STEWART COPELAND

Leonard Cohen ticket fiasco...fans redirected to sister site with inflated prices:
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Calga ... story.html

Cripes. Why exactly this BS is allowed to continue, I'll never guess.

Limit 4, Will Call, Require ID to pick up tickets...that's how Tom Waits ensured his show sales would be handled, and that's how it was done. Got second row in Atlanta. Amazingly smooth process, pickup was divided by last name and was a matter of minutes, and there you go...

For a venue of 1800, a general FFA sale with no ticket limits was ridiculous...Leonard Cohen fans, count me among them, should be pissed.

Wait until the Merger happens...the sky will be the limit, then!

[quote="Divemistress of the Dark"]Cripes. Why exactly this BS is allowed to continue, I'll never guess.[/quote]

It's because people are still willing to line up and fork over the cash. Why would they stop the gouging?

If no one bought the tickets, then they wouldn't be able to continue this form of theft.

No law suit is going to change anything. They can adapt to any court ruling handed down. Only when you hit them in the wallet, will they start to give a shit.

If a sports team owner has a shitty team, but the seats are full every night, what incentive is there for the owner to do anything to improve the product? But if the home team is playing in front of empty seats every night costing ownership money, you bet your backside they'd want to aquire a winning team.

I guess what I'm saying is BOYCOTT CONCERTS until this sad scenario changes. Ya, missing a band you like a lot is going to hurt, but that's what it's gonna take to stop the ticketing madness. Don't worry, your fave band won't starve; there's lots of other ways to support a band other than purchasing concert tickets.

Well, it's a bummer that artists can't even seem to exact much pressure on them. Check out Stone Gossard's testimony on what happened when Pearl Jam tried to avoid Ticketbastard...

http://www.fivehorizons.com/archive/art ... imon.shtml

Yesterday Ontario's Attorney General announced he was investigating TicketMaster due to the Leonard Cohen concert situation and numerous consumer complaints about the ticketing of other events. This has been fairly big news here for sometime and the media is following it very closely. At least awareness has been raised and I guess that's a start.

It's too bad about the Leonard Cohen ticket fiasco. Thanks for the links, D-A-O & Dive. I give Pearl Jam kudos for giving it a shot.

Got this email today from Vile Nation:
Live Nation Premium Access Programs give you the music you love, premium seat access, and VIP benefits you want. A variety of Ticket Programs are available including VIP Box Seats and Season Packages - all in the best locations for the best sights and sounds.

Enjoy today's hottest live performances, and the best in services and perks at every show! VIP Box Seats and Season Tickets are limited, so act fast! Click below for more info or call
1-888-MY-LN-TIX.
http://promo.livenation.com/vip/?c=dm-1 ... p=12725763

So in other words, not only are they gonna protect you from scalpers, they're gonna charge you even more for the possibility you even *might* be able to beat the scalpers. Sigh.

Oh, btw - we're talking about this some in the 'Pearl Jam cover of DTT' thread, also....

Ugh.

I don't understand the business model at all. Surely if a merger is under investigation, the corporations involved should be doing their level best to demonstrate their fair business practices, rather trying to make a quick buck, then fending off the consequential legal challenges across north america?

(There's a U2 pre-sale snafu on the horizon as well. u2.com has choked on renewals/new subs, so some members don't have access to the site - and the worry is, therefore no pre-sale code. The thought of vilenation or ticketbastard 'administering' those sales on top of that....yikes.)

Harvey Goldsmith slightly misses the point. He seems to be talking about 'independent' touts - we're now dealing with corporate touts:

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.htm ... page_id=34

But he's a big cheese over here. I'm working on a meeting with my elected representative about this issue (in the grand scheme of things at the moment, this is trivial, but I'm guessing vilenation and ticketbastard are betting on that as well). I'd be hugely grateful for any links anyone has to reports of nefarious practice, from anywhere in the world. (Email address is below).

Smudge - yes the redesigned U2 FC site has been a MESS!! People are seriously concerned because if LV or FanFire or whoever it is can't even figure out how to let people register emails or usernames with NUMBERS in them, how can they successfully run U2 craziness pre-sales and regular sales.

Thank goodness I finally got my membership to work on the new site. But I'm still not sure if I'm eligible for presales as my renewal date is now all fuckered up.

[quote="OutlandoGirl"]Smudge - yes the redesigned U2 FC site has been a MESS!! People are seriously concerned because if LV or FanFire or whoever it is can't even figure out how to let people register emails or usernames with NUMBERS in them, how can they successfully run U2 craziness pre-sales and regular sales.[/quote]

The people running that site win top prize in both the inane and ironic categories. They can't handle names or e-mails with numbers in them yet they are attempting to run a site for a band whose name is 50% number. I suppose they also get all tripped up if somebody has a capital U in their name or e-mail address.