OC Fair, You Owe Me One

Back on June 27th Groupon had a great deal available for Orange County residents - an unlimited pass to the OC Fair for only $15.  Those passes normally cost $25 in advance, and $30 once the Fair starts.

Because of a $10 credit I had with Groupon from a previous transaction, I could buy passes for both of us for only $20 - equal to the cost of a single day admission.  I made the order.

That's when things got a little complicated.  In order to issue the passes they had to have the names of both people to print on the passes.  No problem, I gave them the names.  I was then told the passes would be mailed to me.

Great.

Except, not so great.  As of Monday I hadn't received them and the Fair opens tomorrow.  I contacted Groupon, as apparently did hundreds or thousands of others (I think they sold 2,500 passes altogether) and was told that a Plan B had been created that would require me to go to the Fair box office in Costa Mesa to pick up the passes.  Ugh.

I stopped by there yesterday afternoon and was met with a huge line, likely other Groupon buyers in the same fix.  I couldn't spend the time yesterday to wait, so this morning I'll be there when they open at 10, hopefully not with hundreds of others.

OC Fair, you owe me one...a big one.

UPDATE:  Got the passes and didn't have to wait too long, however it's clear the OC Fair was not ready for this promotion at all.  There are still hundreds of passes that haven't been picked up and long lines of people waiting to get them.  If they offer this deal again next year, and I hope they do, they need to do it a couple of weeks earlier to give the OC Fair time to process the orders and get them in the mail.  Nobody should have to go down there and wait to pick them up.