What was the effect of not having a GA Only option?

know1

I really think that not having a GA Only option contributed to the mess that is going on. 

I'm not saying it caused the issue with the  seniority or some of the technical snafus. 

But I do think it threw a whole bunch more people into the reserved seat pool that would have gone for GA only in the past. I think that's had at least some effect on seating location. I also think it's going to have a big effect on the Fan2Fan exchange and think we'll see a lot more tickets there than we have in the past. 

Nobody asked me, but I knew when there was no GA Only option that it was going to be a bigger mess than usual.

dmbolp

It's sole purpose was to sell as many Upper section tickets to 10C Members that otherwise wouldn't have been purchased by anyone for $162 each.  Maximize high-priced ticket sales.

You want a chance at GA?  Well you're gonna have to risk getting Uppers instead.

DMB fan club started this many years ago

RatherStarved

dmbolp said:

It's sole purpose was to sell as many Upper section tickets to 10C Members that otherwise wouldn't have been purchased by anyone for $162 each.  Maximize high-priced ticket sales.

You want a chance at GA?  Well you're gonna have to risk getting Uppers instead.

DMB fan club started this many years ago

Good insight.

JimmyV

Did people who only selected GA/Res finally start winning seats? That wasn't happening early on. 

solace

JimmyV said:

Did people who only selected GA/Res finally start winning seats? That wasn't happening early on. 

Yup. Everyone I know personally who only chose that option and not Reserved Only didn't get any reserved tickets until the second day when they started re-allocating.

sean9769

know1 said:

I really think that not having a GA Only option contributed to the mess that is going on. 

I'm not saying it caused the issue with the  seniority or some of the technical snafus. 

But I do think it threw a whole bunch more people into the reserved seat pool that would have gone for GA only in the past. I think that's had at least some effect on seating location. I also think it's going to have a big effect on the Fan2Fan exchange and think we'll see a lot more tickets there than we have in the past. 

Nobody asked me, but I knew when there was no GA Only option that it was going to be a bigger mess than usual.

I agree and frankly some of us would have been fine to be notified we lost GA without being dealt a turd location.  

pjl44

sean9769 said:

know1 said:

I really think that not having a GA Only option contributed to the mess that is going on. 

I'm not saying it caused the issue with the  seniority or some of the technical snafus. 

But I do think it threw a whole bunch more people into the reserved seat pool that would have gone for GA only in the past. I think that's had at least some effect on seating location. I also think it's going to have a big effect on the Fan2Fan exchange and think we'll see a lot more tickets there than we have in the past. 

Nobody asked me, but I knew when there was no GA Only option that it was going to be a bigger mess than usual.

I agree and frankly some of us would have been fine to be notified we lost GA without being dealt a turd location.  

It's for this reason I love what they did. Actually creates a disincentive to hammer GA requests with as many accounts as one can sustain.

dmbolp

sean9769 said:

know1 said:

I really think that not having a GA Only option contributed to the mess that is going on. 

I'm not saying it caused the issue with the  seniority or some of the technical snafus. 

But I do think it threw a whole bunch more people into the reserved seat pool that would have gone for GA only in the past. I think that's had at least some effect on seating location. I also think it's going to have a big effect on the Fan2Fan exchange and think we'll see a lot more tickets there than we have in the past. 

Nobody asked me, but I knew when there was no GA Only option that it was going to be a bigger mess than usual.

I agree and frankly some of us would have been fine to be notified we lost GA without being dealt a turd location.  

I'm with you, lots of people are with you, and that's a problem for 10C.  They need people to buy all the lousy Upper seats at a crazy price.

leebug87

solace said:

JimmyV said:

Did people who only selected GA/Res finally start winning seats? That wasn't happening early on. 

Yup. Everyone I know personally who only chose that option and not Reserved Only didn't get any reserved tickets until the second day when they started re-allocating.

No luck for me with this option, for Indy. And my husband put both GA/Reserve and Reserve and didn’t get anything either :(

goblues82

dmbolp said:

sean9769 said:

know1 said:

I really think that not having a GA Only option contributed to the mess that is going on. 

I'm not saying it caused the issue with the  seniority or some of the technical snafus. 

But I do think it threw a whole bunch more people into the reserved seat pool that would have gone for GA only in the past. I think that's had at least some effect on seating location. I also think it's going to have a big effect on the Fan2Fan exchange and think we'll see a lot more tickets there than we have in the past. 

