New Lottery System

QuarterToTen

MG79478 wrote:

So your point is moot.

Merkin Baller

No one has mentioned EV's 2011 early summer tour. That was another debacle for this website. They had to reschedule the presale through alternate websites beause this site overloaded & crashed. That ended up working in my favor, as I selected pit seats at the Bushnell in Hartford, and got second row! Not too long after that, the Canada 2011 presale had the same results. PJ had to work with TM, or in Montreal's case, Evenko was the ticket company.
I don't know what happened with PJ20, I did not try for tickets, but anyone saying PJ20 was the only problem is misinformed.

I like the lottery because I can not sit at work and ignore my responsibilities. Some people think that because they CAN put the time in, they are more deserving of the tickets, or somehow earned them. That's their opinion, and I respect it. Like other people have mentioned, SCALPERS have time to sit at home all day hitting refresh. Maybe this lottery is to combat them also.

Maybe PJ doesn't give a $hit about fairness. Maybe they just want to be able to facilitate the 10c presale themselves without involving other companies.

As previous people have mentioned, the lottery system is new, let's see it in action for a tour.

JimmyV

MG79478 wrote:

JimmyV wrote:

MG79478 wrote:

This is getting exhausting, not because responding to you is difficult, it’s because I’m extremely busy and no matter how well thought out an argument I make, you will just ignore it and veer towards irrelevant points and personal attacks. Yet I take the time to address nearly every aspect of your posts. In my last post alone you didn’t address most of it, you just honed in on one part. You have completely derailed our discussion and the thread. The only thing close to a discussion of the ticket system in your last post is your talk of cheating, which is F5 specific. So I suggest you go back to my previous post and address my on topic points about the new lottery system, or just stop. But I'm guessing you will just want to respond to this thread and take the post even further off course. Prove me right.

Wife beating? Credit card theft? Insulting my English? What you are doing is not debating.

Hey look, you proved me right! You continued to take the thread further off course, while almost completely ignoring the content of my post.

Wow, so the guy who has been ducking the debate, and got called out on it, decided his only option was to project his behaviors on me! Did you skip the very first paragraph of my post where I called you out for not debating? Oh, and FYI..I guess you've never heard of analogies, they can be used to make points. If you were actually trying to follow the topic, you'd understand why they were relevant to the debate. I'll take this as you throwing in the towel. Good day.

No, I have projected nothing on you. What you were doing was not debate. You chose to make “analogies” about wife beating and credit card theft and attack my English in a thread about the ticket lottery. That kind of behavior is not debating an issue. Far from it. You claimed in an earlier attack that I must live in a different reality than you. If you truly believe that comparing domestic violence to a concert ticket lottery is appropriate then you may be right. We do live in different realities.

This will be my last response to you in this thread. Feel free to take whatever venomous shot you wish as a last word and then claim that as “victory”. I have no desire to continue this unpleasant discussion and further derail what has proven to be an interesting and informative thread.

PJStatTracker

MG79478 wrote:

I didn't know all that stuff and I still got tickets 100% of the time, simply by optimizing what I was doing. I studied the system and looked for advantages, I put in the time hitting F5 until I got the tickets I wanted. Everyone had the exact same opportunity to do the same. Cheating would be if someone got a special link from a buddy at the 10C, and used it to buy tickets the day before we could. Simply earning a slight advantage over your competitors is not cheating. In professional sports, are you a fan of every player getting the same time in the weight room, and every team getting exactly the same practice time? Wouldn't that "level the playing field"?

Yeah, there were many roads to Rome. Lots of different ways to ensure tickets...some widely known, some not. I also agree that none of that was "cheating", just using the tools provided. But I also can see why 10c wanted to close things up...trying to equate 10c ticket benefits to professional sports or, say, college admissions is a just *bit* of a reach and not at all analogous, but that's well trodden ground.

MG79478 wrote:

I see no reason why a scalper would be more likely to employ these methods. In fact, it's logical that a fan who just wanted the tickets for them self would have more motivation to learn and use these methods.

What I mean is they are more likely to have discovered the back door, guaranteed methods of securing tickets because it is their business to do such things. I'm not talking about the browser optimization type methods...I mean the more hack-y methods which isn't something the average fan can just learn. Most aren't even aware those methods existed, but scalpers will have known for sure. Like I said, it's their business.

