For the third time in as many weeks I find myself sat in a queue on a website to buy gig tickets.
I’m sure you can guess the first instance. When fourteen million of us sat for hours and hours as Ticketmaster (the name becomes more ironic as every week passes), See Tickets (no I didn’t see any) and Gigs and Tours crashed or just curled up into a ball and died in a corner. Then the queues. Several hundred thousand people in each digital line waiting, hoping against hope that some of their compatriots would fall on their sword and go off shopping. Or maybe a couple of million iPhone batteries might die.It was a folly. We didn’t stand a chance. And when we got to the front, you could only get a seat in the toilet under Wembley Park tube station for £17,000. Thanks dynamic pricing.
Then came Supergrass. Chucked straight in a queue for the pre-sale that sold out in 5 minutes. It would appear the agencies have now dispensed with actual sales of tickets and just let them all be sold before they go on sale. And that’s not even to the touts.
The concept of an exclusive presale is now redundant. Perfectly illustrated by my attempts this morning to buy Father John Misty tickets for the Royal Albert Hall.
I used the link provided by the email that sent me to the RAH ticket site, I logged in at 8.30am, I entered my code. I waited. Till 9.50 and then sat watching the countdown till we entered a waiting room. Then it began estimating my queuing time. It took its time. 2700 odd in the queue and it still couldn’t work out how long I’d be waiting. Over an hour was eventually the best it could do.
So I sat as the numbers slowly dwindled. And then they sped up. That said to me that people were abandoning the queue as the tickets disappeared into the hands of the conniving cunts to put up for twenty times the price. A long and painful death I hope awaits them.
But I digress as I reach the front of the queue. It wants the code again. Fine. I bet there aren’t any tickets.
Blimey, there are.
Those look nice. Oh no, sorry they’re being bought now. Refresh. Ok they’ll do. No, sorry, already in someone’s basket. Fuck you. Ok, well these look ok, they’re called restricted viewing but that just means you get his lovely profile, the handsome devil.
We’re in!!!
Blah blah, refund protection, no thanks
Through to the bit where you pay. They want my banking app to ok my transaction. Ok fine. All good. Right let’s get rid of that, don’t need that anymore. Right, where’s the website gone? Why is my banking app still there. I just got rid of that, not the web browser. Where’s it gone? Where’s it gone?!?!?! WHERE’S IT FUCKING GONE?!?!?!
…………………………………
It’s gone.
After re-entering the queue and it kicking me out and then getting back in to find the odd ticket scattered hither and yon, and even they disappeared when you clicked on them. Unmitigated disaster.
Manage to get tickets to Brighton but even that was trying to sell me only odd number tickets for a while. Threes a crowd or on me todd.
But feel it’s not really the same. Wanted to see the snake hipped lothario at the Royal Albert Hall. Deflated. When did buying tickets become so hard. Do you remember when the internet made buying tickets easier, now it’s almost impossible.
If it wasn’t bad enough you had to remortgage your house to buy them, you now get herded into a pen, given a number, kicked out, asked for a code a million times. Then they want us to donate to causes at the end. And of course you do. So that’s more of your hard earned cash.
You can’t help but feel that in search for ways to make things cheaper, more cost effective, more profitable, that everything has become about shafting the consumer. The customer. The fan.
The industry is only on its arse because a small minority want to make as much money as they possibly can. Much like our utilities. Or the banks. Or our MPs. Is capitalism eating itself? I’m no economist, as you well know, but you feel like something has got to give. Maybe. Unless we just keep lapping up the scraps they chuck from their table. Like the faithful hounds, we are. I won’t even get into dynamic pricing, that should speak for itself. Except people paid these prices. Utter lunatics.
So they just feed the machine. If people didn’t pay those prices maybe we’d have a leg to stand on. But the argument will be, these tickets are still being sold to the gullible morons. Hope Liam’s voice holds out and Noel doesn’t lob a punnet of plums at him in the middle of ‘Acquiesce’ (that’s a B-Side of ‘Some Might Say’ for all you teenage ‘Wonderwall’ fans) JOKE!! And a B-Side is a song that was on the other side of a 7” vinyl single, and then the other song on a CD (compact disc) single (another joke). I’m here all week. Try the “Midlife Crisis Cry Into The Ether”.
One more greatest hits tour for the devotees. Get in fucking line and wait your turn.
