Solving the Ticketmaster UX Problem.

I'm on the train thinking about this ticket buying system.

I mentioned today that the experience of buying tickets was the "worst" user experience which I'm sure leads to excess traffic which in turn leads to the web site falling over and a bunch of people being extremely unhappy.

The Problem:

More demand than supply, no ability to queue for tickets in the traditional sense. No indication of ticket volume or availability.

A Solution:

"I call it the lolly scramble approach."

1. Get interested people to pre register at the ticket master website.

2. Work out the number of tickets & the number of registered users.

3. Put people in manageable groups. More people than tickets available.

4. Invite everyone into a "room" just before the tickets go on sale.

S. Drop the tickets in move them around the screen and have people "try" and click on a ticket. Hell even have more crowded rooms for people wanting to buy a bundle of multiple tickets.

6. Once the tickets have all been clicked game over and everyone would have had a shot of buying some.

This system would be easy to build in .Net with a WPF/E or flash UI.

Is no one thinking about this stuff?