TicketsToday confirmed Austin was random

JR86440

Here is email I received from them. There is obviously some sort of miscommunication here. I get people will just say be happy to be in the building but if I am traveling and spending thousands of dollars, I would like to know if my seniority of 20 years will be used in allocating my seats. Maybe some would travel anywhere just to get in the building but am I going to travel to sit all way across stage in Row R? I think we need some sort of clarification here.

Thank you for reaching Ticketstoday Supoort!
 
We apologize that you are dissatisfied with the results of your request.  We are provided seats throughout the entire venue which are randomly assigned to the randomly chosen requests.
 
In order to be fair to people who aren't aware of the opportunity to order tickets, the seating is divided exactly equally by quality (as well as quantity). Therefore, the tickets allotment includes all levels of quality, from front row to lawn or behind stage seats, the exact same range of seating as will be available when the shows go on sale via outlets.
 
As per the user agreement which is posted on each of our ticketing sites and every lottery request page which you must agree to before entering your credit card:  All ticket sales are final and non-refundable unless the show has been cancelled or postponed; no exchanges will be allowed.

lowbudgetlush

This whole situation is weird. Why didn't they reassign Austin? They were already doing St Paul, Chicago & Indy. So Stupid.

edocon

lowbudgetlush said:

This whole situation is weird. Why didn't they reassign Austin? They were already doing St Paul, Chicago & Indy. So Stupid.

There's a general feeling that the reassignment for those shows was to allocate Premium tickets for sale. In most cases (particulalry for Chicago) people received seats that would be considered worse than their initial assignment.

Indifference

Some clarity would be nice....

logan5ive

JR86440 said:

Here is email I received from them. There is obviously some sort of miscommunication here. I get people will just say be happy to be in the building but if I am traveling and spending thousands of dollars, I would like to know if my seniority of 20 years will be used in allocating my seats. Maybe some would travel anywhere just to get in the building but am I going to travel to sit all way across stage in Row R? I think we need some sort of clarification here.

Thank you for reaching Ticketstoday Supoort!
 
We apologize that you are dissatisfied with the results of your request.  We are provided seats throughout the entire venue which are randomly assigned to the randomly chosen requests.
 
In order to be fair to people who aren't aware of the opportunity to order tickets, the seating is divided exactly equally by quality (as well as quantity). Therefore, the tickets allotment includes all levels of quality, from front row to lawn or behind stage seats, the exact same range of seating as will be available when the shows go on sale via outlets.
 
As per the user agreement which is posted on each of our ticketing sites and every lottery request page which you must agree to before entering your credit card:  All ticket sales are final and non-refundable unless the show has been cancelled or postponed; no exchanges will be allowed.

wtf?!?

mcatake

Why are so few people reporting seats in sections 106-108 and 118-120??  Look through the threads and all you see are rear floor sections, upper level or lower level 109 - 117.  So even if they did randomly assign, something isn't right.  There should be more in those sections. I'm 197xxx in 109 and FL7.  I saw someone with 400xxx also in 109.  This is impossible if following seniority seating.  Never had seats anywhere near this far back in 30+ ten club shows, including PJ20 which was only fan club. The data suggests ten club was for the most part put in the back and up top. Very few in good seats. Contact ten club and voice your concerns for Austin seating, they need to fix this. 

ewokpelts

edocon said:

lowbudgetlush said:

This whole situation is weird. Why didn't they reassign Austin? They were already doing St Paul, Chicago & Indy. So Stupid.

There's a general feeling that the reassignment for those shows was to allocate Premium tickets for sale. In most cases (particulalry for Chicago) people received seats that would be considered worse than their initial assignment.

sounds about right. my chicago seats moves one section over and in a higher row. 

GlowGirl

mcatake said:

Why are so few people reporting seats in sections 106-108 and 118-120??  Look through the threads and all you see are rear floor sections, upper level or lower level 109 - 117.  So even if they did randomly assign, something isn't right.  There should be more in those sections. I'm 197xxx in 109 and FL7.  I saw someone with 400xxx also in 109.  This is impossible if following seniority seating.  Never had seats anywhere near this far back in 30+ ten club shows, including PJ20 which was only fan club. The data suggests ten club was for the most part put in the back and up top. Very few in good seats. Contact ten club and voice your concerns for Austin seating, they need to fix this. 

The fix in Chicago seemed to give everyone worse seats - even those with low #s. Maybe we don't try that here.

