Sew into Disney --
I'm glad you got your tickets!

I think that what happens is that the tickets seem to be on sale for a while with no real activity happening, and we all end up thinking that the dates will be open for a while. And then, all of a sudden, there's a sellout! I wish there were some sort of chart or graph we could monitor that would show us which MHP dates were getting close to selling out and which ones had a lot of tickets left, so that people knew what they were dealing with and how much (approximate) time they had left to get their tickets!
Dot2Vegas --
You're absolutely right. I think -- because I'm so used to this board -- I always assume that the general public knows what's happening and when certain events are happening. But, as you said, the non-obsessed folks are just hearing about things now, or after the fact -- or they may not even know about the MHP until they get to
Disneyland and see the signs (hence, the last minute purchases). The sudden wave of advertising lures a lot of people in -- especially with summer coming to an end and attention shifting to fall fun.