Important presale announcement on policetour message board

[ceebab]

"Hi All,

We've been reading your complaints and comments and have been busy behind the scenes trying to come up with a solution that would benefit everyone. This week Ticketmaster bundle sales will start on Thursday at noon local time, 24 hours after existing Fan Club members have their chance.

With this being said, anyone who has received a refund will need to come back and join if they want access to the first presale window. Anyone who has requested a refund will receive an email from us with these new details.

I would also like to explain the original intent of the Ticketmaster bundle presales so you may have better understanding of where we are coming from. It's important for everyone to note that by joining this fan club doesn't guarantee you seats. Although we have plenty of great seats available in all price levels during the presale, it would be unfair and unrealistic for us to promise that everyone will receive tickets, especially for a tour with this much magnitude. If you are joining the fan club just for tickets it's a gamble, so the idea behind the bundle is to allow fans to see what tickets are available BEFORE they pay for their membership. It's sort of the risk free way to join. We tried to make this a clear choice before you joined the site with our messaging.

The simple reasoning behind the bundle method was just another option to buy tickets which we thought was fan friendly, however there were legitimate concerns that surfaced after the fact and we did our best to address them.

Anyway, we hope this is a step in the right direction. Please stayed tuned for future details on how the Ticketmaster bundle option will evolve for future presales.

Good luck everyone!

Cheers,

- Jeff
thepolicetour.com "

[cpriddims]

Questions (to further clarify):

1. Do I have a better/equal/random chance of getting seats as a Police fan club member compared to being a Best Buy Rewards member?

2. Will there really be more computer steps for me as a fan club member to get seats than if I waited to add membership at the time of purchase?

3. Are the seat bundles for Police Fan Club members better/same/not as good as the Best Buy reward members? If same, this would mean that the Best Buy will always get the best choice seats.

4. Would you generally recommend the Best Buy route for the best seats or for the best chance to get seats?

Thanks for your help on this. Your time is appreciated by all of us!

[jedsoon]

Thanks for keeping us "outsiders" up to date, ceebab!

[ceebab]

Let me make clear that I do not represent the website or the Police in any way. My answers will be as informed as I am... considering I'm obsessive, that's actually not too bad.

[quote="cpriddims"]Questions:

1. Do I have a better/equal/random chance of getting seats as a Police fan club member compared to being a Best Buy member?

If you joined Best Buy Rewards before 2/1/07, you would be eligible for their presale. The Best Buy presale is 24 hours before the fan club presale, but the allocation seems to be very small. (Based on experiences of people who have Best Buy Rewards and have posted what happened with them today.) However, the seats do seem to be good, from what I have heard.

The Police fan club does not say what their allocations are, but they imply that there are many seats in all price ranges available. We'll get a better idea from reports that will come in tomorrow.

The other difference is with Best Buy you are limited to 2 seats, Police club is 4.

2. Will there really be more computer steps for me as a fan club member to get seats than if I added membership at the time of purchase?

That no longer matters. If you read the above message closely, the people who join through the website get to participate in tomorrow's presale. People who want to see their seats and then join via ticketmaster will now have to wait 24 hours, meaning noon on Thursday.

3. Are the seat bundles for Police Fan Club members better/same/not as good as the Best Buy reward members? If same, this would mean that the Best Buy will always get the best choice seats.

We don't know this yet. No one is officially saying, and we don't have the fan club presale experience to judge by yet. Everyone should know more after tomorrow's presale.

4. Would you generally reccommend the Best Buy route for the best seats or for the best chance to get seats?

Only if you joined on time (by 2/1) and are not betting everything on getting Best Buy tickets. They seem to have run out rather quickly today. If you have Best Buy rewards, I say pick your show and give it a shot, but have the fan club membership as a backup or be willing to try general/public sales or the ticketmaster auctions.

Thanks for your help on this. Your time is appreciated by all of us![/quote][b][/b]

Again, these are my opinions. I try to stay informed, but I have NO inside information of any kind.

[ceebab]

Just wanted to add....

