Mundis and I are heading to Chicago to see Eddie Vedder next month!
I was fortunate enough to land one pair of tickets through the fan club for night one, but no one had any luck grabbing tickets through the fan club or Ticketmaster for night two. I’m not sure if it’s the huge rush of people trying to purchase a small number of seats or if it’s some shady business practice of Ticketmaster teaming up with it’s subsidiary, TicketsNow.com, to make extra money by sending most of the tickets to the online ticket reseller and selling them for 2 times the cost, but every show sold out in approximately 20 seconds. Now, I know Vedder will draw a lot of people, especially in his hometown of Chicago, but 20 seconds? If the Auditorium Theatre only holds 3,929 people, and approximately 10% goes to the fan club for presale, there should be about 3,500 seats available for general sale. When you have three people on the phone all hitting “find tickets” about 2 seconds after they go on sale, and you don’t get any, something just doesn’t seem legit, right? Ticketmaster conveniently sends you to a screen telling you that “there are no tickets that match your criteria, but you can find tickets at TicketsNow”. Thanks. It’s a shame that Mr. Vedder can’t find enough venues that don’t use Ticketmaster.
The fact that StubHub, TicketsNow, etc. had a ton of tickets already for sale before the tickets actually went on sale to the public says a lot about how ridiculous the whole online scalping thing has become as well. I’m beyond sick of people buying tickets to events that they have no intention of going to just to make an extra couple of bucks. I watched the StubHub listings jump from 90 right before the tickets went on sale, to over 200 within an hour of the general sale. People were literally flipping the tickets immediately after purchasing them. Each refresh of the StubHub page would show another 5-10 listings. Am I the only person who wants these people to have a bit of bad luck smack them across the face?
It’s not like we’re talking about a lot of money. Most people might make 200% on each ticket. That’s not really a lot of money when the tickets are only $75 a piece. It’s just greed, and it’s extremely frustrating for those people who actually WANT TO GO. Unfortunately, a lot of people won’t pay the exorbitant prices, and the tickets will probably go to waste. It won’t be the first time that I’m at a “sold out” event and can look around me and see empty seats.
Whatever. While I have a personal ethical issue with scalping, our capitalistic greedy culture – constantly looking for any way to get rich quick without having to really work for anything – isn’t going anywhere. I guess I’ll just try to get used to it – and give up on mankind in the process. Well, after I buy a set of tickets to night two in Chicago and feed some pathetic scalper’s family for a night.
Regardless of all the frustrations that finding tickets was, I’m really excited to get out of Pittsburgh for a week, see the Silvers family, eat at the Bongo Room, and hang with Mundis. I even hope to catch a Sox game while I’m in Chi-Town! I can’t wait!