NUGS.NET - Is it really that bad? Discuss

Josh10376

I ordered the 8/8 Seattle Boot on 12/11 and even though PJ site says shipped Nugs.net says it still hasn't gone out. Last week they said shipping of it was happening then. I email today still not shipped. Said again, will go out today or tomorrow. This is just bad customer service, IMHO. What issues have others had? @Kat

HesCalledDyer

They must like me, I've never had a single issue.  Closest thing was in 2013 my Charlottesville boot took 3 weeks, but Nugs had announced they were closing for the holidays so I expected that. Got it within a week of them reopening.

PB11041

I understand to a degree that people want CDs, but since Nugs just burns everything onto a CDR anyway, I always just go with the download and make my own.

drakeheuer14

They are that bad.

ryanphishes

Pearl Jam fans seem to have legitimate complaints with customer service, especially regarding CD shipping.
I have to defend them in other areas though.

They are the industry leader in getting live shows to fans like us.

If I recall, and it's been awhile, they started providing every live Phish show starting with 12/31/2002 within hours online, and they also sold the CDs to be shipped later.

They are still involved in the LivePhish webcasts, and they are still the company behind LivePhish 16 years later.

It doesn't excuse poor customer service, but they provide similar services for many groups.  It's not a Pearl Jam thing or a Phish thing, but the fact that both bands continue to use nugs shows that they are satisfied with the service.  I would guess that CD purchases aren't the biggest part of their revenue stream or business model, but they should still get items out in a timely fashion.

Bob Mayo on the keyboards Bob

Why can't we just download a show in one zip file. I can never get the download manager to work and have to save each file individually, which ends up taking forever to do and then check that you have them all. Gah! 

demetrios

If you purchase & download Pearl Jam official bootlegs directly from http://nugs.net  it's so easy to use their download app.

The Nugster Download Manager. https://help.nugs.net/support/solutions/articles/6000132807-how-do-i-download-help-with-nugster-download-manager-

Bob Mayo on the keyboards Bob said:

Why can't we just download a show in one zip file. I can never get the download manager to work and have to save each file individually, which ends up taking forever to do and then check that you have them all. Gah! 

I do miss downloading one big .Zip file from 10club. I believe they were hosted over on Amazon's server? Must of been expensive maybe why they changed to this one download per track interface?

bigjilm

I think it's great there is a company out there that provides this service and I'm sure I will purchase more downloads in the future, but I'll pass on the CD-Rs.  I had the SEA N2 CD-R with the messed up Kick Out The Jams and they gladly replaced it, and somewhat quickly.  When I asked about the labels being off-centered and if they could correct it on the replacements they said sure.  Unfortunately the replacements came just as bad as the original CD-Rs.  They even printed on the receipt something like "Make sure labels are centered."  I'll just stick to downloads and printing my own.  But I do love that they're available.

Travels With

I've ordered one CD recently -- typically I just go with the download.  I ordered the Rome show for a couple my wife and I attended the show with.  Nugs was great.  I didn't really pay attention to when I ordered it and when I received it...but I know I was never thinking, "Where the hell is my cd?"  So, my single experience has been positive.  

camsjam

Bigjilm is on target. Waited about 5 weeks for both SEA cds which were CD-Rs. Labels not perfectly centered, but not bad enough for me to complain. Parts I've played sounded good in my car but if I had a good computer to burn my own I would just go with hi res downloads & don't expect I would hear the difference.  They are obviously very mass produced  & when they get enough orders  then they will run them and ship them out.   I'm also glad they are available, if you want to relive the shows it's great.  However , if and when, PJ or 10 C,  decides to release a higher quality version or box set of these shows I would jump on it.  

helplessdancer

zero complaints...but i'm old school(cassette boot collector) so i appreciate nugs a lot more than the super young kids who want everything absolutely perfect, delivered right away or sooner 

Zod

I think they're fine.    It's pretty much a given that their a smaller operation.  I think that's why they get backed up on the black friday deals hit.  Takes them a while to wade through a surge of orders.    Like most smaller operations, if everyone does something a the same time it causes delays.

lexicondevil

I remember for the first Pixies reunion tour some company had a setup at the show where you'd pay for a CD copy of the show before they played and about an hour or so after the show they were ready for pick up. They had decent covers as well. That was a really cool opportunity.

Norman MF Skeeter III

Yes, it is that bad. I have been waiting almost a month for a replacement for damaged goods. They have had my money now for almost two months. I received a damaged boxed set from them (looked like it was dropped off of a building). I didn’t even open the set to see what was damaged. I requested a replacement for the set. It appears they are sending just the box. So, if I open the set and, it is damaged, it will take another 2-3 weeks to get that replaced. Their response time to emails is ridiculous, over a week. For a company that large, they should have better customer service and response times.

