BWU2Buffs said:
As posted in a similar thread, a fan website is more likely to consist of die-hard and very engaged fans and is not a representative sample of the ticket holding public, and might not even represent the GA ticket holding population very well either. Isn’t it fair to assume that a decent to significant sized percentage of GA ticket holders never visits a fan website for whatever reason; and how could you prove it one way or another?
My instincts are that the only way to fairly and accurately measure the fan response to the lottery system is ask a randomly selected sample of GA ticket holders a series of questions about the lottery system. Some would be U2.com members, some Prop members, some without any fan club affiliations.
Yes, having a real survey of GA ticket holders would be the best way to get an accurate picture.
That being said, I believe that the opinion on the boards is relatively representative of GA ticket holders who care, without being anything scientific of course.
Simply put, there are 4 ways to get GA tickets, the most coveted of all, for as show popular as U2. These are all assumptions of course, but I think they are reasonable.
1.Being a U2.com member and buying tickets during the pre-sale
2. Being really motivated and organized for the general sale: lining up at an outlets super early, having 5 friends on the phone, knowing the ins and outs of buying tix on the net as quick as possible, and so on
3.Paying extra money to a scalper or broker
4. Having connections in showbusiness: production, radio, ticketing, publicity, etc.
5. Being extremely lucky.
Number 1 and 2 probably make up for at most of GA ticket holders, and could be classified as 'hard-core' fans, like most of us here: going to a U2 show is very high on their priority list, they're willing to make more efforts than most concertgoers to get tickets, etc.
Number 3 is probably a mix of serious fans and people with money.
Number 4 is made up mostly of people who probably like U2 quite a bit, but will show up close to showtime and don`t care all that much about GA policy or where they end up.
Number 5 is made of any kind of people, but probably constitute about 5% of all GA ticket holders.
So what's the conclusion? Because of the difficulty in getting GA tickets, most people who got them are probably either pretty hard-core fans, MANY of which spend at least some time on the boards, or people who probably don't care about whatever GA policy there is.
Is a fan website more likely to represent the opinion fo hard-core U2 fans? Of course, but I think those people make most of the crowd who has GA tickets AND has an opinion or cares about GA policy.