To hate the process for buying concert tickets☹️

[Onthemoooove]

First the Oasis debacle and now Radiohead.

DD is a massive Radiohead fan. Neither she or any of her friends were lucky enough to get codes which would allow them access to the booking site and, from what I hear, even those who did struggled to get affordable tickets or had countless issues with the site crashing, being kicked out under suspicion of being a bot etc etc. Getting tickets for any popular artist these days seems to be an extremely painful and complicated process!

I saw many big artists when I was younger and don't recall having much trouble getting tickets. For example, I saw Madonna at the height of her fame. I remember seeing it advertised, asking around my friends and 6 of us wanted to go so I collected their money and, as I worked near Wembley at the time, sauntered down to the box office in my lunch hour. It wasn't busy and I came away with my 6 tickets no problem.

While the Internet has certainly made many things easier, this is not one of them! Is the demand greater these days? Doubt it. It's so bloody frustrating!

It’s the online tout bots, they ruined it unfortunately

YANBU
DD is a huge Billie Eillish fan and I basically sat like some lunatic every day refreshing Ticketmaster before finally I got resale tickets for almost £200 each the day before by the skin of my teeth

It was either that or pay £400+ each on Viagogo - which isn’t properly regulated but has copious amounts of tickets available

Its hard to believe that alongside the astronomically high prices of tickets, that they are so popular (we keep hearing of a cost of living crisis yet hundreds of thousand people can just dole out ££££ on a whim) that actual fans wanting a seat or standing place are so unlikely to get them. Which leads me to believe the Viagogo sellers are buying them all up and screwing real fans over.

tried to buy Bryan Adams tickets the other day. None available apparently for Hull mere hours after release. Is Bryan Adam’s REALLY so popular that they run out within hours? Doubt it. I can’t be bothered trying again it’s too depressing.

Totally agree. We didn’t manage to get Radiohead tickets either.
I was telling my DS about queuing up at at HMV or the venue box office. So much easier in the 90s.

I agree, it's the online touts and bots, I thought the government was going to do something about it but obviously not, this government and the previous one. Fortunately because I'm old I have seen most I have wanted to see so don't put myself through it much. It is definitely worse nowadays.

I got coldplay tickets years ago and it was nothing like this time though think partly due to becoming more and more popular due to lights/tix tok etc then the ones used to be to hate and all. But Ticketmaster is ridiculous seen so many stories of people having them in their basket and the site crashes etc. Fine it theyre on other sites for sale but for some reason a lot use that

And like say all the ones brought and then sold on for stupid amounts almost soon after.

My mum bought Live Aid tickets for my siblings, by ringing up .. and just buying them.. remember those happy days.

Ticketmasters monopoly doesn’t help .. they are the biggest reseller / grifters out there.

Just make secondary resales illegal..

DD's friend wanted tickets for Florence and the Machine. They sold out straight away and resales were on Viagogo within minutes.

I don't know how you control it though.

I was on Ticketmaster when they released the extra Coldplay tickets and there were 78000 people in front of me when the sale started.

Mind you I did manage to get tickets for 10cc by just going on to the venue website. 😁
Maybe I just need to wait for Coldplay to get old.

DD was trying to get tickets for just a low key band the other day. She had pre sale tickets, and after waiting from 3000 something in the queue, every ticket she clicked on was unavailable. Then she found some but by the time she had put her card details in, the site crashed.

It's not just concerts either, DH logged on the other day to get tickets for the Back to the Future stage show next year and there were over 2000 people in the queue ahead of him.

I dunno, I struggled to get the last lot of Bob Dylan tickets, apparently they sold out very quickly and he has toured a lot recently so it wasn't like a one off, he's very old.

Yanbu.
The only people I know who got Coldplay tickets were colleagues who a) one used multiple browsers and devices (somehow they got away with it), b) another bought £300 tickets from viagogo and c) last one spent hours refreshing their phone and laptop screen until a ticket came up last week. I had a pre-sale code and then tried well over a thousand times in the last month, nothing. Coldplay was the first ever gig I didn't get tickets to, pah.

Viagogo and the bots are a nightmare. Wimbledon and Glastonbury seem to manage to keep tickets to actual fans so it is possible.

Yep. The bots. So annoying. Surely someone could have come up with a solution by now, unfortunately I'm not clever enough 🤣 Maybe there should be an allocation for those prepared to physically queue up. My daughter would do it, no question!

I agree it's not just concerts, although they are the worst. Many tourist attractions and other events require online booking in advance before they sell out. No spontaneity anymore 😔 My worst experience was the Snowden Railway. I was panicked into buying tickets in advance and it absolutely pissed down on the day and we saw f all! Total waste of money, no refunds. The train was full too.

Ticketmaster are a shit show. I will not use them again. Let me down so badly for no reason. The whole system is pathetic and greedy.

It’s an awful process now. And tickets always seem to go on sale on a weekday at 10am - great if you have a flexible job or don’t work, no good for anyone working who can’t just sit watching/refreshing their device for ages.

DD's friend wanted tickets for Florence and the Machine. They sold out straight away and resales were on Viagogo within minutes.

I don't know how you control it though

Don't buy from viagogo or touts. If people didn't keep buying tickets from touts at vastly inflated prices, they would quickly disappear.

Or bring in a ban on selling tickets at more than face value, same as they have in Ireland. Popular concerts still sell out quickly, but it's harder to sell on tickets for profit afterwards.

Yes it's shit, I can't believe it has got to this stage.

I agree that Wimbledon and Glasto manage it. The last bastion of sensible fair ticket allocation (kind of).

My teen DS was desperate for Oasis tickets but that was a total joke and I refuse to buy on Viagogo.

Absolutely agree. DS tried (along with several mates) to get tickets for Radiohead. Never got a code, just added to a 'waiting list'. And only one concert in the UK. He's not going to be able to fly to Spain to see them, fgs even if he got a ticket. He can't afford it.

Going to see bands has just become something else only the comfortably off can afford to do nowadays at vastly inflated prices.

Agree, it is really shit. My top tip is that if you are still sane after waiting in the queue, seeing it go down fast, then seeing there are no tickets available - if you can stand it, go back every 10 or 15 mins and see if there's something you can snap up. Quite often there is. You might not get a pair of tickets though.

It’s so stressful. Fine for smaller gigs but awful for Oasis, Coldplay etc.

No one seems to be able to stop the problem. It seems that the resellers are working with the primary sellers but difficult to prove.

My DH got a code for Radiohead - the only one of his friends to get one. He had terrible trouble on the website. Eventually managed to get tickets for the Monday night but they are VIP so expensive. But, Radiohead are worth it. They are amazing live.

I agree that other ticket booking is awful too. I bought autumn international tickets at twickenham and that was horrible too.

It’s the same with trying to get a driving test slot

Yeah, completely sucks. So annoying that within minutes they’re all up on resale at 5x the price.

Oh, and booking a driving test is up there with concert ticket booking! Awful experience.

Crossed - agree 👍