HesCalledDyer

According to LinkedIn, nugs.net has up to 50 employees.  There are 20 profiles of employees linked to the company's profile.  That's hardly a large company.

danny

they are shit a snail would deliver quicker than them useless fuckers

lolobugg

HesCalledDyer said:

According to LinkedIn, nugs.net has up to 50 employees.  There are 20 profiles of employees linked to the company's profile.  That's hardly a large company.

and they all smoke nugs......... fucking stoners. get to work you lazy fuckers!!

helplessdancer

lexicondevil said:

I remember for the first Pixies reunion tour some company had a setup at the show where you'd pay for a CD copy of the show before they played and about an hour or so after the show they were ready for pick up. They had decent covers as well. That was a really cool opportunity.

moe and ratdog both did this on past tours. 5+ years ago
moe was a mini stick and ratdog was cdrs. 
loved it
not practical for pj tho...the madness of the super fans would ruin/kill the experience    

ledvedderman

Don’t care for nugs and it’s all because of their downloaded. It’s truly horrible and I’ve never had complete success on my first attempt of downloading anything from these. Just make .zip files. 

Mike D88

The lack of zip downloads is outright silly

2-feign-reluctance

Zero problems here, have ordered a lot of physical discs and downloaded a ton from them. The Nugster app isn't the best, but that's about all the critical feedback I can give about them.

Zod

lexicondevil said:

I remember for the first Pixies reunion tour some company had a setup at the show where you'd pay for a CD copy of the show before they played and about an hour or so after the show they were ready for pick up. They had decent covers as well. That was a really cool opportunity.

Yah, I've got mine from the Victoria show.  I think they had trailer with burners in it, and they got burned on the fly.  I don't even think it was an hour.   I think they had them ready to go 20 to 40 mins after the show ended.  Awesome souvenir.  The show I saw was in curling club. I don't think it holds alot more than 1000 people.   Assuming a fraction of them bought discs... it was probably a few hundred to burn at best. 

I suppose the problem with Nugs is keeping employees while dealing with a product that fluctuates in sales.  Huge blips when stadium PJ shows come out.  Huge blips when PJ does black friday sales.   I think they do Metallica too, so blips there, but lots of filler time when the big acts aren't up to much.   It's difficult staffing surges.  You need a bunch of staff for a short period of time, but not at all at other periods.  Either pay too much for redundant staff, or the difficultly of finding temporary labour.

I tend to give slack to smaller companies.   I will say the company that preceded nugs, was pretty awesome.   I can't remember what they were called or what happened to them.

derbydave

The company that handled PJ boots before Nugs was Kufala...the owner Brady Lahr passed away in 2012.

lexicondevil

It's too bad that the club couldn't just use Bandcamp for downloads. That site is always extremely user friendly. I would probably buy more PJ downloads, but I'm just not a fan of the Nugs set up.

ledvedderman

lexicondevil said:

It's too bad that the club couldn't just use Bandcamp for downloads. That site is always extremely user friendly. I would probably buy more PJ downloads, but I'm just not a fan of the Nugs set up.

Exactly my thought too. It really keeps me from buying more because it's a hassle. A show has to blow me away to feel like putting up with their stupid program. 

ryanphishes

Phish includes a streaming "copy" of any show you go to by scanning your ticket stub into their app.
Until a few years ago, the ticket included a "free" download of the show.
Phish changed that, not nugs.net.
I love Pearl Jam, but keep in mind that they have control of what company they use, what they charge, etc.
They know that Metallica, Phish, etc use them too.
They control pretty much everything besides the customer service.
I've been trading Phish and Grateful Dead tapes since the 90s, when you had to wait for snail mail AND follow important rules like "Maxell XL IIs only" and "No High Speed Dubbing."  I prefer soundboard recordings, so I'm happy nugs.net/livephish offers this service for both Pearl Jam and Phish, especially Pearl Jam with the audience singing so loudly.

Damn, now I feel old!

cypressdrive

The CD disc quality is woefully inconsistent.  The 2015 box set discs are poor quality, whereas the following years' are quite sturdy.  I had to upgrade my external CD/DVD drive just to burn the 2015 CDs.  My two older external drives kept balking.

Jammalambo

cypressdrive said:

The CD disc quality is woefully inconsistent.  The 2015 box set discs are poor quality, whereas the following years' are quite sturdy.  I had to upgrade my external CD/DVD drive just to burn the 2015 CDs.  My two older external drives kept balking.

It's unclear what you're trying to say here.. 2015 boxset are silver pressed CDs and they're not poor quality.. and what does this have to do anyway with burning files?

faithful2you

I guess I'm old and like having the CDs and packaging.   My wife ordered the Wrigley boots at the end of October for me for Christmas.  We got them January 8th.    

Umbertotamba

My wife ordered 3 of the Home/Away shows for mr for Christmas on Dec 16th.......Still waiting over a month later