Extra! Extra! White House discovers internet!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 9:35AM Normally, if an attraction is valued and people are lining up to see it, prices will simply rise until some sort of harmony between supply and demand is reached. Unfortunately, at least from the perspective of managing demand, this is impossible for most of Washington. People will, quite understandably, rebel if forced to pay $25 a head to go up the Washington Monument, or worse yet, see Congress in action. We end up relying on some sort of hybrid system where a certain amount of tickets are available on-line and the rest reserved for the day of, resulting in the time honored tourist tradition of lining up early in the morning to get tickets to the Washington Monument, the Capitol, Holocaust Memorial Museum, Ford's Theater, and, like some vestigial organ that nobody cares about any more, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
So it is with nervous excitement that I learned yesterday that the White House Easter Egg roll will distribute tickets online this year. The idea is that you will no longer have to wait overnight in line on the Ellipse to get a chance to get tickets. By getting them online, this might very well open the experience up to visitors from around the country who plan to be in DC at this time. Previously, tickets were handed out the weekend prior, meaning you were taking a big risk if you tried to plan a visit around the Egg Roll. This should bring some certainty to the process.
The Egg Roll will be Monday, April 13th from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. on the South Lawn. Tickets will be distributed this Thursday, the 26th. No time yet as to when they go online. As before, up to six tickets per person will be distributed, with no more than two adults per group. So you got to bring some kids to get in. Anyone want to borrow mine?
On the downside, for us locals, we're used to having a bit of a monopoly with the Egg Roll. The pool of people able to come from afar to wait in line on a chance is limited, and while it was a madhouse, it was our madhouse. So it goes, and I don't see that we have any right to complain. It's the nation's White House, not ours.
More importantly, by lowering the cost from standing in line for hours to getting lucky online, is the possibility that people might get tickets and not use them. I'd hate for tickets to go unused when this is so popular. Also, at least the line was transparent. If the tickets all go in the first few seconds, how do we know the process was fair? Although I have to say that the White House's credibility is better than Ticketmaster's. For that matter, AIG's credibility may be better than Ticketmaster's.
But I applaud the White House for trying something new this year. I'm eager to see how it goes and hope they continue to build upon this. After all, they can't screw it up any more than Congress did for the Inauguration...
Easter Egg Roll, White House 
Reader Comments (2)
I saw that update to the NPS site on Monday night -- and I'm so happy! We are flying into DC on the 11th and this gives us a slight chance of getting tickets for the Egg Roll! Guess I'll get online at midnight and keep hitting refresh with my crossed fingers.
After refreshing from 8am until 2:15pm, I finally got through and got tickets. We are SO SO excited. Fair, I don't know. I did spend a good part of a day reloading the webpage. Working from home gave me a huge advantage.