Warning for future PJ shows

TKD

hawkeye8388 wrote:

Hey all, below is a story that I hope people read in case they end up in a pickle without tickets.

I followed the band from DC to Boston for the tour. It was a great time I had different friends fly in for each city's show, while I followed the band along with some site seeing. I had fan club tickets for DC, MSG2, Hartford, and Boston 2 (was skipping the first Boston show).

After missing out on 10 club tickets I was a bit cavalier getting tickets for MSG1. There were some tickets on ebay the weeks before, but the tickets were shitty. Hence, I was vigilant refreshing ticketbastard the weeks leading up the show. I had never seen tickets not get released the week of a PJ show (they propably were this time I just missed it). So I will be heading to New York without tickets. Not a big deal, tickets will be released the day of the show and generally somebody always has two extra's, as I have noticed the fan base looks to upgrade their tickets any time they can.

My friend had not been to NYC before and that was a big part of the reason for him flying in. Hence, the day of the show I couldn't wait around MSG for ticket releases and we went to Yankee Stadium for a tour. I called ticketbastard several times and everything was still sold out.

So later that afternoon (4ish) we arrive at MSG. Walking inside of the corridor some dude (scalper, non fan) asks if we need tickets under his breath. We are like "yeah". He says the tickets are good and such and in such section and we asked how much. He started off at something preposterously high and we "worked him" down to $100 bucks per ticket. So while I give him my money he tries to pull a fast one and says we only gave him $160 bucks, while he likely stuffed the other $40 quickly in his pocket. We are basically just like bullshit and walk away. So I pull out the tickets and head to a seating chart. I am initally elated when I see where we are sitting...2nd fucking row of front middle section! After about ten seconds my excitement turned to caution, as in FUCK I THINK WE GOT SOLD FAKE TICKETS.

So we talk with some of the ticket security folks and they said there is no way to tell if they are fake without them scanning the ticket before the show. One guy also tells us there was over 300 fake tickets for Coldplay the night before. So we leave for a couple drinks and come back at 6:30 or so when the doors open. As we try to get in the tickets do not register. Big suprise...fake. So we go outside and mill around for an hour seeing if anyone has any reasonable tickets. We could not find anything and after that I really didn't feel like spending a couple hundred bucks for one show. So we we left and had a quiet dinner and got real drunk that night.

It wasn't a huge deal. I have been lucky to see the band a lot and I still had three shows left on the tour. I basically felt more ashamed and cheated. All my years I had never heard of anything like this for a PJ show. I have traveled a bit and I am 33 years of age, so I felt like a douchebag not utilizing more intelligence and street smarts getting the tickets. If I would have had a seating chart handy I would have called bullshit on it right from the start. Also, it suprised me that a Pearl Jam show would elicit this type of actviity. Some people I meet think they broke up years ago, much less being a hotbed for illegal ticket activity.

My friend's boss was sold fake tickets to a Cubs game this year, so this actviity is becoming more popular. If you must get tickets off the street.....

*Look for a "fan"- I highly doubt a PJ fan would ever give another the bone
*If someone looks shady and want to sell tickets to you. Ask them to walk you to ticket line and make sure the tickets go through (some other dude do this)

I dont want to sound mean but this seems like a welcome to NY moment
your 100%right about getting tix from fans but at least give it the burn test before you buy from anyone
even if theyre really good fakes it at least shows you know what your doing and if they protest you know there fake