available list. Only guessing. So I was pretty frustrated as others have mentioned and I sent an email to the Connie Begly, GD Communications Director. Connie was great to work with and she got right onto the problem. She researched the problem and found that PayPal had flagged the Eventbrite PayPal account thinking there was some sort of fraudulent activity happening given the high volume of requests. So any further attempts to purchase anything from the Eventbrite site were rejected. Sure seems like someone from Eventbrite dropped the ball and didn't coordinate with PayPal. Connie indicated that the GD and Eventbrite teams would be working to rectify the problem. Not sure how things are going to shake out...It's got to be a huge undertaking to look at the event logs and determine who should get what based on the time they submitted their transaction request. So I'm hoping I might luck out and be able to purchase some of the optional tours...maybe even a better site. My wife and I are so looking forward to attending this years rally, as it will be our first since purchasing our 2020 GD Reflection 297RSTS

[WhittleBurner]

. So I'm hoping I might luck out and be able to purchase some of the optional tours...maybe even a better site. My wife and I are so looking forward to attending this years rally, as it will be our first since purchasing our 2020 GD Reflection 297RSTS

Something to keep in mid, If you don't get the tours you want there is going to be a board for those that bought tours to sell if they change their minds after the fact. There are no refunds on the tours from the Rally organizers so this is a great way to snag a tour that someone decided not to go on...you get the tour you want and they get their money

[Canyonlight]

Thank you for your explanation. That's exactly what happened.

Red.

Red - thank you, and Pam so much along with all the others working diligently to get through this. You all will get this thing whipped into shape and the rally will be wonderful. All this will be just another challenging episode in the lives of RVrs, put in proper perspective around the campfires sharing "war" stories and beverages.

Dan

[Ed and Cathy K]

We've been to 3 National Rallies, worry less about the site you get, spend your effort on making great friends, eating, and learning all you can. We stayed inside the track 30 Amp and water, with pump out, no problems. Breakfast and dinners are provided, so you won't be doing many dishes. Bathrooms are everywhere and clean, so not much need to use the black tank a lot, gray water from the shower is the only thing to watch. We only used 1 of the 2 pump outs. Don't let the site deter you from going, you will have as much fun as you can with your clothes on. We won't be making it this year, as we are volunteering at Henrys Lake State Park in Idaho. So have some fun for us, and don't miss the factory tours, and Don Clark's fireside chat.