9am came and went and still nothing. Tickets were up on Fandango but unfortunately you can't buy this theaters tickets on Fandango (again it's assigned seating). So I hung out online for another hour or so and the Arclight finally put up their tickets. There are several different types of showings. There is the regular 2D version and then the version that Peter Jackson filmed the movie in and feels it should be seen, 3D HFR (48 fps). I was hoping to get something around 8:30 but there was only a 2D version of the movie playing then and the prices were screwed up so if you purchased them they would charge you the 3D prices. But on the upside the 7:30 showing which was in 3D HFR were also priced wrong but where about 4 dollars cheaper. Most of the folks didn't care if we saw the film in 2D or 3D and I'm not one to watch films in 3D unless they were created that way.. like this film. So I opted for the 7:30pm time and the current price was still cheaper. I could only buy 10 tickets at a time so I opted to do 8 and 8 in two different rows. As I was finishing my first 8 tickets the site realized it's mistake and cancelled my transaction before it was done. So I wound up with no seats.
My second attempt.. I was still debating on which version to see, though I wanted to see the 3D HFR version and was willing to pay the extra money I know some would not want to pay the extra money. So I went to the facebook event and asked what others thought. Didn't get many responses.
The site was down another hour before they got the prices fixed and were selling tickets again. Seats were going fast and I needed 16 close together. With little help from the group, I went with 7:30 3D version again and the seats that I selected prior, but the transaction was cancelled were taken.. not sure if it was because of my transaction or what but I couldn't get those. I went with a row behind it and selected 10 seats this time. Got to the end put in my credit card info and the card was declined. Come to find out that the last transaction did go through and now this same card was getting another transaction of a large amount of money and the froze my credit card.
Now I don't know if you have purchased tickets online before but you have a timer of how long they will hold those seats before releasing them and my time was almost over. I quickly went to my wallet for my back up credit card, an AMEX and it wasn't there. So I start to panic as my card was missing and I don't use that card often and can't for the life of me remember when I used it last. Needless to say my time expired and my transaction was cancelled and I had to start all over again.
My third attempt .. the seat were being snapped up quickly.. the ones I had in attempt two were gone so it pushed us even further back in the theater. Got to the end of the transaction and pulled out my third credit card which is for emergencies only and I've never charged anything to it... Success!!! I got 10 seats. I quickly moved to grab six more in the next row before they were taken.
My fourth attempt.. got the six seats in front of the first ten. All was well, I went to check out and my credit card that I just used for the 10 tickets was declined, to many high cost transaction within a few minutes.. they froze the card.
I'm in an all out panic mode.. I got 10 seats.. still need 6 more and seats were filling up fast. I went to my last resort, my debt card... I never use my debt card for online purchases but this was an emergency.. I had no choice..
My fifth attempt..several of the seats that I gotten in attempt four were taken so I found six more seats all together slightly to the right of the group of ten seats. I went to finish my transaction and use my debt card and got them.
After four hours online and five attempts I manage to buy 16 seats in two rows so the we can all sit together for the Hobbit premiere. It was crazy but well worth it as it's going to be an awesome bunch of friends to watch this movie with... I so can't wait!!!!
