GRAND RAPIDS - Ticket Problem Thread

luckytwn

sk8nshoot1 wrote:

Not sure if anyone pointed this out, but they've reserved the rights to make changes to any policy without notice and you're only remedy is to QUIT THE CLUB... I doubt any of the long time members will...

That's a standard liability disclaimer, one that would almost certainly not hold up in the face of anything that was actually actionable in this case. They can change the terms and conditions of the club, they cannot sell something and then unilaterally change the terms of the sale, disclaimer or not.

As I said the other day, I thought it was a mistake. But concerts and the selling of concert tickets are big business and Pearl Jam is not exempt from the rules governing the practice of such business.

meistereder

luckytwn wrote:

That's a standard liability disclaimer, one that would almost certainly not hold up in the face of anything that was actually actionable in this case. They can change the terms and conditions of the club, they cannot sell something and then unilaterally change the terms of the sale, disclaimer or not.

As I said the other day, I thought it was a mistake. But concerts and the selling of concert tickets are big business and Pearl Jam is not exempt from the rules governing the practice of such business.

I wouldn't go that far. Disclaimers are usually enforceable. This is not a contract of adhesion. You'd have a really hard time filing a claim against Pearl Jam, and even if you did, what are your damages? The $15 you paid for your membership? Hurt feelings? Good luck. I think the whole thing is sort of funny.

luckytwn

meistereder wrote:

I wouldn't go that far. Disclaimers are usually enforceable. This is not a contract of adhesion. You'd have a really hard time filing a claim against Pearl Jam, and even if you did, what are your damages? The $15 you paid for your membership? Hurt feelings? Good luck. I think the whole thing is sort of funny.

First of all, I right away said the GR thing was a mistake and people shouldn't overreact. I only commented about the legal issues when people were saying they should junk the announced policy for the entire tour. Secondly, that disclaimer is extremely broad and the $15 club fee has nothing to do with tickets. The disclaimer would never hold up for the ticket sale considering the specific language used in the terms and conditions regarding seat position. Obviously nobody is suing, but the point needs to be made to people here that seniority is not magically vanishing during the tour after the tickets have already been sold under those rules.

And make no mistake, it's a much larger issue than simply the club fee because Pearl Jam has been selling out shows for years in part because of the fact that there are many fans who go to multiple shows. Clearly there are people who are buying more shows than they would if they were not guaranteed their seat positions. Pearl Jam has every right to conduct it's ticket sale however they like and if they wish to do away with seniority, they can easily do so. What they cannot do, however, is annouce a plan for seniority and then do away with it after people have spent hundreds of dollars or more on tickets. Not only would it be unethical, it would absolutely violate the terms and conditions and potentially be actionable. If it was an intentional switch, it would basically amount to fraud, no different than if your local appliance store pulls the old bait and switch.

Uninvited Guest

luckytwn wrote:

First of all, I right away said the GR thing was a mistake and people shouldn't overreact. I only commented about the legal issues when people were saying they should junk the announced policy for the entire tour. Secondly, that disclaimer is extremely broad and the $15 club fee has nothing to do with tickets. The disclaimer would never hold up for the ticket sale considering the specific language used in the terms and conditions regarding seat position. Obviously nobody is suing, but the point needs to be made to people here that seniority is not magically vanishing during the tour after the tickets have already been sold under those rules.

And make no mistake, it's a much larger issue than simply the club fee because Pearl Jam has been selling out shows for years in part because of the fact that there are many fans who go to multiple shows. Clearly there are people who are buying more shows than they would if they were not guaranteed their seat positions. Pearl Jam has every right to conduct it's ticket sale however they like and if they wish to do away with seniority, they can easily do so. What they cannot do, however, is annouce a plan for seniority and then do away with it after people have spent hundreds of dollars or more on tickets. Not only would it be unethical, it would absolutely violate the terms and conditions and potentially be actionable. If it was an intentional switch, it would basically amount to fraud, no different than if your local appliance store pulls the old bait and switch.

Of course the disclaimer is extremely broad. Any disclaimer from ANYTHING you will ever sign will be extremely broad. Keeps them from being sued that way. I think this statement in their disclaimer frees them from all liabilty reguarding tickets.

"TEN CLUB AND/OR ITS RESPECTIVE SUPPLIERS MAY MAKE IMPROVEMENTS AND/OR CHANGES IN THE TEN CLUB SITES/SERVICES AT ANY TIME."

I would think presale tickets are a service and therefore can be changed whenever they want to according to this statement. BTW if any of you are planing to sue over your tickets please do us all a really huge favor and quit the 10c NOW!

