F2F is OPEN

laylagrrl said:

I got super lucky and was able to get tix for 7 of 10 shows. I was expecting 1 or 2. I really wanted FL because that's where I live, but I didn't get those. So looking at my family's schedules and finances, I'm going to start listing some shows F2F. First up will be Pitt1 GA and Pitt2 111. This is so painful. I'll post the links as soon as I have them. Definitely want another true fan to get them!

EH14457 said:

I've also been in jail for over 48 hours at this point, and based on past experiences I'm not expecting to be out any time soon.

I think what's most frustrating is that there are some really clear passive criteria TM could use to identify who is and isn't actually a bot/scalper. My TM account has probably purchased hundreds of tickets in the past years, and 90+% of them have been used without being sold or transferred. The few that have been sold (even ignoring F2F after upgrades) have been sold at roughly face value literally every time. In what universe is that behavior consistent with scalping or trying to game their system?

Even ignoring the idea of using sensible logic, they could have an appeals process with a whitelist at the IP level, account level, device ID level, anything. But they don't have formal processes for any of that. If you get lucky with CS, you might find somebody who's willing to help you. Otherwise you get a useless generic response. 

The whole 'blocking' charade is optics over utility, just so they can project that they're doing something. They have no incentive to do more than that.

Chrrie said:

I used to be the biggest fan of f2f and wished other artists would do the same. A very kind person here taught me the ropes before the Canadian leg of the 22 tour and I’d like to think I got quite good at it while it lasted. Had no problem last year either and got all the upgrades I wanted months or weeks before the show. The good old days when even timed drops worked.

That changed this year and I can’t help but blame the mobile ticket hack that the larger brokers figured out. I feel like I started hearing about this link thing that you’d get emailed if you bought from Vivid before St. Paul but it certainly wasn’t breaking the system yet. When f2f opened unannounced for this year’s shows I got Vancouver GA within a couple hours and then nothing for any other show until the day of. Was able to cart plenty of pairs in the weeks and months leading up but never actually got any until going after singles got reliable for a little while, almost like their algorithm briefly wasn’t looking for them. Maybe that’s anecdotal but that was my perception for a bit. 

It was difficult but scraped my way through several shows almost exclusively through social means and trades, sharing log-ins or scanning each other in at the show. The few tickets I got myself were hours before doors and in some of the lower demand markets. I’m more fortunate than others in that my partner has a very good 10c number and we used to be able to plan to give unused seats to friends but everything he won for 2024 we ended up using ourselves or for GA trades. The hardest by far that I had to deal with was Seattle and Philly 1. Didn’t bother with Wrigley or MSG because of the state laws. 

I haven’t been keeping up on this thread as much partly due to being busy with holiday stuff and partly because I don’t really want to deal with the frustration right now but if it’s anything like it was this year I’m expecting links to be the only reliable way to get tickets. 

For what it’s worth, I was refreshing for another band back in early November and found myself getting locked out after 10-20 times switching between 1 and 2 tickets and the only way to fix it was to go in to purchase some of the premium tickets and release them, but then eventually I got the we think you’re a bot message for a few days. I was hoping it was an anomaly but experienced the same thing when refreshing Hollywood the day that f2f opened. So they’ve taken that away now too? The actual bots aren’t even using the web interface to purchase tickets yet that’s what Ticketmaster in its infinite wisdom decided to limit now? I hope others are having better luck. F2F is the only way I’m able to afford going to multiple shows so I definitely still want it but something needs to change. The Billie Eilish story that came out was polarizing and probably unrealistic but I’m glad other artists are realizing there’s a problem too. It sounds crazy but I actually used to enjoy the game of it when you had a chance to win, even used to joke at the end of tours that I didn’t know what to do with my time if I didn’t have to refresh anymore. 

Chrrie said:

I used to be the biggest fan of f2f and wished other artists would do the same. A very kind person here taught me the ropes before the Canadian leg of the 22 tour and I’d like to think I got quite good at it while it lasted. Had no problem last year either and got all the upgrades I wanted months or weeks before the show. The good old days when even timed drops worked.

