I spent a fair bit of time yesterday trying to get tickets for a a very special gig at my favourite music venue, the Hammersmith Apollo AKA Odeon. In July, the legendary Daryl Hall is playing a show, not with long time partner John Oates but Todd Rundgren. I’ve seen Todd, who is God, on numerous occasions over the years, but never Hall, so what better time to see them both together? So, I went on the Live Nation website for the ticket pre-sale on Thursday and the general sale on Friday and I remain ticketless. That’s because after what felt like hours, but probably wasn’t, I’d grown tired of it and if Daryl and Todd really wanted me to come and see them, they might have made things easier for me.
Live Nation is, of course, part of Ticketmaster and have what is effectively a monopoly on ticket sales, usually in association with venues which see the partnership as a wonderful opportunity to screw punters and make a shit load of money. Even the supposedly principled Bruce Springsteen, the acclaimed story teller about the working man’s struggle, has trashed his reputation by getting involved in so-called dynamic pricing which has seen some tickets being sold for $4000. The best excuse The Boss could come up with was that he told his people to see what everyone else was doing, which was generally ripping off fans, but charging a few dollars less. His response to criticism was simple: “Any complaints on the way out, you can have your money back.” I own pretty well ever legitimate record Springsteen has made and would like to see him live in concert but I am not playing his cynical game. I know a few Springsteen fanatics who feel the same way.
The Hall/Rundgren ticket situation is hard for a simpleton like me to understand. The pre sale, where tickets went on general sale the day before general sale, was open to everyone, omitted the entire stalls section which was where I wanted to get our seats. There was, and still is, one form of expensive stalls ticket, presumably somewhere near the front, not that it says anywhere, but you need to buy more than one ticket. As there are two of us, that didn’t seem to bother me. But it wouldn’t let me buy any tickets at all. I would have been able to buy tickets for the balcony, not knowing the location of seats until I was ready to pay, but when I checked the seating plan, I thought sod that. However, al stalls seats are still “currently unavailable”. Refreshing the site and opening up a separate tab made no difference. Today, after two days of trying to get a ticket in the stalls, I still have no way of getting any.
A friend tells me pretty well every gig is like this if you want to see any act that’s in the Premier League or, in my view, when it comes to Hall and Rundgren, the Championship, you have to play out this farce. As with my failed attempts to acquire tickets for John Fogerty’s shows in the UK, I’ve now reached the “fuck it” stage. I will take a quick look from time to time and see if decent seats become available but if they don’t, I’ll make do with the run of small hall gigs I have coming up.
I am usually happy enough to accept and embrace change, particularly when it makes life so much easier, such as the move to a cashless society. This arsing about with concert tickets benefits everyone except those who actually pay to go to the show. And before we get the “(Insert name of artist) doesn’t get involved in this ticketing malarkey, s/he leaves it all to her/his people”, I call bullshit. Springsteen has already made it clear that he is involved in it by saying he tells his people to find out what everyone else is doing – which he must know involves dynamic pricing – and charge a few dollars less. So instead of charging $4010, his people charge $4000. Thanks, Bruce.
If I was prepared to fight, I would be in a losing battle because people will accept any old rip off pricing system as long as they get to see their favourite artist, but I’m not. I’ve wasted enough time playing the game and I’m not going to waste any more time or money. At least Neil Young agrees with me, even if no one else does.
