I HAAAAAAAAAAATE THE NEW TELECHARGE!

[millie_dillmount]

I liked the old site better, even without the fancy seating charts and choosing your own seat.

It gets confusing when you are switching customers between the old and new sites. Why can't the transition happen in stages (for example, like how Facebook switched people to the timeline gradually rather than switching back and forth on people)?

[TC Web Feedback]

In order to use Facebook, you have to log into your account. That enables Facebook to choose what to show you based on who you are. On Telecharge, we don't require that you log in to view the site, and in fact, on the old site, we don't even give you an option to log in until you are purchasing tickets. Therefore, we weren't able to convert customers to the new site user-by-user.

[Jordan Catalano]

Your site is worse than ever now. I can't click on anything without it crashing everything. Seriously, you guys are just making it worse.

[morosco]

Anyone know if Telecharge has abandoned making any improvements on their website? I know they were trying to make it possible to choose your own seats but it looks like they've given up. Anyone know?

[Mr Roxy]

I hated the old one and have not used in in quite sometime

[Jordan Catalano]

I swear to God, Telecharge - Either shlt or get off the pot with this new design. I can't even begin to tell you how much it makes me want to put my fist through my computer screen.

[CHOOKA2]

[Jordan Catalano]

WHY IN GOD'S NAME do you people not let us choose the price we want to pay for tickets now? Giving the option of "$47 - $135?" Seriosuly? I mean, really? We can no longer just look for the $47 seats? It's like this on every show.

You people are incompetent in creating a website that is user friendly. No matter what computer I use there's always something else that needs to be updated or downloaded in order to use it and even when I DO, it still doesn't work.

Whoever is in charge of this new design should be fired and branded with the word IDIOT on their forehead. Enough is enough!

[jaxandmci]

Oh, Jordan, I'm afraid that all of your complaining is falling on deaf ears. I work in Information Technology and this has got to be the absolute worst application I have ever seen. Everything about it is a test of nerves. I wish all the theatres used Ticketmaster. Life would be so much easier.

[dtzumbrunnen]

The new design has made me buy more tickets from the box office directly than ever before. Less pain and way fewer fees.

[morosco]

Telecharge used to report updates here but it seems as if they've just thrown in the towel on the whole thing.

[davmor]

I will be in New York in March/April and wanted to book tickets for a couple of plays. One was through Ticketmaster (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) and the other was through Telecharge (The Assembled Parties). My experience of using the 2 sites was very different.

TicketMaster - 1)click on 'buy tickets', 2) click on date, 3) click on interactive seating map, 3) click on desired seat, 4) proceed to checkout.

Telecharge - 1)click on 'buy tickets', 2)click on date, 3)select price of ticket I want, 3) select number of tickets, 4) enter word verification - at this point a 3D representation of the theatre appeared, but I couldn't select seats, 5) change options so that they pick the best seats - (Note to Telecharge - when i click on this to change options it says - "How many seating options would you like to see at any one time" - implying you can choose more than one - you can't) 6) enter another word verification, 7) go and make a cup of tea while I wait because the screen has been blank for a very long time now and, after reading other posts, I am thinking it will crash - it doesn't, I am given a seat in the front row, but way off to the side, 9) I click that I want to look for another seat, 10) another word verification 11) another of the BEST seats is recommended, again way off to the side - this time 13 rows back, 11) I decide to try another day, 12) ANOTHER word verification (honestly, just how big a problem are ticket buying 'bots on Broadway?), 12) given the same seats as the previous day - is Telecharge's thinking here that the seats way off to side are the BEST seats because if you get tired you can rest your head against the wall of the theatre, 13) give up, 14) proceed to TKTS booth on the day of the show

I don't want this comment to be entirely negative - so, well done Telecharge on making the word verifications legible - that part is an improvement on the old system. And I know it is consistently better because I had to verify I was a human everytime I clicked on something.

Why are theatres choosing Telecharge?

[frogs_fan85]

The Shubert organization owns Telecharge, which is why all of the shows in its theater use Telecharge. Nederlander theaters (and the Hilton) have a deal with Ticketmaster. Jujamcyn and the independent theaters (Circle in the Square and Helen Hayes) use Telecharge because they probably got a more favorable revenue sharing deal with them over Ticketmaster.

[Jordan Catalano]

Yeah, pretty much. And I WILL make any post regarding the new Telecharge design completely negative because whoever designed it and whoever is working on it clearly are working with less than half a brain since it's been in this "trial" phase for 5 months and gets worse each time they put it up. Do it like Ticketmaster or don't do it at all.

But I'm sure they'll just continue to do it this way and lose business because if they're not smart enough to figure out by this point that they're only losing money every second that new design is active, than there's no way they're going to go back and fix it.

[frogs_fan85]

I really do not understand the reasoning behind the modeling of the 3D seating chart whether viewed overhead or from the stage. It's very difficult to select individual seats as there is little to no spacing between the seats themselves. With the select your own seat modeling for Ticketmaster, Roundabout, and the Met Opera, there is ample seating between each seat that allows you to more easily make a selection. Also, RTC and Met Opera utilize a model that allows you to see all of the prices available at the same price level as you move the cursor over the seating chart, which I think is convenient as it allows the user to potentially find a better seat, while on Telecharge you basically have to guess at the pricing until you actually select a seat.

