Arcade Fire Tour, Ticket Agencies Crash

Anyone manage to get Arcade Fire tickets this morning? I sure hope so cause they’re pretty much the best live band I’ve ever seen. We’ve scored a pair for both nights in Manchester but the whole experience left me fuming, not ecstatic.

This morning at about 8:50am I set out to find out who was selling tickets. The Ledge was going to try and get tickets for March 8 at the Manchester Apollo and I was meant to try for tickets for the following night, March 9. Ticketline had them “on sale soon,” Ticketmaster had them “on sale Friday at 9:00am, More info here” and See Tickets was producing an error message saying the server was busy, please come back later. At 9:00am Ticketline crashed and I was getting a “cannot contact site” page error. Ticketmaster was showing the tickets as on sale but everytime I tried to order I was told there were no tickets available for that event – making it appear sold out. I knew that could not be possible so I kept trying. At about 9:12am I was told they could sell me two seated tickets (crap seats as well), and as I was at work and did not want to risk losing tickets altogether and as Ticketmaster claimed they were the “Best Available” I purchased them. I received an email from The Ledge as I was doing this saying he had managed to get 2 tickets for the gig on the 8th, also really poor seats, and that it had only taken him 2 tries – so make that what 9:05am and already all the standing tickets and half the seats had gone?

What I want to know is, why does this happen every time a popular gig goes on sale? Inevitably, as the tickets go on sale not a single online ticket seller can cope with demand and their sites crash. Now, probably everybody does what I do which is open three windows and buy from whoever delivers the goods first. This means every person trying to buy tickets has at least 3 sites, so they’re all getting the same huge volume of traffic. But, if they were all reliable and did not crash, then I wouldn’t try all three at once, I’d only go to the one I preferred. For some reason, however, despite the fact that this situation probably occurs once a week, at least, these sites, who charge outrageous amounts of money for the privilege of using them, can’t manage to up their bandwidth. You’d think they could cut some sort of deal with their hosting company to give them enough bandwidth to cope with for a couple of hours around the sale of major events. By not doing so, they not only anger and frustrate customers, but they pretty much show their complete disdain for their customers – much like when they don’t really actively pursue touts on auction sites since they can’t be bothered to make the effort since profit is profit.

Since this morning, there are already tickets up on eBay at outrageous prices and companies such as TicketTout.net are selling the tickets at between 4 and 9 times the face value. Do a Google search for “TicketTout” and look at the reviews people are writing about them all over the internet.

What still floors me is that this shoddy service is allowed to continue. Ticket agencies can add whatever surcharges they want onto tickets – The Ledge paid £2.75 this morning for the privilege of printing off his own ticket at home using his own paper and printer ink. Touting is legal as re-seller agencies are allowed to buy up hundreds of tickets for even small-ish gigs to resell at outrageous prices, and auction sites are perfectly happy with their members doing the same. If it is illegal for sporting events, why is this not illegal for all events? It’s just as much a problem and a pain for music fans as for sports fans, and it’s just as lucrative an industry.

Sadly, we remain in the same position as ever, which is either deal with the industry as it stands or stop going to gigs. You can, however, sign an e-petition to make ticket touting illegal on the government’s website.

As ever, if you didn’t manage to get tickets this morning, don’t go to eBay, try Scarlet Mist.

4 Responses to “Arcade Fire Tour, Ticket Agencies Crash”

  • Michael Says:

    I tried get tickets for the Arctic monkeys Manchester only to find its sold out its a nightmare trying to get tickets at 9.00 pm in the and then being late for work. So i choose to buy my tickets from a broker online findtimetickets.com called which cost extra but it takes the had work out of going though all the usuall proplems who i,ve used in the passed and found reilable, i guest some people have had a bad experience but you just have to choose a broker who you have delt with before our be one of the lucky people who manage to get the tickets they want when they go on sale.

  • JustHipper Says:

    Michael, you are a scumsucking shitbag of a tout. If I’d realised this comment was even here, I’d have deleted it long ago. If you *ever* come back and use this blog to flog your unreliable cowboy outfit I will make it my personal mission to make sure that you and your fucktarded mates at Findmetickets get not only shut down, but publicly humiliated as it happens.

    (To anybody reading this, Michael felt the need to post a link which I deleted to his cocknosed touting firm, one of those outed by Sir Trevor McDonald in an expose recently for selling tickets they do not have to suckers at outrageous prices and then leaving them waiting outside the doors of gigs for a fuckbag that is never going to show up waiting for tickets that never existed for which money was taken anyway.)

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