A Bad Omen For U2
The ticketing debacle has gotten worse (I didn't think it was possible). I tried to get the U2 tickets that went on sale to the general public this morning. I was logged in and trying to purchase tickets literally the second they went on sale. Guess what... SOLD OUT. There is no possible way to sell a show out in 30 seconds. The only explanation is that ticketmaster or U2 went behind our backs and sold all of the tickets to private ticket brokers. Some brokers were selling tickets on ebay BEFORE THE FANCLUB PRESALE!!! These were selling for upwards of $1000 each on ebay. Corruption my friends.
Can it get worse? Yes. U2 announced that they would be scheduling another show in Philly because of the demand for tickets. The promised their fans that the tickets would be sold through a fanclub presale that would give the $40 members another shot at getting their tickets first. Good old ticketmaster then (at about 10:10 am) announces that there is another show on sale and that one sells out in less than 5 min! I tried to get tickets to that one too. OOPS, somebody forgot the presale promise.
I don't know what is going to happen, but there are some pretty upset u2 fans right now. Somebody has some explaining and apologizing to do. All I know is that my over-priced tickets are looking better and better.
8 Comments:
thats just awful.. so let me get this straight..
there was supposed to be a fan-club only presale but Ticketmaster went ahead and sold those tickets anyway?
you got it.
thats total BS...
Like you said in your earlier post, Bono said he runs his band like a business and thats certainly his perogative.. but the fans need to do their parts as consumers and not do business with them again..
any business that screws over its customers so royaly can't expect things to go well in the future..
If they had done this right, the $40 membership thing could have worked well for everyone..they could have gotten extra money from fans to buy tickets and the fans would be appriciative of the service for getting an assured good seat.. thats how good business works - win/win.
as it is now.. no one - i mean no one - will sign up for another year.. they may have made their money on this scheme this year, but it shouldn't happen again..
Darn right. I am in full support of running a band like a business. Go for it.
But a big part of running a business is customer satisfaction. Did U2 ever hear the phrase "theCostumer is always right?" I guess not.
The issued a formal apology and it went a little something like this. "We are sorry you got screwed over with the fan club. It is not our fault, so we can't be held responsible."
Some apology huh? That just makes it all OK.
Weeeell, I got tickets. But I must admit it was a harrowing ordeal. First of all, Elizabeth and I were first in line as usual and waited for 2 hours for the store to open up. Only to hear that ticket master law says that there must be a raffle even if there are twelve people in line. Of course we whined loudly but because God loves us we ended up second in line anyway. Now the first guy in line...the minute the tickets went on sale...best available...behind the stage ,obstructed view. No general admission left...the minute they went on sale. The system kept crashing and we were all sweating bullets. They guy wouldn't take them and neither would we.I felt bad for him because he hasn't missed a show since the early eighties...only to be rewarded for his loyalty with this.His sister was on the phone with ticketmaster and they finally got tickets...and we all gave out a cheer.So we get up to the counter and the show is completely sold out.One of us starts to freak out a little, I won't say which one...but it wasn't me.I say a prayer and even the girl behind the counter is praying...I think she was afraid she was going to get killed by the rest of the people in line. So all of a sudden we heard that a second show had been added and we were the first in line...hooray!!!Then she says...no general admission...best available...nosebleeds. SHITE! But at least we got tickets. I think Linds said that by the time it was her turn it was back to obstructed view and she was like three people behind us. Whatever, something did go very, very wrong. But I am still choosing to believe that it wasn't U2's fault. Sorry to everyone who didn't get tickets though.
Mers,
that just shows how wrong things are that the #1 and #2 people in line can't even get good seats.. I don't know whos fault it is, but someone needs to go down over this all
ok sorry for posting twice in the past few minutes, but I too like Mers don't believe its U2's fault.. so I started reading some message boards and articles about Ticketmaster online. I found this interesting post from the Geek.com forum
Posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - 9:50 pm:
Ticketmaster what really goes on.
Ticketssd
New Geek
Registered: 7-2003
Posts: 1
I used to work for Ticketmaster in SD, until they closed us down and moved us to Texas. I will say this the convience fees that you pay do not pay employees salaries, instead it just pays the top Brass at TM. For Bryan to say that its for maintence and upgrade of there system is ridicolous. There website is probably the worst Website in the whole world. Just this past weekend for the 3rd time. I was ordering tickets on there awesome(sic) website. And after I got the tickets they asked for my account name and password which I gladly gave, except Ticketmaster website claimed it was invalid, which is wasn't. So to make a long story short. I didn't get any tickets for the event. But as a former employee I can tell what TM does with tickets that they get, first sell them to employees at face value, and then the employees re-sell them for a higher price to brokers and agents. Also TM uppermanagement has deals in place with brokers and scalpers to get there tickets in advance of everyone else. Yes ticketmaster sells tickets to brokers. As for us who don't work for Ticketmaster, well then we get the opportunity to try and call the call center on an on-sale day. Good luck getting through, we used to let people hold for like 15mins prior to an onsale. As for the website, its a total joke, they could make it better but they don't want too. It's basically the same system theyv'e had since I worked there back in 2000. Yeah your convience fees that you pay over the internet go to a good cause. Management. If anyone wanted to do anything, we could start a class-action lawsuit against Ticketmaster because they don't give people equal access to purchase tickets, and they are a monoply who also sells tickets to brokers and through other avenues. But if you don't want to do a class-action suit, then just take them to small claims court, and keep taking them. If they or there rep does'nt show up then they lose. But if they do show up then guess who has to pay for it, yep TM. You would be taking money from them.
Wow. DOOKIE, THY NAME IS TICKETMASTER!
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