How Ticketmaster's sworn enemy, Pearl Jam, became it's new best friend

Lerxst1992

MickeyMouse said:

demetrios said:

A Word On Unhappy Pearl Jam Fans

Given our personal fandom and the fact that we follow Live Nation stock closely, we are frequently subject to unhappy calls and texts from friends and clients when they fail to get tickets to a show. The amount of texts we received last week during the Pearl Jam onsale was unprecedented, with, to no surprise, most blaming Ticketmaster and/or Pearl Jam when they came away empty handed.

Our favorite text read:

I have been a paying member of the Ten Club since 1993 and got shut out of MSG and Baltimore. And didn’t even get a Verified Fan Code for MSG. Where I live!
F*cked​
I can’t believe I didn’t get my first or second choice through Ten Club.
27 years paying them!
Shut out.
27 years!!!

Sure Verified Fan could improve and it will with time, as all software does with iteration. But the fact of the matter is Pearl Jam did everything they could to make it easier for its biggest fans to get access to tickets. We believe they sold close to two thirds of tickets in their fan club presale. And the rules of the presale were exactly the same as they always were. The problem was that especially MSG was a major undersell for the band. We estimate that Ten Club requests were many many times that inventory available. And, this inventory dwarfed Verified Fan inventory, leading very few fans to be “verified.”

We have all complained that we wished for ticketing to become more fair. Maybe we should be careful what we wish for.

I want a mod to pin this to the top of the board. #Gutted.

the die hards complain about the supply and demand comments and the decisions made to limit shows in the east but yet promote comments like the bolded words. The reality is they did the exact opposite. They made every decision that led to most East fans unable to see their first arena shows in four years and created a market where charity tickets can be had for $1756. And to be a big fan you have to join 10c? 

How magnanimous

PB11041

Lerxst1992 said:

MickeyMouse said:

demetrios said:

A Word On Unhappy Pearl Jam Fans

Given our personal fandom and the fact that we follow Live Nation stock closely, we are frequently subject to unhappy calls and texts from friends and clients when they fail to get tickets to a show. The amount of texts we received last week during the Pearl Jam onsale was unprecedented, with, to no surprise, most blaming Ticketmaster and/or Pearl Jam when they came away empty handed.

Our favorite text read:

I have been a paying member of the Ten Club since 1993 and got shut out of MSG and Baltimore. And didn’t even get a Verified Fan Code for MSG. Where I live!
F*cked​
I can’t believe I didn’t get my first or second choice through Ten Club.
27 years paying them!
Shut out.
27 years!!!

Sure Verified Fan could improve and it will with time, as all software does with iteration. But the fact of the matter is Pearl Jam did everything they could to make it easier for its biggest fans to get access to tickets. We believe they sold close to two thirds of tickets in their fan club presale. And the rules of the presale were exactly the same as they always were. The problem was that especially MSG was a major undersell for the band. We estimate that Ten Club requests were many many times that inventory available. And, this inventory dwarfed Verified Fan inventory, leading very few fans to be “verified.”

We have all complained that we wished for ticketing to become more fair. Maybe we should be careful what we wish for.

I want a mod to pin this to the top of the board. #Gutted.

the die hards complain about the supply and demand comments and the decisions made to limit shows in the east but yet promote comments like the bolded words. The reality is they did the exact opposite. They made every decision that led to most East fans unable to see their first arena shows in four years and created a market where charity tickets can be had for $1756. And to be a big fan you have to join 10c? 

How magnanimous

There is no proof to what you are saying in particular regard to the sentence "But the fact of the matter is Pearl Jam did everything they could to make it easier for its biggest fans to get access to tickets" 

They did in fact do this, your personal gripe is you liked the safety net of getting to pay what you deemed a reasonable mark up to vermin who provide no value other than to manipulate the system. 

In so far as the poor poor east coast.  Give me a fucking break.  Oh woe is Boston, New York and Philadelphia, land of the deprived Pearl Jam fan who gets so little.  Said no fan ever who lived outside of the states of Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania.

This was their first run at this, there was bound to be issues particularly in regard to available venue and dates for how the band wanted to tour.  It is one part of one tour.

hrd2imgn

You gotta do what you gotta do,  they did their part in the old days and nearly no one got on board  with them.   They tried, all we can ask for.

Zod

wndowpayne said:

Zod said:

wndowpayne said:

I miss the days of having to go to the venue box office to buy tickets..

I don't.  It got pretty annoying lining up, only to find out a big chunk of the lineup were people paid by scalpers, then they'd pull that random number thing, and reorder the line... grrrr.. always ended up at the back.  My two favourite era's of TM:

1)  The late 90s a coworker told me the secret was calling a ticketmaster somewhere else for Vancouver tickets.    You'll never get through the Vancouver line, but call one somewhere small, without an event going on sale, and buy them that way.   I found Brandon, Manitoba's TM worked great for this.  Tickets go on sale at 9:00am PST.   Call Brandon, MB at 8:58, get right through, ask some stupid questions, and right at 9:00 ask for tickets to the Vancouver gig.  We got amazing seats this way.  Quite often in the front rows of the floor.

2)  The early days of online ticket sales.   Before corporations and the rest of the public figured out the internet.   When the technically illirate masses were still waiting in line, when you could refresh, refresh, boom, tickets!   Those first few years of online ticketing were amazing (before all the BS started to roll in).

To me waiting in an actual line is the 2nd worse way I've ever bought them, aside from modern online ticket sales.    Those two methods above were amazing and by far the best

I live in a town that has a 10,000 seat civic center.You rarely had a line that took more than 10 minutes..You could go at noon and get good seats.  70s-80s were great,  I never got shut out for a show I wanted to see.

Most of my experience starts in the mid/late 90s.   I can only imagine it got easier the further back in time you went.

wndowpayne

Most shows were general admission also..You could sit or try to get close on the floor..

demetrios

https://twitter.com/RollingStone/status/1229789936141946880?s=19

ryanphishes

demetrios said:

https://twitter.com/RollingStone/status/1229789936141946880?s=19

Interesting that they are opposed to the general public knowing how many tickets go onsale for an event.
I disagree with them that scalpers want to know more than fans.

demetrios

https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1229824373470699521