From: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org (precious-things-digest) To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V10 #44 Reply-To: precious-things@smoe.org Sender: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "precious-things-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. precious-things-digest Tuesday, March 1 2005 Volume 10 : Number 044 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: WTF!?!?! ["Johnny Endicott" ] Re: WTF!?!?! ["Lisa Zwick" ] Re: WTF!?!?! [Nadyne Mielke ] Re WTF [Christina Wong ] Tori on Sirius satellite radio [jeff albertson ] Extra Dallas Ticket? [Maria Aguirre ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 10:49:47 +0000 From: "Johnny Endicott" Subject: Re: WTF!?!?! Hi Everyone, I've given this all a lot of thought. I have many years of experience with this whole issue, having been to over 600 concerts in my life. Perhaps that qualifies me a little bit to have an informed opinion on these matters. First, the scalpers are here to stay. There is no incentive for them to stop. They make vast fortunes doing nothing, and with the advent of eBay their "job" just became all that much easier. I'm getting ahead of myself... Lisa writes: > >Has anyone tried calling ticketmaster and telling them what happened? It's >insane that the only people who got tickets were scalpers. I might try >calling >them...not sure it'd do any good, though. > Stick with that instinct. It won't do any good. The only thing it wlll do is get you really mad. Or much more mad. Years back, Ticketmaster was accused of some "anti-trust or monopoly" thing. The solution was for them to offer ONE outlet in each "market" where fans could buy tickets without paying a service charge. That lasted for about 6 months. It went away, and everyone just forgot about it. I emailed them after that and asked the simplest question. "Is there still an outlet where I can buy a ticket without paying a fee". I received a nice reply. It was trying to sell me tickets to Cats at the Pantages or something. IT WAS A FORM LETTER COMMERCIAL. I couldn't believe it. So I tried again, and REALLY laid it out in simple terms. Again, another form letter, this time telling me that seating charts were available for Denver or something like that. It became humorous! It took four rounds of emailing back and forth for me to get the answer. In my fourth attempt I actually had to put two checkboxes, one that said (yes)___ and one that said (no)___. The reply? The exact same email I sent with an X in the "no" checkbox. Customer service at its finest. A better example is this thing they used to have on their site called "Ask Ticketmaster". This is an exact quote from their website: Q: I can't spell Limp Bizkut, so I can't find out about tickets. Help please! -Carrie / Connecticut A: If (TIME OUT! THIS IS A REAL QUOTE! I PRINTED IT OUT!) A: If you can't spell the name of the band, you don't deserve to go to the show. What's wrong, you're such a fan that you don't have the CD cover to refer to? If you really want to go to the show, isn't it worth spending 5 minutes to research this on your own? Why don't you learn how to put minimal effort into fixing your own problems. I'm not here to help your lazy-ass win the spelling bee. EXCUSE ME? Can you imagine telling someone that in your own line of work? Let's consider a couple of things. Maybe "Carrie" is some little kid who only hears LB on the radio, and can't AFFORD the $20 for a CD, let alone the $50 concert ticket? I agree that people should try to solve their own problems, but if they are thinking about giving ME their money, I'LL be happy to HELP them solve their problems! Or maybe, much like Google, they could simply add a program which would suggest an alternative, I.E. "Did you mean to say "Limp Bizkit"? There's simply no excuse for such poor customer service. At least in a COMPETITIVE marketplace. The problem we're encountering these last few days is that Tori is doing us all a favor and playing SMALL VENUES. Think about it, would you rather see her at the Seattle Supersonics basketball arena, or in the beautiful Benaroya Symphony Hall? This, combined with her "solo" appearance has created a huge demand for tickets. Frankly, while I love the band, she really ought to consider making the "...now the boys go away / Roadside Cafe" portion of her shows like eight or ten songs, not three. Anyway, the chance to see her solo is irresistable. Many of you didn't care much for Strange Little Girls (for some reason I really dug it), and there were multiple shows in each city, hence it wasn't impossible to get seats in 2001. Now we have a VERY abbreviated schedule, one show per city, many cities getting NO shows (out here in the west San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Albakerky - someone else figure out how to spell it, call Bugs Bunny or something!) to name a few, and a very accessible album. NOW, the SOLUTION. I saw this done for a No Doubt concert in Ventura once. It was SWEET. It VIRTUALLY ELIMINATED the scalpers. No Doubt, near the height of their popularity (playing arenas and huge venues), decided to do a warm up "club" tour. There was a TWO TICKET LIMIT. Bitch and moan all you want, but it's been my experience that if you sell three or more tickets to one person, inevitably their little group just can't resist BLABBING AWAY through the whole concert! Anyway, you could only buy two tickets, and they didn't send them to you. They held