That changed this year and I can’t help but blame the mobile ticket hack that the larger brokers figured out. I feel like I started hearing about this link thing that you’d get emailed if you bought from Vivid before St. Paul but it certainly wasn’t breaking the system yet. When f2f opened unannounced for this year’s shows I got Vancouver GA within a couple hours and then nothing for any other show until the day of. Was able to cart plenty of pairs in the weeks and months leading up but never actually got any until going after singles got reliable for a little while, almost like their algorithm briefly wasn’t looking for them. Maybe that’s anecdotal but that was my perception for a bit. 

It was difficult but scraped my way through several shows almost exclusively through social means and trades, sharing log-ins or scanning each other in at the show. The few tickets I got myself were hours before doors and in some of the lower demand markets. I’m more fortunate than others in that my partner has a very good 10c number and we used to be able to plan to give unused seats to friends but everything he won for 2024 we ended up using ourselves or for GA trades. The hardest by far that I had to deal with was Seattle and Philly 1. Didn’t bother with Wrigley or MSG because of the state laws. 

I haven’t been keeping up on this thread as much partly due to being busy with holiday stuff and partly because I don’t really want to deal with the frustration right now but if it’s anything like it was this year I’m expecting links to be the only reliable way to get tickets. 

For what it’s worth, I was refreshing for another band back in early November and found myself getting locked out after 10-20 times switching between 1 and 2 tickets and the only way to fix it was to go in to purchase some of the premium tickets and release them, but then eventually I got the we think you’re a bot message for a few days. I was hoping it was an anomaly but experienced the same thing when refreshing Hollywood the day that f2f opened. So they’ve taken that away now too? The actual bots aren’t even using the web interface to purchase tickets yet that’s what Ticketmaster in its infinite wisdom decided to limit now? I hope others are having better luck. F2F is the only way I’m able to afford going to multiple shows so I definitely still want it but something needs to change. The Billie Eilish story that came out was polarizing and probably unrealistic but I’m glad other artists are realizing there’s a problem too. It sounds crazy but I actually used to enjoy the game of it when you had a chance to win, even used to joke at the end of tours that I didn’t know what to do with my time if I didn’t have to refresh anymore. 

on2legs said:

Chrrie said:

I used to be the biggest fan of f2f and wished other artists would do the same. A very kind person here taught me the ropes before the Canadian leg of the 22 tour and I’d like to think I got quite good at it while it lasted. Had no problem last year either and got all the upgrades I wanted months or weeks before the show. The good old days when even timed drops worked.

That changed this year and I can’t help but blame the mobile ticket hack that the larger brokers figured out. I feel like I started hearing about this link thing that you’d get emailed if you bought from Vivid before St. Paul but it certainly wasn’t breaking the system yet. When f2f opened unannounced for this year’s shows I got Vancouver GA within a couple hours and then nothing for any other show until the day of. Was able to cart plenty of pairs in the weeks and months leading up but never actually got any until going after singles got reliable for a little while, almost like their algorithm briefly wasn’t looking for them. Maybe that’s anecdotal but that was my perception for a bit. 

It was difficult but scraped my way through several shows almost exclusively through social means and trades, sharing log-ins or scanning each other in at the show. The few tickets I got myself were hours before doors and in some of the lower demand markets. I’m more fortunate than others in that my partner has a very good 10c number and we used to be able to plan to give unused seats to friends but everything he won for 2024 we ended up using ourselves or for GA trades. The hardest by far that I had to deal with was Seattle and Philly 1. Didn’t bother with Wrigley or MSG because of the state laws. 

I haven’t been keeping up on this thread as much partly due to being busy with holiday stuff and partly because I don’t really want to deal with the frustration right now but if it’s anything like it was this year I’m expecting links to be the only reliable way to get tickets. 

