For the first 15 minutes, rather than telling me it was busy, or otherwise it just refused to take my AHA number saying it was invalid. Made me go verify it off of an issue of zymurgy (I was reading it off the card), and resubmit required captcha. About 17 after it took the same number it had been refusing then only to tell me there were no tickets left.
there has to be a better way than this. This just gets me angry. >:(
fj…
Not too mention the bazillion of tickets that are on eBay now.
One of the reasons I will probably never attend. >:(
The site for me was just telling me High Traffic and to please retry my search; after 13min of that I got a sold out. At least i can go on Friday because my buddy accidently purchased an extra ticket!
From the AHA Facebook page…
Hi AHA members. We’ve been reading your posts and while we can’t reply to each of them individually, we wanted to give everyone another update on GABF ticket sales.
Your staff at the AHA, the Great American Beer Festival and the Brewers Association sincerely regret the problem with today’s member pre-sale. Ticketmaster had a technical problem that unfortunately had a negative impact on many of our members. We are sorry. There do not seem to be any easy answers in the world of large-scale event ticketing. At this juncture, the GABF remains under contract with Ticketmaster through 2014. Going forward, all suggestions and options for ticketing solutions will be under review.
At the same time, there are more thirsty members and craft beer enthusiasts than there is capacity at the festival. We know it is disappointing for everyone who wants to go the festival but can’t get tickets. Thanks for your continued support of the AHA, the GABF, and the hundreds upon hundreds of American brewers who make the event all that it is.
I was on right when the sale opened today. No luck getting tickets. Kept getting a high demand message-try your search again…or some crap like that. Refreshed for 20 min or so then gave up.
I gave up on even trying to go to the GABF. Tickets are practically impossible to aquire.
Maybe it is time to replace the GABF with a craft beer drinking friendly crowd and begin a few regional beer fests that are more accessible to the people that deserve to be there? Get rid of the tiny plastic cups and replace them with full size glasses so you can drink what you want. As a Yank over here in the UK, beer fests are much more user friendly where you can find something or several beers you like and drink a pint or two of them. Find your way to the Cambridge (May), GBBF (August), Peterborough (August) or Norwich (October) and find anywhere between 200-400 brewers doing good beer.
Pearl Jam got it right when they went against ticket master and craft beer is no different. As a voting member of the home brewing association, I am tired of the same big market answer. Yeah, I have heard of Savor but that is an even smaller event which is much harder to attend. If craft beer wants to grow, well it needs to include the people that got it there and not the $150+ ticket prices people are finding on Ebay.
Now I’m already getting stressed out about registering for NHC…RDWHANB (relax, don’t worry…have a nervous breakdown). 
There are smaller events, particularly on the regional level, that are less advertised, less crowded and more relaxed. They are not all cut from the same cloth. Some are just stupid excuses for a company to charge $30-75 to let you come in and drink 1-2oz samples of the same beer that is normally distributed in your area and easily available at the beer bars in town.
However, I do think it will only be a matter of time before the GABF’s prominence starts to decline for brewers because it’s gotten so big. If you’re a regional brewery that doesn’t distribute in the west half of the country then it probably doesn’t make as much sense to dedicate the time to going to Denver when you could spend the same time and money to invest more deeply in building brand loyalty in the market where you distribute or where you want to distribute next. After all, how much brand building can you do 1oz at a time where you barely talk to the people trying your beers?
That’s not a dig on GABF, rather it’s a testament to how successful the event has become and how big craft brewing has become. It’s fantastic that so many breweries want to come together from around the country and be featured together. However, there are so many small breweries with small distribution markets it just may not be cost effective to go to GABF and compete against all the other breweries.
the only way to break the cycle is for people not to buy from ebay or stub-hub. Let those people lose their butts holding unsold tickets and this won.t happen again. Or only allow 4 tickets per purchase plus a transaction fee and it will keep wholesalers from buying hundreds of tickets at a time for resale .
I got online as soon as tickets were available and had to enter my no. For 15minutes and finally got through, just figured high traffic was the problem. Did finally get mine.