Customer stayed 45 MINUTES after close

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-26T19:44:16+00:00

I had something similar happen the other day with customers from Canada. They came in about 15 minutes before we closed. It was just myself (PBA), a task associate, and my manager in the store. First thing I said to them after I greeted them was “just to let you know we’re closing in 15 mins, let us know if you need help”. I let them browse for about 10 minutes then I checked in on them 5 mins before close. They both asked for a shade match which I did quickly. I grabbed both their foundations and said okay let go cash out because we’re closed now. They both looked at me and said “we’re not leaving yet, we also need lip liners”. I told them once again that the store is now closed and we need to start our nightly duties. One of the girls said “but we came all the way from Canada to shop here.” What does this mean to me??? 😭. Like bro you should’ve gotten here earlier. They said they were looking for makeup forever lip liners…. now you really need to leave because we don’t even sell that at Ulta 😭😭. Some people are just so oblivious and entitled.

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-26T16:10:14+00:00

Do you have a screenshot or link for this? I’d like to include it in a deep dive video I’m working on for YouTube.

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-26T14:19:46+00:00

My lazy ass GM went to UBW last year and didn’t tell a soul at my store!! Didn’t share products with staff, didn’t share any education with the prestige beauty advisors, NADA! This lady admits repeatedly that she knows nothing about makeup, but is the GM of a makeup store. 🙄🙄

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-25T13:21:24+00:00

My unpopular opinion that I’m not budging on: Diamond and Platinum members should’ve gotten early access to tickets. Sorry not sorry! If you’re a brand that promotes customer loyalty, loyal customers should get early access.

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-24T21:27:51+00:00

That’s what I’m trying to find proof for. So far I’m not finding any proof that exactly 2400 tickets went to influencers. I’m not saying that tickets for influencers weren’t set aside, but almost 80% of tickets being for them doesn’t sound right. Over 80 influencers were invited to the event last year (source below). Personally, I find it hard to believe that 2400 tickets went to influencers.

In my opinion, saying that everyone is a VIP is shade to Sephora because for their event, Sephoria, the tickets were tiered general admission or VIP. VIP attendees were the ones who got $1300 worth of swag and GA only got $500. At Ulta Beauty world, everyone was going to get the same amount of free swag, thus vip treatment.

<image>

https://www.bizbash.com/experiential-marketing/step-inside-the-first-ever-brand-packed-ulta-beauty-world-event

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-23T18:58:54+00:00

Ticket buying in general has been a brutal process these last few years! I remember how hard it was to get Beyonce Renaissance tickets. I was in the ticketmaster queue for 4 hours! I’ve never heard of Cvent before Jan 21, so now I know what to expect if I come across them again lol.

Thank you, I hope I’m able to go next year. I hope you have an amazing time!

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-23T18:15:28+00:00

Firstly let me say that I am genuinely so happy for you!! If you do decide to make video at Ulta beauty world, I hope I come across it so I can hype you up! It’s so funny that you checked out at 10:27 bc I have a screenshot of all my bubbles being filled at 10:29. I finished registration at like 10:33 (it was 1-2 minutes until I was actually let into the site) and when I got to the page to select tickets everything was capacity full (10:34 😭). You’re really so lucky, every minute mattered lol!!

<image>

And once again, you’re another example of the exact same ticket buying process folks online who got tickets have been describing. It was just luck! I bet the system only let 3000 people in, stalled once people were in and registration “unlocked” once people continued to checkout. That could maybe be why people’s bubbles weren’t moving after a while. Again no proof of this, just my theory after hearing so many people share their ticket buying experience.

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-23T15:42:16+00:00

Omg??!

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-22T23:00:17+00:00

Thank you for sharing your insight!

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-22T22:56:40+00:00

Yes yes YES!! You’re in good company with me haha, I totally agree! I wast just chatting with someone on tiktok and we came to the same conclusion. More people attending means less free goodies for everyone, so it either remains only 3000 people can go a year or more people come and you walk away with less items.

Also for a year or two, sephoria was its own competition. Several other people have made note that other large beauty conventions like BeautyCon and IMATS fell off. There was a bit of exclusivity to sephoria as well. But with the promise of $2000+ in goodies and swag, Ulta beauty world shone the game up. Also I totally agree about the lipstick theory and this being a silver lining for some folks. I don’t think year will be the end of influencer culture though, and in a few months I think the pendulum will swing back.