Nobody asked me, but I knew when there was no GA Only option that it was going to be a bigger mess than usual.

I agree and frankly some of us would have been fine to be notified we lost GA without being dealt a turd location.  

I'm with you, lots of people are with you, and that's a problem for 10C.  They need people to buy all the lousy Upper seats at a crazy price.

They don’t need you to buy anything. The fact that people are buying the last row of the upper deck at full price means they would have no problem selling the uppers in front of the stage…

igotid88

Because mostly everyone wants GA.  Then there will be more complaints about getting shutout 

RatherStarved

leebug87 said:

solace said:

JimmyV said:

Did people who only selected GA/Res finally start winning seats? That wasn't happening early on. 

Yup. Everyone I know personally who only chose that option and not Reserved Only didn't get any reserved tickets until the second day when they started re-allocating.

No luck for me with this option, for Indy. And my husband put both GA/Reserve and Reserve and didn’t get anything either :(

It seems that Indy was the only show where no matter what you did you had to get lucky to get drawn.  

Lerxst1992

igotid88 said:

Because mostly everyone wants GA.  Then there will be more complaints about getting shutout 

One of the many problems of this no GA only option is it forces everyone into the byzantine seniority system. It’s great to reward seniority, but making it 100% absolute and unavoidable is, well, their typical way of treating a class of fans like subordinates. For libs hating class politics, nice job fellas.

 Some fans refused to join early on because we didn’t want to be forced to spend big money on tickets not knowing anything about seat location. With the massive screw up’s and complications on this mini tour, everyone gets to experience this, to a small degree. Want a way to guarantee alienation of younger, newer fans? Develop a ticketing system like ten c.

VOLARE

That is an interesting question / take. I wonder how it truly works.  If going reserved priority, possibly after not getting GA, you then end up in line for reserved behind those that only chose reserved as priority. That could explain low # members ending up in upper sections.  I think I’m middle of the road # wise and only look for reserved so I can see. I’ve been happy with results but the restack put me deep behind GA on the floor.  Not a ticket I would purchase for myself.  If in turn it becomes GA request gets denied and then goes to front of priority for reserved that would be tough for those only looking for reserved.  Hope it’s not like that because then the only real option is only going for GA and ending up in reserved. I’m not looking for GA but would gladly trade them for comparable reserved.   Making GA an almost mandatory choice to get seats.  Not sure if I am making sense.  

tschav

The band reserved more tickets for the fan club. If everyone went “GA or nothing,” they wouldn’t sell out their inventory of reserved seats.

”GA or nothing” also encourages people to open up multiple accounts to game the system, get more than 2 tickets together, etc. 

Simply put, GA/Res means you want in, no matter the seats. The band ensures whatever they negotiate with TM that they can sell out the large inventory they want reserved for the fan club.

Adding such a large GA section was the solution to prevent seniority from claiming all the closest seats for every show, and giving all fans in the club a chance to get up close. Before GA, it was reserved only based on seniority with a random pull of fans getting upgraded to rows 1-2 & 9-10.

The band overindexed on the promise of “great seats” based on seniority and the sheer scale of 10c seating placing people to the 300 level. But, there’s less a chance on “losing” the lottery and Fan-to-Fan provides a way to help find better/upgraded seats (with the exception of Chicago/NY/Denver due to state laws). 

Hopefully they can be a bit more transparent on the process, but to be honest many of our opinions on how the draw should work and what are “better” seats isn’t the same - case in point I’ll take the back of the floor over 200 level on the sides, and I’m sure others would not be excited for back of floor.

If you want better seats that bad, there’s still a way to do it. GA will occasionally (albeit rarely) show up on F2F.

Discopij

It definitely hurt mid-period 10c members who wanted reserved only.  So many people who only wanted GA got reserved so it pushed a bunch of people out farther than normal.  New members should expect the weakest seats but a 20-year member is getting stuck with seats twice as far away as they ever have when you combine the PJ Premium factor with the no GA only factor.

Gibson

know1 said:

I really think that not having a GA Only option contributed to the mess that is going on. 

I'm not saying it caused the issue with the  seniority or some of the technical snafus. 

But I do think it threw a whole bunch more people into the reserved seat pool that would have gone for GA only in the past. I think that's had at least some effect on seating location. I also think it's going to have a big effect on the Fan2Fan exchange and think we'll see a lot more tickets there than we have in the past. 

Nobody asked me, but I knew when there was no GA Only option that it was going to be a bigger mess than usual.

