Purchasing GABF Tickets
The Brewers Association just announced that GABF tickets go on sale to AHA members July 29th at 10:00 AM Mountain Time. Tickets are expected to sell out within a few minutes so you need to be prepared if you want to get in. Here’s some tips I put together based on my experience last year. I have no idea what additional steps or requirements will be implemented this year, but the tips below worked well for me last year.
1. Figure out the correct start time for your time zone.
2. Setup an account with Ticketmaster in advance. That way you won’t have to spend time entering your name, address, credit card information, etc.
3. Log onto two computers so you can process more than one transaction at a time. If you have a helper (preferred) arrange in advance who is going to purchase which sessions. Go for the ones you want most first because the other events may be sold out by the time you finish your first transaction. There’s a limit of two tickets per session per membership number.
4. Have the Ticketmaster page up and ready to go. You will have to hit the refresh button as soon as the sale begins before the purchase options will be available.
5. Last year they had one of those images where you need to decipher the numbers and letters and type them in manually. I assume they will do this again to prevent automation. Be prepared and do it carefully. If you enter it incorrectly it will bump you out and you will have to start over.
6. Have your AHA membership number in front of you so you are ready to enter it. Better yet, copy the number from Word or another program in advance so it is in your clipboard and paste (Control + V) when your cursor is in the membership number field. This technique only saves a few seconds, but every second counts. I heard they may email members a special code this year, but haven’t seen it yet.
7. Be prepared to answer other questions, such as do you want the tickets mailed to you or do you want to pick them up, etc.
8. Make sure the transaction is complete and your order has been accepted before starting over to order tickets for a different day or time. You cannot order more than one session at a time. There probably won’t be enough time to go through all four transactions one after the other, which is why I’m recommending you log in to Ticketmaster on more than one computer so that you can process more than one transaction simultaneously. I got three of the four sessions before the Ticketmaster indicated that they were sold out. It was a matter of just a few minutes.
Good luck
