Keddie Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 How did the general sale go for everyone? Was it a shambles like so many have been this year, or did the majority of people walk out with something? I think it was a little ridiculous, because I paid almost $100 per ticket for seats in the 300s and couldn't get anything better. My friend got tickets similar to mine twice, but both times ticketmaster said the order "could not be processed." She finally got seats in what will either end up being an area with a highly obstructed view, or a relatively great view. Marisa didn't have any luck getting tickets because for some reason even the nosebleed seats were over $100. But I guess it could've been worse, because at least SOMEONE got tickets :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l0wxo2 Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 How did the general sale go for everyone? Was it a shambles like so many have been this year, or did the majority of people walk out with something? I actually lucked out in the general sale for San Jose on April 27th. The first ticket to come up for me was section 128(right next to the stage), row 2. I thought this would be saved for the VIP package but it was regularly priced. I am still amazed how lucky I got with getting that ticket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamgirl Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 How did the general sale go for everyone? Was it a shambles like so many have been this year, or did the majority of people walk out with something? It was a terrible experience, without a great result...I had no problems getting great tickets when they came to Toronto in 2009. But this time was a different story. I had two computers on the go trying to get tickets and right at the start of the sale the "best available" was giving me way in the back of the arena! Both of my computers also decided to stop working 5 minutes into the sale! That was frustrating. I was only able to get seats closer in the 300s. I haven't seen too many people on here that got great seats and I wonder where they all went!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrman78 Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 It was a terrible experience, without a great result...I had no problems getting great tickets when they came to Toronto in 2009. But this time was a different story. I had two computers on the go trying to get tickets and right at the start of the sale the "best available" was giving me way in the back of the arena! Both of my computers also decided to stop working 5 minutes into the sale! That was frustrating. I was only able to get seats closer in the 300s. I haven't seen too many people on here that got great seats and I wonder where they all went!? They all went to the VIP packages or scalpers. I got great seats for Seattle in the AMEX presale, but nothing good was popping up for Portland - presale or general sale. I'm waiting until closer to the date for that show for when they release tickets. If all those VIP seats don't sell, they'll release them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApproximatelyInfinite Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 OK, so it sounds like it was messy, but not AS bad as some other sales for things have been this year, because at least some people got something and it didn't seem glitchy. With Arctic Monkeys/The Black Keys at MSG, the first date's sale had a HUGE glitch where apparently the sale didn't open when Ticketmaster said it would, and when it did finally open like 15 minutes late, the bots ruled the day as usual. Radiohead at Roseland was also similarly a shitshow this year, and a bunch of other things. Ticketmaster is becoming hugely unreliable these days as well. If anyone wants to know more about why ticket-buying sucks so much these days (I'm a huge industry nerd), this is a great post about it from the wonderful Lefsetz Letters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megalomania Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 I got pretty good seats. . .for the top section. :| But I had to buy 3 tickets next to each other, so that pushed me back quite a bit. I saw some single tickets in GA or right next to the stage seating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NumbersGirl Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 this[/url] is a great post about it from the wonderful Lefsetz Letters. That is indeed an interesting article, but the 90% bot claim... while it may seem to be the case based on fan experiences, is it actually true? Doesn't the captcha thing prevent bots? Yeah it sucks if it goes to scalpers, but they're "people" too. It would be nice if he had some data/methodology/proof to back it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApproximatelyInfinite Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 I didn't really take the 90% bit to be a proven statistic, but no, captcha doesn't prevent bots much at all--that's how the scalpers get everything, with much more advanced bots than Ticketmaster can realistically beat right now. I think the captcha prevents the most amateur bots, but the serious scalpers have insane tools these days, and they do get a BIG percentage of tickets through those means for shows like this, if maybe not as much as 90%. There are so many legal battles being waged about it now, and through my own experiences this year (as well as talking to friends and other people and looking at complaints on Twitter and stuff), the problem seems to have escalated to a new level this year. I wish I could find this one good article I read on the whole fiasco around the time of the LCD Soundsystem debacle last February, but I can't (I can't even remember what publication wrote it, ugh). But the intro of this essay explains a bit about it, even though it gets really legal and stuff the farther you go into it. [/url] This is a pretty high-profile recent case showing what these kinds of bot-using scalpers are capable of doing, and do every day. They kind of made an example out of these guys, even though scalping (to an extent) is legal in I think almost all states. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApproximatelyInfinite Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Here's the one I was talking about on the LCD Soundsystem situation this year...it describes everything simply and briefly. And I'm done now, I can talk about this all day :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NumbersGirl Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Oh dang... well in that case, if captcha can be defeated so easily then something else needs to be done. There needs to be some huge incentive though to make someone willing enough to create a program that would completely defeat the bots. Something tells me that won't happen anytime soon though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LFDianne Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Oh dang... well in that case, if captcha can be defeated so easily then something else needs to be done. There needs to be some huge incentive though to make someone willing enough to create a program that would completely defeat the bots. Something tells me that won't happen anytime soon though. I think having Paperless Tickets would go a long way towards putting the scalpers out of business. I've been to a few shows with Paperless Tickets and it's worked out just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrman78 Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 I think having Paperless Tickets would go a long way towards putting the scalpers out of business. I've been to a few shows with Paperless Tickets and it's worked out just fine. This. It seemed like it was headed that way, but never really took off? Probably some sort of suit since Ticketmaster/Live Nation weren't getting as many fees with the paperless option? I can't remember. :thinking: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l0wxo2 Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Jason Mraz always does paperless tickets and it helps so much with scalpers. Hope