Archive | 12:43 pm

How’d You Do For Springsteen Tickets?

3 Feb

Ticketmaster  it isn’t just a NJ Problem is it?

I’ve always managed to buy great seats for hot shows at the Pepsi Center, including U2, Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen. This time I did poorly — pulled up some fair seats the moment they went on sale at 10 a.m., but then got kicked out of the site. By the time I pulled another pair there were nothing but 300-level behind-the-stage seats left. Various combinations came up, but nothing great.

Meanwhile, scalpers were already selling marked up seats at Ticketmaster’s own scalp-it-yourself site, TicketsNow. I couldn’t get two decent seats, but someone got a row of 8 right near the stage, selling them for $500 apiece. We’ll see how that works — the limit in that area was 4 tickets, so someone broke the rules. According to the TM site, orders will be checked for compliance before the tickets are shipped, so if that’s true some of those great seats could go back on the market in the coming days. Keep checking in at Ticketmaster.com.

So how’d you do?

  • February 2, 2009

    12:27 PM

    Mark Wolf writes:

    Caught a 12-minute delay. Wound up with two upper levels but with a decent view of the stage.

  • February 2, 2009

    12:32 PM

    Dave writes:

    I got shut out. Well, I could get 39 dollar seats in the nosebleeds. I would have loved losebleeds in front of the stage. Behind, I decided to skip it.

    This whole experience reminded me of the DMB shows at Red Rocks a few years back. Very frustrating. Actually, it’s more frustrating now because ticketmaster lets you see how the people are scalping them immediately, and they even link you to the site (so they can make more money).

  • February 2, 2009

    1:07 PM

    Mark_Brown writes:

    Where were those $39 nosebleeds? I got behind-the-stage nosebleeds in section 360 and they were still $65 each.

  • February 2, 2009

    1:45 PM

    jdiak writes:

    Denver – 2 GA and 2 in Section 104 – I don’t know if I should go GA for a chance at the pit or be happy and take the guaranteed seat.

    Philadelphia – 4/28 – Section 316 (upper level, side stage) 4/29 – Section 322 (upper level, behind stage)

    I have heard (and experienced) the alternative ticket sites for major on sales and I am gladly paying the Ticketmaster service charges in exchange for not dealing with Comcasttix, LiveNation, etc. These secondary sites simply cannot handle the volume Ticketmaster can and does.

    All tickets were in the top tier price range.

  • February 2, 2009

    2:14 PM

    GenBalthus writes:

    I’m glad you guys are going to see someone you really like, happy to see you got good tickets.

    Enjoy your show!

  • February 2, 2009

    2:17 PM

    Dave Falter writes:

    The 39 dollar tickets that popped up for me were in either 358 or 368 and were row 11. I closed out of them so fast to try to get better seats that I didn’t really examine them much.

    My second time into the system (without timing out) were really good behind-the-stage seats for the top dollar. But I chose not going over spending 100 dollars to look at Max Weinberg’s rear end.

    Those were my only two times of getting into the system. Otherwise, I sat around and waited for a boot.

  • February 2, 2009

    2:45 PM

    calvinbrodus writes:

    I called at 10:00am and secured 3 tix in section 112. The pit was available, but I’m taking my dad with me and he can’t handle fighting to keep his spot for 2+ hours. If it weren’t for Dadio, I would have been all those pit tix. Section 112 still ran me $95 face, $115 after fees. Ticketmaster will have a special place in hell for allowing scalpers to rip people off through their own website. SUPER WEAK, even by ticketmaster standards. Hey little girl is your daddy home?

  • February 2, 2009

    3:23 PM

    Mark_Brown writes:

    Agree about Ticketmaster — it is beyond frustrating that they’re legitimizing and promoting scalping so that they can collect a 15% fee on top of the service charges they already made off the initial sale of the tickets. They sell a ticket for $95 and add $20 in fees on top of it. That ticket resells for $500 and they get another $75.

  • February 2, 2009

    3:55 PM

    Glenn writes:

    No problems finding tickets, was in and out by 10:05. You can still find $95 tix, by the way, (just did a search for 2) although we went with two $39 tickets, which really shouldn’t come up to $110 with the fees. I know that’s the nature of the business with Ticketmaster and their “convenience” fees. I did some searches afterward and was able to find pairs in all price ranges as of 10:45

  • February 2, 2009

    3:58 PM

    Glenn writes:

    The $39 we ended up with are 370, row 10 (behind the stage and off to the side), the other $39 I was offered later when searching was 358, row 15 (directly behind the stage)

  • February 2, 2009

    4:03 PM

    BoulderEagle writes:

    Were there any front of stage cheap seats? I tried to get 2, but all I was offered was behind the stage seating for approx. $110 a ticket.

