So let's start with the "Good". I like that it was available to so many people who wouldn't ordinarily be able to attend. As I mentioned before, I had hoped to go this year, but virus aside, that wasn't going to happen. I missed a lot of the workshops, but the videos will be available on the website for awhile so I'll get a chance to get caught up. There's only a couple of them I want to see anyway. On the surface, it looked really well planned out, but then it gets into the "ugly" category and I'll leave that for later. So it was nice that I was able to go through the "Special Run Line". I had two tickets: 10am Saturday and 12pm Sunday. Would you believe, I don't remember what I picked for my choices? You could either do individual choices or a master list and from the looks of what people on Blab were saying, I'm glad I went with individual picks since a lot of people were getting duplicates. But that's also part of the "bad". I know I had picked Epona and Slainte Surprise as my top two picks on Saturday and that's who I got so that made me happy. We still don't know what the Slainte Surprise model is and won't until boxes start hitting doorsteps, which, who knows when that will be? Breyer employees usually take a few days off following Breyerfest, but since they now have orders to pack and mail...and LOTS of orders at that...I imagine they'll still take a few days off and actually mentioned that somewhere on social media. I just don't remember where I saw it. But people are going to start wondering where their horses are so they won't be able to get away with taking too much time off. Besides, since no travel was involved and no being out in the heat... What else was good about Virtual Breyerfest? During my Sunday ticket slot, I got Oak and another Slainte Surprise. I don't think they were my top picks, maybe 3 and 4. I hope the surprise horse is on a mold I like or it's one a lot of other people like so I can sell it. Some people want it to be a total surprise and won't look at spoilers, but I want to know so I can decide if I'm going to keep it or sell it as a "true surprise", meaning, I don't know what colors are involved. Another good was the ability to see photos from the "live" show and I'm going to include some of my favorites at the end, along with an "oops" or two. hahaha.
I would like to put this auction model in the "Good" part because she is just the most beautiful thing and I would love to have her in my collection, but she was already out of my price range when I first saw her so I didn't even try. It's a Roxy mold done in Leopard Appaloosa and is just stunning!
Hopefully we will have a model like this sometime in the near future. Obviously not an exact duplicate because that would be wrong and unfair to the person who paid a big chunk of change for her, but something similar. Well, I guess we already sort of have one in Haute Couture from 2015 Breyerfest, but not quite the same...
So now we'll move onto the "Bad"...There aren't as many "Bads" as "Uglies" so this will be short since it's pretty much all related. Virtual Breyerfest got off to a bad start. Glitches with the website and timings with the Special Run "lines". Models weren't showing up on your account page. More models showing up than what you're "entitled" to. Duplicate models showing up. But that was more of a Master List issue, I think, than anything else. They did "warn" us that duplicates were a possibility if you submitted a Master List. Ticket times were running about 2 hours behind schedule on Saturday so my 10am ticket time didn't show up until 12pm and on Sunday, I got this message...
How can I be early if I didn't try to access it until AFTER it started? And it stayed there until just about 12:30. And this was AFTER Breyer had assured us the ticket times were "wide open", meaning, they were on time. Obviously, that wasn't the case, but that goes in the "Uglies". But I was finally able to access my chosen models and got another Surprise and Oak. I will be trading Oak to another collector for her Thorn because she really wants Oak and I want Thorn more than I want Oak so it will work out nicely.
