Apple's 2013 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) appears to have sold out in… (wait for it…) about two minutes. What we originally thought was a joke appears to actually be true, according to numerous developers who went to buy a ticket Thursday. This marked a new record for Apple's increasingly popular conference.
Apple made an unusual move this year when announcing the dates for WWDC. Instead of surprising the world with this information and ticket sales at once, the company gave a day's warning for when tickets would go on sale: today, April 25, at 10am PDT. At the time, developers were relieved to have some notice of when to be at the computer. But when the clock ticked 10:02 on Thursday morning, people began receiving messages that tickets were already sold out.
"2 minutes? Really?" tweeted iOS developer Kyle Baxter. "2 minutes, 42 seconds, according to my watch," tweeted Microsoft Mac BU design engineer Erik Schwiebert. "Next year tickets are going to sell out before they even go on sale," iOS developer Colin Barrett mused. "Next year's WWDC just sold out, too. Sorry. Try for 2018," occasional Ars contributor Glenn Fleishman joked.
All 5,000 tickets to WWDC have been selling out since 2008, but the time frame back then was months, not minutes. In 2009, those tickets sold out within about one month, and in 2010, the sellout time closed to about 10 days. In 2011, tickets sold out in about 12 hours. Then, in 2012, they sold out in two hours, prompting calls for Apple to rethink its ticket system in order to ensure longtime, committed developers were able to get into the conference.
Perhaps Apple's strategy of pre-announcing the time tickets would go on sale this year backfired. Instead of taking developers by surprise (as it has in years past), Apple instead gave developers plenty of advance warning for when to buy. This apparently made everyone even more eager to get tickets right at the moment they went on sale.
Numerous developers are still voicing their disappointment on Twitter and elsewhere. Digg.com developer Rob Haining asked me in IM, "What am I supposed to do with June now? I couldn't even get to the purchase page before they sold out."
There are still some ways for some developers to attend WWDC. Apple plans to give out 150 free tickets to students who want to be developers, and we've heard (unverified) stories of years past when Apple has reserved a handful of tickets for high-profile attendees. That said, Apple also announced that it will make the session videos available to registered developers while WWDC is still happening this year. So those who weren't able to sneak into the two-minute window can still watch along from home—or their hotel rooms in San Francisco.
