Potential Ticketmaster Draw Issues

NewfieintheUSA said:

Merkin Baller said:

Well said @mpedone. 

I don't believe it was rigged in any way. I do think, if the band cared enough to spread the GA tickets around, they would / could implement a limit to 1 GA draw per member, but at this point, I don't think they're all that worried about it. 

I know I'm not. Congrats to the lucky ones, see you at the shows. 

I don't think it was rigged, as in intentional, but believe it wasn't truly random either 

JimmyV said:

I do think there was something off with the GA draw this time around. I don't know what, and I don't think 10c or PJ management had anything to do with it - other than perhaps not working with their vendor (TM) closely enough on testing and quality control. 

njhaley1 said:

mpedone said:

Lerxst1992 said:

NewfieintheUSA said:

on2legs said:

NewfieintheUSA said:

on2legs said:

NewfieintheUSA said:

Lerxst1992 said:

BF25394 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

on2legs said:

BloodMeridian80 said:

on2legs said:

BloodMeridian80 said:

on2legs said:

darwinstheory said:

mookieblalock said:

LukinTimer said:

darwinstheory said:

It's not just GA. If someone put it for GA/P1 seats to both shows for a US city EXCLUDING NYC (i.e. Vegas, LA, Chicago, Philly and Boston or Seattle) they were ALMOST positively given the same results for each show in the same city. It is city specific. This did not occur for those entering 1 Wrigley show and 1 Philly show, etc... This did not appear to occur in Vancouver, Likely due to TM Canada handling it rather than US TM.

@mookieblalock - the pool already seems to be skewed due to people failing to read the information I was looking for. Or my inability to communicate it thoroughly. I was not iso feedback from those who entered a single show in Vegas and a show in Missoula. Strictly both shows of 1 city. 

So, if selected for GA in LA 1, they also were nearly guaranteed GA night 2
If given P1 for Wrigley 1, they were also going to recieve P1 for Wrigley 2

Example:
Person A  put in request for GA/P1 for 6 shows
LA 1
LA 2
Vegas 1
Vegas 2
Wrigley 1
Wrigley 2

What we are seeing as "random" results:
LA 1 - GA
LA 2 - GA
Vegas 1 - P1 Reserved
Vegas 2 - P1 Reserved 
Wrigley 1 - GA
Wrigley 2 - GA

^^^^^^ This directly above. I have never seen this many doulbe GA, that are repeated. This seems off. Then, if looking around, you see a lot of people were also shut out of both shows for one city. Also, in very high numbers. It appears to be a new and weird pattern, specific to the recent draw. 

There’s a poll on the front page that doesn’t line up with any of your cherry picked anecdotal evidence. Something like 8% of people got double GA in the same city. 92% didn’t.

Speaking of cherry picking, yet another reminder that the root complaint is not strictly regarding GA. It is about the percentage of people receiving the exact same choice for show 2 in city x as they did for show 1. Regardless of what Jimmy got drawn (or denied) for LA, he was (almost) automatically going to get the same selection for night 2 in LA.

This is the one example I saw where someone got a N2 GA after a N1 P1. I'm sure there are others, but there should be a lot more 'splits' than 'sames' especially with GA in cities with 2 shows. Something is funky with the double GA's in 2 show US cities (and maybe doubles in general).

But if there is a glitch like you're describing then this guy should not have pulled these seats. 

I threw out one theory on why there are so many double GA's, and yes, this goes against that. It doesn't change that there are way too many GA/GA's being reported vs P1/GA (or GA/P1) on 2 show US cities. It shouldn't be anywhere close to 50/50 if it truly was a totally separate draw for each show.

You're drawing conclusions from an incomplete amount of data.  It's all anecdotal.  And you're dismissing the data that doesn't fit your conclusion. 

..
Me: 1/5
Balt - denied
Philly 1 - denied
Philly 2 - denied
MSG 1- denied
MSG 2 - eligible for draw since I lost n1, won GA

Spouse, 4/4
Balt - P2
Philly 1 - P1
Philly 2 - P1
MSG 1- P1

Family, 2/3
Philly 1 - denied
Philly 2 - P1
MSG1 - P1

Family,2/2
Philly 1 - P1
Philly 2 - P1




…

the above is not anecdotal. I changed the names, it’s not me for sure, the first one is what we’d expect for such in demand cities, 1 for 4 (msg counts as one), but the one win is a huge one, msg GA. Notoriously difficult.

then the spouse goes four for four in the four toughest draws? which has to be a tiny fraction of one percent (assuming a 10-20% chance to win one NE Show)

then remaining two family members go four for five, which on its own is way under one percent. I left off their friend, who was one for two, not bad.

its very possible we are being toyed with, because to have all these under one percent hits in the same family… time to go to Vegas, baby.

(edit, there were many like this, but this was the big one)

 

The original post also had someone who was 1-for-2 as you note. I see five people whose success rates were 100, 100, 67, 50 and 20. It's not a perfect distribution, but it's a pretty broad distribution especially for such a small sample size. It's exactly the kind of broad distribution a random draw should generate.

