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!

Yes, I remember just walking into a ticket Scotland and buying tickets! Sometimes there might have been a queue but you could usually get them and saw A LOT of concerts in the late nineties early 2000’s. Now it’s a complete nightmare if you want to see anyone even remotely popular. Resale sites buying them up to sell on at double the price or more and sometimes they don’t even sell them all and there are empty seats in the arena. Completely unfair. Ticket pricing should be standardised and resale sites should be illegal.

Massive Radiohead fan. I've spent thousands on them over the years. I saw them seven times in 2006 and have seen them around 20 times altogether plus Thom Yorke solo twice and The Smile twice. Neither me nor my husband got a code. Unfortunately this new system has not stopped the touts

Oh yeah, I'd MUCH rather go to a see a band in the smaller venues. Much better atmosphere, you can actually see the band rather than only see them on a screen because you're way at the back and they're just a dot on the stage, usually much better acoustics, and yes, because of all that, people seem to enjoy it better and be more engaged. It's often hard for some frontmen (or women!) to get a good rapport going with everyone in the audience when you can't even see them cos they're so far away.

I remember one Radiohead gig years ago where we had to take proof of address. It was an attempt to stop touts and must have been over 20 years ago. The problem has got so much worse. I remember just phoning up for tickets.

It should be a ballot system, with a period of time to apply, as happens for international test and one day cricket matches.

Make it law, dressed up as either safety reasons (so you know who is there in case anything happens), or to reduce ticket touting (a form no doubt of tax evasion as I bet profits are never declared).

Ticket master is a nightmare. Tips I’ve found useful:

if you go in and tickets you want aren’t available keep refreshing tickets are held and released all the time during the initial sale.

Use a computer over a phone if possible.

Get A Mastercard, pick up an O2 phone next contract change. Join live nations mailing list for pre sales.

Dont panic- keep an eye on ticket master for resale tickets nearer the time at face value

Join the fan club and become involved- often people will selltickets to other fans if they can’t make it also for presale code, early notification of new tickets

Look for production holds closer to the time. Note some are excellent seats held by he band for guests, others aren’t great sight lines. Get to know venue seating plan before the sale.

If you can, travel. Different places have different sales profiles. The USA tends to buy late. France also. Look for countries with multiple dates, you’re more likely to get a ticket.

Dont use unofficial sites. If you do, get there when the doors open in case a ticket has been sold multiple times.

If you’re determined enough you’ll nearly always get tickets. If in a group be prepared to buy standing tickets in singles as they become available or be prepared to split up round the venue.

Best bet is to go on your own. Love going to gigs by myself (although with the type of music I like nearly always know someone else going to meet up before or after. Once the music starts it doesn’t matter who you are stood/sat next to. Stay in the bar until last minute with your mates.

Never not got a ticket for a gig I was desperate to go to.

Having said that I would kill to see The 1975 in concert!

If it helps, I adore Bob Dylan but he was the worst gig I’ve ever been to.

Agree with this, absolutely shocking live

I think it would be good to bring back paper tickets - some countries in Europe still use them. The allow only say 6 tickets to be mailed to a physical address.

Oh man I could lament this for days. People take whole days off work just for the privilege of sitting in a ticketmaster queue behind 100,000 other people for hours. Surely this can't be a satisfying process for anyone? I just think about how many collective hours have been wasted in that virtual queue only to be let in, accused of being a bot and locked out again when the map isn't even showing any tickets anyway (no matter where you are in the queue).

I was 5000 in the queue for Ariana Grande presale tickets yesterday so was optimistic. Could I get a single seat? No. Same thing with Coldplay - I went through presale (even preordered the album), general sale, checking back for resale and finally managed to get a single ticket on resale when they changed the date through blind luck. Nearly a million people went to that show.

It shouldn't be this traumatic and time consuming.

I just bought tickets for one of the Take That London shows. From clicking on See tickets website at 9.31 to purchasing tickets took 14 mins. Didn’t get the cheapest seated tickets but the price was clear when selecting the ticket tier cost. Reasonable prices, not hanging on website all day and one happy daughter.

Ticket master have a lot to answer for the greedy gits!

My husband hates getting concert tickets, and I'm always the one who has to be responsible for that. I got the Oasis tickets on Seatpin. It was the only place they were available at the time.