The event was due to take place during the third week of March, and entry was by ballot - meaning that if your name was drawn, you would be able to purchase a ticket. I duly signed up online, and several days later received an email saying that the event date had been changed to the second week in April. I wasn't thrilled about this, since it meant that due to work commitments there would only be one possible night that I could attend, but since I really wanted to go I decided to hang in there. The ballots were drawn on Sunday, and I - along with all the other applicants - received an email telling me that I would be hearing from the organisers very soon. I received an email this afternoon, and got very excited - until I got past the first sentence. The ballot was not now going to take place, because due to the organisers having received so many applications for tickets they wanted to devise a system for distributing the tickets that would "ensure that they went to people who really wanted to go". What I, and the other 1,000 "successful" applicants were now expected to do was download an app onto my phone and use it to hunt for clues which would divulge the website where tickets for the event were being sold - and if we were one of the first 500 people to log on to this website, we would be able to buy a ticket. Thing is, I do not own a smartphone due to the cost involved, so I now have no chance of attending this event at all.
My major gripe is that if these people had made it clear up front that only people with smartphones would be able to attend this event, I wouldn't have had an issue with it; it would have been a requirement I did not meet, ergo I would shrug my shoulders and move on. But to keep changing the goalposts while the 'game' is in progress, and to finish up by telling people "sorry, if you're too poor to own a smartphone we don't think you really want to attend", strikes me as the worst kind of sharp practice.