If all those success rates are for the four shows in the high demand NE region, they are all WAY above statistical expectations, based on prior tours.

I am changing my answer to @on2legs - that example of a family’s success is not anecdotal. It is verifiable, if they chose to share the evidence. I am not saying I want them to do that, just that it is provable . 

There is someone who hit all this on 1 account 
Portland
Seattle n1
Seattle n2
MSG N2
Philly 1 GA
Philly 2 GA
Boston 1 GA
Boston 2 GA

I believe their only miss was Baltimore

This has happened in the prior tour lotteries.  Even with priority people have hit on 10 shows.  Check those threads.  

Not 10 shows where 7 are high demand. Not GA to 4 high demand shows. 

Your complaints mirror the complaints from every prior tour.  I get the sting of being shut out.  I've been there on prior tours and Ed solo tours.  And I've never won GA for any show ever. Win some. Lose some. 

Except they don't, in previous tours if wouldn't have been possible to win GA both nights in Philly on 1 account. It wouldn't have been possible to win MSG+ both Philly nights and both Seattle nights om one account.

If you played your entry correctly you could hit it big, sure; but usually this meant hitting a bunch of less in demand shows. Not 5 shows in the northeast+ 2 in Seattle in one drawing 

Some people refuse to consider alternatives to their way of thinking. They’ve seen winners post going five for five in Vegas or LA or London or wherever. They are not willing to pause for a second and realize how much more difficult it is to win tickets in these specific NE cities. It’s just easy for them to say, I’ve seen this before

They’d rather just chalk it up to complaining because it’s easier for them to process than to think specifics about the history of these specific shows/cities


id hope that fans who chose to reply to me pay attention to detail. They should note, not once am I including Fenway in this discussion because that’s a huge venue with two shows. Hitting that twice .probably has better odds

but msg (once) and Philly three for three? Add in tiny venue Baltimore? cmone, that’s gotta be a probability of somewhere around 0.01% and the band should at least be posting odds or giving some visibility since they control how we get tickets

Says the person who keeps saying the same thing in every post.

Here's the possible scenarios:

1) Rigged: Ticketmaster (and/or the Ten Club) rigged the lottery to help newer fans get more tickets, or some other reason

2) Member-by-Member: Ticketmaster selected a member number then assigned them tickets to all shows they registered for

3) City-by-City (but not by show): Ticketmaster started in Portland, picked members at random and assigned tickets. For multi-night shows, they assigned tickets to both in the same level, based on availability.

4) True random show-by-show: For each show, Ticketmaster randomly selected members for each price level.

If anyone truly believes #1, then find a lawyer and go to town.

#2 seems to be what a lot of people are claiming happened.

#3 is also a possibility, and would lead to slightly different results than #2, but similar to what we think we're seeing.

#4 is how we expect the lottery to work, and if it did, either some people got EXTREMELY lucky, or we're not seeing enough results to know.

We don't have enough data to know for sure which of these happened. Nothing in the posts before the lottery really say one way or the other, and I don't expect TM or 10C to tell us. Sitting here discussing hypothetical odds using numbers we don't know based on demand that for a show four years ago under different circumstances is tedious and pointless.

That said, my money is on either #2 or #3, and probably #2, as it feels the closest to the way Ticketmaster seems to work - first come, first served, and it jives with the removal of priority (if you're just going to sell me everything available in my request when my number is picked, there's no need for priority). They picked a member, and gave them all their requests (that still had available tickets). As long as that selection is truly random, there's nothing particularly underhanded about that, but is it fair? Again, that depends on your perspective. If you think the point of the club having tickets is to get as many fans to shows, then, no this is not a good/fair system. If you think the point is just to get tickets to the 10 Club (regardless of how many different members actually get tickets), then it's fine. Not great, but nothing actually wrong with it. No conspiracy, no coding errors, no "impossible" statistical scenarios.

Let me use an analogy: Black Friday sales. Best Buy has a bunch of electronics at decent discounts and decides that Rewards members get in a couple of hours early, and decided to randomize who gets to go in. They could pick numbers at random and let you go in and buy one item and put your number back into the pool until you've gotten everything you wanted or they sell out. Or, they could pick numbers at random and let you go in and buy the items you want, then pick the next number. Both are "fair". The first method leads to more people being somewhat happy (though still upset because invariably something they want will be gone). The second leads to some people being happier because they got more stuff and some people being more unhappy because they didn't get anything.

So, yeah, it seems "unfair" that some people got multiple GA shows while others didn't even get tickets, but that doesn't mean that Ticketmaster did anything actionably wrong. It sucks, but it's not personal. It is the luck of the draw. Starting threads about it probably won't change anything. Writing directly to the Ten Club... Probably won't either, but it's worth a shot. Let them know that this system left a lot of fans out in the cold, as it were. I'm not sure what power they have (as I've stated previously, Ticketmaster has won) to change anything, but who knows?

