It still doesn't feel right.
I'll keep bringing up NIN's method because it was so wonderful. For no extra fee, anyone who wanted presale tickets (including general admission) simply registered with the site and participated in the presale (run through the NIN site, not Ticketmaster. Trent Reznor did some negotiating to gain special control over a portion of his tickets). Nobody who participated in the presale could pick up his or her tickets until the day of the event, at the event, and all tickets had the name of the ticketbuyer, so a valid ID was required for entrance. This prevented scalpers from doing anything at all, at no extra presale charge to fans. Also, the tickets, with our names engraved on them, made awesome souvenirs.
Thats great, but NIN is not a mega popular band like U2. The average U2 360 show playes to 69,800 people a night, around 15,000 of those with general admission tickets. The volume of people participating in these pre-sales is huge and makes the NIN system logistically unfeasable.
I was on Ticketmaster today at 10AM and two seconds. There were no GAs. In U2's system, the $50 fan club membership is all it takes to get early tickets. I'm happy for the 15,000 people who have tickets, but certainly won't quietly accept that the reason they have tickets and I don't is because they spent $50 earlier. I'm a fooking college kid in Michigan of all states, and U2 is coming to my campus! I know $50 isn't that much money, and I pay for things like XBOX Live without much complaint, but that's different because something like Live is a service I can and do use repeatedly, while the U2 fan club is simply a "get me tickets first" payment (please don't tell me that in the age of Youtube and Interference, people use u2.com for its content).
Look, when U2 first did the pre-sales in 2005 online, I tried to get General admission tickets in the
PRE-SALE and got nothing! I had the opporunity to buy other tickets in the upper level, but was shocked that was all that was available for the pre-sale. I thought my luck in the public sale would be better. Turns out, there were
NO tickets at all available for the public sale of the 1st Philadelphia show on the Vertigo Tour! All of the tickets for the Wacovia Center were soldout in the pre-sale!
So yes, that was a bit of a shock. U2 were criticized back then because anyone including scalpers could buy membership. Bottom line though, there was nothing the band could do about it.
4 years later, things are better now for fans that have maintained their membership each year. Fans get to purchase tickets in the pre-sale based on how long they have had their memberships, with those who have been members since the beginning being in the Horizon group.
Next, thanks to the band playing stadiums in North America this time, nearly all fan club members in North America are able to get the tickets they want. But if the band were playing arena's again, its likely that only the Horizon group, those who had maintained their membership since the beginning would be able to get what they want, especially the GA tickets.
I understand $50 dollars just for a membership seems like a lot but it works. Also realize that there other people who can't afford the minimum ticket price as well. It would be great if tickets were free, but at the end of the day this is a business and the band are trying to make a profit on the most expensive show in music history.
In my perfect (and bluntly selfish) world, U2 would do what NIN did and prioritize the most passionate fans, who refresh or beg a friend to refresh at 10AM, who hang out on forums like these, who commit, with IDs, to the show, and not merely prioritize the people who pay for early access and then can do whatever they want with their tickets. I'm not complaining that $50 is too much money...I'm complaining that money shouldn't be the only presale accessibility requirement.
The band studied every possible way of doing this given the size of the bands popularity, and this is the only way that was realistically possible given how large these shows are and the number of people attending.
I was a presale member for the Vertigo shows and I got my Detroit GA tickets through the presale. It was great that I had tickets, and the show (my first U2 show) certainly was one of the best days of my life (I still have the COBL confetti).
Thats great! As I said before, I was a fan club member then to and did the pre-sale and could not get any general admission tickets. I got a ticket to the second Philadelphia show through a friend. I got tickets to the rest of the shows I went to on Vertigo through friends, family or the public sale.
I didn't renew my membership because it'd be a waste of money for many years. I can see the intention behind rewarding longer members better tickets, but since a cancelled membership doesn't count, it's essentially a better reward for a better payment again.
Despite the fact that I did not get what I wanted in the pre-sale on Vertigo, I renewed. The price was still only $30 dollars, and they offered a concert CD and a T shirt. Each year as the price went up, I was able to renew at the same price in 2005 and get free CD's of rare stuff as well as clothing. Its a fantastic deal.
Now four years later, I'm in the Horizon group. If people had continued to renew their membership, they would not have to pay $50 dollars for membership per year.
Thanks for tolerating me. I'm bitter and wouldn't have said this if I had tickets right now. I feel bad polluting my school's topic with my rant. I'm confused because somehow my brother was able to get him and I Raleigh GAs at 10:05 back when they were on sale, and North Carolina is warmer and economically stabler than Michigan ever will be.
The show will be great and I'll be there.
I'm sure you will have fun and there are other options for getting GA.
At least there is lots of time before the show! You may all have luck yet.
