Ticketmaster sucks

[bb]

[rant] If everyone would indulge me I would like to get my blood pressure down.

Being a good husband I today tried to purchase Elton John tickets through the ticketmaster website.

Did all of the pre-registering and at the crack of 10:00 a.m. I connected. Most all of the selections of seating I was givin was on the opposite side of the arena or in the nosebleed section.

After 30 minutes of hitting the back button and re-trying , going through the anti-bot spelling quizes only to be offered more nosebleed tickets, their servers crashed. Great, no tickets.

I decided to search google for tickets and lo and behold a plethora of front rows , mid-sections , lower levels all to the tune of $995, $350 and $200 respectively.

Ok do a search on E-bay. OF COURSE there's tickets on E_BAY.
Some located in Fl., Reno and all over the *^%^% place.

Now I know free enterprise is a wonderful thing;/ but where and how did all of the good seats(my estimation 1/3 of the arena) go so quickly.

This concert also had a internet pre-sale. What in the H$ll is that ?

The problems I see here is that a. Ticketmaster is a monopoly b. pre-sales end up in the hands of auctioneers a.k.a. scalpers c. I'm not paying $1000 for tickets d. the artist never see any money for the exWHorEbitant pricing
e. It's the fans that suffer(wonder how many of the scalped tickets go unsold?)

[/rant]

Now I'm going to go download an album !

[simpleman]

Come on now ticketmaster has been around for years.The
problem you're having with getting the best seat in the house is due to you not being a memeber of Sir Elton fan
club.

My wife a big Aero fan and she used to be a member,they would let her know well inadvance when the show was coming.
Also able to get good seat thru them as well.

After 25 years I think finally she got over her fanasty
with steven,no joel,uhhh maybe brad,anyway now she no longer
a member she can only lock in on lawn seats.

Sorry about your luck.

[absrbrtek]

Problem with Ticketmaster is the scalpers and ticket agencies (same thing)get to buy large blocks of tickets before your allowed too. This has been going on forever, its nothing new. By the time your allowed to buy tickets all thats left is obstructed view, nose bleed or there so far away you need binoculars to see anything.

[control_noob]

Simpleman is right, get in on the internet presale by becoming a member of the fan club. IMO this is the only way a reg. dude will sit front row. I've had real success getting Tom petty tix this way, I was in the fan club before they did to presales, btw. :-)

[Diceman]

What sux is that soooooo many tickets these days are bought up and resold at huge profits, so much so, ya can't even get a good seat to a show ya really want to see unless you go camp out or something dumb like that, and who has time for that crap. It is really bad, it should be illegal, really, it ain't right, one more thing that shows capitalism ain't perfect.

[bb]

The biggest problem that I have with it is that people buy tickets from all over the country for the sole purpose of resale. IMHO buyers in the city of the event should get first chance for tickets several days in advance of the public internet offering.

Oh yeah the scalpers now call themselves "powersellers".

[Edited by bb on 12-05-2004 at 03:24 PM]

[Diceman]

Those scalpers are low life scumbags, and that's being kind to em.