D.darroch and bonocomet - thanks for sharing your experiences! Wow, two very different experiences though - so I guess you're right and it all depends on how high demand the show is as to how cruisey it will be! I'm guessing Sydney would be considered high demand too.. do you think? So 8-9am would be the go??? I guess I'd love to get on the rail because I'm really short, but it's good to know you could still get 2nd row if you arrived later!
I realise 300 people per red zone is obviously not too many in comparison to the inner circle, but having never done GA, it still sounds like a lot! Do you know roughly how many people they squeeze into the inner circle? Would be good to have a rough comparison to work with!
From memory I think the figure thrown around for the inner circle by most people is 1,500-2,000 people. The crowd density for the inner circle is double that of RZ.
In general, I'd say demand to see U2 in the US is a fair bit higher than in oz. GA's in the presales in the US could be quite hard to come by. For the Boots presale in Vegas, all GA's were gone within 30 mins (with the site crashing for most of that time). Most people on interference seemed to miss out. Here you can still purchase GA's to all of the shows days after the presale has begun!
Back in '06 I lined up from around 7-8am for both the Sydney Vertigo shows I saw. From memory I was 30-50th in line. For show 1 this got me front of stage, centre, about 4 rows back (after a lot of queue jumping by people throughout the day). For show 2, I was on the rail of Adam's b-stage, a great spot.
For the Rose Bowl we were told no camping & no arrivals before 8am. It turned out with that same 8am arrival time I ended up 400th in line! Then, later in the day, that line turned into a stampede.
The Rose Bowl was an EXCEPTIONALLY high demand concert. It was the only show in Los Angeles, the US's 2nd largest city (with an urban population of 15 million people!). Plus everyone wanted to be at that show, due to the filming of the DVD & the live you tube webcast.
So don't expect this in Sydney. Yeah, it'll be a high demand Aussie show. There will be hundreds & hundreds of people waiting by the time gates open. But it won't be the tousands & thousands of people the Rose Bowl experienced.
Also, a heads up, ANZ stadium is surrounded by concrete pavers, which were absolutely cooking during the GA lines back in November '06 (it was unseasonably warm from memory). The 2 gates used for GA faced N & W. So one was in the sun all day, & the other from about 10-11am. The GA line was a very draining experience!
But with RZ you can skip most of that.
There are plenty of people who say don't line up for hours in GA it's not worth it. They say, what's the deal with spending 4 hours, just to get 4m closer. I'm short, being on that rail makes a huge difference (ok, I'm a rail whore). I've camped overnight in Vancouver, in 2 degree C weather (with no tent, no sleeping bag, no mat), & was blessed with being 1st into the inner circle (from Edge's side), & a spot right below Bono's mic. I've spent plenty of days waiting in line, in Sydney, the US, Slane.
So don't get me wrong, I love spending time in GA lines, meeting new friends. But don't feel you need to line up all day, to get the rail, a great spot in RZ, or even an amazing spot! I'm guessing a midday arrival will put you 1st in line (or very close to it), 2pm will get you an amazing spot on the rail (as should 3pm). Of course there's no telling how the Aussie crowd will react to RZ. I have to admit I'm very suprised to see the presale RZ allocations sell out, while there's still GA's available to all shows.
Here's a few photos taken at the Phoenix show (low demand). These are taken side on (Edge's side), with RZ 1 in the foreground. I left RZ to take these, it's chilled, you can easily go for food/drinks, the bathroom, or just go for a wander. Looking at the EXIF data of the shots they were all taken right on 6pm (about an hour after they let us in). I'd say the RZ contains about 50 people, with only the front half (the best half) of the rail taken. While the inner circle is getting close to jammed, & the outer circle is over 10 deep.
I don't mean to be a downer. If you want to experience a day in a GA line, go for it, it's a great experience. But if you're thinking about arriving early only because you feel it's going to be necessary to secure a good spot, or if the weather's no great, I'd probably arrive some time in the early afternoon.