We could work backwards using confirmation numbers (as you or someone else suggested), I bet, but it'd be tedious and at this point water under the bridge.  I agree that it's either #2 or 3, but like others I was expecting each seating choice, each show to be randomized and I was not expecting the results I got.  This isn't really hard to do - western states like Wyoming handle these types of lotteries for hunting every year, and I see very little bitching there.  

njhaley1 said:

mpedone said:

Lerxst1992 said:

NewfieintheUSA said:

on2legs said:

NewfieintheUSA said:

on2legs said:

NewfieintheUSA said:

Lerxst1992 said:

BF25394 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

on2legs said:

BloodMeridian80 said:

on2legs said:

BloodMeridian80 said:

on2legs said:

darwinstheory said:

mookieblalock said:

LukinTimer said:

darwinstheory said:

It's not just GA. If someone put it for GA/P1 seats to both shows for a US city EXCLUDING NYC (i.e. Vegas, LA, Chicago, Philly and Boston or Seattle) they were ALMOST positively given the same results for each show in the same city. It is city specific. This did not occur for those entering 1 Wrigley show and 1 Philly show, etc... This did not appear to occur in Vancouver, Likely due to TM Canada handling it rather than US TM.

@mookieblalock - the pool already seems to be skewed due to people failing to read the information I was looking for. Or my inability to communicate it thoroughly. I was not iso feedback from those who entered a single show in Vegas and a show in Missoula. Strictly both shows of 1 city. 

So, if selected for GA in LA 1, they also were nearly guaranteed GA night 2
If given P1 for Wrigley 1, they were also going to recieve P1 for Wrigley 2

Example:
Person A  put in request for GA/P1 for 6 shows
LA 1
LA 2
Vegas 1
Vegas 2
Wrigley 1
Wrigley 2

What we are seeing as "random" results:
LA 1 - GA
LA 2 - GA
Vegas 1 - P1 Reserved
Vegas 2 - P1 Reserved 
Wrigley 1 - GA
Wrigley 2 - GA

^^^^^^ This directly above. I have never seen this many doulbe GA, that are repeated. This seems off. Then, if looking around, you see a lot of people were also shut out of both shows for one city. Also, in very high numbers. It appears to be a new and weird pattern, specific to the recent draw. 

There’s a poll on the front page that doesn’t line up with any of your cherry picked anecdotal evidence. Something like 8% of people got double GA in the same city. 92% didn’t.

Speaking of cherry picking, yet another reminder that the root complaint is not strictly regarding GA. It is about the percentage of people receiving the exact same choice for show 2 in city x as they did for show 1. Regardless of what Jimmy got drawn (or denied) for LA, he was (almost) automatically going to get the same selection for night 2 in LA.

This is the one example I saw where someone got a N2 GA after a N1 P1. I'm sure there are others, but there should be a lot more 'splits' than 'sames' especially with GA in cities with 2 shows. Something is funky with the double GA's in 2 show US cities (and maybe doubles in general).

But if there is a glitch like you're describing then this guy should not have pulled these seats. 

I threw out one theory on why there are so many double GA's, and yes, this goes against that. It doesn't change that there are way too many GA/GA's being reported vs P1/GA (or GA/P1) on 2 show US cities. It shouldn't be anywhere close to 50/50 if it truly was a totally separate draw for each show.

You're drawing conclusions from an incomplete amount of data.  It's all anecdotal.  And you're dismissing the data that doesn't fit your conclusion. 

..
Me: 1/5
Balt - denied
Philly 1 - denied
Philly 2 - denied
MSG 1- denied
MSG 2 - eligible for draw since I lost n1, won GA

Spouse, 4/4
Balt - P2
Philly 1 - P1
Philly 2 - P1
MSG 1- P1

Family, 2/3
Philly 1 - denied
Philly 2 - P1
MSG1 - P1

Family,2/2
Philly 1 - P1
Philly 2 - P1




…

the above is not anecdotal. I changed the names, it’s not me for sure, the first one is what we’d expect for such in demand cities, 1 for 4 (msg counts as one), but the one win is a huge one, msg GA. Notoriously difficult.

then the spouse goes four for four in the four toughest draws? which has to be a tiny fraction of one percent (assuming a 10-20% chance to win one NE Show)

then remaining two family members go four for five, which on its own is way under one percent. I left off their friend, who was one for two, not bad.

its very possible we are being toyed with, because to have all these under one percent hits in the same family… time to go to Vegas, baby.

(edit, there were many like this, but this was the big one)

 

The original post also had someone who was 1-for-2 as you note. I see five people whose success rates were 100, 100, 67, 50 and 20. It's not a perfect distribution, but it's a pretty broad distribution especially for such a small sample size. It's exactly the kind of broad distribution a random draw should generate.

If all those success rates are for the four shows in the high demand NE region, they are all WAY above statistical expectations, based on prior tours.

I am changing my answer to @on2legs - that example of a family’s success is not anecdotal. It is verifiable, if they chose to share the evidence. I am not saying I want them to do that, just that it is provable . 

There is someone who hit all this on 1 account 
Portland
Seattle n1
Seattle n2
MSG N2
Philly 1 GA
Philly 2 GA
Boston 1 GA
Boston 2 GA

I believe their only miss was Baltimore

This has happened in the prior tour lotteries.  Even with priority people have hit on 10 shows.  Check those threads.  