them at will call. When you walked up to get your tickets, they put a wristband on you and sent you immediately inside. No coming out to smoke, no in and out, no paper tickets to scalp, you and your friend were wrist-banded and sent inside immediately. The only way a COUPLE could possibly scalp a pair of tickets would be if TWO scalpers both offered up one ticket each. Which would mean they would have to double their extra ticket's price just to recoup their investment. Scalpers don't want to go into the show. They have no soul. They simply want the money. It worked fine, and the Ventura Theatre was filled with Gwen fans, and it was killer. A couple of years later, Alanis did a taping/show at the Whisky A Go Go in Hollywood. THE WHISKY!!! That place is about as big as my living room! They solicited suggestions from their fans who were subscribed to the email list on how to avoid the scalpers. I sent them the No Doubt Solution. THEY USED IT. It worked great. And I got to see Alanis Morissette at the Whisky for $15. Now, I'm not going to lie. I was very lucky and am very happy with the results of the ticket sale. Perhaps in large part because I usually go alone to Tori shows. Not only because I have very few friends, or any friends that are into Tori, but I really don't want to be distracted by anything at all while I'm watching and listening to her. If you can ween yourself off of going the Buddy System route, try asking for a single ticket. Very often there are an odd number of seats in a row, and the "leftover" seat is available well into the sale. My seats for three shows are all in the orchestra, rows 20, 16 and 11 respectively. Two final thoughts: First, the tight schedule simply doesn't allow for extra nights, but what about extra shows? I understand Tori used to do this a lot. In San Diego in 2001, at the end of the tour, she played two shows, back to back, on the same night! If you think it's cool to hear her play 20-25 songs in one night, wait until you see her play 40-45 songs in a four hour stretch! It could happen... (*fingers tightly crossed*) Second, as for the Ticketmaster questions, you need to remember that you are dealing with a monopoly, a monarchy if you will. They have ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to help you in any way. They won't make any more money by being civil to you. They will sell the tickets anyway. Think about their name. Ticket Master. MASTER. If they are the MASTER, what does that make us? Slaves. Ticket slaves. Johnny (my slave name) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 06:39:07 -0500 From: "Lisa Zwick" Subject: Re: WTF!?!?! Wow...thanks for the very thorough explanation. I don't go to nearly enough concerts, so I wasn't aware how bad the situation was. I usually don't even bother with the "bigger" concerts, b/c it's so hard to get tickets, and I won't pay triple the price to scalpers. But this time I checked for tickets the second (ok, maybe a few seconds after) they went on sale, and I asked for one ticket anywhere. Like you said, selling up to 4 tickets of general admission seats probably helps the scalpers even more - they can sell as many at a time without worrying about seats being next to each other. I love that idea with the wristbands. The only thing that would be a pain with that is if someone bought a ticket and then simply couldn't make it - with that system, it sounds like they wouldn't even be able to give their ticket to a friend. Would be nice if tori would try it once and see how it goes. But doesn't seem like anyone's asking us for our opinion... - -Lisa - ------- - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Johnny Endicott" > I have many years of experience with this whole issue, having been to over > 600 concerts in my life. Perhaps that qualifies me a little bit to have an > informed opinion on these matters. > > First, the scalpers are here to stay. There is no incentive for them to > stop. They make vast fortunes doing nothing, and with the advent of eBay > their "job" just became all that much easier. I'm getting ahead of > myself... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 08:01:07 -0800 From: Nadyne Mielke Subject: Re: WTF!?!?! On 28 Feb 2005, at 2:49, Johnny Endicott wrote: [snip] > No Doubt, near the height of their popularity (playing arenas and huge > venues), decided to do a warm up "club" tour. There was a TWO TICKET > LIMIT. Bitch and moan all you want, but it's been my experience that > if you sell three or more tickets to one person, inevitably their > little group just can't resist BLABBING AWAY through the whole > concert! Anyway, you could only buy two tickets, and they didn't send > them to you. They held them at will call. When you walked up to get > your tickets, they put a wristband on you and sent you immediately > inside. No coming out to smoke, no in and out, no paper tickets to > scalp, you and your friend were wrist-banded and sent inside > immediately. The only way a COUPLE could possibly scalp a pair of > tickets would be if TWO scalpers both offered up one ticket each. > Which would mean they would have to double their extra ticket's price > just to recoup their investment. Scalpers don't want to go into the > show. They have no soul. They simply want the money. This is what Tori did on her first tour with the band, the club tour in 1998. You could buy a maximum of two tickets before the show. When you bought the tickets, you had to show picture