Now they are stuck in the lottery with you and me, where they may or may not get tickets. Seems like a good thing.

MG79478 wrote:

The really big shows, like MSG will be much harder to get no matter how many stops are on the tour. The smaller shows were never that big in demand, and generally anyone who wanted them got them. So your point is moot.

You are right that MSG is always going to be the hardest ticket to get of any normal tour, and it will always be a scrum. But consider this very realistic scenario:

Pearl Jam announces an East Coast tour - 1 show in VA Beach, 1 show in DC, 2 shows in Philly, 2 shows in Boston, and 2 shows in NYC. All of these shows except VA Beach are high demand.

Under the old system, if you wanted to get 10c tickets to every single show this could be done by employing any number of the methods we've been discussing. Every person who wanted in was competing with every other person for every single show.

With the lottery system, you are only competing for your 1st choice against other people who have selected that same exact show as their 1st choice. Inevitably this will be a smaller pool of people. NYC is the biggest market, but those shows pull in people who are travelling to see many shows. The lottery makes it much more a game of strategy.

Which show do you select as your first choice? In the new system you must choose wisely, because with an East Coast tour, people are likely ONLY to have a shot at tickets with their first choice.

So if you select Boston 2 as your first choice show, you are only competing against people who selected Boston 2 as their first choice, a much smaller pool of people than going against every 10c member who wants to go to Boston 2.

Comatose Pilate

There are some pros but also cons with this new system, would have to say I over all think its a bunk idea.

Isoworld13

Hate the lottery, but if it HAS to stay, then get rid of the whole priority thing. Make it an equal lottery shot for every single show. If you want to talk "fairness", then that would be the fairest way. If you want to go to 1 show or 20 shows, you'd have the exact same chance as everyone else for any show you wanted to go to. The priority system really is an injustice to the areas of the country with larger fan pockets such as the Northeast. For example, the Boston and MSG shows would have a much greater pool of people competing for the tickets than say Kansas City or Buffalo. It's almost like wasting your 1st priority choice on one of the big shows since it will be a MUCH harder ticket to get via the lottery, and now you have to rely on your 2nd or 3rd choice for some other show which is only the scraps left after the first choicers. If you had an equal shot to every show you would have a much better chance at securing tickets. Say they announced 2 shows in Boston, 1 in Hartford, and 2 in New York as well as 20 other cities, and you wanted to go to all 5 of those shows plus 1 or 2 somewhere else. In a priority system, you would be very lucky to get even a SINGLE one of those northeast shows as your 1st priority, but you'd have a much better shot with a 1st priority at some random place. More than likely, you're not going to get a 2nd or 3rd priority ticket to anywhere in the northeast, but by using your 1st priority in the northeast it gives you your WORST chance at actually winning the lottery. Without a priority system, anyone can request any show that they want without the worry of THAT choice effecting the chances at obtaining any tickets at all for the whole tour.

MG79478

JimmyV wrote:

No, I have projected nothing on you. What you were doing was not debate. You chose to make “analogies” about wife beating and credit card theft and attack my English in a thread about the ticket lottery. That kind of behavior is not debating an issue. Far from it. You claimed in an earlier attack that I must live in a different reality than you. If you truly believe that comparing domestic violence to a concert ticket lottery is appropriate then you may be right. We do live in different realities.

This will be my last response to you in this thread. Feel free to take whatever venomous shot you wish as a last word and then claim that as “victory”. I have no desire to continue this unpleasant discussion and further derail what has proven to be an interesting and informative thread.

Wow, even in your "last post" you still have avoided the discussion at hand, and continued to derail the thread.

I'm sure it's getting tough for you to think of ways to continually derail the topic, so you've probably picked a good time to run away with your tail between your legs.

MG79478

PJStatTracker wrote:

Yeah, there were many roads to Rome. Lots of different ways to ensure tickets...some widely known, some not. I also agree that none of that was "cheating", just using the tools provided. But I also can see why 10c wanted to close things up...trying to equate 10c ticket benefits to professional sports or, say, college admissions is a just *bit* of a reach and not at all analogous, but that's well trodden ground.

