Red Mosquito

Kevin Davis wrote:

LoathedVermin72 wrote:How is buying concert tickets still such a baffling ordeal in 2016?

Still? In my experience anyway, this is a relatively new thing. When I was growing up, you'd just go to the Ticketmaster outlet and buy them. Sure sometimes you'd wait in line and sometimes things would sell out, but there was no complexity to it. Only now that there are all these pre-sales and pre-pre-sales and Ticketmaster-app-exclusive pre-sales and digital waiting rooms and online lotteries and defective websites utterly incapable of handling the traffic generated by large-scale events and etc. does it feel like the process has become inordinately complicated.

i feel ya...I hate buying tickets these days.

Brokers. The answer is brokers.

durdencommatyler wrote:Brokers. The answer is brokers.

Or using the credit card that originally paid for them as the ticket.

I was in the 10th row at Santa Barbara 2003 for the original reunion, and Reach Down that night was probably the best thing I've ever seen played at a PJ or SG show. I'll just call that good & try not to worry too much about these shows.

it's interesting how the lean for this one and only TOTD tour ever/only has been so titled toward TM and not fan club members. Like 25 years later - can we reward the fan club members who have been with this band, in many cases for 20+ years, with a fucking ticket?

They added a bunch of night 2's, with no notice, so late that there was no fan club lottery. and that's in the era where we now have a fan club lottery.

this band has gotten so ass-backward that TM has taken priority over the fans.

why not add a 2nd show in each place and make them fan-club only? The venue will still sell out at the sticker price.

Are they doing this tour for the money or the experience? Notwithstanding all the PRAMG evidence we've collected over the years; the motivations for this tour are almost certainly the latter. But even if the former - do they make any extra money on a TM sale or a broker mark-up sale versus a fanclub sale? What middle-men are in play here that require it to be a sell out via general public rather than via fan club?

it's one thing to water down the ethos and use TM when it's 20k person venues and a 20+ show tour. But a 5-show; now 8-show tour; with 3 cities at venues with like 3-7K people.... for a band that has never toured on this material before ever.... this is just scalper central

it has essentially priced everyone out that doesn't work for a fortune 500 company

$230 for back row in Philly night 1. $2,500 for Philly night 1 center loge. That's obviously the outlier. But so $230 is the minimum cost of entry for PA-area fan club members who didn't win the lottery (what was it, a 4% chance?) and who don't have high-frequency trading software to buy through the general TM website sale (probably even less than a 4% chance); to see the one and only temple of the dog tour ever. Doesn't matter if you have been in the fan club for 20 years. TOTD shows are happening. Happening so fast we don't have time to include the fan club. TM gotta get paid.

this type of tour should have been primarily fan club. someone should have put some fixin' on this

96583UP wrote:it's interesting how the lean for this one and only TOTD tour ever/only has been so titled toward TM and not fan club members. Like 25 years later - can we reward the fan club members who have been with this band, in many cases for 20+ years, with a fucking ticket?

They added a bunch of night 2's, with no notice, so late that there was no fan club lottery. and that's in the era where we now have a fan club lottery.

this band has gotten so ass-backward that TM has taken priority over the fans.

why not add a 2nd show in each place and make them fan-club only? The venue will still sell out at the sticker price.

Are they doing this tour for the money or the experience? Notwithstanding all the PRAMG evidence we've collected over the years; the motivations for this tour are almost certainly the latter. But even if the former - do they make any extra money on a TM sale or a broker mark-up sale versus a fanclub sale? What middle-men are in play here that require it to be a sell out via general public rather than via fan club?

it's one thing to water down the ethos and use TM when it's 20k person venues and a 20+ show tour. But a 5-show; now 8-show tour; with 3 cities at venues with like 3-7K people.... for a band that has never toured on this material before ever.... this is just scalper central

it has essentially priced everyone out that doesn't work for a fortune 500 company

$230 for back row in Philly night 1. $2,500 for Philly night 1 center loge. That's obviously the outlier. But so $230 is the minimum cost of entry for PA-area fan club members who didn't win the lottery (what was it, a 4% chance?) and who don't have high-frequency trading software to buy through the general TM website sale (probably even less than a 4% chance); to see the one and only temple of the dog tour ever. Doesn't matter if you have been in the fan club for 20 years. TOTD shows are happening. Happening so fast we don't have time to include the fan club. TM gotta get paid.

this type of tour should have been primarily fan club. someone should have put some fixin' on this

Great post, hit the nail on the head

I'll bet we will see the secondary market prices go down pretty quickly. Lots of tickets on stubhub for >$250 already.

http://www.relix.com/blogs/detail/templ ... n_shambles

personal favorite:



also article on bots

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... blame-bots

96583UP wrote:it's interesting how the lean for this one and only TOTD tour ever/only has been so titled toward TM and not fan club members. Like 25 years later - can we reward the fan club members who have been with this band, in many cases for 20+ years, with a fucking ticket?