identification, and they copied down your name and identification number onto a receipt. You got one copy of it, they kept the other. On the day of the show, you had to show that same picture ID to get into the venue with one guest. It worked, but it was a huge hassle for both the venue and the artist. It's a huge headache to manage it. Remember, TM is attractive to venues because they just magically make everything happen -- there's no concerns about having insane fans camped outside the venue all night, they don't have to staff their own ticket office, etc etc etc. There are other ways to get good tickets into the hands of fans. I know I've waxed poetic about it before, but I have to say it again: R.E.M. gets it right. For each and every concert, they get a block of tickets that they sell through their fan club (which they run themselves), and those tickets are always excellent. They've threatened to move their show to another venue if the venue doesn't give them good enough tickets. I haven't seen R.E.M. from anywhere further back than the fourth row as a result of these tickets. To get the fan club tickets, you have to be a member of the fan club, and you can't just sign up the day before the tickets go on sale. It's still possible for scalpers to get these tickets, because I could order the tickets and then sell them to a scalper (or scalp them myself), but it's a lot less likely than the standard TicketBastard on-sale. There's a lot of good advice about how to get tickets in "Little Blue World". TicketBastard and scalpers are not your only ways to get tickets. The issues that give information about touring and ticketing are: * Volume 1, Number 2 (Summer 2001) * Volume 2, Number 3 (Fall 2002) You can buy back issues for $4 each ($6 outside North America), and you can get a one-year subscription to LBW to get the next issue (which should be mailed out in early March) for $15 ($20 outside North America). The next issue includes an extensive interview with Loren Haynes, the creative talent behind _Welcome to Sunny Florida_. He's worked with Tori several times over the years, and has a lot to say about working with her. Back issues and subscriptions are available at our website: http://www.little-blue-world.org/ /nm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 11:20:28 -0800 (PST) From: Christina Wong Subject: Re WTF I Don't mean to beat a dead horse but I have not seen anyone mention San Francisco. I am so upset because I tired to get tickets during the pre-sale, which I couldn't do because it was "sold out" in 2 min. then for the general sale, I tried to get tickets and at 3 minutes after the tickets went on sale all i could get was the farthest balcony in the 6th row. Well, I figured that i just got bad seats so threw them back in. I never got to be able to get anymore tickets because the concert sold out in 8 MIn. 1000 seats sold out in 8 minutes?!? What is going on? If a diehard tori fan who keeps up to date with what is going on can't get good tickets, who is?? Apparently some people are because just the 1st balcony seats on the internet are selling for $285!!! I swear, they are taking adavantage of fans where they are charging an arm and a leg just for us to see her. Just to see her!!! I'm so fustrated and I want answers! Anyone else had this experience with the SF show? __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 16:04:34 -0500 From: jeff albertson Subject: Tori on Sirius satellite radio sorry for the late notice on this! just found out myself. hopefully someone with sirius can listen (and even record!) this! woj - ----- Forwarded message from Nadyne Mielke ----- To: tori-boot@yahoogroups.com From: "Nadyne Mielke" Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 19:14:33 -0000 Subject: [tori-boot] Tori on Sirius satellite radio According to The Dent, Sirius Satellite Radio will broadcast an interview with Tori on Channel 18 ("The Spectrum") beginning at 5pm EST. More information about this 2-hour broadcast is available at: http://www.sirius.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Sirius/CachedPage&c=Channel&cid=1104779639624 (If that URL doesn't work, go to the Sirius website, click on "channel guide", then select music -> rock -> 18, and click on the "more info" button.) It starts at 5pm EST on Thursday, 10 March, and runs for two hours. It will repeat on Saturday, 12 March, at 8am EST, and again on Sunday, 13 March, at 11pm EST. For people in other time zones, check your Sirius listings. So who's got access to Sirius and can tape this for the rest of us? :) (These are in the calendar, but I wanted to post to the list as well 'cause I want to make sure that we've got this one covered. /nm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 17:58:42 -0600 From: Maria Aguirre Subject: Extra Dallas Ticket? Hey EWFs, It turns out I will be going to the Dallas show. However, I don't have a ticket a yet. There are some ccrappy ones showing up on ticket master still, but I wanted to check and see if anyone had one extra ticket for the show they needed to sell. I will be taping the show, so your efforts will benefit the whole community. Thanks in advance! .:: Maria Aguirre ::.. toriphilemaria@gmail.com http://www.toriphilemaria.com And I know you will always love Sorrow Is that why you gave her dress to Happiness? 'Cause it matches her eyes when she cries... - Tori Amos ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V10 #44 *************************************