Take That Tour Tickets - what a nightmare for the fans

kittyscavern

Thanks, yeah the recommendation from someone here to use TicketMaster.ie was inspired. I also had three internet browsers open; Chrome, IE and Firefox, and Firefox responded much better than the other two. I don't know whether Martin has a section giving advice on how to grab concert tickets in a stampede, if he hasn't then it would be useful for people for the future.

sb65

I think the above suggestion really only works for heavy heavy traffic sites (TT, Michael Jackson, etc events). Like a 'Black Swan' event.

There's no point connecting to a server 100's of miles away to buy tickets when the UK servers are running close to good bandwitch.

I've got my Firefox stripped down so that it loads no pictures and only text. I discard whatever is superflous (pictures, text, javascript runs in the webpage) which refreshes pages like lightning. You learn these and many other like features over many years

fitshase

I would like to know what people would propose by having a "pre-sale ticket issue for genuine fans". Would you have to be a member of a fan club? Would this stop touts joining just to get tickets?

If eBay stopped the sale of tickets then there would be other genuine fans who miss out by not being able to buy tickets from genuine people who can't make it. The only way to stop touts selling tickets on eBay is for eBay to limit the selling price to the face value of the ticket plus postage and eBay fees. However, that would only put it in the same situation as Ticketmaster et al, in that they would be inundated with traffic for people wanting to buy the tickets.

Gunsandbanjos - you can pick up tickets for Take That at the box office but you have to take the card you purchased it with and photo ID. If you are not the card holder, some venues let you take a letter of authorisation from the card holder. The extra costs involved in issuing tickets like Glastonbury (i.e., with photos on) means the cost of the ticket increases. I'm sure people are already complaining at the cost of the Take That tickets without adding an extra £100 on it to cover costs.

Also, you don't have to be that tech savvy to secure tickets. A few of my friends were in Sunderland and said there were loads of tickets for the people queuing at the venue. Some ticket outlets had queues and I believe the BBC reported on a ticket outlet in Wales where the owner took people off the phone lines to deal with the people who had turned up for tickets. What used to happen in the days before the internet? "Genuine fans" took a day off work and queued for tickets.

Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there who have more tickets than they need due to their desparation in getting tickets. A friend of mine managed to get tickets after queuing at the venue. He got back home to break the good news to his wife only to find she'd got tickets after going online at work. They ended up with 8 tickets they didn't need. Needless to say, lots of friends were happy to help out in purchasing them off them. For others, the way the system was and the frantic nature of getting tickets, they may not have any option but to sell them on eBay or other sites. People shouldn't make them out to be villains. The real villains are the ones who sell them before they buy them and who start bidding off at stupidly high prices.

kittyscavern

fitshase wrote: »

Also, you don't have to be that tech savvy to secure tickets. A few of my friends were in Sunderland and said there were loads of tickets for the people queuing at the venue. Some ticket outlets had queues and I believe the BBC reported on a ticket outlet in Wales where the owner took people off the phone lines to deal with the people who had turned up for tickets. What used to happen in the days before the internet? "Genuine fans" took a day off work and queued for tickets.

I said you have to be internet savvy unless you are able to queue at the venue. People with commitments can't always simply take the day off work, there are often other things to consider like picking children up from school, etc. If there were more local outlets for tickets then it would be better.

Janeyjaz

Excuse me - there are still genuine honest people in this world - if by chance I cannot use a ticket I have bought I always put it on Scarlet Mist - which is a site used for genuine fans - I managed to get 2 tickets for Take That at 9.04 from Gigs and Tours, and I only bought the 2 I needed, no spares.
I also belong to a forum, who when Bruce Springsteen tours, help other members get tickets for face value.
Please don't tar everyone with the same brush.

jarr

All this talk about tickets on ebay for hundreds is absolute rubbish. People are just exaggerating. If anything it's backfired. So many tickets are being sold that you can pick up a pair for about £150 which actually isn't that bad.

fitshase

kittyscavern wrote: »

I said you have to be internet savvy unless you are able to queue at the venue. People with commitments can't always simply take the day off work, there are often other things to consider like picking children up from school, etc. If there were more local outlets for tickets then it would be better.

Sorry - I missed that bit of your post so I apologise. I totally agree that there should be more "real world" local ticket venues as opposed to just the venue, online and by phone. Perhaps Ticketmaster should open up some high street shops which I would support as it removes the stress of waiting for that confirmation e-mail or wondering if your order went through before the site crashed again.

I know that there are people with other committments but I start to tire of comments about "real fans" who can't get tickets and moan how unfair it is without actually coming up with some useful suggestions about how to resolve it. "Real fans" don't have a God given right to all of the tickets. My wife isn't a die hard fan - she likes some of their songs but it would be unfair if I couldn't get her a ticket becuase "real fans" had gotten them all in a pre-release/preferrential sale.

Nothing is going to stop the touts other than making the tickets like Glastonbury and charging £hundreds for them.

Others mention staggered release of tickets but this won't work either as it will just mean there are fewer tickets available each day of the release and the same demand.

Therefore, I ask a serious question:-

Does anyone have any ideas on ways to sell tickets to concerts on a international level (there are international fans as well) without hitting the same problems as what has happened with the Take That ticket release (i.e., websites crashing, phone lines engaged, tickets for sale on eBay, etc)?

I'd be interested to hear these - as I'm sure would the ticket agencies.

kittyscavern

As our high street shops are dying it would have been nice to see tickets sold out of High Street Music Outlets such as HMV. I know this doesn't work on an international level but it would certainly help the people who can't travel to the venue and don't wish to use the internet.

melancholly

what makes me mad are the tickets on ebay saying 'front row' when it's clearly all standing and there is no guarantee of getting right to the front..... clearly taking people for a ride.

no-one i know managed to get tickets.... tried 4 websites and their phone lines and couldn't get through until they all said sold out. as it goes, i don't have a 'right' to get tickets, but knowing how many fans (hardcore, casual or otherwise!) didn't manage to get through while some people who just wanted to profit from the situation did, it sucks. it's a rubbish situation. maybe it can't be avoided, but that doesn't make it ok. i can't pay £200+ a ticket (£55 would have been a stretch) and knowing that someone is making a 100%+ mark up on the tickets makes me angry.

i have sold off concert tickets once - we went to a concert and someone was ill on the day. no-one we knew could take their place so we sold it to a ticket agent (i.e. with an office, not a tout on the street) for half the face value about 2 hours before the concert started so get something back for our friend. that's very different to buying tickets with the express intention of selling them off at a profit.

jarr

How about this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280582082462#vi-desc