They added a bunch of night 2's, with no notice, so late that there was no fan club lottery. and that's in the era where we now have a fan club lottery.

this band has gotten so ass-backward that TM has taken priority over the fans.

why not add a 2nd show in each place and make them fan-club only? The venue will still sell out at the sticker price.

Are they doing this tour for the money or the experience? Notwithstanding all the PRAMG evidence we've collected over the years; the motivations for this tour are almost certainly the latter. But even if the former - do they make any extra money on a TM sale or a broker mark-up sale versus a fanclub sale? What middle-men are in play here that require it to be a sell out via general public rather than via fan club?

it's one thing to water down the ethos and use TM when it's 20k person venues and a 20+ show tour. But a 5-show; now 8-show tour; with 3 cities at venues with like 3-7K people.... for a band that has never toured on this material before ever.... this is just scalper central

it has essentially priced everyone out that doesn't work for a fortune 500 company

$230 for back row in Philly night 1. $2,500 for Philly night 1 center loge. That's obviously the outlier. But so $230 is the minimum cost of entry for PA-area fan club members who didn't win the lottery (what was it, a 4% chance?) and who don't have high-frequency trading software to buy through the general TM website sale (probably even less than a 4% chance); to see the one and only temple of the dog tour ever. Doesn't matter if you have been in the fan club for 20 years. TOTD shows are happening. Happening so fast we don't have time to include the fan club. TM gotta get paid.

this type of tour should have been primarily fan club. someone should have put some fixin' on this

Amen, brother. Live Nation sent me one of those automated emails today telling me that they were sorry I missed out, but to keep buying tix for other shows. No bullshit. I provided a pretty scathing reply with a lot of f words to their customer service contact. It won't do a damn thing, but it felt pretty good.

I hope they release a new album and all of this is justified

commo wrote:
also article on bots

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... blame-bots

Thanks for that. I was telling my husband about this situation and when he asked me how the "scalpers" do what they do, I couldn't say; now I have an answer.

i'm surprised there's so much interest in these shows. it's a pretty bland album.

doone wrote:

commo wrote:
also article on bots

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... blame-bots

Thanks for that. I was telling my husband about this situation and when he asked me how the "scalpers" do what they do, I couldn't say; now I have an answer.

There is another answer. But yeah, this is a big part of it, too.

durdencommatyler wrote:

doone wrote:

commo wrote:
also article on bots

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... blame-bots

Thanks for that. I was telling my husband about this situation and when he asked me how the "scalpers" do what they do, I couldn't say; now I have an answer.

There is another answer. But yeah, this is a big part of it, too.

Please, enlighten me.

tragabigzanda wrote:I don't understand why anyone is upset with Ticketmaster, Live Nation, etc. Seems to me the anger should be directed 100% at the band.

Oh don't worry I spewed plenty of hate at the band on facebook, too

doone wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:

doone wrote:

commo wrote:
also article on bots

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... blame-bots

Thanks for that. I was telling my husband about this situation and when he asked me how the "scalpers" do what they do, I couldn't say; now I have an answer.

There is another answer. But yeah, this is a big part of it, too.

Please, enlighten me.

Yes, please do.

I can see there being a sizeable guest list in Seattle, but I don't think that's what you are getting at.

Is the other reason the cozy relationship ticket brokers have with (some) artists and promoters? They sell a certain amount of tickets direct to the brokers (and are handsomely paid for doing so), bypassing the public completely until the brokers sell them at a mark-up.

Birds in Hell wrote:Is the other reason the cozy relationship ticket brokers have with (some) artists and promoters? They sell a certain amount of tickets direct to the brokers (and are handsomely paid for doing so), bypassing the public completely until the brokers sell them at a mark-up.

Is it true that Ticketmaster (or their parent company) owns StubHub? If so there's your answer.

If you ever want to know the true answer to just about anything, three words for you: Follow the money.