JR86440

mcatake said:

Why are so few people reporting seats in sections 106-108 and 118-120??  Look through the threads and all you see are rear floor sections, upper level or lower level 109 - 117.  So even if they did randomly assign, something isn't right.  There should be more in those sections. I'm 197xxx in 109 and FL7.  I saw someone with 400xxx also in 109.  This is impossible if following seniority seating.  Never had seats anywhere near this far back in 30+ ten club shows, including PJ20 which was only fan club. The data suggests ten club was for the most part put in the back and up top. Very few in good seats. Contact ten club and voice your concerns for Austin seating, they need to fix this. 

I cc'd Ten Club in my response to them..

JR86440

Honestly, it isn't rocket science. Maybe instead of using some auto generated computer system, somebody in Ten Club does each individual request one at a time. It's only 9 shows. How long could it take to do lottery then put numbers in order, then seat those requests?

KV4053

Who determines what constitutes a good seat?

JR86440

KV4053 said:

Who determines what constitutes a good seat?

common sense in most cases to be honest..

PJNB

KV4053 said:

Who determines what constitutes a good seat?

TM has an algorithm for that. They use it for all of their shows and their dynamic pricing and best seat options. 

mace1229

JR86440 said:

Honestly, it isn't rocket science. Maybe instead of using some auto generated computer system, somebody in Ten Club does each individual request one at a time. It's only 9 shows. How long could it take to do lottery then put numbers in order, then seat those requests?

How long would it take to place orders in sequence by hand for tens of thousands of requests? My guess is a pretty damn long time. 
But someone with limited experience with Excel can do that, no need to do it one at a time. 

JR86440

mace1229 said:

JR86440 said:

Honestly, it isn't rocket science. Maybe instead of using some auto generated computer system, somebody in Ten Club does each individual request one at a time. It's only 9 shows. How long could it take to do lottery then put numbers in order, then seat those requests?

How long would it take to place orders in sequence by hand for tens of thousands of requests? My guess is a pretty damn long time. 

I'm sure there's more than one person in Ten Club. I don't know, a week at most? Plus that's what they used to do

mace1229

JR86440 said:

mace1229 said:

JR86440 said:

Honestly, it isn't rocket science. Maybe instead of using some auto generated computer system, somebody in Ten Club does each individual request one at a time. It's only 9 shows. How long could it take to do lottery then put numbers in order, then seat those requests?

How long would it take to place orders in sequence by hand for tens of thousands of requests? My guess is a pretty damn long time. 

I'm sure there's more than one person in Ten Club. I don't know, a week at most? Plus that's what they used to do

And then ticket prices would have to reflect paying a whole staff for a week to file papers.
Computers can do it instantly. No need for that. It just wasn't done. 

The Camaros Hood

mcatake said:

Why are so few people reporting seats in sections 106-108 and 118-120??  Look through the threads and all you see are rear floor sections, upper level or lower level 109 - 117.  So even if they did randomly assign, something isn't right.  There should be more in those sections. I'm 197xxx in 109 and FL7.  I saw someone with 400xxx also in 109.  This is impossible if following seniority seating.  Never had seats anywhere near this far back in 30+ ten club shows, including PJ20 which was only fan club. The data suggests ten club was for the most part put in the back and up top. Very few in good seats. Contact ten club and voice your concerns for Austin seating, they need to fix this. 

I’m in 107. 

JR86440

mace1229 said:

JR86440 said:

mace1229 said:

JR86440 said:

Honestly, it isn't rocket science. Maybe instead of using some auto generated computer system, somebody in Ten Club does each individual request one at a time. It's only 9 shows. How long could it take to do lottery then put numbers in order, then seat those requests?

How long would it take to place orders in sequence by hand for tens of thousands of requests? My guess is a pretty damn long time. 

I'm sure there's more than one person in Ten Club. I don't know, a week at most? Plus that's what they used to do

And then ticket prices would have to reflect paying a whole staff for a week to file papers.
Computers can do it instantly. No need for that. It just wasn't done. 

Agreed. Or wasn't done correctly. Either way, it should be fixed or we should be notified what policy is going forward

jimjam1982

Assuming ticketmaster seating algorithm assigns a ranked number to each seat from best to worst so an arena would have a hidden number behind each seat from say 1 to 20,000 if there are 20,000 capacity.

Given that one item of data, the majority of us could do the whole tour in 8 to 16 hours of work as a single person using Google random number generator for lottery winners based on Priority selections and then Excel to sort smallest 10c number to largest then paste in the seats also sorted by ranking next to it lol.  

I just don't get how they are doing things.  It's mind blowing.

mace1229

jimjam1982 said:

Assuming ticketmaster seating algorithm assigns a ranked number to each seat from best to worst so an arena would have a hidden number behind each seat from say 1 to 20,000 if there are 20,000 capacity.