Good point, I'm sure there were some methods still unknown to us. Equating an earned ticket buying advantage to any other earned advantage is completely analogous. Effort should always be rewarded... Whether that effort is learning the F5 system, practicing a sport, or studying.

PJStatTracker wrote:

What I mean is they are more likely to have discovered the back door, guaranteed methods of securing tickets because it is their business to do such things. I'm not talking about the browser optimization type methods...I mean the more hack-y methods which isn't something the average fan can just learn. Most aren't even aware those methods existed, but scalpers will have known for sure. Like I said, it's their business.

Now they are stuck in the lottery with you and me, where they may or may not get tickets. Seems like a good thing.

I see your point, it’s highly possible that you are correct due to their experience. I was thinking of it from a desire point of view, would a scalper (someone who by definition is not a very ambitious person) put in the effort to learn the backdoor that a rabid fan would? I think this barrier of entry kept scalpers out of the F5 system, and will invite them in to the lottery.

PJStatTracker wrote:

You are right that MSG is always going to be the hardest ticket to get of any normal tour, and it will always be a scrum. But consider this very realistic scenario:

Pearl Jam announces an East Coast tour - 1 show in VA Beach, 1 show in DC, 2 shows in Philly, 2 shows in Boston, and 2 shows in NYC. All of these shows except VA Beach are high demand.

Under the old system, if you wanted to get 10c tickets to every single show this could be done by employing any number of the methods we've been discussing. Every person who wanted in was competing with every other person for every single show.

With the lottery system, you are only competing for your 1st choice against other people who have selected that same exact show as their 1st choice. Inevitably this will be a smaller pool of people. NYC is the biggest market, but those shows pull in people who are travelling to see many shows. The lottery makes it much more a game of strategy.

Which show do you select as your first choice? In the new system you must choose wisely, because with an East Coast tour, people are likely ONLY to have a shot at tickets with their first choice.

So if you select Boston 2 as your first choice show, you are only competing against people who selected Boston 2 as their first choice, a much smaller pool of people than going against every 10c member who wants to go to Boston 2.

In the specific situation you describe. Most of the shows will be so popular that they will all be in high enough demand that you will be lucky to be chosen for your first choice. People will put thought in to their choice and it will level the load. I think all "big" shows will be gone with first choices. You have nearly no shot at your second choices. So all of your eggs are in one basket for 10C tickets. In the old system, even a 25% success rate with F5 would score you 10C tickets to 2/8 shows.

People always say stuff like "ticket buying shouldn't take effort". It's only a matter of time before we have, "This isn't chess, ticket buying shouldn't take strategy".

vant0037

Not one person who claims the old way (e.g. the F5 method) is better than a lottery has provided a solid, irrefutable link that their "effort" during that ticket buying process resulted in tickets. Even more, the F5 defenders can't provide that evidence, because none of us have access to the internal processes that occurred during those sales! So if we can't be sure that the F5 method wasn't also luck, then how can anyone persist in saying it's better than the lottery?

I think some people are using this issue - a rock band's fan club ticketing policy, mind you - as a way to grind their own political ax.

Such political extrapolation, without evidence that the F5 method rewarded your effort, is downright ridiculous.

october22

vant0037 wrote:

Not one person who claims the old way (e.g. the F5 method) is better than a lottery has provided a solid, irrefutable link that their "effort" during that ticket buying process resulted in tickets. Even more, the F5 defenders can't provide that evidence, because none of us have access to the internal processes that occurred during those sales! So if we can't be sure that the F5 method wasn't also luck, then how can anyone persist in saying it's better than the lottery?

I think some people are using this issue - a rock band's fan club ticketing policy, mind you - as a way to grind their own political ax.

Such political extrapolation, without evidence that the F5 method rewarded your effort, is downright ridiculous.

Dude, you and I have been back and forth with this countless times. I know you're coming from an good place with your argument but I don't know what "proof" you're looking for exactly. I got tickets for every show I wanted for years. There is no way I was just lucky. I am not the only one with this experience either. Plenty of people have testified to the same experience. Why can't you just accept that?

