Should PJ consider a "Beat the Bots" box office only pre-sale strategy like the Foos?

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So for the FF North American tour, they have established box office only pre-sale (old school) at the venue - http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/11/foo-fighters-announce-north-american-stadium-tour/ to beat on-line scalper bots. I like this for a few reasons - give hometown fans a better chance to see a show in their backyard and help reduce scalper access to tickets. 10C could also continue, I believe, to have the lottery as well (since pre-sale is through the box office). Love to hear everyone's thoughts on this as I think it is a cool idea...
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Comments

  • Mercury
    Mercury Posts: 425
    How about just paperless? This gimmick doesn't take into account fans who wish to travel to another city or that scalpers are perfectly capable of standing in a line.
  • cmarch007
    cmarch007 Fishers, IN Posts: 293
    Personally, I love the idea. I'll be waiting in line for the Noblesville show tickets on Saturday. It's great that the Foo's are looking out for the fans to keep scalpers away. I like the old school feel of having to physically get up and get tickets, rather than hope the computer allows you in to buy them. I'm just hoping that if I get there in line, they don't pull a lottery to determine the order of who gets to purchase first. I'm hoping it is first come, first serve...
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  • Zod
    Zod Posts: 10,887
    I'm against it. Pearl Jam never plays the town I live in. I have to travel by car/ferry to Vancouver or Seattle to see them play (3.5 hours to vancouver, 5 to Seattle).

    Pearl Jam tours are so small your screwing the majority of the fans in the same fashion. There's way more places PJ doesn't play than they do play. If you have to be in the city to buy the tickets, a bunch of 10c fans will never get to go.

    Of course it'll never happen because if you take out tickets whats the point of a 10c membership? :) Could you imagine how much revenue the 10c would lose if everyone who lived in places PJ doesn't tour dropped their memberships.. lol.
  • lolobugg
    lolobugg BLUE RDGE MTNS Posts: 8,195
    Not for PJ. This would piss off the majority of 10club members.
    As for the foos.... good luck with it. Don't see the benefit for GA shows though.
    I would like to see them in ATL but I can't find any info about ticket prices, support act, etc.
    Still can't believe these guys are big enough to play stadiums and sell tix a year in advance.
    last time I saw them was at the Tabernacle in Atlanta.

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  • Hate this idea.
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  • cmarch007
    cmarch007 Fishers, IN Posts: 293
    Zod said:

    I'm against it. Pearl Jam never plays the town I live in. I have to travel by car/ferry to Vancouver or Seattle to see them play (3.5 hours to vancouver, 5 to Seattle).

    Pearl Jam tours are so small your screwing the majority of the fans in the same fashion. There's way more places PJ doesn't play than they do play. If you have to be in the city to buy the tickets, a bunch of 10c fans will never get to go.

    Of course it'll never happen because if you take out tickets whats the point of a 10c membership? :) Could you imagine how much revenue the 10c would lose if everyone who lived in places PJ doesn't tour dropped their memberships.. lol.


    You make a great point. I'm assuming that the amount of Foo Fighter tickets that will be available will be somewhat limited. I agree on the Pearl Jam not playing "my town" piece a lot. We've traveled a good amount to see them and the lottery is basically one of the best reasons we've been able to do so.

    It would be cool if 10c held 100 pairs of tickets in this format so the local fans could purchase seats up close in their own town and then still offer the remaining 10c seats for the lottery. This way you could have local fans represent the first few rows and still have 10c members who travel get good seats.
    Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre Noblesville - May 07, 2010
    Alpine Valley (PJ20) - Wisconsin- Sep 03, 2011
    Alpine Valley (PJ20) - Wisconsin - Sep 04, 2011
    Wrigley Field - Chicago, IL. July 19, 2013
    Pittsburgh - Oct 11, 2013
    Buffalo - Oct 12, 2013 GA-rail in McCready'ville
    Cincinnati - Oct 1st, 2014 GA 
    St. Louis - Oct 3rd, 2014
    Yield, WI (aka Milwaukee) - Oct 20, 2014 GA 7 people deep McCreadyville
    Lexington, KY (GA - 2nd row between Ed & Jeff!!!)
    Wrigley Field '16 N1 (GA)
    Wrigley Field '16 N2 
    Wrigley Field '18 (N1)
    Wrigley Field '18 N2 (GA)
  • pjsteelerfan
    pjsteelerfan Maryland Posts: 9,905
    It would be like the Merch trucks but 1,000,000% worse.
    ...got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul...
  • If it is a pre-sale at the box office, wouldn't that come from general public tickets and be seperate from the 10C allotment or am I missing something?
  • benjs
    benjs Toronto, ON Posts: 9,359
    The Foo Fighters seem to forget the fact that scalpers were around before Ticketmaster, because scalpers, just like fans, are also able to wait in line for tickets. If they feel there'll be money to be made, you can bet your ass these "Beat The Bots" line-ups will be filled with scalpers.
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  • lolobugg
    lolobugg BLUE RDGE MTNS Posts: 8,195
    I wonder how many homeless people will be in line at Centennial Park? They are already there so I can see scalpers paying them to stand in line. I still don't know if it will matter at a GA event. I guess it depends on capacity.

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    2000- Atlanta, GA: New Orleans, LA: Memphis, TN: Nashville, TN

    2003- Raleigh, NC: Charlotte, NC: Atlanta, GA

    2004- Asheville, NC (hometown show)

    2006- Cincinnati, OH

    2008- Columbia, SC

    2009- Chicago, IL x 2 / Ed Vedder- Atlanta, GA x 2

    2010- Bristow, VA

    2011- Alpine Valley, WI (PJ20) x 2 / Ed Vedder- Chicago, IL

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    2017- ED VED- Louisville, KY

    2018- Chicago, IL x2, Boston, MA x2

    2020- Nashville, TN 

    2022- Smashville 

    2023- Austin, TX x2

    2024- Baltimore

  • buck502000
    buck502000 Birthplace of GIBSON guitar Posts: 8,951
    might be cool if you could only get inline with an active 10c membership
  • jason_94
    jason_94 Toledo, OH Posts: 1,872
    It's an ok idea. I also agree with several of the points talked about above both for and against the idea.