Let's say I was pushing hard for GA (as many folks do) and my first 5 requests looked like this:
Priority 1: Chi 1 GA
Priority 2: Chi 2 GA
Priority 3: STL 1 GA
Priority 4: STL 2 GA
Priority 5: IND GA
Priority 6: Chi 1 Reserved...
Priority 7 - 10...repeat 2 though 5 reserved

Since GA is/was already insanely slim odds to win, someone that requested similar to the above scenario (or even alternated priority choices for GA and then reserved for X show) would SEVERELY hindered their chances at winning anything. And many of those people that didn't win anything would scream to the rooftops...

Changing the process to GA/Reserved in one priority meant that your odds were much better. If I didn't get CHI 1 GA, I still had CHI 1 reserved as #1 priority, and then Chi 2 GA + Reserved was still my second priority..
So..
Priority 1: Chi 1 GA + Reserved (if not selected for GA)
Priority 2: Chi GA + Reserved (if not selected)

PJNB

I always thought starting the hype from April 1st and 3rd was odd if they were always going to announce on the 20th.  It makes more sense now with them trying to get more new members or members with extra memberships to fill in all of those Res seats. The majority of those new memberships would of been GA or bust.

pjl44

Lerxst1992 said:

igotid88 said:

Because mostly everyone wants GA.  Then there will be more complaints about getting shutout 

One of the many problems of this no GA only option is it forces everyone into the byzantine seniority system. It’s great to reward seniority, but making it 100% absolute and unavoidable is, well, their typical way of treating a class of fans like subordinates. For libs hating class politics, nice job fellas.

 Some fans refused to join early on because we didn’t want to be forced to spend big money on tickets not knowing anything about seat location. With the massive screw up’s and complications on this mini tour, everyone gets to experience this, to a small degree. Want a way to guarantee alienation of younger, newer fans? Develop a ticketing system like ten c.

There is no such thing as an egalitarian ticket distribution process. Thus, fans just wind up stumping for the system that gives them the best chance at great seats and often try to paint themselves as high minded.

Eddieredder

At this point people know GA odds are tough. There are numbers behind this. How many people are GA or bust? I'd bet its a small percentage. So if 90+ percent of people are going GA and then reserved anyway its not going to matter. 

Feels like the issue here was they clearly got way more FC seats and its crossed a dividing line of what people want. 

josevolution

I’d say lesson learned from now on if I do enter any future lottery for this band my best bet is to just choose Reserved and not GA/Reserved! That’s where I made a mistake 

beatthediese

solace said:

JimmyV said:

Did people who only selected GA/Res finally start winning seats? That wasn't happening early on. 

Yup. Everyone I know personally who only chose that option and not Reserved Only didn't get any reserved tickets until the second day when they started re-allocating.

Yep, happened to me. I selected GA and now I'm in the 300s. Would have happily just taken a loss on the GA without instead being issued some of the worst seats in the house. Assuming they're not going to be super easy to sell F2F.

Chrrie

beatthediese said:

solace said:

JimmyV said:

Did people who only selected GA/Res finally start winning seats? That wasn't happening early on. 

Yup. Everyone I know personally who only chose that option and not Reserved Only didn't get any reserved tickets until the second day when they started re-allocating.

Yep, happened to me. I selected GA and now I'm in the 300s. Would have happily just taken a loss on the GA without instead being issued some of the worst seats in the house. Assuming they're not going to be super easy to sell F2F.

At least with the reassignments next week your 300s should turn into whatever is appropriate for your 10c number.

tschav

PJNB said:

I always thought starting the hype from April 1st and 3rd was odd if they were always going to announce on the 20th.  It makes more sense now with them trying to get more new members or members with extra memberships to fill in all of those Res seats. The majority of those new memberships would of been GA or bust.

Very valid point. That's one way to capture more people on the $35 club plan and ensure higher probability on selling out a majority of shows in markets they don't typically play often.

Eddieredder

josevolution said:

I’d say lesson learned from now on if I do enter any future lottery for this band my best bet is to just choose Reserved and not GA/Reserved! That’s where I made a mistake 

I'm going to wait until the reassignments happen before making that assumption. 

smile6680

dmbolp said:

It's sole purpose was to sell as many Upper section tickets to 10C Members that otherwise wouldn't have been purchased by anyone for $162 each.  Maximize high-priced ticket sales.

You want a chance at GA?  Well you're gonna have to risk getting Uppers instead.