Given that one item of data, the majority of us could do the whole tour in 8 to 16 hours of work as a single person using Google random number generator for lottery winners based on Priority selections and then Excel to sort smallest 10c number to largest then paste in the seats also sorted by ranking next to it lol.  

I just don't get how they are doing things.  It's mind blowing.

Sounds like they aren't doing it.

chriszee

They told me I didn’t get tickets. It said process complete and my request was unfulfilled. Thrn charged me and gave tickets I no longer wanted/needed as I made other arrangements because their site told me the process was complete. Not sure how they can’t offer refunds for that.

mace1229

chriszee said:

They told me I didn’t get tickets. It said process complete and my request was unfulfilled. Thrn charged me and gave tickets I no longer wanted/needed as I made other arrangements because their site told me the process was complete. Not sure how they can’t offer refunds for that.

If they don't refund, make a claim on your credit card. If you have timestamps of notifications, should be an easy win. If you have to go that route, maybe you'll even get to keep the tickets and put them on f2f?

Abe Froman

lowbudgetlush said:

This whole situation is weird. Why didn't they reassign Austin? They were already doing St Paul, Chicago & Indy. So Stupid.

Well they even managed to fuck up the reassignments for those cities too. There are plenty of cases of members with much worse 10c numbers than mine that ended up with much better seats. 

I actually got worse seats for all three shows after rhe reassignment. What a shitshow. 

tdawe

jimjam1982 said:

Assuming ticketmaster seating algorithm assigns a ranked number to each seat from best to worst so an arena would have a hidden number behind each seat from say 1 to 20,000 if there are 20,000 capacity.

Given that one item of data, the majority of us could do the whole tour in 8 to 16 hours of work as a single person using Google random number generator for lottery winners based on Priority selections and then Excel to sort smallest 10c number to largest then paste in the seats also sorted by ranking next to it lol.  

I just don't get how they are doing things.  It's mind blowing.

Usually in these situations I try to operate from a position of “this task that seems simple to me is probably more difficult or complex than I think”, but I’m honestly having a hard time imagining how matching seats to member numbers could be all that difficult in 20 friggin 23, when we’ve got AI bots writing term papers and whatnot. 

The longer this has gone on, the more it seems like the vendor just blew the assignment and set the seating allocation to “random” for most or all of these shows. The email shared by the OP in this thread looks like a copied and pasted boilerplate response for any ticket lottery - between the weird reference to being fair to people who weren’t “aware of the opportunity” and the obviously inapplicable reference to lawn seats. 

mcatake

The Camaros Hood said:

mcatake said:

Why are so few people reporting seats in sections 106-108 and 118-120??  Look through the threads and all you see are rear floor sections, upper level or lower level 109 - 117.  So even if they did randomly assign, something isn't right.  There should be more in those sections. I'm 197xxx in 109 and FL7.  I saw someone with 400xxx also in 109.  This is impossible if following seniority seating.  Never had seats anywhere near this far back in 30+ ten club shows, including PJ20 which was only fan club. The data suggests ten club was for the most part put in the back and up top. Very few in good seats. Contact ten club and voice your concerns for Austin seating, they need to fix this. 

I’m in 107. 

Yes, you are one of the "few".  lol. You'd be challenged to find 5 more like you. Hail hail the lucky ones! 

KV4053

PJNB said:

KV4053 said:

Who determines what constitutes a good seat?

TM has an algorithm for that. They use it for all of their shows and their dynamic pricing and best seat options. 

That is what I was thinking. Perhaps their idea of a good seat is not the same as ours.

My buddy got section 109 4th row and is not too happy, but given the size of Moody center, those seem like pretty good seats to me

matt3846

That looks like a canned-response form letter to me. Even mentions Lawn and Behind Stage Seats, which were not offered in Austin.
I’d assume that was sent by a customer service rep unfamiliar with the situation.

know1

I'm not sure I'd take a canned, script email back from Tickets Today as a "confirmation" that it was random.

I'm not defending anything that's gone on, but that doesn't seem like a confirmation to me. That's just somebody who doesn't know any better sending a pre-written response.

Gern Blansten

yeah I don't think that confirms anything....just a canned response

JR86440

I think I know what it is. Someone mentioned TM algorithm being different. I bet it says seats across arena are better because you have straight on view of stage. The algorithm has obviously never been to a show as side stage blows those away. In all my years, I have never been all way across arena. It’s only thing that makes sense to me

JR86440

JR86440 said:

I think I know what it is. Someone mentioned TM algorithm being different. I bet it says seats across arena are better because you have straight on view of stage. The algorithm has obviously never been to a show as side stage blows those away. In all my years, I have never been all way across arena. It’s only thing that makes sense to me

Which is obviously garbage as most PJ premium seats are right next to stage