July 22, 2016 at 9:59 am: Today is the day, Panther Fan Fest tickets are going up for grabs. Thousands, including myself, sit around our computers, waiting. 10:00 am and all dash to get tickets….well guess what? They won't get their tickets for the next 2 hours. That’s right, there were so many people waiting to get tickets that we crashed the servers, it was insane. Let me tell you how bad I mess up though. At 10:01 am, I pull up the ticket page and I got through…..yep, first try, but then I closed it because I wasn’t 100% sure I could go yet. Worst mistake ever! I about cried when I realized how fast they were going. 

Last year, and every year before that,  you didn’t need tickets for Fan Fest. It was “first come, first serve” style. Now, why did the Panthers switch to tickets? We are coming off a 17-­2 season, and EVERYONE will want to go to it (aka all the bandwagoners). The tickets were still “first come, first serve”, but the servers for Ticketmaster and Panthers.com were over loaded by the sheer amount of people trying to get their tickets. This was a HUGE problem. I saw posts saying people were waiting for hours upon hours. My sad story would get worse. When I realized how fast the tickets were going, I got on my laptop and Xbox trying to score some tickets. About 30 min in, my laptop dies. I was just looking at my phone and I didn't realize the battery was low. 

I was like “it’s fine, my Xbox is ahead anyways.” Another hour goes by, the sign up screen pops up. I about shit myself because this was when there were only 7,000 tickets left. I grabbed my controller to get my tickets…..it isn't working. I started saying some words I won’t put on here because we are here as fans of the Panthers. All shapes and sizes and all age groups too. Got keep it clean and tidy for the youngsters. Anyway, it was devastating… What yanks my chain is people are now trying to make money off a free event. People have been  trying to scalp tickets for $150+. Loyal fans are missing out on this event, and people are trying to take advantage of them. 

I don’t blame this on the Panthers. They did what they could to get the tickets out in a fair way. It’s also nice to see how many people put this much care into football and how much this fanbase is growing. (Not sure if this will get edited out but gotta go for it) If anyone happens to have 2 extra tickets by any chance, it would be awesome if you could help me out. I don’t care if they are at the top, as long as I find a way in I’ll be happy. Please contact me through Twitter. @SavageSuperCam ­ 

Nick Black (@SavageSuperCam)