Not 10 shows where 7 are high demand. Not GA to 4 high demand shows. 

Your complaints mirror the complaints from every prior tour.  I get the sting of being shut out.  I've been there on prior tours and Ed solo tours.  And I've never won GA for any show ever. Win some. Lose some. 

Except they don't, in previous tours if wouldn't have been possible to win GA both nights in Philly on 1 account. It wouldn't have been possible to win MSG+ both Philly nights and both Seattle nights om one account.

If you played your entry correctly you could hit it big, sure; but usually this meant hitting a bunch of less in demand shows. Not 5 shows in the northeast+ 2 in Seattle in one drawing 

Some people refuse to consider alternatives to their way of thinking. They’ve seen winners post going five for five in Vegas or LA or London or wherever. They are not willing to pause for a second and realize how much more difficult it is to win tickets in these specific NE cities. It’s just easy for them to say, I’ve seen this before

They’d rather just chalk it up to complaining because it’s easier for them to process than to think specifics about the history of these specific shows/cities


id hope that fans who chose to reply to me pay attention to detail. They should note, not once am I including Fenway in this discussion because that’s a huge venue with two shows. Hitting that twice .probably has better odds

but msg (once) and Philly three for three? Add in tiny venue Baltimore? cmone, that’s gotta be a probability of somewhere around 0.01% and the band should at least be posting odds or giving some visibility since they control how we get tickets

Says the person who keeps saying the same thing in every post.

Here's the possible scenarios:

1) Rigged: Ticketmaster (and/or the Ten Club) rigged the lottery to help newer fans get more tickets, or some other reason

2) Member-by-Member: Ticketmaster selected a member number then assigned them tickets to all shows they registered for

3) City-by-City (but not by show): Ticketmaster started in Portland, picked members at random and assigned tickets. For multi-night shows, they assigned tickets to both in the same level, based on availability.

4) True random show-by-show: For each show, Ticketmaster randomly selected members for each price level.

If anyone truly believes #1, then find a lawyer and go to town.

#2 seems to be what a lot of people are claiming happened.

#3 is also a possibility, and would lead to slightly different results than #2, but similar to what we think we're seeing.

#4 is how we expect the lottery to work, and if it did, either some people got EXTREMELY lucky, or we're not seeing enough results to know.

We don't have enough data to know for sure which of these happened. Nothing in the posts before the lottery really say one way or the other, and I don't expect TM or 10C to tell us. Sitting here discussing hypothetical odds using numbers we don't know based on demand that for a show four years ago under different circumstances is tedious and pointless.

That said, my money is on either #2 or #3, and probably #2, as it feels the closest to the way Ticketmaster seems to work - first come, first served, and it jives with the removal of priority (if you're just going to sell me everything available in my request when my number is picked, there's no need for priority). They picked a member, and gave them all their requests (that still had available tickets). As long as that selection is truly random, there's nothing particularly underhanded about that, but is it fair? Again, that depends on your perspective. If you think the point of the club having tickets is to get as many fans to shows, then, no this is not a good/fair system. If you think the point is just to get tickets to the 10 Club (regardless of how many different members actually get tickets), then it's fine. Not great, but nothing actually wrong with it. No conspiracy, no coding errors, no "impossible" statistical scenarios.

Let me use an analogy: Black Friday sales. Best Buy has a bunch of electronics at decent discounts and decides that Rewards members get in a couple of hours early, and decided to randomize who gets to go in. They could pick numbers at random and let you go in and buy one item and put your number back into the pool until you've gotten everything you wanted or they sell out. Or, they could pick numbers at random and let you go in and buy the items you want, then pick the next number. Both are "fair". The first method leads to more people being somewhat happy (though still upset because invariably something they want will be gone). The second leads to some people being happier because they got more stuff and some people being more unhappy because they didn't get anything.

So, yeah, it seems "unfair" that some people got multiple GA shows while others didn't even get tickets, but that doesn't mean that Ticketmaster did anything actionably wrong. It sucks, but it's not personal. It is the luck of the draw. Starting threads about it probably won't change anything. Writing directly to the Ten Club... Probably won't either, but it's worth a shot. Let them know that this system left a lot of fans out in the cold, as it were. I'm not sure what power they have (as I've stated previously, Ticketmaster has won) to change anything, but who knows?

We could work backwards using confirmation numbers (as you or someone else suggested), I bet, but it'd be tedious and at this point water under the bridge.  I agree that it's either #2 or 3, but like others I was expecting each seating choice, each show to be randomized and I was not expecting the results I got.  This isn't really hard to do - western states like Wyoming handle these types of lotteries for hunting every year, and I see very little bitching there.  

cincybearcat said:

njhaley1 said:

mpedone said:

Lerxst1992 said:

NewfieintheUSA said:

on2legs said:

NewfieintheUSA said:

on2legs said:

NewfieintheUSA said:

Lerxst1992 said:

BF25394 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

on2legs said:

BloodMeridian80 said:

on2legs said:

BloodMeridian80 said:

on2legs said:

darwinstheory said:

mookieblalock said:

LukinTimer said:

darwinstheory said:

It's not just GA. If someone put it for GA/P1 seats to both shows for a US city EXCLUDING NYC (i.e. Vegas, LA, Chicago, Philly and Boston or Seattle) they were ALMOST positively given the same results for each show in the same city. It is city specific. This did not occur for those entering 1 Wrigley show and 1 Philly show, etc... This did not appear to occur in Vancouver, Likely due to TM Canada handling it rather than US TM.

