Next tour's tickets

[zitherglow]

Anyone else disturbed by paul's attempt to cash in on the fans thru the very medium he ripped into in his address last month?

"Speaking about McGuinness, he said: "He accused the heroes of Silicon Valley of being manufacturers of burglary kits. However, when I later had a drink with Paul and asked him about the secondary ticket market, he told me that U2 would run its own auction site."

the full article is available here: atu2.com/news/article.src?ID=4922

Personally, this kind of ticket auctioning scares me.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

other acts have done it through ticketbastard... i don't like it at all.

i understand why artists would want to get a piece of the outlandish prices that tickets go for on the secondary market, but i would hope that they would go by a more fan friendly approach as opposed to the ticket auction style.

most people don't like to buy ticketfast tickets because they don't trust them... so make all tickets HAVE to be ticketfast. that'll drive the secondary market price down.

all GA and certain 100 level tickets MUST be will call, thus they can't be sold in the secondary market.

off site pickup for fan club tickets day of the show, similar to how pearl jam operates their 10 club. scalpers will be less likely to sign up to the fan club to get good seats if they have to pick them up in person the day of the show.

 

[martha]

I'm going to wait for confirmation on this before I bunch up my panties.

 

[corianderstem]

I'm going to wait for confirmation on this before I bunch up my panties.

Ditto this. Although my panties are at the ready, just in case.

 

[Morgoth321]

Oh, I'm sure it'll turn out to be entirely true. Hell, why don't they see if it's possible to alienate all but the very rich fans by using auctions exclusively for the entire tour? The thing is, with the current arrangements, U2 (and Paul McG) are still getting paid, since someone does actually pay face value for the tickets at some point - so they do get their cut, right? Yet still they want more and more money. Much as I love this band, I wish they'd realise that many of their fans find it hard to afford to go to even one concert per tour. For Vertigo Dublin, it cost me £150 (about $300) for two tickets from a seller who could've charged me an awful lot more - I paid only £30 above overall face value. That was a lot of money for me. If it came down to participating in a shameful auction or feeding my family, I know that I'd have to miss out on the concert.

I would also hope that any future auctions would be for only a tiny proportion of available tickets - maybe for backstage packages, meet and greets etc?

 

[last unicorn]

This article is coming from the Irish Independent, a newspaper not exactly known for being too kind to U2. There were a lot of nasty stories about the band in recent months, just some bored writers trying to be smart. Personally, I don't agree with everything Paul said in his infamous speech or with everything the band does, but sorry, THIS story sounds a little far fetched for me. I feel sorry for fans who are so anxious to jump at every crap article written about the band.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Ditto this. Although my panties are at the ready, just in case.

 

[zitherglow]

With all due respect, I'm not looking for you pity. I'm simply asking for a discussion on a very likely possibility that the band decides to enter the secondary ticket market. This is a widespread trend that almost every act of U2's caliber is currently using. Furthermore, this article is only one of several that quotes Harvey Goldsmith as stating paul's intentions. I'm not quoting the media outlet, I'm referencing Goldsmith's very own intro to his keynote. The media outlet is irrelevant.

 

[nathan1977]

I think we can chalk this up alongside McGuiness talking about iTunes having each U2 concert available for download shortly after the show.

Gassing in an Irish pub ain't exactly news.