Expecting Rain

this topic might sound odd, especially to the hardcore NET followers among us, but maybe i´m not the only one with such "problems" though: namely i´ve often asked myself what is the best policy to purchase concert tickets. of course i´ve been to a modest number of shows by various artists already which means in general i´m able to buy tickets but after purchasing them i often doubted if i did it the right way and regretted acting too spontaneously.

why?

- was never quite sure how to find out where you get the best tickets (huge box office, local box office, artist homepage), especially before the sale starts

- how to detect the best seats in a location i don´t know (if there is no GA)? does it really pay off to buy expensive first row tickets (-> stage rush)?

- after the tickets go on sale, is there a need to hectically hurry up to buy tickets immediately (speaking of BD shows)? how long, generally speaking, might be the period one can be sure to get tickets still?

- if i want to buy tickets abroad, are there any important things i have to keep in mind? have you made good or bad experiences with purchasing tickets from particular companies/countries?

- if i have bought a ticket i don´t need in the end - what to do? of course there are the wonderful threads here where i would try it first. but in general, is it allowed to sell them on ebay? and if you have a spare ticket and want to get rid of it directly in front of the location, how do you handle that? a sign? is that - theoretically - illegal?

- which leads me to the last question: if i go to a location without a ticket, how probable is it that i luckily get a ticket though? how much (more) would that cost me?

thank you already in advance for reading this and maybe for answering one or more of them!

Interesting thread! Most of the time I face exactly the same problems when I order tickets (except for GA shows, of course).


With regard to the common Dylan show (i.e. GA), no, there's no need to hurry up. If the venue is not too small, it's usually no problem to still get tickets after four or five weeks. At least that has been my experience over the last 3 1/2 years. On the other hand, if it's not a GA show and you really want to have one of the best seats, then I guess you'd have to hurry up indeed.

Then again, I think this might be different from country to country (depending on the dimension of the fanbase).

As far as other artists are concerned, it's not easy to make a general statement. If you want to go to Pearl Jam, for instance, tickets sell out within a week. A friend of mine wanted to see Rammstein this year, but their entire tour was sold out in around 12 hours. It really depends on the artists.


Once I ordered a Dylan ticket by oeticket.com (Austria) and that was a completely trouble-free and fair deal. Furthermore, I recently ordered tickets by ticketpro.cz (Czech Republic) but it's too early to judge this transaction. It seems to be a reliable company, even though their shipping costs to Germany border on the impertinent. (Okay, they give you the option of printing out tickets yourself, which would reduce costs to almost zero ... but somehow I don't have confidence in this method.)

Things are handled differently in different locations. Sometimes it is near impossible to get good seats because they get given out to business associates / press / high sherriff's wife, etc. Sometimes you just have to be online at the time they go on sale, though sometimes there might be special presales that you may or may not have access to, like the O2 presale for the shows in Germany last fall. If the ticketing website allows you to book from a seating chart, it's easy, but many times you can't, so you'll have to figure out beforehand what numbering system the venue uses, e.g. the front row might be row 1 or row A or row AAA, and block B might be on the right at one venue but on the left in the next.



See above for the first question. As for the stage rush, you can rarely tell before if it's going to be allowed to happen or not, and if so, at what point in the show. Either way, front row guarantees you a pole position for the rush, and if it doesn't happen, at least you have a decent seat.



If you want to be near the front at seated shows, get tickets immediately. If it's a big GA, you can take a bit of time, though given that you have the money, why would you put it off (any longer than, say, until you get back from work)?



Have your credit card ready. Create an account at the ticketing websites in time (remember your passwords). Figure out if there's an English version of the website. If not, remember that most ticket websites work alike, so you'll figure it out anyway. In Italy, there are several different words that all mean GA standing, and if there are three shows in a row, they might use a different expression at each. In the Czech Republic, front area tickets are called 'stani i podio'. It might be very expensive to have tickets mailed to you from abroad. Most times it's possibly to pick them up from the venue box office on the day of the show though, so that's the cheaper option. Or maybe they have a "print at home" option.



People sell tickets on ebay all the time, so I don't think that's much of a problem. If you are at the venue already, look for 'tickets wanted' signs, or ask around the queue, or there may be ticket touts who buy them off you. Or give it to Freddie.



There is always a ticket. Again, ask around the queue, ask Freddie, check with the box office. Don't pay scalping prices unless it's a tiny club show or something and you absolutely want to go. Most of the time, face value (plus booking fees) is just fine, and most fans don't (and shouldn't) ask scalping prices from others.

I hope it's alright if I ask a question, too. There seems to be a recent trend to have personalized tickets (i.e. a concert ticket with your name on it) at many concerts. Thus, ticket companies want to prevent the reselling of tickets.

Does anyone of you know how this exactly works? I mean, they can't check the names of all concert-goers, right?

thank you very much for your really helpful answers!!!

and of course now i have to ask - who is freddie?





i don´t know exactly, but i have found these interesting articles on the topic (in german, but i know that you know german ): http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/perso ... -1.1033625
http://medienrecht-blog.com/2011/06/16/ ... r_tickets/

personally, i think that personalized tickets are a rather silly thing.

Yes, I don't like personalized tickets either and I'm glad that we don't have this rubbish at Dylan concerts.

Thanks for the links! So, they really check all concert-goers ... that's just ridiculous. I don't want to know how much money is wasted due to this approach. I mean, they need tons of people to check all the tickets, and those people need to get paid, too. Tickets would probably be cheaper without this dreck.

I've been to Bob shows with my name or somebody else's name on the ticket, and they never asked to see my ID.

Johanna, may I ask where that was? I've never heard about personalized Bob tickets, then again, I only go to Dylan shows in Germany / Austria.

I know I had one in Copenhagen, I think another one in Brussels, and probably others I don't recall now.

Hammersmith, London in November 2011 - my tickets had my (or another person's) name on it. They didn't verify ID though - just scanned the barcode.

I mean, if you pre-order two or more tickets, I think they'd all have your name, and not person X, Y, Z, etc?

Anyone else read DUI at first glance?

For the show in Carcassonne in 2010 the tickets went on sale in a local office 3 days before than on internet. Luckily I was an holidays and I was able to go there (about 200km from home) and buy two tickets. It was 5th row.

I think it was a good system, because is easier for the locals to have good tickets. It's... call it funny... when an artist comes near your home and someone in the other side of the world manage to have tickets and You don't. I guess it's interesting for the tourism business, but don't make much sense.

Yeah, you need real good friends to get good tickets sometimes. I was front row at Carcassonne, thanks to borisw and her network.

With regard to ticketpro.cz: Okay, as the tickets finally arrived this morning I can say that the deal with this Czech company was trouble-free as well. Apart from the high shipping costs, everything was perfect.

There's always a ticket. Never let it get the best of you.

This may sound risky to some but if you are not happy with your initial result in the pre-sale, throw it back and try again. You may not always get a better seat but sometime you win big. For example, my first shot at a ticket for last year's concert in Nashville landed me a 10th row seat. I kept tossing seats back and ended up with front row. If you decide to use this method you do need to be fast and know when to quit.

Yeah, like if you get front row like Jinxy here, don't keep trying to make it on to the stage. Take the risk and hold.

Well obviously that's a rare example. I was just saying that if it looks like you're getting a good seat and the throw-backs don't get better, take what you're happy with. You can move up a little bit by throwing back but don't expect front row by any means. If they keep giving you decent seats without giving you worse seats, then just know when you want to quit "gaming."

Keep it simple, keep the faith and don't give in to unnecessary pressure. Always tix available.