@mookieblalock - the pool already seems to be skewed due to people failing to read the information I was looking for. Or my inability to communicate it thoroughly. I was not iso feedback from those who entered a single show in Vegas and a show in Missoula. Strictly both shows of 1 city. 

So, if selected for GA in LA 1, they also were nearly guaranteed GA night 2
If given P1 for Wrigley 1, they were also going to recieve P1 for Wrigley 2

Example:
Person A  put in request for GA/P1 for 6 shows
LA 1
LA 2
Vegas 1
Vegas 2
Wrigley 1
Wrigley 2

What we are seeing as "random" results:
LA 1 - GA
LA 2 - GA
Vegas 1 - P1 Reserved
Vegas 2 - P1 Reserved 
Wrigley 1 - GA
Wrigley 2 - GA

^^^^^^ This directly above. I have never seen this many doulbe GA, that are repeated. This seems off. Then, if looking around, you see a lot of people were also shut out of both shows for one city. Also, in very high numbers. It appears to be a new and weird pattern, specific to the recent draw. 

There’s a poll on the front page that doesn’t line up with any of your cherry picked anecdotal evidence. Something like 8% of people got double GA in the same city. 92% didn’t.

Speaking of cherry picking, yet another reminder that the root complaint is not strictly regarding GA. It is about the percentage of people receiving the exact same choice for show 2 in city x as they did for show 1. Regardless of what Jimmy got drawn (or denied) for LA, he was (almost) automatically going to get the same selection for night 2 in LA.

This is the one example I saw where someone got a N2 GA after a N1 P1. I'm sure there are others, but there should be a lot more 'splits' than 'sames' especially with GA in cities with 2 shows. Something is funky with the double GA's in 2 show US cities (and maybe doubles in general).

But if there is a glitch like you're describing then this guy should not have pulled these seats. 

I threw out one theory on why there are so many double GA's, and yes, this goes against that. It doesn't change that there are way too many GA/GA's being reported vs P1/GA (or GA/P1) on 2 show US cities. It shouldn't be anywhere close to 50/50 if it truly was a totally separate draw for each show.

You're drawing conclusions from an incomplete amount of data.  It's all anecdotal.  And you're dismissing the data that doesn't fit your conclusion. 

..
Me: 1/5
Balt - denied
Philly 1 - denied
Philly 2 - denied
MSG 1- denied
MSG 2 - eligible for draw since I lost n1, won GA

Spouse, 4/4
Balt - P2
Philly 1 - P1
Philly 2 - P1
MSG 1- P1

Family, 2/3
Philly 1 - denied
Philly 2 - P1
MSG1 - P1

Family,2/2
Philly 1 - P1
Philly 2 - P1




…

the above is not anecdotal. I changed the names, it’s not me for sure, the first one is what we’d expect for such in demand cities, 1 for 4 (msg counts as one), but the one win is a huge one, msg GA. Notoriously difficult.

then the spouse goes four for four in the four toughest draws? which has to be a tiny fraction of one percent (assuming a 10-20% chance to win one NE Show)

then remaining two family members go four for five, which on its own is way under one percent. I left off their friend, who was one for two, not bad.

its very possible we are being toyed with, because to have all these under one percent hits in the same family… time to go to Vegas, baby.

(edit, there were many like this, but this was the big one)

 

The original post also had someone who was 1-for-2 as you note. I see five people whose success rates were 100, 100, 67, 50 and 20. It's not a perfect distribution, but it's a pretty broad distribution especially for such a small sample size. It's exactly the kind of broad distribution a random draw should generate.

If all those success rates are for the four shows in the high demand NE region, they are all WAY above statistical expectations, based on prior tours.

I am changing my answer to @on2legs - that example of a family’s success is not anecdotal. It is verifiable, if they chose to share the evidence. I am not saying I want them to do that, just that it is provable . 

There is someone who hit all this on 1 account 
Portland
Seattle n1
Seattle n2
MSG N2
Philly 1 GA
Philly 2 GA
Boston 1 GA
Boston 2 GA

I believe their only miss was Baltimore

This has happened in the prior tour lotteries.  Even with priority people have hit on 10 shows.  Check those threads.  

Not 10 shows where 7 are high demand. Not GA to 4 high demand shows. 

Your complaints mirror the complaints from every prior tour.  I get the sting of being shut out.  I've been there on prior tours and Ed solo tours.  And I've never won GA for any show ever. Win some. Lose some. 

Except they don't, in previous tours if wouldn't have been possible to win GA both nights in Philly on 1 account. It wouldn't have been possible to win MSG+ both Philly nights and both Seattle nights om one account.