they do this for tickets in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApproximatelyInfinite Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 I think having Paperless Tickets would go a long way towards putting the scalpers out of business. I've been to a few shows with Paperless Tickets and it's worked out just fine. This. It seemed like it was headed that way, but never really took off? Probably some sort of suit since Ticketmaster/Live Nation weren't getting as many fees with the paperless option? I can't remember. :thinking: Paperless tickets are definitely the best option that exists now, and I wish they were put into practice more often. But the problem with paperless tickets is the "grandmother problem," for people that want to gift tickets to other people, but not attend themselves, or for people who find out at a later date that they can't actually attend a show anymore and would like to sell/give the tickets to someone who can. It's hard to do either of those things without specific protections put into place beforehand. Also, as proved by the Radiohead Roseland Ballroom gigs this October, scalpers have found a low-tech way to beat the paperless ticket system: they buy tickets using disposable Visa/Mastercard/Amex gift cards, which work exactly like debit cards and can be purchased anywhere. Then they put the paperless tickets onsale on eBay etc, and when someone buys, they simply ship the gift card to the buyer in exchange for payment. The buyer gets into the show just fine, and the scalper's still made off with money. Although it DOES help with the bot problem, so mass ticket-buying in this fashion is cut down. Paperless tickets are also illegal in New York, in a way :angry: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keddie Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 As I was reading these comments, I was thinking about how all of these problems could be solved if a) all scalping is made illegal and b) all ticketselling websites provided the option to return tickets at any time, thus eliminating any need for resale but then I read the one article Chelsea linked to about the LCD Soundsystem fiaso (since it affected me personally as I was planning on attending that show) and realized that this will likely never happen as Is aw that even ticketmaster themselves bought a website dedicated to reselling :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NumbersGirl Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 ^ Technically scalping is illegal... but I guess if you are a company instead of a regular joe, it's somehow okay. Personally I don't see anything wrong with scalping in and of itself, I don't think it should be illegal. It's just the whole process of the intial purchase isn't really "fair" to everyone, it needs to be a level playing field; and right now, it isn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christa42 Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 hoping for a New York date/s for the 2nd leg, if there is one:confused: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tash Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 I'm going to kill someone if they don't do a second leg! :veryangry2: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artak Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 Frankly, the perfect way to solve the scalper problem for arenas and stadiums is to have GA. Then the true fans get to the barrier (because they will camp out) and the non fans can still get decent tickets if they want them, or choose to get seats. Both of my experiences are with Muse, who are not as popular here in the States, but almost every arena that they played in they had GA, and the big fans like me managed to get to the front. It makes no sense to have seats on the floor unless Coldplay/management are greedy pigs. Sadly, it looks that way. Whatever happened to not breaking the $100 mark? That seems to have been pitched out the window for this tour... Another thing, Muse sent out a presale code to their email list before any tickets went on sale. The presale actually had tickets for both the GA and the seats. Why can't Coldplay do something similar? Why use AmEx for presale, if not for monetary reasons? They certainly aren't guaranteeing that the biggest fans are going to get the best seats. This whole tour has been very disappointing to me. :cry: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApproximatelyInfinite Posted December 23, 2011 Share Posted December 23, 2011 ^I totally agree with most of your post--to me, the best solution for them would be to have a fan club, where everyone that wanted to be a member would pay a yearly fee and would able to buy tickets in a special members-only presale first (as well as a lot of other cool members-only things). A lot of bands do this sort of thing (though less than I think there should be), and everyone wins: the big fans, and the band. But GA doesn't solve the scalper problem at all--it solves the SEATING problem, but scalped GA tickets are usually the ones that go for hugely astronomical prices and that are the ones the scalpers most want to buy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crests Posted December 23, 2011 Share Posted December 23, 2011 wtf they're not coming here oh well lol~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApproximatelyInfinite Posted December 23, 2011 Share Posted December 23, 2011 Also: I think they'll do a second leg, definitely, but not til Spring 2013. Those waiting for a NYC date: you do know that East Rutherford is literally on the other side of the river from Manhattan? :P You can see the NYC skyline from there, it's really basically a NYC show! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artak Posted December 23, 2011 Share Posted December 23, 2011 Well, if they have a GA, then there are thousands of tickets that grant people the possibility of a good spot. With seats on the floor, then the seats up front are naturally going resell for the most. I neglected earlier that yes, GA does not solve the problem if the concert sells out and people want to get tickets, but it does tend to level the playing field by the sheer number of tickets that are available that grant "equal seating". I'm still waiting for Detroit/Columbus/Cleveland/Cincinnati dates. Grr. I really hope I don't have to wait until 2013... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamgirl Posted December 23, 2011 Share Posted December 23, 2011 How likely do you think people would be to move down one from their assigned seats? I noticed today on tickemaster that my venue is now showing the actual seats that are available. There are two seats available in the same row, but 9 seats apart. I am taking my 14 year old daughter with me and know she wouldn't enjoy being that far away from me. But I thought if I bought them maybe everyone would move down one for us to sit together....what do you think the chances are? EDIT: aaa....I just bought them. I couldn't give up the chance to have seats in section 118. The seats I already have for that night are in section 308! I'm off to post them on ebay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megalomania Posted December 23, 2011 Share Posted December 23, 2011 How likely do you think people would be to move down one from their assigned seats? I noticed today on tickemaster that my venue is now showing the actual seats that are available. There are two seats available in the same row, but 9 seats apart. I am taking my 14 year old daughter with me and know she wouldn't enjoy being that far away from me. But I thought if I bought them maybe everyone would move down one for us to sit together....what do you think the chances are? EDIT: aaa....I just bought them. I couldn't give up the chance to have seats in section 118. The seats I already have for that night are in section 308! I'm off to post them on ebay. As a 15 year old girl I can tell you she'll be fine, even if the people won't move down you can keep your eye on her from there. :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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