For what it’s worth, I was refreshing for another band back in early November and found myself getting locked out after 10-20 times switching between 1 and 2 tickets and the only way to fix it was to go in to purchase some of the premium tickets and release them, but then eventually I got the we think you’re a bot message for a few days. I was hoping it was an anomaly but experienced the same thing when refreshing Hollywood the day that f2f opened. So they’ve taken that away now too? The actual bots aren’t even using the web interface to purchase tickets yet that’s what Ticketmaster in its infinite wisdom decided to limit now? I hope others are having better luck. F2F is the only way I’m able to afford going to multiple shows so I definitely still want it but something needs to change. The Billie Eilish story that came out was polarizing and probably unrealistic but I’m glad other artists are realizing there’s a problem too. It sounds crazy but I actually used to enjoy the game of it when you had a chance to win, even used to joke at the end of tours that I didn’t know what to do with my time if I didn’t have to refresh anymore. 

I see your frustration but I don’t know what the better alternative is to f2f.  I don’t think it was conceived as a convenience for fans to repeatedly buy and sell tickets for each show for entire tours in a hope to upgrade to GA.  By nature, ten club tickets are non-transferable and f2f was just the outlet for people who won tickets and then couldn’t attend the show.  F2F would then get those tickets into the hands of other fans who wanted in the door.  

Scalpers have exploited loop holes in the system to their advantage but so have fans.  It was inevitable that Ticketmaster was going to try and close some of those loop holes.  

on2legs said:

Chrrie said:

I used to be the biggest fan of f2f and wished other artists would do the same. A very kind person here taught me the ropes before the Canadian leg of the 22 tour and I’d like to think I got quite good at it while it lasted. Had no problem last year either and got all the upgrades I wanted months or weeks before the show. The good old days when even timed drops worked.

That changed this year and I can’t help but blame the mobile ticket hack that the larger brokers figured out. I feel like I started hearing about this link thing that you’d get emailed if you bought from Vivid before St. Paul but it certainly wasn’t breaking the system yet. When f2f opened unannounced for this year’s shows I got Vancouver GA within a couple hours and then nothing for any other show until the day of. Was able to cart plenty of pairs in the weeks and months leading up but never actually got any until going after singles got reliable for a little while, almost like their algorithm briefly wasn’t looking for them. Maybe that’s anecdotal but that was my perception for a bit. 

It was difficult but scraped my way through several shows almost exclusively through social means and trades, sharing log-ins or scanning each other in at the show. The few tickets I got myself were hours before doors and in some of the lower demand markets. I’m more fortunate than others in that my partner has a very good 10c number and we used to be able to plan to give unused seats to friends but everything he won for 2024 we ended up using ourselves or for GA trades. The hardest by far that I had to deal with was Seattle and Philly 1. Didn’t bother with Wrigley or MSG because of the state laws. 

I haven’t been keeping up on this thread as much partly due to being busy with holiday stuff and partly because I don’t really want to deal with the frustration right now but if it’s anything like it was this year I’m expecting links to be the only reliable way to get tickets. 

For what it’s worth, I was refreshing for another band back in early November and found myself getting locked out after 10-20 times switching between 1 and 2 tickets and the only way to fix it was to go in to purchase some of the premium tickets and release them, but then eventually I got the we think you’re a bot message for a few days. I was hoping it was an anomaly but experienced the same thing when refreshing Hollywood the day that f2f opened. So they’ve taken that away now too? The actual bots aren’t even using the web interface to purchase tickets yet that’s what Ticketmaster in its infinite wisdom decided to limit now? I hope others are having better luck. F2F is the only way I’m able to afford going to multiple shows so I definitely still want it but something needs to change. The Billie Eilish story that came out was polarizing and probably unrealistic but I’m glad other artists are realizing there’s a problem too. It sounds crazy but I actually used to enjoy the game of it when you had a chance to win, even used to joke at the end of tours that I didn’t know what to do with my time if I didn’t have to refresh anymore. 

I see your frustration but I don’t know what the better alternative is to f2f.  I don’t think it was conceived as a convenience for fans to repeatedly buy and sell tickets for each show for entire tours in a hope to upgrade to GA.  By nature, ten club tickets are non-transferable and f2f was just the outlet for people who won tickets and then couldn’t attend the show.  F2F would then get those tickets into the hands of other fans who wanted in the door.  

Scalpers have exploited loop holes in the system to their advantage but so have fans.  It was inevitable that Ticketmaster was going to try and close some of those loop holes.