If you played your entry correctly you could hit it big, sure; but usually this meant hitting a bunch of less in demand shows. Not 5 shows in the northeast+ 2 in Seattle in one drawing 

Some people refuse to consider alternatives to their way of thinking. They’ve seen winners post going five for five in Vegas or LA or London or wherever. They are not willing to pause for a second and realize how much more difficult it is to win tickets in these specific NE cities. It’s just easy for them to say, I’ve seen this before

They’d rather just chalk it up to complaining because it’s easier for them to process than to think specifics about the history of these specific shows/cities


id hope that fans who chose to reply to me pay attention to detail. They should note, not once am I including Fenway in this discussion because that’s a huge venue with two shows. Hitting that twice .probably has better odds

but msg (once) and Philly three for three? Add in tiny venue Baltimore? cmone, that’s gotta be a probability of somewhere around 0.01% and the band should at least be posting odds or giving some visibility since they control how we get tickets

Says the person who keeps saying the same thing in every post.

Here's the possible scenarios:

1) Rigged: Ticketmaster (and/or the Ten Club) rigged the lottery to help newer fans get more tickets, or some other reason

2) Member-by-Member: Ticketmaster selected a member number then assigned them tickets to all shows they registered for

3) City-by-City (but not by show): Ticketmaster started in Portland, picked members at random and assigned tickets. For multi-night shows, they assigned tickets to both in the same level, based on availability.

4) True random show-by-show: For each show, Ticketmaster randomly selected members for each price level.

If anyone truly believes #1, then find a lawyer and go to town.

#2 seems to be what a lot of people are claiming happened.

#3 is also a possibility, and would lead to slightly different results than #2, but similar to what we think we're seeing.

#4 is how we expect the lottery to work, and if it did, either some people got EXTREMELY lucky, or we're not seeing enough results to know.

We don't have enough data to know for sure which of these happened. Nothing in the posts before the lottery really say one way or the other, and I don't expect TM or 10C to tell us. Sitting here discussing hypothetical odds using numbers we don't know based on demand that for a show four years ago under different circumstances is tedious and pointless.

That said, my money is on either #2 or #3, and probably #2, as it feels the closest to the way Ticketmaster seems to work - first come, first served, and it jives with the removal of priority (if you're just going to sell me everything available in my request when my number is picked, there's no need for priority). They picked a member, and gave them all their requests (that still had available tickets). As long as that selection is truly random, there's nothing particularly underhanded about that, but is it fair? Again, that depends on your perspective. If you think the point of the club having tickets is to get as many fans to shows, then, no this is not a good/fair system. If you think the point is just to get tickets to the 10 Club (regardless of how many different members actually get tickets), then it's fine. Not great, but nothing actually wrong with it. No conspiracy, no coding errors, no "impossible" statistical scenarios.

Let me use an analogy: Black Friday sales. Best Buy has a bunch of electronics at decent discounts and decides that Rewards members get in a couple of hours early, and decided to randomize who gets to go in. They could pick numbers at random and let you go in and buy one item and put your number back into the pool until you've gotten everything you wanted or they sell out. Or, they could pick numbers at random and let you go in and buy the items you want, then pick the next number. Both are "fair". The first method leads to more people being somewhat happy (though still upset because invariably something they want will be gone). The second leads to some people being happier because they got more stuff and some people being more unhappy because they didn't get anything.

So, yeah, it seems "unfair" that some people got multiple GA shows while others didn't even get tickets, but that doesn't mean that Ticketmaster did anything actionably wrong. It sucks, but it's not personal. It is the luck of the draw. Starting threads about it probably won't change anything. Writing directly to the Ten Club... Probably won't either, but it's worth a shot. Let them know that this system left a lot of fans out in the cold, as it were. I'm not sure what power they have (as I've stated previously, Ticketmaster has won) to change anything, but who knows?

We could work backwards using confirmation numbers (as you or someone else suggested), I bet, but it'd be tedious and at this point water under the bridge.  I agree that it's either #2 or 3, but like others I was expecting each seating choice, each show to be randomized and I was not expecting the results I got.  This isn't really hard to do - western states like Wyoming handle these types of lotteries for hunting every year, and I see very little bitching there.  

I put in for all levels of seating for both Chicago shows.  I got N1 seating and nothing for N2.  How could that happen if #2 or #3 were occuring?

Would you be saying that my entry got picked but by the time I was picked there were no N2 tickets left but there were N1 so I got N1 and not N2?  I personally just think it was a lottery and luck of the draw.

PB11041 said:

Get_Right said:

I do not think we have seen more double GAs than not.  More people got shut out than people who got double GAs. I just think people need to accept the fact that if you select GA/P1 you might get shut out for northeast shows since those tickets are in the highest demand and are in the most popular markets. They should have applied the MSG rule to any city with two shows, especially in the northeast, and hopefully they will next time around. It is tough for TM and the band to agree to this as it slows down ticket sales.

JR86440 said:

PB11041 said:

Get_Right said:

I do not think we have seen more double GAs than not.  More people got shut out than people who got double GAs. I just think people need to accept the fact that if you select GA/P1 you might get shut out for northeast shows since those tickets are in the highest demand and are in the most popular markets. They should have applied the MSG rule to any city with two shows, especially in the northeast, and hopefully they will next time around. It is tough for TM and the band to agree to this as it slows down ticket sales.