    If it costs $110 each to be in the 300 level behind the stage, where are the cheap seats–in the parking lot?

    Here’s another question–with the Boss and Dead selling so many tickets (either directly or through Tickets Now) at way beyond face value, how does a second show ever get added? Will The Dead add another show even if they have 3000 $400 tickets left for the 1st show?

  • February 2, 2009

    5:00 PM

    storchfamily writes:

    8 hours after the sale 12% to 15% of the house is up for resale!

    Stub Hub 421 Ticket Listing that represents at least 1200 tickets
    Ticketmaster scalp site 841 tickets
    Craigs List another 70 or so listing for who knows how many Springsteen tickets?
    These days thanks to the Net Everybody’s a Scalper

    What happen to just buying what you need?

  • February 2, 2009

    5:17 PM

    Thin The Herd writes:

    $500 apiece for concert tickets?

    Must not be much need for a stimulus package, eh?

  • February 2, 2009

    8:18 PM

    Glenn writes:

    BoulderEagle…..the $110 for 2 tickets ARE the cheap seats. Behind the stage off to the side. $39/each, but add in all the fees, and it comes up to $110.

  • February 3, 2009

    5:26 AM

    IrishAngle writes:

    Got two for the July 11th gig at the RDS Dublin. €86 Euro Each (about $115). Tickets for that sold out in an hour and a seconfd concert next day has been added (as if that wasnt the plant all along… like last year)

  • February 3, 2009

    10:14 AM

    Mark_Brown writes:

    I guess it could have been worse:

    http://www.northjersey.com/entertainment/Ticketmaster_reaching_out_to_angry_fans.html

  • February 3, 2009

    12:08 PM

    Andrea M writes:

    Personally, I’d rather slit my wrists than see Springsteen, so why would I want to try? I feel sorry for you poor saps who actually ponied up to see a mediocre aging rockstar perform a greatest hits set purely for the money. Have fun getting beer spilled on you, dealing with other rude fans, and seeing some really bad dancing on stage and from your fellow fans.

    Adults just don’t know how to behave themselves at shows. It’s not one night of debauchery in Vegas, it’s a concert. I’ve found adults generally hassle venue workers, police, and fire personnel whose job it is to be there. They proceed to get wasted before the show then spill their beer all over you inside the venue, then if you’re a girl in a GA floor area like me, the guys think it’s okay to “accidentally” grope me. FYI guys, it’s not.

    I swear there should be an age cap on live music other than the Opera or Symphony.

  • February 3, 2009

    1:38 PM

    calvinbrodus writes:

    @Andrea M

    you mean people are drinking at a rock show?

    they may be dancing poorly?

    an elbow may brush against a boob in a sardine-tight area full of moving people?

    OH. MY. HEAVENS.

    it’s probably best that you aren’t going…because you sound L-A-M-E. and why all the hating on old people? i’m under 30 myself, so still young (and beautiful). but old folks have to right to rock out too. lighten up sister.

    Hey little girl is your daddy home?

  • February 3, 2009

    1:47 PM

    Taylor Ham writes:

    I got Springsteen tickets at Eventim (think ticketmaster Germany) in Germany for the Munich show for July 2 floor seats general admission I think 79 EUROs. There are still tickets on sale a week later- hell its probably cheaper to fly here and cath him then to pay a carpet-bagging scalpee. I saw Bruce last June is Dusseldorf and with general admission here its really easy to get right up front.

    • Congressman asks for investigation of Ticketmaster, TicketsNow over Springsteen

    3 Feb

    Hartford Courant.com

    By George Gombossy

     on February 3, 2009 2:44 PM

     

    PASCRELL SEEKS INVESTIGATION INTO TICKETMASTER BUSINESS PRACTICE WITH SUBSIDIARY, TICKETNOW

     Press release:

    WASHINGTON– U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-08) today requested that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)  and the Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division investigate Ticketmaster’s relationship with its subsidiary company, TicketsNow, following the company’s handling of ticket sales for the Bruce Springsteen tour that became available on Monday February 2.    

     Dear Chairman Kovacic:

     I am writing today to direct your attention to a potential conflict of interest regarding Ticketmaster and its affiliate company, TicketsNow.  This issue has been brought to my attention through constituent complaints and press reports regarding the online sale of Bruce Springsteen concerts tickets at the IZOD Center in New Jersey and other locations all across the country.

