Madonna tickets!

[platon2003]

Thank`s God I already have a confirmation in my mail for the tickets of the Madonna show here in Helsinki, but it was an awful experience to buy them online. Both the site and the phone are blocked. OK this is going to be a bigest event of the year with the 80 000 tickets on sale but don`tell me you are going to organize this and didn`t expect a crowds on the sales points and in front of the computers.
Wake-up!!!
Even at the begining of the sales, the A and B class tickets are gone.
Few hours later, other sites /not e-bay auctions/started to sell them for the price 3 times bigger than they was at the lippu.fi.
Black market rules!

[otyikondo]

Why didn't you simply join the Madonna fanclub and take advantage of the pre-sale? Or the promoters' own VIP club? Ultimately, it might be worth the additional cost to avoid all the hassle. Depends of course how badly you want the tickets and how much time you have on your hands to deal with crashing servers or phones that hook you up with other ticket-hunters...

P.S. Pardon me for asking, but did you really wait a year to post that?

[pseudo]

Just to see and hear a hag!! I almost puked when one Pekka who was on TV, obviously first in line, said he was afraid somebody might rob him of ticket that he 'djust bought. Hyi V.t.u

[platon2003]

Why didn't you simply join the Madonna fanclub and take advantage of the pre-sale? Or the promoters' own VIP club? Ultimately, it might be worth the additional cost to avoid all the hassle. Depends of course how badly you want the tickets and how much time you have on your hands to deal with crashing servers or phones that hook you up with other ticket-hunters...

P.S. Pardon me for asking, but did you really wait a year to post that?

thank you for a precious advise!
p.s. sorry that i am not so active here...

[platon2003]

Just to see and hear a hag!! I almost puked when one Pekka who was on TV, obviously first in line, said he was afraid somebody might rob him of ticket that he 'djust bought. Hyi V.t.u

u r so funny

[otyikondo]

Interesting development, that will probably cause Lippupiste serious heart palpitations: Live Nation and Ticketbastard Entertainment (a.k.a. hereabouts as Lippupalvelu) are merging. A betting man would not put much money on Lippupiste being involved in the ticket-sales of any Finnish Live Nation events hereafter. And since Live Nation (formerly Welldone) are the biggest outfit around in Finland, well...

Still, it has to get by the anti-trust people first, and maybe Obama is going to be on the side of the punters...

[rob34]

Just to see and hear a hag!! I almost puked when one Pekka who was on TV, obviously first in line, said he was afraid somebody might rob him of ticket that he 'djust bought. Hyi V.t.u

Did you see the girl on kolmonen yelping, "MUN ELÄMÄ ON KOKONAINEN!"

[JasonS]

I picked up two B-class tickets in the vip pre-sale(no A's were available when i tried without a full vip package) but if i was really keen i would wait for the Tallinn concert(which is two days before Helsinki) to go on sale. I've not been but i've heard the concert venue (Tallinn Song Festival Grounds) is very nice with sloped grassy banking in a park setting. Alot more appealing than the flat asphalt docks in Helsinki. Also a fair chunk of these tickets(70,000 i think it holds) i expect will go on sale in Finland. Cheaper booze there too

[AlexInHelsinki]

OK...some food for thought on attending large concerts:

Ticketmaster, Live Nation to Merge

A merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation, an all stock deal, has been confirmed Tuesday. If the merger is to happen - they have many hurdles to deal with not least of which is proving to the government that they are not forming a monopoly - Live Nation Chief Executive Michael Rapino will retain his current title, Ticketmaster Chief Executive Irving Azoff will be Executive Chairman as well as retaining his role at Front Line Management and Barrry Diller, current Chairman of Ticketmaster will be the Nonexecutive Chairman.

Ethan Smith of the Wall Street Journal raises concerns we all have, in print:
"...For instance, a venue might feel obligated to renew its contract with Ticketmaster lest Front Line artists or Live Nation tours be steered to venues that were still Ticketmaster clients. People close to Ticketmaster and Live Nation dismissed those concerns, saying they will base such decisions on what is best for the artists they represent."

As usual Lefsetz sums it up perfectly on his blog, The Lefsetz Report:
"...Live Nation could not continue to share this revenue with Ticketmaster. In order to make the stock go up, Live Nation had to establish its own ticketing entity. The fact that it doesn't work well is irrelevant. Where else are you going to go? The scalper? Oh, Ticketmaster owns its own. And it does resell its own tickets on TicketsNow. Yes, acts are scalping their own tickets despite Ticketmaster's denial. So, the consumer gets screwed. What else is new?"

What's going to happen after the government lets this merger go through and then the concert industry bottoms out? Are we going to bail out Rapino, Azoff and Diller? Subsidize their enormous bonuses? The concert industry needs an overhaul and needs it quickly. Unfortunately, these companies have artists over such a barrel it's hard for them to play major cities or do tour without shoveling money into Ticketmaster and Live Nation's pockets.

[otyikondo]

I picked up two B-class tickets in the vip pre-sale(no A's were available when i tried without a full vip package) but if i was really keen i would wait for the Tallinn concert(which is two days before Helsinki) to go on sale. I've not been but i've heard the concert venue (Tallinn Song Festival Grounds) is very nice with sloped grassy banking in a park setting. Alot more appealing than the flat asphalt docks in Helsinki. Also a fair chunk of these tickets(70,000 i think it holds) i expect will go on sale in Finland. Cheaper booze there too

10-20,000 apparently. And yes, the Tallinn venue is nice. I don't know how many they are planning to put in there, but it's pretty big.

