BGW Pins
- Thread starter Ryan
- Start date
Yeah, I have to say that finding these employee pins has been a nightmare so far... And it feels especially bad when you get to the park and your chances are suddenly at basically zero because it just so happens that no one has distributed new ones before the day you happen to be there. ?
To be clear, we were also informed by some employees that their lanyards hadn't been refreshed. And that they are having an extremely difficult time keeping the hos pins on their lanyards.
I don't know what the ratio is for hos pins compared to the regular pins, but if it's that low, they should really order more pins. The only pin that should be hard to find is the chaser, all other pins should be readily available to trade. It shouldn't be a needle in a haystack to find a single hos pin. That makes this game significantly less fun. Just like all the people hoarding pins and having massive collections of duplicates. It makes trading less fun for everyone else who doesn't have that sort of money to spend on pins, because it makes it impossible to find. :/ It shouldn't be /this/ hard.
I don't know what the ratio is for hos pins compared to the regular pins, but if it's that low, they should really order more pins. The only pin that should be hard to find is the chaser, all other pins should be readily available to trade. It shouldn't be a needle in a haystack to find a single hos pin. That makes this game significantly less fun. Just like all the people hoarding pins and having massive collections of duplicates. It makes trading less fun for everyone else who doesn't have that sort of money to spend on pins, because it makes it impossible to find. :/ It shouldn't be /this/ hard.
I think the problem is more people hoarding pins. I was there on member but and I saw multiple people walking around and each of them had multiple of all the HOS pins. It's ridiculous. Get the 1 you need for your collection and then move on and let someone else try to get them.
It's honestly insane and slightly disgusting that so many people are hoarding pins. Your collection is not more impressive because of how many duplicates you have. The employees have said they can barely keep the hos pins on their lanyards they're going so fast.
There's no reason to hoard.
There's no reason to hoard.
I agree. They are hoarding multiples and they don't want to trade them for anything but the rarest pin. I have no issue with having a second of pin so you can have a piece to trade for something but I've seen people walking around with 4 Georgie's. I have also seen people walking around with a bunch of the chasers for the other sets.
The problem is that there isn't really anyway for BGW to police this. It is just the honor system.
The problem is that there isn't really anyway for BGW to police this. It is just the honor system.
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We were at Member night and then at the park all weekend. It took us all night Friday and all day Saturday to finally collect the entire HOS set; sans Georgie. We were those people in the park at 9:45a and witnessed people trading for any HOS pin they could find. Sometimes taking two of the same and even commenting that they already have it. It was very frustrating. To finish the collection, we ended up trading with a pin trader from Tampa. Georgie's at Tampa are more ample.
I was cleaning out my home office and found this in the back of one of my drawers. Amazingly it's battery isn't completely dead. It used to be much brighter so I'm thinking if I got a new battery that it would work better. For those who don't remember the first year of Illuminights some TMs were given these to wear in the evening when Illuminights started.
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I tried really hard to get my hands on one of those back in the day! It's a super neat pin. If it ever needs a new home, you know how to find me... ?
I actually think I have at least one other one with all my Busch stuff. When I have a chance I'll go through it and see what I can find.
Per a pin trading group FB post, new pins are out "Today". Not sure what they are yet.
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I'm feeling a bit underwhelmed by this month's pins to be honest. The Eire logo pin will be mine, but I'm not really loving any of the others.
The lack of a year-specific, limited edition Howl-O-Scream and/or Count's Spooktacular pin is really bothering me too. Both seem like very obvious oversights by the park. Also, Jack is Back is back—why doesn't it get a limited edition pin for its reintroduction? Same for The Vault: Overtaken—new attractions deserve LE pins. The park's consistent lack of limited edition RETAIL pins is an issue in my opinion.
The lack of a year-specific, limited edition Howl-O-Scream and/or Count's Spooktacular pin is really bothering me too. Both seem like very obvious oversights by the park. Also, Jack is Back is back—why doesn't it get a limited edition pin for its reintroduction? Same for The Vault: Overtaken—new attractions deserve LE pins. The park's consistent lack of limited edition RETAIL pins is an issue in my opinion.
After weeks of desperate searching, negotiating, and trading, my Howl-O-Scream 2019 blind box and ambassador pin collection is complete.
As one of the seemingly few folks who have actually managed to complete this collection, I sincerely hope the park adjusts their pin strategy in the future. So many people who love this event and just want to give the park money for good Howl-O-Scream pins simply can't find so many of the pins they want. Pin traders and Howl-O-Scream fans are being disenfranchised by the process and Busch Gardens Williamsburg is leaving money on the table as a result of severely unsatisfied demand.
I understand that estimating appropriate order sizes for merch is hard, but in order to have run out of Howl-O-Scream boxes at the beginning of October, the estimates had to have been massively out of wack.
Furthermore, the fact that the severely limited nature of the boxes wasn't revealed until the supply just suddenly ran dry left a really poor taste in my mouth. If the boxes had a published edition size, I wouldn't find it anywhere near as problematic that they ran out as early as they did. In that case, the public's understanding of the blind boxes would be that they are limited by the number sold, not by the run of the event.