    I think one thing that ticket buyers have to take into consideration is what tickets are being offered.

    I'm sure there are only certain blocks of tickets or specific tickets available at the presale. There are probably several tickets that will be available through fan club, internet presale, public on sale, & tickets made available to brokers that are located within the same area up front that the box office presale ones are.

    Ok, when I said several I didn't mean a large quantity. I just think if you were to look at a seating chart and look at the best seats you would see tickets set aside for box office & internet presale, and brokers all sprinkled together.

    Just my opinion.
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  • Zod
    Zod Posts: 10,887
    edited November 2014
    benjs said:

    The Foo Fighters seem to forget the fact that scalpers were around before Ticketmaster, because scalpers, just like fans, are also able to wait in line for tickets. If they feel there'll be money to be made, you can bet your ass these "Beat The Bots" line-ups will be filled with scalpers.

    Yah scalping didn't start with the internet.... Scalpers used to pay people to stand in line to get tickets. I was also under the impression that scalpers get many of their tickets directly from ticketmaster now. IE Ticketmaster sells blocks of tickets directly to scalpers....

    I'm actually a bit choked because I want to see the Foo Fighters in Vancouver (or maybe the Gorge). I hope they leave decent tickets for the other presales/regular sale as it's pretty much impossible for me to get to the Gorge or GM Place box office to grab tickets :(
  • Zod
    Zod Posts: 10,887

    It would be like the Merch trucks but 1,000,000% worse.

    Yah I think PJ fan's are a little more diehard than Foo Fighter's fans. I imagine the lineup would outpace the # of tickets available... the lineup would be chaos.
  • on2legs
    on2legs Posts: 15,943
    Bad idea.
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  • manitouman
    manitouman In My Head Posts: 1,088
    That's a hell of a lineup for July 4th! I like the idea that it's just a presale. You'll never stop scalping just like you'll never stop prostitution. It's business. However, it is great for hometown fans to get a shot at being close to the band on their home turf. I may be in the minority here but it irritates the hell out of me these people who HAVE to be in feont for every freaking show. And I've personally seen some of the worst treatment of others to aquire those spots.

    I don't know, to each their own. But I like the suggestion someone made about setting 100 or so tickets aside for home town fan club members. Maybe when they sell tickets there would be an option to select a "home venue" and that would be the only show you get in the lottery for up close tickets. All other shows you want to attend would be at the mercy of the regular, as usual lottery system.
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  • pjsteelerfan
    pjsteelerfan Maryland Posts: 9,905

    That's a hell of a lineup for July 4th! I like the idea that it's just a presale. You'll never stop scalping just like you'll never stop prostitution. It's business. However, it is great for hometown fans to get a shot at being close to the band on their home turf. I may be in the minority here but it irritates the hell out of me these people who HAVE to be in feont for every freaking show. And I've personally seen some of the worst treatment of others to aquire those spots.

    I don't know, to each their own. But I like the suggestion someone made about setting 100 or so tickets aside for home town fan club members. Maybe when they sell tickets there would be an option to select a "home venue" and that would be the only show you get in the lottery for up close tickets. All other shows you want to attend would be at the mercy of the regular, as usual lottery system.

    The "Home venue" only works when touring the whole country. Foo's are more or less doing that. PJ does not.
    ...got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul...
  • Zod
    Zod Posts: 10,887
    I think there would be a helluva lot more than 100 hometown people wanting tickets. Could you imagine the size of the line up for a meager 100 tickets.... The amount of dissapointed people would completely eclipse the 50 people who scored a pair of tickets.

    With Pearl Jam you have the issue that they're tours are small, and there's a lot of places they never play. If you make the decision to restrict tickets to town there are in, then you end up alienating a lot of fans.

    I think the lottery system mostly works. GA tickets are pretty hard to get. If you choose a show for GA as #1 and another show as GA as choice #2, you're most likely not getting GA for the second show (unless it's some show that insanely low ticket demand). Thus picking out the show you want to see the most as your top pick does allow people to pick the show closest to them and priortizes tickets for those people.

    There's a few downsides to it (at least in 2013, not sure about 2014).

    1) There's no seniority with GA which means people can lure in friends/family to buy $20 memberships to increase the odds of scoring GA tickets. I like that it's not by senoirity as no one really gains much senority, so newer members would never get to be upfront on the old system. If they did one draw per show and randomly gave out the GA's, I think it would help stop the sign up everyone you know for a 10c membership issue.

    2) On the 2013 tour they treated the two N.A. legs as seperate tours, which means people got two #1 choices for the N.A. tour. This mean people from opposite coasts could go to the opposite tour and trump people living closer to the shows for tickets. I think it would of been better served as one giant tour to give people a better shot at tickets for the show closest to them.

    Conclusion: Due to PJ's tour's being small I don't think you can restrict access to giving tickets to people who living in the location of the show. There are way more PJ fans living in places that PJ doesn't tour than where they do tour, so restricting tickets shafts more people than it helps.

    As I mentioned above. If people can't travel for shows because the 10c restricts tickets, then 10c loses a lot of members. So it's never going to happen anyways :)
  • my2hands
    my2hands Posts: 17,117
    More lines?

    No thanks
  • 2-feign-reluctance
    2-feign-reluctance TigerTown, USA Posts: 23,459
    There are days I feel like beating a bot
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