remember when buying concert tickets was an event?

you'd find out when tickets went on sale and then travel to your nearest ticketbastard location to procure a coveted space in line. or if you were crafty enough to think it, you went to a location where you knew there wasn't going to be much of a following of the band, thereby securing said coveted space.

once you'd figured out which ticketbastard to hit you'd arrive a couple hours early if they were handing out wristbands. sometimes you'd even camp out the night before so that you were first in line and prove to all the "poseurs" that you're a hardcore fan.* however the strategy failed you if the ticketbastard location sold their tickets "raffle style." this meant each person in line got a random wristband with a number on it, the ticketbastards would call out a number, and the patron with the matching numbered wristband was served first; with the numbers following in sequential order. which meant (and i've seen a lot of people get pissed off by this system) that even if you camped out all night or got there extra hours early you weren't guaranteed anything. in fact, if you happened to get a wristband number that came before the winning number, you were generally shit out of luck because most likely the show would be sold out by the time the numbers wrapped back around to yours.

>>the solution to this: get as many people you know who will go with you to buy tickets. this way, you're giving yourself more options, more chances to get served (and i'm not talking street dance either.... although that might be fun(ny.))

so you've brought a couple, maybe a bunch, of people with you. and now you're sitting/standing/crouching in line with your friends and fellow fans, and even some scalpers, talking about how excited you are to see whatever band you're supporting. it gets to be a communal thing. you talk about past shows you've seen by the band, the latest album and how it compares to the rest of their library. then there's that collective hope that someone competent enough will be behind the desk to run the ticket machine so that it is constantly spitting them out. oh, and you hope the cash register and/or credit card machines don't go on the blink, slowing up the process and frustrating the other people in line who have yet to get tickets.

but if you are lucky enough to even get tickets, you'd hope the seats were in a great to decent section of the venue, and worth the $30 plus $10 in service fees that they cost (which seems to be the case less and less).

nowadays buying concert tickets is a singular process; and really, not as much fun. you get up a few minutes before tickets go on sale. you start up your computer, go to the ticketbastard website and wait. there's generally no one waiting with you to complain to. but there's plenty to complain about.

the website refuses to load. or it takes forever to do so because it's being bombarded by all the other friends, fans, scalpers, competitors out there. and you're trying to go through the motions of ordering tickets, guessing at things because the pictures haven't loaded completely. and at first, you're stoked because you've gotten through at all, and now you're in line to get really awesome seats. so you've got three minutes to complete all the information they need to process your ticket request. and this would be soooo much easier if you could find the button that asks if you want to log in to your ticketbastard account which already holds all this information for you. and so you fill out the request as best you can. but they've added some extra feature. you've now got to include your credit card id number or something. and you're not sure what this is because the stupid fucking website hasn't loaded it's images yet. and so giving it your best shot, you hit enter. you've entered the wrong credit card id number. you try something. you've entered the wrong credit card id number. YES! I UNDERSTAND! BUT I CAN'T FUCKING GIVE YOU THE CORRECT CREDIT CARD ID NUMBER BECAUSE YOUR WEBSITE STILL HASN'T LOADED THE IMAGES AND I DON'T KNOW WHERE THESE NUMBERS ARE!

so after four attempts and some other bullshit things that have gone wrong, you finally fill out all the info as requested and hit enter again. "you've exceeded the allowed time limit and the tickets are being released."
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

yeah, so i did, at one point this morning, have eight pretty awesome seats to see the pixies at the greek theater on thursday september 23rd. i ended up with eight ok seats (north terrace, row N, seats 19-33) to see them same night, same time. but there was nobody to bitch to. except penquin and poor whiskey who got scared because i was yelling at the computer, cursing out ticketbastard for making me lose the eight pretty awesome seats.

this was made up to me because i also got four tickets (sec B, row L, seats 122-128) to see them on wednesday night.

so i may, depending on some of you people out there, try to sell the "ok" seats on ebay or something.

yeah. i guess buying concert tickets is still an event. it still has it's problems. it's still having to deal (a lot of the time) with the ticketbastards. it's still got that sense of uncertainty (not to be confused with the certainty that you are getting shafted on ticket prices). it's an event that, in this day and age, i can bitch to you about over this blog instead of having you by my side to hear, or calling you up on the phone to tell, or waiting until our next encounter to recount in detail complete with crazy visuals of me getting all pissed off over losing the eight pretty awesome seats. grrrrrrrrr.

anyways, it's time to be satisfied. i get to see a bunch of forty-something rockers bust out the hits at a nice venue, in the open air, with the rest of the friends, fans, and scalpers of yesteryear.

hopefully this will all have been worth it.




*i have never camped out for tickets