It still makes no sense why picking GA or Reserved AND just Reserved increases odds. If you are good with GA or Reserved that should put you in bucket for both. 

mpedone said:

Lerxst1992 said:

NewfieintheUSA said:

on2legs said:

NewfieintheUSA said:

on2legs said:

NewfieintheUSA said:

Lerxst1992 said:

BF25394 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

on2legs said:

BloodMeridian80 said:

on2legs said:

BloodMeridian80 said:

on2legs said:

darwinstheory said:

mookieblalock said:

LukinTimer said:

darwinstheory said:

It's not just GA. If someone put it for GA/P1 seats to both shows for a US city EXCLUDING NYC (i.e. Vegas, LA, Chicago, Philly and Boston or Seattle) they were ALMOST positively given the same results for each show in the same city. It is city specific. This did not occur for those entering 1 Wrigley show and 1 Philly show, etc... This did not appear to occur in Vancouver, Likely due to TM Canada handling it rather than US TM.

@mookieblalock - the pool already seems to be skewed due to people failing to read the information I was looking for. Or my inability to communicate it thoroughly. I was not iso feedback from those who entered a single show in Vegas and a show in Missoula. Strictly both shows of 1 city. 

So, if selected for GA in LA 1, they also were nearly guaranteed GA night 2
If given P1 for Wrigley 1, they were also going to recieve P1 for Wrigley 2

Example:
Person A  put in request for GA/P1 for 6 shows
LA 1
LA 2
Vegas 1
Vegas 2
Wrigley 1
Wrigley 2

What we are seeing as "random" results:
LA 1 - GA
LA 2 - GA
Vegas 1 - P1 Reserved
Vegas 2 - P1 Reserved 
Wrigley 1 - GA
Wrigley 2 - GA

^^^^^^ This directly above. I have never seen this many doulbe GA, that are repeated. This seems off. Then, if looking around, you see a lot of people were also shut out of both shows for one city. Also, in very high numbers. It appears to be a new and weird pattern, specific to the recent draw. 

There’s a poll on the front page that doesn’t line up with any of your cherry picked anecdotal evidence. Something like 8% of people got double GA in the same city. 92% didn’t.

Speaking of cherry picking, yet another reminder that the root complaint is not strictly regarding GA. It is about the percentage of people receiving the exact same choice for show 2 in city x as they did for show 1. Regardless of what Jimmy got drawn (or denied) for LA, he was (almost) automatically going to get the same selection for night 2 in LA.

This is the one example I saw where someone got a N2 GA after a N1 P1. I'm sure there are others, but there should be a lot more 'splits' than 'sames' especially with GA in cities with 2 shows. Something is funky with the double GA's in 2 show US cities (and maybe doubles in general).

But if there is a glitch like you're describing then this guy should not have pulled these seats. 

I threw out one theory on why there are so many double GA's, and yes, this goes against that. It doesn't change that there are way too many GA/GA's being reported vs P1/GA (or GA/P1) on 2 show US cities. It shouldn't be anywhere close to 50/50 if it truly was a totally separate draw for each show.

You're drawing conclusions from an incomplete amount of data.  It's all anecdotal.  And you're dismissing the data that doesn't fit your conclusion. 

..
Me: 1/5
Balt - denied
Philly 1 - denied
Philly 2 - denied
MSG 1- denied
MSG 2 - eligible for draw since I lost n1, won GA

Spouse, 4/4
Balt - P2
Philly 1 - P1
Philly 2 - P1
MSG 1- P1

Family, 2/3
Philly 1 - denied
Philly 2 - P1
MSG1 - P1

Family,2/2
Philly 1 - P1
Philly 2 - P1




…

the above is not anecdotal. I changed the names, it’s not me for sure, the first one is what we’d expect for such in demand cities, 1 for 4 (msg counts as one), but the one win is a huge one, msg GA. Notoriously difficult.

then the spouse goes four for four in the four toughest draws? which has to be a tiny fraction of one percent (assuming a 10-20% chance to win one NE Show)

then remaining two family members go four for five, which on its own is way under one percent. I left off their friend, who was one for two, not bad.

its very possible we are being toyed with, because to have all these under one percent hits in the same family… time to go to Vegas, baby.

(edit, there were many like this, but this was the big one)

 

The original post also had someone who was 1-for-2 as you note. I see five people whose success rates were 100, 100, 67, 50 and 20. It's not a perfect distribution, but it's a pretty broad distribution especially for such a small sample size. It's exactly the kind of broad distribution a random draw should generate.

If all those success rates are for the four shows in the high demand NE region, they are all WAY above statistical expectations, based on prior tours.

I am changing my answer to @on2legs - that example of a family’s success is not anecdotal. It is verifiable, if they chose to share the evidence. I am not saying I want them to do that, just that it is provable . 