DMB fan club started this many years ago

Is this accurate? Can someone confirm this is what happens when you lose out on GA. Not great if so.

mattcoz

VOLARE said:

That is an interesting question / take. I wonder how it truly works.  If going reserved priority, possibly after not getting GA, you then end up in line for reserved behind those that only chose reserved as priority. That could explain low # members ending up in upper sections.  I think I’m middle of the road # wise and only look for reserved so I can see. I’ve been happy with results but the restack put me deep behind GA on the floor.  Not a ticket I would purchase for myself.  If in turn it becomes GA request gets denied and then goes to front of priority for reserved that would be tough for those only looking for reserved.  Hope it’s not like that because then the only real option is only going for GA and ending up in reserved. I’m not looking for GA but would gladly trade them for comparable reserved.   Making GA an almost mandatory choice to get seats.  Not sure if I am making sense.  

Priority has nothing to do with seating locations, or at least it's not supposed to. Maybe that was part of the problem, but we'll probably never know. They most likely just put everyone who didn't win GA in the same pool as those who picked reserved only, no change in priority.

mattcoz

smile6680 said:

dmbolp said:

It's sole purpose was to sell as many Upper section tickets to 10C Members that otherwise wouldn't have been purchased by anyone for $162 each.  Maximize high-priced ticket sales.

You want a chance at GA?  Well you're gonna have to risk getting Uppers instead.

DMB fan club started this many years ago

Is this accurate? Can someone confirm this is what happens when you lose out on GA. Not great if so.

Yes and no. If you lose out on GA, you get put in the pool for reserved instead, wherever those might be. You still get your same seniority based seating, you don't get penalized or anything. There was never any risk of not filling all the available seats, as can be seen by the shows easily selling out all the upper level tickets, so that part is pure nonsense.

Zod

I see a few pros and cons:

1) I'm very much the kind of person that doesn't travel out of my region for shows (Pacific Northwest).  If I'm mulling it over, I'm very much a GA or bust.  If I'm going to shell out a trip for something, I want to have good tickets for it kind of thing.  I think this change might keep a few people like me out of the pit, so maybe not a bad thing.

2) I think it's rough for reserved seating.  All those fan club tickets that get sold, people aren't happy with their seats, and post them on fan2fan.  Tickets are disposable now.   Don't like your tickets, put 'em on fan2fan, doesn't cost anything, and you don't lose anything, so no harm no foul.    The problem being all the people that will cancel their tickets push back all the reserved fans that use 'em.  Non 10c'ers getting better tickets through fan2fan kind of thing.

I dunno. I hope they bring back the GA only.  I've used it before and was ok with missing out.

VOLARE

mattcoz said:

VOLARE said:

That is an interesting question / take. I wonder how it truly works.  If going reserved priority, possibly after not getting GA, you then end up in line for reserved behind those that only chose reserved as priority. That could explain low # members ending up in upper sections.  I think I’m middle of the road # wise and only look for reserved so I can see. I’ve been happy with results but the restack put me deep behind GA on the floor.  Not a ticket I would purchase for myself.  If in turn it becomes GA request gets denied and then goes to front of priority for reserved that would be tough for those only looking for reserved.  Hope it’s not like that because then the only real option is only going for GA and ending up in reserved. I’m not looking for GA but would gladly trade them for comparable reserved.   Making GA an almost mandatory choice to get seats.  Not sure if I am making sense.  

Priority has nothing to do with seating locations, or at least it's not supposed to. Maybe that was part of the problem, but we'll probably never know. They most likely just put everyone who didn't win GA in the same pool as those who picked reserved only, no change in priority.

So wouldn’t that mean that if you pick GA/Reserve and don’t get GA then you are already in for Reserved as if you had only chosen Reserved? I always thought prior if you pick GA priority and Reserved 2nd then by not getting GA your reserved 2nd Priority came after those who chose Reserved as First Priority for lottery draw. Then afterwards FC# dictated seating.

robbie

It seems like nobody likes the floor seats behind GA. They could sell a lot more tickets if they opened the whole floor to GA and shorter people could scout out a good spot behind other shorter people so they would not be stuck behind someone that is 6'3. Plus, they could put so many 10C members don there, that the reserved 10c seats would be in much better spots. Whenever I go to an all GA floor concert, it seems like everyone can find a spot where they can enjoy themselves. Of course the line of campers outside would be 4 times as long waiting for the spots up front.