Oh, and IMHO I think it was planned. It was very obvious to me that Ed was looking very hard at the fan club sections to see who was sitting where. Did anyone notice his expression during the line in Small Town "All these changes taken place"... This is also the only show out of the 4 I've been to this year that we got them in envelopes with our names and 10c #'s on them. Seems like a plan to me..

Honestly I knew they did something like that shortly after my husband and I arrived. We were asking another fan where the box office was to get our tickets and the first thing he did is whine about his tickets. This "fan" we met was really upset because he ALWAYS gets 5th row and now he was up on the side. I for one love to be on the side stage. I've been on the floor this year and it's hard to see when I'm 5'1" short. I wanted to call the Waaambulence. He looked like a pouting child and my husband later said he was surprised he didn't start crying. I think it's spoiled fan club members that cause this little seating "mix-up."

Be greatful that 10c sells us tickets at all. At least then we can at the very least be there to witness the magic.

luckytwn

Uninvited Guest wrote:

Of course the disclaimer is extremely broad. Any disclaimer from ANYTHING you will ever sign will be extremely broad. Keeps them from being sued that way. I think this statement in their disclaimer frees them from all liabilty reguarding tickets.

Well, what you think happens not to be right. But thanks for the legal opinion.

There are disclaimers on everything. If disclaimers like this were upheld, there would never be any lawsuits. The bottom line is that it is standard within consumer protection law that you cannot promise something to induce a sale and then not make good on the promise.

It clearly was a mistake and any thought otherwise is fantasy. For one thing, why would they pick Grand Rapids? If they were going to screw with people for one night (whether it's right or not), they would have picked a venue where they were playing two nights. Or in an area where they were playing a bunch of shows batched together like NJ or California. Any idiot knows that there just aren't that many people travelling to Grand Rapids. So they intentionally penalize people who might only see one or two shows? Ridiculous.

Second, on the last tour they didn't provide fan club tickets for the rollover nights. This tour they elected to, thereby insuring that for every show in the city the same fans were in front for multi-night stands. Again, why change the policy even further in favor of seniority if they were so against it? They could have just not sold 10C tix to the rollover shows again or there could be a different policy for the second night. But there's not because they want the seniority.

This is their policy. This fantasy-land idea that they wanted to screw people makes no sense. It is the policy they want. Not only do they want it but three years ago, they elected to extend from one night per tour to unlimited nights. Note I happen to think it should be limited to a reasonable number of shows per tour but it's not my policy, it's theirs. So again, do you think it's news to them that the same fans get the front rows?

Finally, if they are as you claim a) against seniority and b) able to change the policy at will then why did it immediately go back to seniority in Cleveland and again tonight in Detroit?

ana_in_dc

Uninvited Guest wrote:

Of course the disclaimer is extremely broad. Any disclaimer from ANYTHING you will ever sign will be extremely broad. Keeps them from being sued that way. I think this statement in their disclaimer frees them from all liabilty reguarding tickets.

"TEN CLUB AND/OR ITS RESPECTIVE SUPPLIERS MAY MAKE IMPROVEMENTS AND/OR CHANGES IN THE TEN CLUB SITES/SERVICES AT ANY TIME."

I would think presale tickets are a service and therefore can be changed whenever they want to according to this statement. BTW if any of you are planing to sue over your tickets please do us all a really huge favor and quit the 10c NOW!

Oh, and IMHO I think it was planned. It was very obvious to me that Ed was looking very hard at the fan club sections to see who was sitting where. Did anyone notice his expression during the line in Small Town "All these changes taken place"... This is also the only show out of the 4 I've been to this year that we got them in envelopes with our names and 10c #'s on them. Seems like a plan to me..

Honestly I knew they did something like that shortly after my husband and I arrived. We were asking another fan where the box office was to get our tickets and the first thing he did is whine about his tickets. This "fan" we met was really upset because he ALWAYS gets 5th row and now he was up on the side. I for one love to be on the side stage. I've been on the floor this year and it's hard to see when I'm 5'1" short. I wanted to call the Waaambulence. He looked like a pouting child and my husband later said he was surprised he didn't start crying. I think it's spoiled fan club members that cause this little seating "mix-up."

Be greatful that 10c sells us tickets at all. At least then we can at the very least be there to witness the magic.

I said this on another PJ online message group, but I remember when we used to have to pick our 1 show per tour that we would buy tickets to via the TC, and if we wanted to go to any other shows, we would have to go through TM or whomever. I think that if the TC adopted a system like that, where you would be limited to a certain amount of TC shows per tour, it would eliminate the scenario where you have the same people going to 10, 20 shows per tour and taking up the first few rows each time. Maybe those people would stop taking it for granted, like the guy you mentioned in your post.