There is someone who hit all this on 1 account 
Portland
Seattle n1
Seattle n2
MSG N2
Philly 1 GA
Philly 2 GA
Boston 1 GA
Boston 2 GA

I believe their only miss was Baltimore

This has happened in the prior tour lotteries.  Even with priority people have hit on 10 shows.  Check those threads.  

Not 10 shows where 7 are high demand. Not GA to 4 high demand shows. 

Your complaints mirror the complaints from every prior tour.  I get the sting of being shut out.  I've been there on prior tours and Ed solo tours.  And I've never won GA for any show ever. Win some. Lose some. 

Except they don't, in previous tours if wouldn't have been possible to win GA both nights in Philly on 1 account. It wouldn't have been possible to win MSG+ both Philly nights and both Seattle nights om one account.

If you played your entry correctly you could hit it big, sure; but usually this meant hitting a bunch of less in demand shows. Not 5 shows in the northeast+ 2 in Seattle in one drawing 

Some people refuse to consider alternatives to their way of thinking. They’ve seen winners post going five for five in Vegas or LA or London or wherever. They are not willing to pause for a second and realize how much more difficult it is to win tickets in these specific NE cities. It’s just easy for them to say, I’ve seen this before

They’d rather just chalk it up to complaining because it’s easier for them to process than to think specifics about the history of these specific shows/cities


id hope that fans who chose to reply to me pay attention to detail. They should note, not once am I including Fenway in this discussion because that’s a huge venue with two shows. Hitting that twice .probably has better odds

but msg (once) and Philly three for three? Add in tiny venue Baltimore? cmone, that’s gotta be a probability of somewhere around 0.01% and the band should at least be posting odds or giving some visibility since they control how we get tickets

Says the person who keeps saying the same thing in every post.

Here's the possible scenarios:

1) Rigged: Ticketmaster (and/or the Ten Club) rigged the lottery to help newer fans get more tickets, or some other reason

2) Member-by-Member: Ticketmaster selected a member number then assigned them tickets to all shows they registered for

3) City-by-City (but not by show): Ticketmaster started in Portland, picked members at random and assigned tickets. For multi-night shows, they assigned tickets to both in the same level, based on availability.

4) True random show-by-show: For each show, Ticketmaster randomly selected members for each price level.

If anyone truly believes #1, then find a lawyer and go to town.

#2 seems to be what a lot of people are claiming happened.

#3 is also a possibility, and would lead to slightly different results than #2, but similar to what we think we're seeing.

#4 is how we expect the lottery to work, and if it did, either some people got EXTREMELY lucky, or we're not seeing enough results to know.

We don't have enough data to know for sure which of these happened. Nothing in the posts before the lottery really say one way or the other, and I don't expect TM or 10C to tell us. Sitting here discussing hypothetical odds using numbers we don't know based on demand that for a show four years ago under different circumstances is tedious and pointless.

That said, my money is on either #2 or #3, and probably #2, as it feels the closest to the way Ticketmaster seems to work - first come, first served, and it jives with the removal of priority (if you're just going to sell me everything available in my request when my number is picked, there's no need for priority). They picked a member, and gave them all their requests (that still had available tickets). As long as that selection is truly random, there's nothing particularly underhanded about that, but is it fair? Again, that depends on your perspective. If you think the point of the club having tickets is to get as many fans to shows, then, no this is not a good/fair system. If you think the point is just to get tickets to the 10 Club (regardless of how many different members actually get tickets), then it's fine. Not great, but nothing actually wrong with it. No conspiracy, no coding errors, no "impossible" statistical scenarios.

Let me use an analogy: Black Friday sales. Best Buy has a bunch of electronics at decent discounts and decides that Rewards members get in a couple of hours early, and decided to randomize who gets to go in. They could pick numbers at random and let you go in and buy one item and put your number back into the pool until you've gotten everything you wanted or they sell out. Or, they could pick numbers at random and let you go in and buy the items you want, then pick the next number. Both are "fair". The first method leads to more people being somewhat happy (though still upset because invariably something they want will be gone). The second leads to some people being happier because they got more stuff and some people being more unhappy because they didn't get anything.

So, yeah, it seems "unfair" that some people got multiple GA shows while others didn't even get tickets, but that doesn't mean that Ticketmaster did anything actionably wrong. It sucks, but it's not personal. It is the luck of the draw. Starting threads about it probably won't change anything. Writing directly to the Ten Club... Probably won't either, but it's worth a shot. Let them know that this system left a lot of fans out in the cold, as it were. I'm not sure what power they have (as I've stated previously, Ticketmaster has won) to change anything, but who knows?

RyGuy said:

I know it’s only February but this has Thread of the Year potential.

JR86440 said:

PB11041 said:

Get_Right said:

I do not think we have seen more double GAs than not.  More people got shut out than people who got double GAs. I just think people need to accept the fact that if you select GA/P1 you might get shut out for northeast shows since those tickets are in the highest demand and are in the most popular markets. They should have applied the MSG rule to any city with two shows, especially in the northeast, and hopefully they will next time around. It is tough for TM and the band to agree to this as it slows down ticket sales.

It still makes no sense why picking GA or Reserved AND just Reserved increases odds. If you are good with GA or Reserved that should put you in bucket for both.