ruffian said:
Yes, I've gotten GAs from a ticket drop. In Chicago last leg of the tour the box office opened at 11 and tickets dropped around 12:30 one day and not till 3:30 another day. I was able to get GAs, and so were lots of other people. I got in the box office line for Chicago at about 7 a.m.
In New Jersey tickets did not drop till 7:00pm and no GAs were ever released. That city seemed to be anomaly--in most other cities tickets drop in the late afternoon, and GAs are available for most shows (even MSG)--but they were limited). The biggest problem is scalpers getting in line ahead of you. Be sure to confirm at the ticket window they are enforcing how many tickets people can buy...and it's helpful to have security be aware that you are in a line for the box office and that there is a numbering system. One scalper in Chicago told me "to hell with this line--when the windows open I'll just push you out of the way." I got a nice security guard to kick him out of line after that
The ticket drop for NJ1 (Vertigo Tour) actually occurred online the night before the first show. TONS of ppl purchased GA's for that show. I'd even guess about 100 total GA's.
As for the last NJ show on the Elevation Tour, at least one person was able to get a GA at the venue after the ticket booth opened at about 6:30 pm.
Additionally, there were GA's available all day for Philly1. It's possible that Philly1 GA's were still available even after U2 took the stage (one person said he purchased a GA at 8:30 for philly1).
Anaheim GA's were dropped online on the Tuesday before the show. Not that many though.
Denver GA's were available by the bushel about two weeks before the show.
Glendale had tons of excellent lower level tix dropped about two days before the shows. They were still available up until TM stopped selling and the venue took over. (My guess is that the demand for U2 in Glendale wasn't as high so that ppl would spend $180 per ticket. Also, Glendale was the cheapest ticket on ebay.)
Boston barely had a ticket drop online, from my understanding.
Chicago had tons of GA's available for Chi2 and Chi3 (yes, the shows that were taped!) online the night of the first Chicago show and second Chicago show. Chicago1 and Chicago4 had some GA's dropped at the venue only. Not many.
Well that's off the top of my head, and mostly limited to what I saw on ticketmaster!