Well, now we have to move on to the "Uglies" and that's where it hit the fan. Yes, I get that they only had about 4 months to plan this. And I get that they could've just as easily have cancelled the whole thing rather than have it online. I do appreciate the effort that went into it, but it was just one disaster after another and I really think maybe they should have just cancelled (are there two "l"s or just one? Neither one gives me a spellcheck hit). When it was first announced it would be online this year, several people expressed a concern that the Breyer web servers couldn't handle that sort of traffic. It hasn't before and it was for a much smaller "event". We were assured that they'd be increasing their bandwidth and would be hiring an IT company to help out and other stuff. But there were still a lot of issues that continued through the weekend. Initially, you were limited to the number of times you could make purchases in the store. Each check out was a "trip". Well, people would try to buy something, but weren't able to. They'd have it in their cart and the cart would freeze. Or it would be taken out of their cart before they could finish the purchase. Some people sat in front of the computer all day on Friday and Saturday, hoping to get something, just to have the cart freeze or the item sold out from under them. We didn't know how often they were restocking the store until Saturday when a timeline was posted. I did not sit at the computer the whole weekend. There was only one thing I really wanted, the Stablemate set, but I didn't want it enough to spend all that time on it. I feel bad for the people who did and still never got what they wanted. Twice I had the SM set in my cart and twice the cart froze. Yesterday I was doing something else and missed the last re-stock. Oh well. I won't lose any sleep over it. Anyway, on Saturday they said the bugs had been fixed and that things wouldn't be taken from carts and everything should run smoothly, but that didn't happen. The Special Run times still weren't working properly, things were still being taken out of carts. There was a data breach on the auction site they were going to use so they had to scramble to find an alternative. On Sunday, Special Run lines were still behind, albeit not as bad. Stuff was still disappearing from carts and people were unable to even buy their special runs. It was a weekend of Epic Failure and many annoyed people. Breyer kept saying "we thank you for your patience" and I just had to laugh. For one, we didn't have a choice. There was nothing WE could do. But there were a lot of complaints, but they likely fell on deaf ears. To "make up" for the cart theft, Breyer decided to gloss 3 of the models and offer them for pre-sale. You won't get it until December, though, and a lot of people were annoyed that they offered that. I'm not sure doing that was the right thing, but I don't know. I know there has been "cart theft" in the past, but it's not literally people stealing stuff out of your cart. It has to do with internet connections and carts freezing. So what they ended up doing was eliminate the "trips" you could take and basically turned everyone loose on the store. Grab bags were still limited to one purchase per account, but none of them interested me, even if I ever saw them available. hahaha.
I'm sure there was more "Uglies" than I am remembering, but that's the gist of it. This blog is already long enough that I'm not going to include the photos from the "live" show. Maybe later. Yesterday Breyer announced the theme and dates for 2021...
A very non-specific theme. Should be interesting to see more details in the coming months. Hopefully THAT one will be in-person and not this virtual crap.
Until next time!
Well, now we have to move on to the "Uglies" and that's where it hit the fan. Yes, I get that they only had about 4 months to plan this. And I get that they could've just as easily have cancelled the whole thing rather than have it online. I do appreciate the effort that went into it, but it was just one disaster after another and I really think maybe they should have just cancelled (are there two "l"s or just one? Neither one gives me a spellcheck hit). When it was first announced it would be online this year, several people expressed a concern that the Breyer web servers couldn't handle that sort of traffic. It hasn't before and it was for a much smaller "event". We were assured that they'd be increasing their bandwidth and would be hiring an IT company to help out and other stuff. But there were still a lot of issues that continued through the weekend. Initially, you were limited to the number of times you could make purchases in the store. Each check out was a "trip". Well, people would try to buy something, but weren't able to. They'd have it in their cart and the cart would freeze. Or it would be taken out of their cart before they could finish the purchase. Some people sat in front of the computer all day on Friday and Saturday, hoping to get something, just to have the cart freeze or the item sold out from under them. We didn't know how often they were restocking the store until Saturday when a timeline was posted. I did not sit at the computer the whole weekend. There was only one thing I really wanted, the Stablemate set, but I didn't want it enough to spend all that time on it. I feel bad for the people who did and still never got what they wanted. Twice I had the SM set in my cart and twice the cart froze. Yesterday I was doing something else and missed the last re-stock. Oh well. I won't lose any sleep over it. Anyway, on Saturday they said the bugs had been fixed and that things wouldn't be taken from carts and everything should run smoothly, but that didn't happen. The Special Run times still weren't working properly, things were still being taken out of carts. There was a data breach on the auction site they were going to use so they had to scramble to find an alternative. On Sunday, Special Run lines were still behind, albeit not as bad. Stuff was still disappearing from carts and people were unable to even buy their special runs. It was a weekend of Epic Failure and many annoyed people. Breyer kept saying "we thank you for your patience" and I just had to laugh. For one, we didn't have a choice. There was nothing WE could do. But there were a lot of complaints, but they likely fell on deaf ears. To "make up" for the cart theft, Breyer decided to gloss 3 of the models and offer them for pre-sale. You won't get it until December, though, and a lot of people were annoyed that they offered that. I'm not sure doing that was the right thing, but I don't know. I know there has been "cart theft" in the past, but it's not literally people stealing stuff out of your cart. It has to do with internet connections and carts freezing. So what they ended up doing was eliminate the "trips" you could take and basically turned everyone loose on the store. Grab bags were still limited to one purchase per account, but none of them interested me, even if I ever saw them available. hahaha.
I'm sure there was more "Uglies" than I am remembering, but that's the gist of it. This blog is already long enough that I'm not going to include the photos from the "live" show. Maybe later. Yesterday Breyer announced the theme and dates for 2021...
Until next time!
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