It is NOT a good idea to buy Best Buy codes on ebay. I know of at least one person who got burned by a fraudulent seller this way. You really have no way of confirming whether the code is real or not until you try to use it, and by then they already have your money.

[cpriddims]

Either way, thanks for your time!

[sockii]

>The other difference is with Best Buy you are limited to 2 seats,
>Police club is 4.

I suppose I should wade through their boards to get the answer to this, but just wondering if anyone here knew how this would work.

Say I want to get 4 tickets through the fanclub for the date. Maybe only 2 of the people I'm going with want the $225 tickets, the other two want $90 tickets. Will I be able to (at least try) to go in, buy 2 $225 tickets, then use my same password to try for $90? Can we buy 4 tickets individually, or do we have to go for them all in one block?

I'm just curious as this will affect how I try for tickets ... I guess maybe we'll get some answers after the MSG presale today (and good luck to any of you trying for it!)

[Kim]

Sockii,

The presale code gives you one chance to buy up to 4 tickets in one transaction. I've never tried to buy 4 tickets at 2 prices in one transaction on Ticketmaster so I don't know if it is possible, but if it is, it should work. If you have to do 2 transactions then you can't use your code again for the 2nd transaction. You can only use the code once and if you only buy 2 tickets with it you can't use it again to buy 2 more. Did that help?

[Stephen]

I hate it when they change the rules at the last minute.

I was looking forward to seeing if I could get tickets in the presale before committing $100 to be a "Police Fan". I'm guessing they figured out they could make more money by selling fan club memberships with no guarantees of presale tickets.

[Bob from NJ]

So just to be sure, if someone can answer...

This rules change means that if you don't have a Police Fan Club code, you can't try to buy tickets today at ticketmaster with the option of buying a PFC membership at time of purchase?

[ceebab]

Yes, but you still have no risk. The original system was unfair to people who signed up for membership ahead of time because there were more steps to get to choose seats.

Since you are interested in the fan club primarily for getting presales, you can still do that with no risk that you won't get tickets.

However, if we wanted to join the club ahead of time and have full access, we shouldn't be penalized. We paid our money without knowing for sure we would actually get tickets in the presale, so I think it's very fair to do it this way.

[ceebab]

[quote="Bob from NJ"]So just to be sure, if someone can answer...

This rules change means that if you don't have a Police Fan Club code, you can't try to buy tickets today at ticketmaster with the option of buying a PFC membership at time of purchase?[/quote]

Right, if you read the announcement, it says that you won't be able to go directly through TM until noon tomorrow.

[bella]

I'm about to cry. I was just on the police site and read the news about this ticketmaster bundle and I am still confused. I have no idea what this means while everyone else is sitting there thanking them. Am I totally stupid, or what? Can someone explain this more clearly to me?

[ceebab]

Ok bella...

Have you already paid the money through the Policetour website?

If you have, then you can participate in today's presale at noon.

If you have not paid through the Policetour website, you can still participate in the presale through Ticketmaster, but not until noon tomorrow. If you go through Ticketmaster, you pay for the fan club membership after you know you will get tickets, and then in a week or 2 you get full access to the policetour website.

Does this help? If not, let me know which part is still confusing and I will try to explain better.

[bella]

Thank you for responding, ceebab. I do have a membership but I'm not purchasing tickets today as I am waiting for more dates to be announced in the Philly and DC/BALT areas (crosses fingers and toes). I just felt like I needed to get all my ducks in a row now so I didn't have to worry about figuring out the whole process when (hopefully) the time comes for me to buy tickets.

I just went to the police messageboard and I feel like I'm back in college cramming for an exam! I read and read and read until I realized what the heck this was all about. I didn't know that just yesterday people were freaking out about what was going on with the ticketmaster fiasco. So, when I orginally read today's update it made no sense to me.

To maker matters worse, I had purchased my police membership before realizing that I didn't have to since I had a sting.com membership and went through all that crap.

Whew...This is a stressfull business being a rock groupie, I tell ya. Thanks again!