Otherwise, I don't mind the idea of the TC mixing things up...I think it's a great idea for every TC member to have kickass seats at one point or another to see our favorite band at their best. And I agree that everyone should be happy to see Pearl Jam live, no matter what seats they have.

On the other hand, as a long-time TC member (10+ yrs), who normally only gets to see a couple shows per tour at most, I would be pretty bummed if I got to my one concert that tour and they did another ticketing experiment a la Grand Rapids resulting in me sitting way far back.

Just my 2 cents, for what it's worth.

NeilJam

luckytwn wrote:

Well, what you think happens not to be right. But thanks for the legal opinion.

There are disclaimers on everything. If disclaimers like this were upheld, there would never be any lawsuits. The bottom line is that it is standard within consumer protection law that you cannot promise something to induce a sale and then not make good on the promise.

It clearly was a mistake and any thought otherwise is fantasy. For one thing, why would they pick Grand Rapids? If they were going to screw with people for one night (whether it's right or not), they would have picked a venue where they were playing two nights. Or in an area where they were playing a bunch of shows batched together like NJ or California. Any idiot knows that there just aren't that many people travelling to Grand Rapids. So they intentionally penalize people who might only see one or two shows? Ridiculous.

Second, on the last tour they didn't provide fan club tickets for the rollover nights. This tour they elected to, thereby insuring that for every show in the city the same fans were in front for multi-night stands. Again, why change the policy even further in favor of seniority if they were so against it? They could have just not sold 10C tix to the rollover shows again or there could be a different policy for the second night. But there's not because they want the seniority.

This is their policy. This fantasy-land idea that they wanted to screw people makes no sense. It is the policy they want. Not only do they want it but three years ago, they elected to extend from one night per tour to unlimited nights. Note I happen to think it should be limited to a reasonable number of shows per tour but it's not my policy, it's theirs. So again, do you think it's news to them that the same fans get the front rows?

Finally, if they are as you claim a) against seniority and b) able to change the policy at will then why did it immediately go back to seniority in Cleveland and again tonight in Detroit?

Why Grand Rapids? because it was the first show to follow after the thread about Tim's Comments in Chicago. I don't think they wanted to screw people, but maybe give fans at the front of the floor a reason to be excited, and it worked pretty damn well.

She did not claim that 10 Club is against seniority, maybe they just experimented with the ticket distribution. Yes I know Tim has posted an apology about it saying it was a mix-up, but how do we know that is not just something to calm those who got pushed to the back or sides in an attempt to reduce the amount of bitchy emails they are sure to have received from those members who feel that their seats were taken away.

luckytwn

NeilJam wrote:

Yes I know Tim has posted an apology about it saying it was a mix-up, but how do we know that is not just something to calm those who got pushed to the back or sides in an attempt to reduce the amount of bitchy emails they are sure to have received from those members who feel that their seats were taken away.

Yes, the great ticket conspiracy of 2006.

You were wrong. It was a mistake. Deal with with it.

Plus, your logic is ridiculous. If they wanted to make this big point about seniority and it was done intentionally, why would they backtrack to calm people?

NeilJam

luckytwn wrote:

Yes, the great ticket conspiracy of 2006.

You were wrong. It was a mistake. Deal with with it.

Plus, your logic is ridiculous. If they wanted to make this big point about seniority and it was done intentionally, why would they backtrack to calm people?

Deal with it? I dealt with my 13th row seats in GR pretty well. What's with people being such dicks today?

Maybe it was a just a mistake, but it was a good one. And to answer your question about why would they backtrack if it was intentional, re-read my previous post.

In2Deep

Well I am 57,XXX and I got 109 row M. I traveled from Colorado so you can see why I was bummed not to get the seats my seniority gives me. I'm short too, so sitting farther back is never fun when you got tall people in front of you.

I was upset, not because others got my seat, but because I didn't get my seat. I've been to plenty of shows where seats where random club or no club seats at all, so it's not like those of us with the lower numbers get the good seats all the time.

I think the thing really bothered me was that you are told it will be by seniority when you buy the tix and you show up expecting it. If they said random, I would have no complaints. The seats I got were fine, they just weren't the fan club seats I expected. The show was amazing and that made up for it. Someone made a comment on one post that us lower numbers are old so we don't get into as much. Total crap, especially since I'm 25. I sat around 300,XXXs and 200,000s that night and they spent the whole show leaving to buy beer til it was out.

I'm sure someone will complain about what I've said, but if it was you, you would have been disappointed in your seats too. So let us bitch about our seats. That's all we're doing; not about you getting good ones. At least the show was amazing! The WHOLE crowd was intense for the most part. And I'm looking forward to more....