    As you know, Ticketmaster is a large ticket sales and distribution company that often serves as a venue’s sole ticketing agent.  A large percentage of their sales are made online through Ticketmaster.com.  In a recent effort expand its business Ticketmaster acquired TicketsNow, a website which specializes in the secondary, resale market for tickets. 

    When tickets for Bruce Springsteen’s new tour went on sale exclusively through Ticketmaster at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, February 2, 2009, scores of fans in New Jersey were met with technical difficulty on Ticketmaster.com that impaired them from making a purchase.  Thousands of others who were fortunate enough to get beyond the technical problems were informed that the shows were sold out. 

    Conspicuously placed on the same screen that informed fans of ticket unavailability was an alternative purchasing option from TicketsNow.com.  It offered the same tickets at a value marked up hundreds of dollars beyond their original face value.  

     I am troubled by how quickly tickets priced exponentially higher became available on the secondary market to thousands of rejected fans, many who also endured unfortunate technical problems on Ticketmaster.com. 

    I am concerned that the business affiliation between Ticketmaster and TicketsNow may represent a conflict of interest that is detrimental to the average fan.  There is a significant potential for abuse when one company is able to monopolize the primary market for a product and also directly manipulate, and profit from, the secondary market. 

     Additionally, the speed with which tickets were made available on Ticketmaster’s official resale affiliate site raises questions about whether TicketsNow brokers were given preferential treatment instead of competing on a level playing field with average consumers to purchase the tickets. 

     With so many families struggling in this economy, I am outraged by how expensive tickets to ball games, concerts and other shows have become.  I understand the economic principles that have driven up the cost of entertainment, but will not tolerate unjust business practices that put regular Americans at a disadvantage.     

     I respectfully request that your office investigate the relationship between Ticketmaster and TicketsNow to ensure that the procedure for purchasing tickets remains fair to the average consumer.  If you require any additional information or have any questions, please contact Arthur Mandel on my staff at (202) 225-5751.  I look forward to the favor of your reply.

    Sincerely,

    Bill Pascrell, Jr.

    Member of Congress

    Bruce Springsteen, Reader’s Comments, Izod Center

    3 Feb
    rnpruitt1965
    RN_Pruitt1965@yahoo.com
    76.100.209.66

    Hi everybody. I did score a ticket to the DC Verizon Center stop. I don’t think ticketmaster’s server / system was ready for the onslaught. I was all logged in, and at 10:00 AM the system froze. I was freaking out. I finally got to the window where you actually buy your tickets at about 10:09. By 10:35 the system was shunting you off to the tickets now site. I don’t really care for the entire “ticket broker” industry. It’s scalping legalized by a business license. A good resource, for those who don’t know, is Backstrets magazine’s website. Click on the BTX button (ticket exchange). There are extra tickets listed on that part of the site. Most people lisitng tickets just want to recoup what they paid for the tickets they’re offering.

    Bruce Springsteen, Reader’s Comments, Bonaroo Festival

    3 Feb
    art predator
    artpredator.wordpress.com
    gwendolynalley@yahoo.com
    75.35.237.169

    The Big Monkey my husband the Bruce fan was just saying he’d rather go to Bonaroo than Coachella–but since Coachella is the weekend following Bruce’s show in LA, I’m hoping Burce’s kids and Patty convince him to go play at Coachella–maybe sitting in with Conor Oberst, or Leonard Cohen, or hey, how about a duet with Paul McCartney?

    Springsteen’s Super Bowl commercial: a PSA for the Danny Fund

    3 Feb

    In a 30-second television spot, which aired during yesterday’s pre-game broadcast, Springsteen asks for your support of the Danny Fund, in honor of the late, great Danny Federici, which exists to fund research that will provide treatment and cures for melanoma. Bruce passes along a message from his old friend: “Be aware of the dangers of the sun. Take precautions and have yourself checked out regularly by a dermatologist.” Watch Bruce’s PSA below, and visit www.dannyfund.org. for more information and to make a donation.

    Bruce Springseen, Super Bowl Photo

    3 Feb

    chitlik1

    Bruce Springsteen, Victim of Wikipedia Hoaxers

    3 Feb

    Telegraph.co.UK

    Wikipedia hoaxers deface Bruce Springsteen’s entry as row over editing process worsens

    newswoaddc1By Claudine Beaumont
    Last Updated: 1:05PM GMT 03 Feb 2009

    Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone, has fallen foul of hoaxers again after the entry for American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen was defaced repeatedly during his performance at Sunday’s Superbowl.

