Update: WOW! That was INTENSE. All of the tickets, about 560 of them, were GONE in 5 minutes. Amazing. BUT! Don’t panic if you didn’t get a ticket. You can still sign up and get on the waitlist, and when people don’t confirm their tickets within 24 hours, or cancel/give up their tickets, they’ll go to the people on the waitlist, first come, first served. You guys are amazing! 
The time has come. Tickets for Ignite Portland 5 (which will take place Feb. 19 at the Bagdad Theater) are now available! Get them from:
http://tickets.igniteportland.com
How It Works
Sign up for a free ticket. You’ll receive an email confirmation which you must acknowledge within 24 hours, or your ticket goes back in the pool. Check your spam filters if you don’t receive that email right away. Once you confirm your ticket, you’ll need to print out the resulting ticket page, and bring it with you to IP5. On the night of the event, show up between 5:15PM and 6:00PM, and you’ll get right in. After 6:00PM, we go to General Admission, and your ticket turns into a pumpkin.
New - The Waitlist
We know these tickets are going to go fast. Instead of making you check back periodically to see if any more tickets have become available, we’ve implemented a waitlist feature. If you don’t get a ticket, sign up for the waitlist, as tickets become available, they’ll be sent to people on the waitlist on a first come, first served basis. So if you end up on the waitlist, keep an eye on your email, because when people give their tickets back, you might get lucky. Which brings us to…
New - Give Your Tickets Back If You Can’t Come
Another new feature we’ve implemented is the ability to cancel or “give back” your ticket if you sign up for one, and end up not being able to come. We’re asking people to be thoughtful of their fellow Portlanders, and if you’re not going to be able to be there, give your ticket back so someone on the waitlist can get in. Instructions on how to do this should be in the email you’ll receive for your ticket.
Why Tickets?
Tickets to Ignite Portland will always be free. So why have them in the first place? To try to keep lines small, and reduce your anxiety about getting in. If you have a ticket, and you arrive at the Bagdad Theater before the time appointed for General Admission, you can stroll right in, and you’ve got a seat. Didn’t manage to get a ticket? You can come down and wait in the General Admission line. We always reserve some seats for GA, and last time, no one was turned away. So think of a ticket as your way to avoid waiting in the GA line.
Good Luck!
Last time, 550 tickets were claimed in 3.5 hours. Given all the hype, tweets, and blog posts on the subject, and the fact that we pre-announced the precise time that tickets are going to become available, I suspect these might go even quicker. But the new waitlist and ticket cancellation features should make it a LOT easier for you to get a ticket if you weren’t able to snag one in the initial rush.
We owe a HUGE thanks to so many people for the fact that Ignite has become as popular as it has. The people who submit ideas and give talks, the people who have come to past Ignites and told their friends, and especially to Igal Koshevoy and his team of happy coders that put the ticket (and proposal) system together, and make this all run so smoothly. Buy him a drink or something next time you see him.
Best of luck getting your tickets, and we’ll see you in two weeks (!) at Ignite Portland 5!
I would like a ticket to the next event. Thanks.
I just applied for my ticket and was told that Yahoo email addresses will be considered SPAM. Was it mentioned anywhere on this site that prospective ticket acquirers should be prepared to have an account other than Yahoo, Hotmail, etc? If so, please point it out to me.
I have no fricking idea what my Qwest email account is - I never use it! I feel ripped off as there are zero tickets left and I waited for these things to go “on sale” since the last Ignite event. Sheesh!
I checked at 10:09 AM for tickets and found they were all gone. I know Ignite is popular but really? Gone in 5 minutes? How disappointing. Guess I’ll have to wait in line again…shivering in the cold…crying silently…
I filled out the fields and sent my request in at 10:01am… but never received the email with the confirmation code! Checked my spam/junk folders, not there… and my email address isn’t a hotmail or other type of generic email account. Missed the ticket. (And I double-checked email when I typed it in the field!) Eeeek.
Perhaps a lottery system??
Same here - filled out the fields and got no confirmation. Filled out the waiting list request and requested confirmation code three times, received nothing. Not in spam folders, and triple-checked my address.
Janice Bradford & David Galiel, You both show up in our system that you have reserved tickets and confirmation email has been sent. (David our records show that you have also confirmed your ticket- you should be good to go and already know that by now). Janice, if you haven’t received your confirmation email please follow the steps in the escalation email above.
Hello Everyone!!
If you are still having trouble confirming your ticket, please follow the instructions at this page:
http://www.igniteportland.com/2009/02/escalation-process-for-missing-tickets/
Cheers,
Chris Pitzer
Although Yahoo accounts were considered spam, I found I was actually able to retrieve my ticket. Looking forward to the show!
Joe, just to clarify we don’t consider Yahoo accounts as spam. We merely warn folks that Yahoo & MSN accounts tend to delay, delete or send our confirmation emails to you spam folder due to their spam policies. (The only way to prevent this is for us to pay Yahoo & MSN $5,000 per year each to get onto their white list which we cannot afford). But we do in fact send immediate confirmation emails to Yahoo & MSN email addresses. We just give you a friendly warning that Yahoo & MSN don’t play nice with your ticket.
Here is the exact warning we show:
“WARNING: You entered a Yahoo, Hotmail or MSN email address. These providers will delete, delay or mark the email with your ticket as spam. Please consider using another email provider for reserving your ticket.”
Thanks for the clarification, Todd. I was just so excited!
Thankfully all went very smooth for me and I was even out on the road. I was able to (via my Treo) get to the site, get my ticket, receive my email and go in to confirm it. Looking forward to Ignite!
Indeed, my waiting list confirmation email did ultimately arrive (all three at once!). You folks are experiencing the challenges of your remarkable success, and all your efforts are appreciated. (Even if I don’t ultimately get in to my first Ignite in Portland…)
Sponsors, perhaps it’s time to help Ignite Portland fund a move to a larger venue in town? Or do more than one simultaneous screening, in a series of small venues - or, a couple consecutive screenings at Baghdad? Or conduct a simulcast in one of your vast corporate meeting halls (*cough*cough Microsoft). Or, hook us up via brain-stem directly to the Matrix, or or or….