Ticket To Ride

[busybeeburns]

It pays to think outside the box office to secure those ultra-hot seats. Katrina Lobley reports.

 

Suzanne Pye was 25th in the queue outside Fish Records in Leichhardt at 7.30am the day the first U2 show went on sale. She gave up on buying her three tickets at 10am, when it became clear there were only single seats left for the now-postponed show at Telstra Stadium.

 

When the second U2 show went on sale, the Annandale graphic designer covered all the bases, asking a friend to buy three tickets via the internet or the phone while staying in contact by mobile. Pye arrived at the same ticket outlet at 6.30am to discover she was 49th in the queue.

 

"I wasn't that disheartened [when I saw the queue]. There was a limit of four tickets this time [a limit of eight applied for the first show] so I thought, 'I'll still get tickets.'

 

"But after 9am, when I could see how slow they were going with a different person at the cash register, that made me start to worry. And we were getting reports in - people were saying, 'Oh, there's 500 people at the Ticketek at Chatswood' and stuff like that. It seemed like even more people had come out."

 

Pye left, ticketless, at 10.15am. Her friend phoned at 8.30am to say he couldn't even log on to the Ticketek site.

 

Pye should talk to Dulwich Hill systems support officer Caroline Aow. The Elvis Costello fan secured second-row seats for a State Theatre show in January.

 

Aow's secret is an inner-west Ticketek outlet that she doesn't want to name.

 

"At my favourite outlet, I can go a bit later and there won't be anyone there.

 

I prefer queuing than trying to get tickets on the internet because then I know how many people are in the queue and I know what seats I'm going to get."

 

Aow works in IT but doesn't like her chances of buying tickets via the net.

 

"If you try it from home on Bigpond or whatever, you can't usually get through and the work servers aren't that quick."

 

Watching pages time-out is also frustrating: "You think you've got through and then it times you out."

 

A Ticketek spokeswoman says the online purchasing window is limited to 10 minutes to maximise opportunities for people to buy online. Pre-registering will save you time and decrease the likelihood of the system timing out. She adds that regardless of the purchase method - internet, phone or outlets - tickets are sold on a "best available" basis: "Everyone's got an equal opportunity."

 

Maria O'Connor, the managing director of Ticketmaster, is more helpful on how to get tickets to your favourite band.

 

"If I knew a show was going to be really big on the internet, I'd go to an outlet," she says. "If you think that all the other kids in your peer group are going to be trying to get on the internet or on the phone, why wouldn't you go to a department store and buy it there where there are less people queued up?

 

"If you think, 'What's the least popular way of getting a ticket?', you've probably got more chance of getting it."

 

O'Connor says dedicated fans don't have to wait for tickets to go on sale to the general public these days.

 

"Most of them who fit in that category are members of official fan clubs and most acts look after them before the public," she says.

 

"If you're a U2 fanatic or a Rolling Stones fan, the best way [to get at ticket] is to be part of a special fan club. It's like being a member of a football club when you want to go to the grand final - you may not get one, but you've got more chance of getting one."

 

Each band has its own philosophy - and prices - for fan clubs. The Rolling Stones charge fans $US100 ($136) to sign up for pre-sale privileges, with a money-back guarantee if a fan isn't happy with the allocated tickets.

 

It costs $US40 to join the U2 fan club, but the band came under fire last year when European fan club members found the computer system couldn't cope with pre-sale demands.

 

Not all bands charge fans for the privilege. For example, Coldplay put aside a percentage of tickets for their club members, who can join free.

 

The Rolling Stones ticket sale in Australia and New Zealand this month attracted attention because of a deal that allowed Visa cardholders access to a pre-sale of a third of the tickets. In Sydney, that meant Visa was allocated 17,000 tickets to the concert at Telstra Stadium on April 11.

 

Andrew Woodward, Visa's Australian director of communications, says local music lovers should get used to such arrangements.

 

"It's good for the promoters because we kick money into the promotion of the concerts and it works for us because it gives Visa cardholders something that they can't get [with] any of the opposition cards."

 

Matthew Gray, an Australian in Los Angeles who regularly flies back to Australia to attend concerts, says his tip is to go directly to the venue box office two hours before the gig. He first discovered this option in Seattle when he wanted to see a sold-out Janet Jackson gig. He fronted the box office when it opened at 6pm.

 

"I got a ticket in the front row for $85," Gray says. "That's what people had paid three months before, plus they had a Ticketmaster fee added on.

 

"When I asked how I was able to buy a ticket so close to the front, they said artist management and record companies invite people who don't turn up, so they release those tickets on the night."

 

In 2000, Gray was in Brisbane for a Savage Garden concert, where he had "terrible" seats he'd bought on the first day of sale to the public. He decided to wing it and turn up at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre to get a ticket for the next night.

 

"There were five people in line and I went up and asked for the best ticket they had. I ended up in the second row.

 

"I would say to people that even when a show says sold out, it's never sold out. If you turn up at the box office, be prepared to be disappointed - but also be prepared to have the best seats you can ever imagine without having to pay a ticket agency fee."

 

http://www.smh.com.au

[frostbitepanda]

Coldplay are so good to us. :smug:

[fudge]

But they don't give us free tickets tho do they?:lol: I'll give Chris a call, see what he can do :dozey: :lol:

[RICK8]

But they don't give us free tickets tho do they?:lol: I'll give Chris a call' date=' see what he can do :dozey: :lol:[/quote']

 

 

Oh cool,what was his number again,I seem to have misplaced it!!!!

[frostbitepanda]

ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS TO BE A ROLLING STONES FAN? WTF?

 

God, those old bags have enough money as it is and their tickets are ALREADY expensive enough without them raping their fans.

 

Man... that pisses me off.

[Sienna]

100 bucks?? i could buy their whole cd collection with that on ebay!! :lol:

they are cool and alll, but 100 bucks!!! :stunned: Just to be a member...

u2 charges 40 bucks...but they give you benefits!!:wink: