buying tickets online from Ticketbastard

[dawgfan]

Anyone have any experience trying to buy tickets online from Ticketbastard? Tool is opening their tour in Seattle on May 2nd and tickets go on sale this Saturday morning at 10AM. I'm a little too old and lazy to want to go camp out in front of a Ticketbastard outlet at 8AM or something like the old days, but it seems like most people would just sit at their computer at 10AM and keep hitting refresh to try and get a connection to get tickets, especially now that most people have broadband connections.

Anyone else have any insights for me?

[caspanky]

Having the joy of attempting to by tickets this morning for the Sharks playoff games, all I can really say is good luck. I think you're right about everyone doing it online now. I read online that of the 400 people that showed up at the actual arena this morning, only 31 actually got tickets. It seems like it really will come down to dumb luck, and hitting refresh at the right moment.

[Julio Riddols]

"Ticketbastard" would be a hell of an SNL character.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Anyone else have any insights for me?

I think you pretty much covered it, it's a matter of being connected at the right time and probably most importantly: Don't be late.

About the only really hot ticket I've tried to get in the past few years was Metallica & I had no problem walking right through the process, no delays or snags.

The one other piece of advice I would probably offer is that you make sure you've got your Ticketmaster log-in name & password handy (or better yet, make sure you log-in before the sale starts). You only have two minutes IIRC to get through that portion of the process before it releases your tickets & you have to start over, and that's a bad time to suddenly discover that you've misremembered your password & have to dig through emails or whatever to look it up.

[dawgfan]

Thanks for the tips and feedback. I'll pre-register with Ticketbastard and take my chances trying to connect when the tickets go on sale.

[AZSpeechCoach]

If you have a lucky person in the house, it helps. My wife has the magic touch when it comes to Ticketbastard. She got World Series tickets in 2001, and McCartney tickets in 2002.

[dawgfan]

Coda:

It would appear this show sold out immediately. I had the Ticketbastard page open at 9:55 and kept hitting refresh (constantly from about 9:58 on), waiting for the "More Info" link to change to "Find Tickets". When it finally did (about 10:01 according to the clock on my computer) and I went through the process - selecting number of tickets (2 was the max), selecting location (best available) and entering the code that attempts to prevent internet bots from harvesting tickets only to be told that there were no available tickets that matched my request. I tried again immediately with 1 ticket selected instead and got the same response. Kept trying for the next 15 minutes on the hope that maybe a ticket or two would slip through, and I've been trying periodically since, but no dice.

I'm amazed that, even with a 2-ticket limit, the show appears to have sold out the moment it went on sale. In this day of internet ticket buying, it would seem that luck is the biggest component for nabbing a ticket to a hot show. Obviously the price they were asking ($66.66, heh-heh) wasn't high enough to drive down demand, and I'm sure tickets will be offered through ticket brokers and eBay and the like for huge markups. Hooray for free-market capitalism, but unfortunately it's rewarding those that are lucky as much as those that show ingenuity.

Oh well, I guess I'll have to be happy with just buying the record when it comes out instead of enjoying the record and seeing them live that night...

[caspanky]

Sorry to hear that. I had the exact same experience when I was trying to get Sharks playoff tickets. Was nice to learn that I skipped class and ended up with nothing.

[AZSpeechCoach]

I also wonder how many were presold to certain parties, given to sponsors, and made available to resellers. There are times where more than half of the tickets are sold before the general public gets their chance.

[Joe]

what is ticketbastard?

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by AZSpeechCoach

I also wonder how many were presold to certain parties, given to sponsors, and made available to resellers. There are times where more than half of the tickets are sold before the general public gets their chance.

Yeah, I was wondering this as well. The Paramount Theater in Seattle isn't that big - I think it seats about 3,000. Once you figure in the seats reserved for the promoter and other sponsors and then however many tickets are allowed to be sold to resellers, I'm guessing the actual amount of tickets that were made available this morning was fairly small.

I don't recall if Tool's official fan club affords you any priority on getting concert tickets. I haven't signed up since, unlike almost every other official fan club I've seen, their's costs money (something like $40-90 annually). Given that, I'd hope you get some kind of preferential treatment...

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by George W Bush

what is ticketbastard?

That's the name I use for Ticketmaster.

[tyketime]

Just bought tickets for Manchester United friendly vs Philadelphia Union this summer.

Tickets were $85 x 2

Facility Charge = $4 x 2

Convenience Charge = $10.05 x 2

Order Processing Fee = $3.55

I'm happy to go (actually thrilled!), but shit man... all these extra charges are ridonkulous!

[DaddyTorgo]

they nail you bad on the convenience charge

[Chubby]

I've had great success getting tickets for Sabres playoffs/stanley cup finals. Have never missed a series I wanted to go to. The key is to find an out of the way brick and mortar that nobody knows about. Show up at about midnight, kill 8 hours and you're golden.

[tyketime]

Originally Posted by Chubby

brick and mortar

They still have those???

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by tyketime

They still have those???

for tickets.com they do and they must for ticketbastard as every concert that gets promoted says you can go to any ticketbastar location...

[Chubby]

hxxp://www.ticketmaster.com/h/retaillocations.html

[Rizon]

I was excited to see Tool was back on tour.
Then I noticed the date was four years ago and I had a sad.
Then I looked up Tool and saw they are back on tour this summer and I had a happy.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Rizon

I was excited to see Tool was back on tour.
Then I noticed the date was four years ago and I had a sad.
Then I looked up Tool and saw they are back on tour this summer and I had a happy.

Last time they went on tour, I had up the Ticketbastard page waiting for the time to hit when the tickets went live, and they literally sold-out in between refreshes (they opened that tour in Seattle). It then dawned on me that everyone around the country was logging in for those tickets, and I'd bet 95% of them were doing so for the sole purpose of turning around and selling those tickets at a massive profit via Craigslist, etc.

I don't think I have the patience to go stand in a line for hours at a brick & mortar to get hot concert tickets, and it seems like buying them online is no longer possible either if it's a concert likely to sell out quickly.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

and it seems like buying them online is no longer possible either if it's a concert likely to sell out quickly.

this is why I go to brickand mortar for something hot, the odds of getting them online are almost zero...

[Fidatelo]

I've found that the best way to get tickets online with ticketbastard is to google search the day before they go sale for a pre-sale code, and just buy them with that. It's worked for me for the last 2-3 events I wanted to attend, and saved me some stress.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

I've found that the best way to get tickets online with ticketbastard is to google search the day before they go sale for a pre-sale code, and just buy them with that. It's worked for me for the last 2-3 events I wanted to attend, and saved me some stress.

wow - interesting!!!!

[sooner333]

Call their automated phone line, I had luck for both Thunder playoff games I tried for. Other people struck out online.