MayDay10

yeah, I was about 12-0 on the old system, and 0-2 in the new as well.


it has nothing to do with politics either as Im pretty liberal

vant0037

october22 wrote:

vant0037 wrote:

Not one person who claims the old way (e.g. the F5 method) is better than a lottery has provided a solid, irrefutable link that their "effort" during that ticket buying process resulted in tickets. Even more, the F5 defenders can't provide that evidence, because none of us have access to the internal processes that occurred during those sales! So if we can't be sure that the F5 method wasn't also luck, then how can anyone persist in saying it's better than the lottery?

I think some people are using this issue - a rock band's fan club ticketing policy, mind you - as a way to grind their own political ax.

Such political extrapolation, without evidence that the F5 method rewarded your effort, is downright ridiculous.

Dude, you and I have been back and forth with this countless times. I know you're coming from an good place with your argument but I don't know what "proof" you're looking for exactly. I got tickets for every show I wanted for years. There is no way I was just lucky. I am not the only one with this experience either. Plenty of people have testified to the same experience. Why can't you just accept that?

I point this out because when people are willing to take a ticket lottery and draw some political conclusion about fairness and effort and just desserts, I think that ratchets up the discussion some. If people (not you) are going to do that, then I think it's only appropriate that we get our facts straight.

Yes, it's certainly curious that you got tickets every year, but without anything else, it's just an assumption. Like I said, I make this point again here, in this thread, more as a response to the idea that the lottery somehow has political lessons we can draw about the people supporting either side.

So like I said, if we're going to persist in having the discussion about the lottery in that regard (again, you aren't), then let's get our facts straight. The most anyone who supports the F5 experience can point to as why it worked "better" is that they always got tickets. No one can point to anything else, such as the number of refreshes or the strength of their connection etc etc etc, as to how the F5 process was related to effort.

I'm not even interested in whether the lottery or F5 was better. I'm just sick of people drawing this unrelated conclusions about the people who support one side or another. Let's call a spade a spade: no one knows for sure if F5 was luck or effort. So let's stop talking about it in those terms.

The debate you and I had went around and around, but not really on this point.

vant0037

MayDay10 wrote:

yeah, I was about 12-0 on the old system, and 0-2 in the new as well.


it has nothing to do with politics either as Im pretty liberal

Yes, but you're also not one of the people who has advanced, time and time again, your support of the F5 system based on the politics of it. My argument about the "proof of the F5-effort relationship" is more to call out those who do continue in that line of argument.

MayDay10

my main beef with this one, is the choice.

I could either go to London or Wrigley. Couldnt afford to travel both. Figured London would be an easier drive and could do the trip in 1 night. Only put in for London, as if I got both non-transferrable pairs, I likely could only attend one.

However, knowing I was denied for London, it would be nice to have had a chance for Wrigs.

Same thing kind of goes for the tiers such as Wrigley. I would love a shot at GA, but also a chance at lower/reserved if that fails. I think it is kind of shitty and torturous to make separate pools.


I can see these scenarios repeating themselves frequently, especially with the patterns they announce and play shows.

vant0037

MayDay10 wrote:

my main beef with this one, is the choice.

I could either go to London or Wrigley. Couldnt afford to travel both. Figured London would be an easier drive and could do the trip in 1 night. Only put in for London, as if I got both non-transferrable pairs, I likely could only attend one.

However, knowing I was denied for London, it would be nice to have had a chance for Wrigs.

Same thing kind of goes for the tiers such as Wrigley. I would love a shot at GA, but also a chance at lower/reserved if that fails. I think it is kind of shitty and torturous to make separate pools.


I can see these scenarios repeating themselves frequently, especially with the patterns they announce and play shows.

That all may be true, and I'm inclined to agree on the pools thing (although I don't think that pools will be the case for every show). But I'm not even arguing about the F5 vs. lottery anymore. I understand why people are upset. I'm only saying that if we're going to make nonsense arguments that F5 was better because it rewarded X and that has some sort of political lesson for all of us to learn (re-read this thread, you'll see what I'm talking about), then let's be clear about whether F5 really did reward effort. While it might be the case, no one can prove that.

I argue that point only to point out the flawed logic in drawing political conclusions about a fan club's ticketing policies. There are some who continue to do so.