    Over a five-minute period, the entry on Springsteen was edited by several users, who removed biographical information about the singer and replaced it instead with insulting messages. One edit read: “Bruce Springsteen. This guy kinda sucks,” while another read: “Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), nicknamed ‘The Boss’ is a FAG!”. The entry also appeared in Japanese before it was restored to its original version by a senior Wikipedia editor.

    It’s the latest in a string of embarrassing incidents for the website, which has prompted its co-founder, Jimmy Wales, to seek a review of the rules governing the editing of entries.

    He has recommended that editing the profile of a living person should become a two-stage process, with anyone still able to make a revision to that individual’s Wikipedia page, but a senior editor having to approve the post before the changes go live.

    The change in policy was prompted in part by recent embarrassing edits to the profile pages of Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd, who were both taken ill at a dinner to celebrate the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Wikipedia entries for both men were erroneously edited to suggest they had died.

    Wales was left red-faced by the changes, and vowed to look again at Wikipedia’s free-for-all editing process. “This sort of nonsense would have been 100 per cent prevented by flagged revisions,” he said.

    Wikipedia, which was launched in January 2001, was founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, with the aim of becoming an online encyclopedia that could be written and run by the internet community.

    It has since gone on to become one of the 10 most-visited sites on the web, but its popularity has also led to increasing levels of ‘vandalism’ as web users deface entries and inaccurately amend facts. Several famous people have erroneously been declared dead by the website, including Apple’s founder Steve Jobs and talk show host Oprah Winfrey. For almost two months, an entry about Margaret Thatcher implied that the former prime minister was a fictitious person, while Wikipedia also reported that gardener-turned-author Alan Titchmarsh was writing a new version of the Karma Sutra.

    Despite growing concerns about the amount of foul play taking place on Wikipedia, researchers at the University of Minnesota estimate that the chances of a visitor seeing a defaced or vandalised entry on the site was about one in 140. It also found that defaced entries were usually cleaned up and corrected within three minutes of a malicious edit taking place.

    Jimmy Wales’s proposed changes have been met with anger from some members of the Wikipedia community. One user of the site said the suggested policy changes assumed “bad faith on a massive scale”.

    Bruce Springsteen, Reader’s Comments, Izod Center

    3 Feb
    Daniel
    navarro.daniel@gmail.com
    190.216.160.2

    The same happened to me this morning. First time that I tried to purchase tickets at Ticketmaster and it was so frustrating. I was online one hour before the sale starts and at 9 sharp I clicked for 2 standing tickets. I waited on the 15 minutes left screen for more than 30 minutes when finally a failed message appeared saying that there was a maintenance job. I tried several times more and finally the screen showed a message saying that there was no ticket and TicketNow offers the $65-95 tickets for 300, 500 or more. How is that? I can´t understand. I was 2 hours wasting my time. I´m going to NYC on vacation and i wanted to go to this concert, but it´s seems almost impossible. There are more posibilities that Bruce come here, Perú, hehehe.

    Bruce Springsteen, Boss Clashes with Obama Advisor Jason Furman Over Wal-Mart

    3 Feb

    s is an interesting story, but unfortunately, John Berlau got it wrong.  Bruce inked an exclusive deal for his latest ‘Greatest Hits’ CD.   It’s still interesting in spite of the error. 

    Opposing Views.com By Competitive Enterprise Institute

    By John Berlau

    walmart_exteriorIn between playing at the Lincoln Memorial for Barack Obama’s inaugural concert and performing the half-time show last night at the Super Bowl, Bruce Springsteen got caught in a policy controversy over a promotional deal he made. Springsteen had inked an agreement for Wal-Mart to exclusively sell and promote his new album, “Working on a Dream.” This made good business sense, given that a similiar arrangement last year with Wal-Mart and hard rock bank AC/DC led to a surprise chart-topping album.

    But the very mention of the name of Wal-Mart still raises the hackles of some activists, particularly those affiliated with Big Labor. They called on Springsteen to renounce the deal, and he caved, telling the New York Times, “we dropped the ball.” Springsteen said that “given its labor history, it was something that if we’d thought about it a little longer, we’d have done something different.”

    But a major player on the economic team of Obama, for whom Springsteen campaigned so strongly on behalf of, disagrees stronrgly with Springsteen and the activists on Wal-Mart’s “labor history.” Jason Furman was a top economist on the Obama campaign, and President Obama recently named him deputy director of the National Economic Council at the White House. He is pushing strongly for the stimulus bill and other liberal fiscal priorities of the administration.