[TC Web Feedback]

Hi--

I'm sorry we haven't been replying to this thread. Here are some things which we know are wrong with the site, and which we are working on fixing:

1. Chrome and the seating chart--Currently the interactive seating chart isn't working with Chrome. Making matters more confusing is the fact that if you're using Chrome, the site may ask you to install Silverlight so that the seating chart will work, but then it still doesn't work. We should have this problem fixed in our next release (in the next month or so), but until that time, you'll have a better experience on the site if you use IE, Firefox or Safari.

2. Word Verification--One of the changes from the old site to the new is that on the old site you only had to enter the word verification every few searches, while on the new site you have to enter it every time. We are in the process of fixing this so that the new site will work the same way the old did, only asking you to type the word verification every few searches. Unfortunately we can't eliminate it entirely, because there are automated programs which could bring our site down with hundreds of thousands of ticket searches every minute (and even if they didn't bring our site down, they'd prevent regular theatergoers from ever being able to get the seats they want).

3. Choosing Seats on the Seating Chart--We know customers are having a hard time finding this option, so we are working on changing the default selection, and the site will give you all the seats on the seating chart, unless you choose to have the system select seats for you.

We've recently put in a number of speed improvements, and have more in the pipeline, so if you haven't been to the site in the last week or so, you might notice it's less pokey than it used to be.

Please feel free to post here with any other suggestions/comments/feedback, or email us at [e-mail]. We really want to hear as much as we can about your experience using the site, because that helps us figure out what is going wrong, and enables us to fix it as quickly as possible.

[Jordan Catalano]

I appreciate you replying but I went on the site last night and wanted to (as always) put my fist through the screen. ALL I wanted to do was to see if there were any $47 seats available for NICE WORK on a certain date but OF COURSE you can't just choose that option anymore, you need to go through every seat in te mezz before you can see if those are available. Seriously, who was in charge of this?? What used to take me 10 seconds took me 15 minutes and I STILL couldn't see what's available.

Either copy directly from ticketmasters amazingly upfront and easy to use design or don't do anything at all. Why make people go through all this???

[LizzieCurry]

Thanks for acknowledging the Chrome problem -- but I'm having the same seating chart problem in Firefox as well, even after installing Silverlight.

[Jordan Catalano]

Same here. It doesn't work PERIOD.

[TC Web Feedback]

Sorry, I forgot to mention this is my previous post. If you are interested just in the $47 seats, then go to the Schedule & Pricing page for the event, and click on the $47 in the pricing grid. It will take you to the Find Tickets page, with the date and seating section which are $47 already selected, so all you have to do is pick your number of tickets and enter the word verification. Then on the Ticket Search Results page, you should see the $47 seats.

Note that if you choose the option to pick your seats from the seating chart, I believe we show you more than just the $47 seats, and so in that case you'd need to click on an available seat to see what the price is.

[Jordan Catalano]

That's a lot of work to do when you could just show a seating map of the theater and see what's available and what's not.

Look, I appreciate that you're trying to improve your site and make it better but please don't put it up live and make people suffer through trying to figure it out until it's actually ready to be put up. It's not fair to your customers.

[jaxandmci]

Telecharge: We wouldn't have to bother keying a verification code in multiple times if we could just see EVERY available seat instead of having to cycle through a string of usually bad choices. Also, the cursor doesn't automatically get positioned at the entry box each time and has to be moved there manually before the code can be keyed (which usually results in one having to key each code twice). And, don't blame the browsers for the application's many problems. I've tried several and the site is just as much of a mess on all of them. It all comes down to bad design, buggy programming, and bad customer service.

[TC Web Feedback]

I'm seeing a lot of people saying we don't give the option to see every available seat on the seating chart, and choose from the chart. But you CAN do this on the website, as long as you have the Silverlight plugin. Not for every event, but that's up to the producer of each show to decide--it's not related to the capabilities of the website.

For anyone who hasn't seen this option, but wants to use it, can you post in more detail about the steps you are taking to search for tickets, including which event and which browser you are using? Or you can email details to [e-mail].

[Broadway Joe]

I'm also on firefox and can't get the seating chart to work. I was looking for a ticket to Golden Boy last night and I ended up giving up.

However, I did end up using the mobile telecharge website and it works way better then the regular site, it works kind of like how the old version did.

[Jordan Catalano]

"I'm seeing a lot of people saying we don't give the option to see every available seat on the seating chart, and choose from the chart. But you CAN do this on the website, as long as you have the Silverlight plugin. Not for every event, but that's up to the producer of each show to decide--it's not related to the capabilities of the website."

But you yourself said this plugin doesn't work. So....?

[TC Web Feedback]

> But you yourself said this plugin doesn't work. So....?

I said it doesn't work in Chrome.