MG79478

october22 wrote:

vant0037 wrote:

Not one person who claims the old way (e.g. the F5 method) is better than a lottery has provided a solid, irrefutable link that their "effort" during that ticket buying process resulted in tickets. Even more, the F5 defenders can't provide that evidence, because none of us have access to the internal processes that occurred during those sales! So if we can't be sure that the F5 method wasn't also luck, then how can anyone persist in saying it's better than the lottery?

I think some people are using this issue - a rock band's fan club ticketing policy, mind you - as a way to grind their own political ax.

Such political extrapolation, without evidence that the F5 method rewarded your effort, is downright ridiculous.

Dude, you and I have been back and forth with this countless times. I know you're coming from an good place with your argument but I don't know what "proof" you're looking for exactly. I got tickets for every show I wanted for years. There is no way I was just lucky. I am not the only one with this experience either. Plenty of people have testified to the same experience. Why can't you just accept that?

Well said october22. The proof that vant0037 calls for has been provided... many people with perfect F5 records. Statistically speaking, that is impossible if it was just random. Case closed. But I will go one step further, I ask him to provide a solid, irrefutable link that our "effort" during that ticket buying process had no contribution to the results. Much harder to prove, but good luck. :corn:

RE4790

MG79478 wrote:

But I will go one step further, I ask him to provide a solid, irrefutable link that our "effort" during that ticket buying process had no contribution to the results. Much harder to prove, but good luck. :corn:

I don't think you can logically prove that kind of relationship.


vant0037 does have a point about our internal politics. The argument over egalitarianism in outcomes is at the core of political debate over economics worldwide ("should I receive more for expending greater effort than someone else?") and the affirmative answer is a fundamental pillar of America's WASP-y middle class, which just happens to the majority of PJ's domestic fan base whom are those most effected by the lottery.

Let me put on my old-white-guy-hat here for a second and say those of us who camped out in the rain to get tickets back in the 90's felt we earned those tickets and felt a kinship to the fans around us because we knew they had earned them as well. We valued them and the concert experience more because we sacrificed and were rewarded. The psychological reward was a sense of validation and justice, even with the knowledge that not everyone was able to sacrifice like that for a whole host of reasons.

The F5 system although flawed, mostly because they insisted on running sales on a work/school day and not properly staggering them, had that same psychological effect. The lotto has the opposite psychological effect. There is no link between a positive behavior and the benefit. It conveys effortless rewards and condones a sense of entitlement ("I am entitled to the same benefit regardless of my willingness to work for it"), thus it mocks those who value working-to-earn-it. This is a political value, as vant noted, and not universally held in modern society so the debate will never be settled partially because the lotto side (effortless rewards) are correct when they say it's more "fair" since there will always be those who cannot work to earn a benefit no matter how much they may desire to.

It is somewhat ironic that songs like Bushleaguer and WMA bemoan the benefits of birth lottery and the entitlements given to those who do nothing to earn them, yet the same philosophy is no longer carried over into fan club ticketing.

vant0037

MG79478 wrote:

Well said october22. The proof that vant0037 calls for has been provided... many people with perfect F5 records. Statistically speaking, that is impossible if it was just random. Case closed. But I will go one step further, I ask him to provide a solid, irrefutable link that our "effort" during that ticket buying process had no contribution to the results. Much harder to prove, but good luck. :corn:

Not so fast.

You make the assertion, then the burden is on YOU to provide the evidence. If F5 was effort, where's the proof?

That selected posters on here have all said they had perfect track records? That's still an assumption.

What about people that expended little effort and got tickets?

And where the hell did "effort" and just desserts get mixed up in this?

Has anyone ever considered that maybe, just maybe, the amount of effort required (assuming that had anything to do with it) was exactly why 10c made the change? Sure, it might not fit your political view of the world, but maybe 10c said, "if buying tickets isn't as simple as putting them in your cart and clicking 'submit', we need to change." Ever think of that?

So for now, the burden remains on you, the proponent of a position - namely, that the F5 system was based on effort - to provide proof that it was. You can't, unless of course you're privy to the internal ticketing process during those past sales, which means, you should probably stop advancing political arguments based on things you cannot prove.

rearviewross

Man, you guys waste a lot of time and energy trying to convince someone else of something they cant be convinced.

Indifference

Lets end these lottery threads by ending the lottery