    Yet when it comes to Wal-Mart, Furman doesn’t view it to be the threat to workers that many other liberals do. In fact, he has found it to have greatly improved the lives of the poor and working class Americans. In a 2005 paper entitled “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story,” which he wrote as a visiting scholar at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, Furman concludes, “By acting in the interests of its shareholders, Wal-Mart has innovated and expanded competition, resulting in huge benefits for the American middle class and even proportionately larger benefits for moderate-income Americans.”

    Furman finds that even if Wal-Mart’s had lowered wages for the retail sector — “and the evidence for this is far from clear,” he notes — “the magnitude of any potential harm is small in comparison” to the savings gain to workers as consumers from Wal-Mart lowering of prices of products. “Plausible estimates of the magnitude of the savings from Wal-Mart are enormous — a total of $263 billion in 2004, or $2,329 per household.”

    Furman further dispells myths about Wal-Mart on wages, benefits, and health care. “Wal-Mart workers, like other workers in the retail sector, are paid less than the economywide average wage,” he writes, and its “health benefits are similar to or better than benefits at comparable employers.”

    He also invalidates comparisons to higher-end warehouse clubs like Costco, noting that “as a result of higher margin goods and larger volumes, sales per employee are considerably larger at Costco. … Telling Wal-Mart to ape Costco’s wages is like telling Best Buy to pay its employees as much as the high-end boutique plasma television dealer across the street.” Similar points about Wal-Mart’s wages and benefits were made in a Competitive Enterprise Institute study by our adjunct scholar Zachary Courser.

    But lest anyone accuse Furman of taking the libertarian line in his paper, he also fills the study with liberal policy ideas that he argues will improve the lives of Wal-Mart employees and other workers. These include expanison of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Medicaid, things that the Obama administration and congressional Democrats are fighting for in the stimulus. He even calls for Wal-Mart to join in the fight to “push to expand these public programs.”

    Whatever the merits of these “progressive” ideas (and you can find plenty on them, as well as alternative free-market health care solutions, in other entries at Open Market), Furman is right to call for systemic public policy changes to improve workers lives rather than destructive attempts to force an individual business to change it wage structure.

    One beneficial public policy change Furman could push for in the Obama administration is reversal of the Bush’s administration’s deeply flawed moratorium on retailers like Wal-Mart starting their own limited banking operations. If the government can promote a General Motors subsidiary to a bank holding company by virtues of its failure, then businesses like Wal-Mart not applying for bailouts should not be held back because of their success. Letting Wal-Mart and other firms expand into banking could expand the supply of credit and lead to reduced costs and more benefits for consumers on their savings and checking accounts.

    As Americans are tightening their belts and looking for bargains, more are finding attractive the discounts at Wal-Mart and other “big box” stores. Bruce Springsteen sings about the working class, but it’s been a long time since he’s been one of them. He may want to get back to his roots by visting a Wal-Mart, or at least taking these words from Furman’s study to heart: “To the degree the anti-Wal-Mart campaign slows or halts the spread of Wal-Mart to new areas, it will lead to higher prices that disproportionately harm lower-income families.”

    While President Obama can respect Springsteen as a fine musician, as many other Americans do, he should recognize that when it comes to public policy relating to Wal-Mart and workers, Jason Furman is the true “Boss.”

    (Full disclosure: Like millions of other Americans, I shop at Wal-Mart, and I also own shares of stock in the company. I have never hesitated, however, to criticize Wal-Mart when I thought the company was in error, such as on its misguided “green” initiatives.)

     

    By Competitive Enterprise Institute , From Economy to Ecology – 14 Hours Ago

    Bruce Springsteen, Bonnaroo Bruce, Phish, Head Lineup for Bonnaroo

    3 Feb

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Call him Bonnaroo Bruce.

    Bruce Springsteen, fresh off his Super Bowl halftime performance, has been announced as a headliner at this year’s Bonnaroo Arts & Music Festival, along with the recently reunited Phish.

    It is scheduled to be the only performance by Springsteen and his E Street Band at a festival in North America this year.

    Other performers scheduled to perform from June 11-14 include Snoop Dogg, the Beastie Boys, Nine Inch Nails, Wilco, Elvis Costello, TV on the Radio, Al Green, Merle Haggard, David Byrne, Erykah Badu, Animal Collective, the Decemberists and Lucinda Williams.

    The annual event, which is held on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tenn., 60 miles south of Nashville, draws about 80,000 fans each year.

    Springsteen, who released the CD “Working on a Dream” last week, is making the Bonnaroo pit stop during a nationwide tour; Phish is also launching a tour later this year, and Bonnaroo is also slated to be its only festival performance in North America.

    More acts will be announced later. More than 120 bands and 20 comedians are expected to perform on 13 stages.

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