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Coffee Thoughts: The Taylor Swift Prolem
2 years ago
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And doth the Drygerskunk posteth: So this came across NBC's Today Show: Ticketmaster pauses sales of France Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets
...and it got me thinking, first back to the first "meltdown", and then to logistics.
With ticket sales, you have to confirm someone is human first. Right now the best way is captchas, combined with minimal interaction thresholds. A dumb bot would blow through a captcha, yes, but a human would take a few seconds to read through and respond. A dumb bot would immediately request the next page while humans would take some time to read through the page and the browser needs a small bit of time to even render it. And that's for pre-registration.
Because we introduce one time codes that are physically mailed, and there's a one-per-household limit and no PO Boxes. You need that code to get in and buy tickets... and to get into the venue, as the tickets are marked "not resellable."
That said, lets now assume we got a TON of legit live Swifties that got tickets... so much that we needed to add simulcast venues. Lets take Baltimore, and assume that the tour promoters pay for all costs related to transit, and MTA Maryland gets enough staff to pull it off.
There are three valid venues:
* The Baltimore Arena
* O's Park at Camden Yards
* Raven's Stadium at Camden Yards
Lets assume Taylor's main venue is O's Park and is at capacity (and then some). Lets assume Raven's Stadium and the Arena are simulcasting the show and are at 75% capacity. Oriole Park is max 53K (with that "then some"), Ravens 71K (at 100%), Arena 14K (ditto). Take in the 75% capacity limitations, and you're shifting nearly 115K Swifties after the concert.
Baltimore's Light Rail can handle 176 people per car on a "crush load". Three cars (528 tightly packed Swifties) however take 12 minutes to load. This can be mitigated because two-track operation and that Hamburg Street (Ravens Stadium) and Camden Yards (Oriole Park) are so close that southbound service can be handled at Hamburg Street and northbound at Camden Yards. That makes for 6 minute service intervals, assuming Light Rail only stops at stations with parking or transfer points to MARC/Amtrak.
Which gets into MARC's Camden line. Assuming 8 cars maximum at 132 each (MARC III and IV cars pulled by double diesel engines), it's 1056 Swifties per train. I'm going to assume 10 minute boarding, but 20 minute service because off-loading is usually low level. The NEC itself would require a few extra trains Northbound.
On top of that, you got flexi-buses that may have 100 Swifties on it going to various Park & Ride places, commuter buses also picking up to those areas topping off at 50... and that a lot of Swifties may be staying the night in area hotels. 8500 hotel rooms in the immediate area. Pack them 4-per and you get 34K off the number of Swifties to shift.
Oh, and Uber/Lyft trying to nose in on the game and having pickup points a few blocks from the stadiums.
It's going to take around 4-5 hours to empty those stadiums.
At least they start at 6:30pm, because the show lasts THREE WHOLE HOURS.
EDIT 2023-10-27: Well, Taylor Swift's company solved it by releasing a movie of the concert, and having AMC et all carry it directly (self-distribution).
...and it got me thinking, first back to the first "meltdown", and then to logistics.
With ticket sales, you have to confirm someone is human first. Right now the best way is captchas, combined with minimal interaction thresholds. A dumb bot would blow through a captcha, yes, but a human would take a few seconds to read through and respond. A dumb bot would immediately request the next page while humans would take some time to read through the page and the browser needs a small bit of time to even render it. And that's for pre-registration.
Because we introduce one time codes that are physically mailed, and there's a one-per-household limit and no PO Boxes. You need that code to get in and buy tickets... and to get into the venue, as the tickets are marked "not resellable."
That said, lets now assume we got a TON of legit live Swifties that got tickets... so much that we needed to add simulcast venues. Lets take Baltimore, and assume that the tour promoters pay for all costs related to transit, and MTA Maryland gets enough staff to pull it off.
There are three valid venues:
* The Baltimore Arena
* O's Park at Camden Yards
* Raven's Stadium at Camden Yards
Lets assume Taylor's main venue is O's Park and is at capacity (and then some). Lets assume Raven's Stadium and the Arena are simulcasting the show and are at 75% capacity. Oriole Park is max 53K (with that "then some"), Ravens 71K (at 100%), Arena 14K (ditto). Take in the 75% capacity limitations, and you're shifting nearly 115K Swifties after the concert.
Baltimore's Light Rail can handle 176 people per car on a "crush load". Three cars (528 tightly packed Swifties) however take 12 minutes to load. This can be mitigated because two-track operation and that Hamburg Street (Ravens Stadium) and Camden Yards (Oriole Park) are so close that southbound service can be handled at Hamburg Street and northbound at Camden Yards. That makes for 6 minute service intervals, assuming Light Rail only stops at stations with parking or transfer points to MARC/Amtrak.
Which gets into MARC's Camden line. Assuming 8 cars maximum at 132 each (MARC III and IV cars pulled by double diesel engines), it's 1056 Swifties per train. I'm going to assume 10 minute boarding, but 20 minute service because off-loading is usually low level. The NEC itself would require a few extra trains Northbound.
On top of that, you got flexi-buses that may have 100 Swifties on it going to various Park & Ride places, commuter buses also picking up to those areas topping off at 50... and that a lot of Swifties may be staying the night in area hotels. 8500 hotel rooms in the immediate area. Pack them 4-per and you get 34K off the number of Swifties to shift.
Oh, and Uber/Lyft trying to nose in on the game and having pickup points a few blocks from the stadiums.
It's going to take around 4-5 hours to empty those stadiums.
At least they start at 6:30pm, because the show lasts THREE WHOLE HOURS.
EDIT 2023-10-27: Well, Taylor Swift's company solved it by releasing a movie of the concert, and having AMC et all carry it directly (self-distribution).
Miafillene
~miafillene
See this is why I avoid concerts and most big events.
