If you are over 35, you remember cueing up for tickets on Delaware Ave or one of the record stores (remember them?), but it has gotten more complex and incredibly more expensive in the age of these here internets. Inflation and greed made my $5.00 ticket to my first Bruce show seem downright quaint. Witness the shenanigans of Live Nation and Ticketmaster as well as Tickets.com., where you get assessed double digit "convenience" charges for tickets you can run off your home printer. The upshot of this is I've gotten very picky about venues as I ease into late middle age.
To see Neil Young at an actual concert hall seemed like a worthwhile opportunity. The pricing structure for Shea's seemed kind of odd. It was a little strange to see 69, 99 and 149 dollar seats in a building so compact. For 69 dollars, you would have the abilities to spit on the people who paid 70 dollars to sit 70 feet closer. That irony should strike some. Despite a little shock at $150 price tags, I thought it might be worth 69 bucks to see ole 'weird Neil. But, it ain't to be. Despite being armed with a decent internet connection and speedy cell phone, I could only watch as the retail tickets disappeared 5 minutes into the on sale time frame.
StubHub had some that had only been inflated 2-300% from the original selling price within 20 minutes.
Sorry, Neil, guess I'm sitting this one out. Heart of Gold was on tv last night. I think it was foreshadowing. Ticketmaster, Live Nation, Tickets.com? This thing of yours ain't working for us working folk, but since profits are higher than ever before for you guys, I guess you really don't care. Good luck with that merger.
I have a wild Idea about online tickets just hear me out.
1. Go to the venue and buy the tickets, I know doing so sucks and you don't know how early you have to get there cause you don't know how long the lines will be, But in Person most places the price is the price that it says.
2. That VIP stuff Mike is talking about is very true. It is all ways for bands I don't want to see or are someplace I can't get to, but Live Nation has those packages and presale info some times in e-Mail
Now onto My Theory. The ticket companies know tht people don't want to wait in line so that is why they have all these fees. I also think that the 10am or 9am is a factor, it makes it harder to get up and go wait in line for a couple hours. When I was growing up tickets went on sale at like noon. I think every venue knows that they have to have someone sell their tickets on line or some other way. Remember when Garth Brooks did two shows or maybe 3 in Buffalo. If you didn't have multiple places to buy tickets a riot would have broken out. I think most arenas if they could get away with just selling tickets them selves they would. And that leads me to another point. If you go to tops for tickets you can't buy them until HSBC Arena releases them. It is possible that you could lose a minute to the arena or even more. I think they do that on purpose.
I don't think I would understand it but it would be cool to know how the money agreement between venues and ticket sellers works. I know it is different for different arenas and hockey teams.
Now if you want tickets for anything you need on of the following 1. A Citibank Card for Livenation special packages or 2. An Amex Card for their "Front of the Line" access via Ticketmasater. If you don't have either of the two, then you're just trying to hit the lotto.
I just bought Bon Jovi tickets last week. The insane thing now is the Livenation auctions. Shows now seem to be geared towards the VIP experience these days.
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