August WDW Pin Event special tickets all gone...bummer!

[pinhopper]

Just got off the phone (1:40pm ET) and all 500 special event tickets were sold out over an hour ago. I started dialing at 8:30am and, except for breakfast, was continually dialing. I'm now on the waiting list but am not optimistic that a ticket will become available. Oh well, congratulations to all those who did make it through the busy-signal roadblock to get your tickets. I'm sure you'll have a fantastic time at the breakfast and auction!

 

[gometros]

I hope you wil indulge this board newbie and explain what the pin event is?

 

[pinhopper]

WDW has been hosting a series of "pin events" in each of its parks and in Downtown Disney, starting back in March/April, I believe. Each of these pin events has been a 1-day affair during which special commemorative pins have been released and special activities have been offered. Usually, there is a LE dangle logo pin and 5-8 new pins released during the event. At a couple of the events, you could participate in an activity in which you were given a map to a park; using the map, you would locate certain CMs and trade with them to get one of the new pins. When you finish the map activity, you have a nice. frame-able set of new pins and you get a bonus pin for completing this activity.

So far, these events have been held in Downtown Disney, MGM/Disney Studios, and Animal Kingdom. I believe the next pin event for the Magic Kingdom is happening around June 14 or 16. I've not been to any of these events, so there may be details that I don't know about. The climax of the WDW series of pin events will be the one at Epcot from August 8-12, 2001. During this 4-day extravangaza, there will be all kinds of special pin talks, activities, and scads of pins (new and obscure) available for trading/sale.

My first posting in this thread was referring more specifically to the separate-admission ticket that was being sold for the upcoming August pin event at Epcot. Today, June 11th, people could call the WDW Special Events Office and buy a special package that enables them to attend a breakfast/autograph session with Mark Seppala (a very popular Disney pin artist/designer), get first dibs on the LE pins that will be released during the August event, and admission to the pin auction that is part of the August pin event. There were only 500 of these separate-admission tickets available; and they were all snapped up within 4 hours after the Special Events Office opened this morning. If you're interested, you could still call the Office (407-827-7600) and ask to be put on a waiting list. But I suspect this list is very, very long by now....

Note: You do not the separate-admission ticket to attend the August pin event itself at Epcot and to enjoy the pin talks and trade/buy pins. The ticket was just for a small subset of special activities.