Additionally, because we currently don't know the edition size of these boxes (or even the individual pins inside them) it's impossible to firmly estimate their value. Even worse, it gives BGW the right to turn around and sell these same blind boxes again in 2020—thus making all of the time and money people are pouring into completing their collections this year largely pointless as the blind box pins that are currently VERY rare will just be commonplace in 11 months. This type of market uncertainty is deeply frustrating for pin traders like myself and it really disincentivizes continued investment into the program.
Lastly, once again, retail pins. The park needs to stop putting the best pins in blind boxes. No one should have to buy blind boxes until they find the chaser of a set to just get a simple Howl-O-Scream logo pin. It's mindboggling to me that that's the current status quo here. We need great, high-quality retail pins so that people who don't want to deal with all of this bullshit can just give the park their money. Blind boxes are a massive turnoff for people—at the end of the day, it's just disguised gambling. Requiring guests to play a slot machine for the chance to win a Howl-O-Scream t-shirt—the only Howl-O-Scream t-shirt available no less—would never be accepted as a reasonable merch strategy. It should be no different for pins.
Blind boxes have their place, but they should never house truly GREAT pins and they should certainly never be the only means to obtaining any good pins.
As one of the seemingly few folks who have actually managed to complete this collection, I sincerely hope the park adjusts their pin strategy in the future. So many people who love this event and just want to give the park money for good Howl-O-Scream pins simply can't find so many of the pins they want. Pin traders and Howl-O-Scream fans are being disenfranchised by the process and Busch Gardens Williamsburg is leaving money on the table as a result of severely unsatisfied demand.
I understand that estimating appropriate order sizes for merch is hard, but in order to have run out of Howl-O-Scream boxes at the beginning of October, the estimates had to have been massively out of wack.
Furthermore, the fact that the severely limited nature of the boxes wasn't revealed until the supply just suddenly ran dry left a really poor taste in my mouth. If the boxes had a published edition size, I wouldn't find it anywhere near as problematic that they ran out as early as they did. In that case, the public's understanding of the blind boxes would be that they are limited by the number sold, not by the run of the event.
Additionally, because we currently don't know the edition size of these boxes (or even the individual pins inside them) it's impossible to firmly estimate their value. Even worse, it gives BGW the right to turn around and sell these same blind boxes again in 2020—thus making all of the time and money people are pouring into completing their collections this year largely pointless as the blind box pins that are currently VERY rare will just be commonplace in 11 months. This type of market uncertainty is deeply frustrating for pin traders like myself and it really disincentivizes continued investment into the program.
Lastly, once again, retail pins. The park needs to stop putting the best pins in blind boxes. No one should have to buy blind boxes until they find the chaser of a set to just get a simple Howl-O-Scream logo pin. It's mindboggling to me that that's the current status quo here. We need great, high-quality retail pins so that people who don't want to deal with all of this bullshit can just give the park their money. Blind boxes are a massive turnoff for people—at the end of the day, it's just disguised gambling. Requiring guests to play a slot machine for the chance to win a Howl-O-Scream t-shirt—the only Howl-O-Scream t-shirt available no less—would never be accepted as a reasonable merch strategy. It should be no different for pins.
Blind boxes have their place, but they should never house truly GREAT pins and they should certainly never be the only means to obtaining any good pins.
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I'm pretty sure they weren't supposed to be limited in the way of limited edition, but rather "enough to last till the end of the season". So I don't think edition sizes are necessary. To me, edition sizes are for limited edition items, to help justify the reason you're spending so much for an item. And will only increase the rarity of the item in question. And drive people to make more ridiculous bargains for a pin, and that's even more of a turn off to collect than the fact they ran out.
I think this was just a massive miscalculation of how nuts people at bgw are for hos and pins, since Tampa still seems to have a bunch of pins available.
But this isn't the first time this has happened, the Scarlett cards sold out early in the season when those were a thing, meanwhile again Tampa had more cards than they knew what to do with.
This being said, I would like to know the odds of finding certain pins. Just a simple x/x would be enough for me. Just tell me how many boxes I might have to buy in order to get a pin I want.
I think this was just a massive miscalculation of how nuts people at bgw are for hos and pins, since Tampa still seems to have a bunch of pins available.
But this isn't the first time this has happened, the Scarlett cards sold out early in the season when those were a thing, meanwhile again Tampa had more cards than they knew what to do with.
This being said, I would like to know the odds of finding certain pins. Just a simple x/x would be enough for me. Just tell me how many boxes I might have to buy in order to get a pin I want.
What really irritates me is that the park apparently put all of their ambassador pins out at for member night. Which meant that there were groups of members who just went around hoarding all the pins they could find. I have managed to get all of them except for Georgie. In the future they shouldn't put all of them out at once. Instead they should release some every week.
This isn’t true. They have allocated a certain amount for each week. I picked up a Georgie and Demon DJ off lanyards yesterday.
I’m not the biggest fan of CT, but I’m a tad disappointed by the selection. Hopefully more come in later.