Now, I've purchased a lot of tickets in my life; in fact, one might say I'm a ticket buying expert. I've been through all the phases of this dreaded event, from camping outside to physical in person lotteries to online purchases to scalpers, and so on. I think I've seen it all. What I've never seen, however, is the below.
I made a point to jump onto Ticketmaster a half hour early this time around, mainly since they tend to open ticket buying lobbies earlier than the posted time, something I personally think is completely bogus but probably helps prevent the website from crashing. The lobby opened at the fifteen minute mark, I had to validate my account which admittedly took longer than I would have liked, and then I sat idle in the lobby for the next 15 minutes. When the buzzer finally went off to say that ticket buying was live, I got this message: "You are now in the queue...23,130 people ahead of you".
I'm sorry...what?! 23k people are ahead of me?! This defies all belief. How is that even possible?? I had to do a double and triple take, mainly because I've never seen a number that high in my life in a lobby and, well, my eyesight isn't good. But yes, it DID say 23,130, and I could only sit there and scratch my head. Prior to this, I thought being number 1,000 was bad...but 23k?!
As you can probably imagine, I didn't end up buying any tickets. To add insult to injury, the only tickets that were available that I would be interested in seemed to be $1250 - $1450...per seat. Um...? Nothing like spending a mortgage payment or two to see a show at the Bowl.
So, let's back up... This WHOLE bs via ticketing agencies was all about scalpers, etc. The agencies and the artists wanted to cut back on scalping, especially back in the day when there were literal "ticket brokers" in business doing this sort of thing. The solution the agencies evidently came up with was jacking up prices so that only the super rich will actually be able to buy tickets, and also allowing every average joe the opportunity to buy and then sell tickets at a profit, in essence taking the scalper problem from 10% of the market and making it 60%. Yes, folks, this is the world we live in...and even weirder no one seems upset about it.
Now, I don't blame Joni, mind you, since I doubt the 80 year old has anything to do with ticketing whatsoever. Still, I think it's time for us to say as a society that enough is a enough. I say just say 'no'. Sorry, Joni, but it t'ain't worth it.
Meanwhile, I'm still sitting in the lobby...and I now have only 19,510 people in front of me. Hmph.