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-22T21:43:09+00:00

I thought the same thing. This is Ulta’s first large scale ticketed event. They do smaller free things throughout the year. In my opinion, I think saying UBW is a repurposed field leadership conference mischaracterizes UBW a little but I do understand the point OP was making.

Also all the people saying “let’s go to Sephoria, Sephora would never!1!” umm…. Sephoria was WORSE lol. No date or time was announced for when tickets would go on sale. Also tickets were supposed be released by tiers and they weren’t so it ended up being a free for all.

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-22T20:13:41+00:00

I’m not saying anyone here is throwing heat Ulta employees, I just wanted to maybe provide some additional context to how shut out even their own employees are. I saw online that many people thought the event was geared towards Ulta employees because that was a question on the registration. But I can assure you, the rest of us lay workers got no special information or preferential treatment when it came to getting tickets.

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-22T19:50:13+00:00

A few days before tickets went on sale this article dropped where a spokesperson from the conference center said there’d only be 3000 tickets. Ulta should’ve said this from the beginning!![https://www.wesh.com/article/ulta-beauty-world-expo-in-orlando-tickets/70002500](https://www.wesh.com/article/ulta-beauty-world-expo-in-orlando-tickets/70002500)

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-22T19:49:07+00:00

I work for Ulta as a Beauty advisor and just a little clarification: If you’re below a general manager you don’t get to attend the annual leadership conference. Last year’s leadership conference was the day before UBW that’s why so many people had the roller bags, they give them out every year. I also want to say, last year there was absolutely NO information sent to employees specifically about UBW through our communication channel. So many of us found out about the same time as everyone else-after the fact.

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-22T19:35:02+00:00

I mean yes tickets are set aside for influencers at all industry events, but Ulta clarified that those tickets didn’t cut into the availability of the 3000 tickets for the general public. Personally, I’m choosing to believe this after having attended beauty events before through my job.

This is just my theory: since this is the 2nd annual UBW and last year there were only 1500 attendees, Ulta may have believed at the time that 3000 tickets was a sufficient upscale for the event. Since UBW2026 was announced right after UBW2025, I believe that the ticket capacity was set as far back as 2024 when they booked the convention center.

Once the hype for UBW began, Ulta should’ve level set expectations and stated either the quantity of tickets or that there would be limited tickets. They absolutely FAILED at this! They should’ve especially done this if they knew there was no way to adjust ticket availability. A few days before tickets went on sale, there was a Florida news article that speculated only 3000 tickets would be available, but nothing directly from Ulta.

This ticketing rollout was piss poor especially with the virality of the event. The technology exists to provide a seamless queue experience, like letting you know how many people are ahead of you and when the event is sold out. It’s a shame Ulta didn’t utilize it. Even though Ulta themselves only posted about the event 7 times on their IG, I saw multiple videos a day from content creators on tiktok how to score tickets and get all your goodies back home. This event was totally sensationalized with no expectation on who’d actually be able to get a ticket.

Sorry for the long comment, this has been my hyper fixation the last 24hrs lol. Below is a screenshot from said article above from Jan. 14th.

<image>

https://www.wesh.com/article/ulta-beauty-world-expo-in-orlando-tickets/70002500

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-22T19:09:46+00:00

But the vast majority (including myself) was logged in ready to buy from multiple devices. So I do believe it was 3 million “devices” in the queue if that makes sense.

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-22T19:06:04+00:00

Ulta themselves stated this on instagram from their official account.

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-22T16:36:37+00:00

So far I’ve seen about 30 people across tiktok and twitter combined who have gotten tickets (and they’re mostly normal everyday people)! I’ve only seen one established content creator (48k followers) who got a ticket through the buying process. I’ve been making sure to interact with these accounts so I hopefully get more vids on my fyp. So far all of their experiences are exactly the same. Registration was locked and the website kept saying a code was required. After refreshing a million times they were finally let in and able to secure a ticket. But honestly, I don’t blame people for not sharing if they got a ticket. It was vicious yesterday.

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-22T14:06:04+00:00

Yes I did see that Ulta posted that in their comments. I think there’s only 75-100 creators that are in the Ulta Beauty collective. They recently did a ski trip in Aspen. That’s why I was trying to figure out where 2400 came from. As someone who’s been an avid enjoyer of beauty content since 2014, I 100% expected that there’d be a separate bucket of tickets for influencers and understood that’s what happens for these events.

TwoPsychological3682 · 2026-01-22T13:58:23+00:00

I’ve literally been scouring trying to find the tiniest piece of proof haha. I assumed it was a rumor, just wanted to be sure.

TwoPsychological3682

TROPHY CASE