The more I think about this whole thing - and I'm no Madonna fan - the more it all seems perfectly reasonable: the people who thought ahead a bit, the ones who paid a buck or two extra and did their homework, and most particularly the ones who've been members of her fanbase for years - they got the decent tickets. That's how it SHOULD be. People who want to go along to be part of some fu cking "Kewl. It's gonna be huge, I wanna be there" event DESERVE to be down the back. If you take a glance at the Finnish Madonna Forum - for instance this thread -

http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark? ... D=24616228

- you can see the sheep clearly separated from the goats. Happy people, most of them with hundreds of previous posts, and they are all saying "Yay! I got tickets in A!" on February 3rd.

Then later come the stragglers, some happy, some embittered, because THEY didn't get what they wanted. Survival of the fittest and the keenest.

Having attended both the Springsteen gigs a few years ago, the difference between the one where the fans were and the one where the "merely curious who once had a single of Born To Run" showed up en masse was like night and day.

[otyikondo]

OK...some food for thought on attending large concerts:

Ticketmaster, Live Nation to Merge

A merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation, an all stock deal, has been confirmed Tuesday. If the merger is to happen - they have many hurdles to deal with not least of which is proving to the government that they are not forming a monopoly - Live Nation Chief Executive Michael Rapino will retain his current title, Ticketmaster Chief Executive Irving Azoff will be Executive Chairman as well as retaining his role at Front Line Management and Barrry Diller, current Chairman of Ticketmaster will be the Nonexecutive Chairman.

Ethan Smith of the Wall Street Journal raises concerns we all have, in print:
"...For instance, a venue might feel obligated to renew its contract with Ticketmaster lest Front Line artists or Live Nation tours be steered to venues that were still Ticketmaster clients. People close to Ticketmaster and Live Nation dismissed those concerns, saying they will base such decisions on what is best for the artists they represent."

As usual Lefsetz sums it up perfectly on his blog, The Lefsetz Report:
"...Live Nation could not continue to share this revenue with Ticketmaster. In order to make the stock go up, Live Nation had to establish its own ticketing entity. The fact that it doesn't work well is irrelevant. Where else are you going to go? The scalper? Oh, Ticketmaster owns its own. And it does resell its own tickets on TicketsNow. Yes, acts are scalping their own tickets despite Ticketmaster's denial. So, the consumer gets screwed. What else is new?"

What's going to happen after the government lets this merger go through and then the concert industry bottoms out? Are we going to bail out Rapino, Azoff and Diller? Subsidize their enormous bonuses? The concert industry needs an overhaul and needs it quickly. Unfortunately, these companies have artists over such a barrel it's hard for them to play major cities or do tour without shoveling money into Ticketmaster and Live Nation's pockets.

Good post.

[raamv]

Justice Dept. to investigate Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/0 ... cnn_latest

The Justice Department has launched an investigation into a proposed merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which two lawmakers said would create a "near monopoly" in concert ticketing.

The announcement came as Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, and Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-New Jersey, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder warning that the deal would "consolidate ticket selling, concert promoting, and concert venue ownership under one massive entity."

"The Antitrust Division is committed to vigorous enforcement of the merger antitrust laws and will conduct a thorough investigation of the proposed Ticketmaster/Live Nation transaction," Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona said.

Rep. Pascrell, who last week called for a federal probe of Ticketmaster's practices, said "the deal could put concert-goers nationwide at risk of permanently increased ticket prices and should not gain regulatory approval."

Ticketmaster, long a target of fan and artist criticism, drew singer Bruce Springsteen's ire last week when it routed some of his fans trying to buy tickets to his show in New Jersey to a "secondary site" where they were charged far more than face value.

Tickets on that site -- which Ticketmaster owns -- cost between $200 and $5,000, while face value starts at $54.

Pascrell, who said angry music fans deluged him with calls, sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission chairman asking that the FTC look into Ticketmaster's practices.
Live Nation Inc. and Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. announced plans to merge Tuesday, combining the nation's biggest concert promoter with the largest seller of tickets for live entertainment.

The new company, which will be called Live Nation Entertainment, will have an enterprise value of about $2.5 billion, the companies said in joint press releases.

[AlexInHelsinki]

Having attended both the Springsteen gigs a few years ago

Springsteen is one of the few with his head on straight, too.

From the official Bruce Springsteen website:

A LETTER TO OUR FANS:
We know there was much confusion regarding Ticketmaster and TicketsNow during last Monday's on-sale dates. We were as confused as you were, as we were given no advance notice of the major changes in the Ticketmaster-TicketsNow world. (Bear in mind that we are not clients of any ticketing company, and that all those arrangements are between venues and ticketing companies.)

Last Monday, we were informed that Ticketmaster was redirecting your log-in requests for tickets at face value, to their secondary site TicketsNow, which specializes in up-selling tickets at above face value. They did this even when other seats remained available at face value. We condemn this practice.

We perceive this as a pure conflict of interest. Ticketmaster is there to ensure that we have a good, fair sale of our tickets at their face value plus normal ticketing charges. TicketsNow is supposed to be a secondary site where people who already have tickets may exchange, trade, and, unfortunately, speculate with them. We have asked this redirection from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow cease and desist immediately and Ticketmaster has agreed to do so in the future and has removed its unwanted material from their and our site.

We know the many cynical arguments some make in favor of the Ticketmaster system: There are rumors that some artists or managers participate in Ticketmaster charges—we do not. There are rumors that some artists or managers are receiving a percentage of the amount above face value at secondary outlets like TicketsNow—we do not. Some artists or managers may not perceive there to be a conflict between having the distributor of their tickets in effect "scalping" those same tickets through a secondary company like TicketsNow—we do.

While many of you have sent notes to us and your local promoters, you may also send accurate informational letters to Albert Lopez of Ticketmaster and he will try to address your questions.

A final point for now: the one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing. Several newspapers are reporting on this story right now. If you, like us, oppose that idea, you should make it known to your representatives.

The abuse of our fans and our trust by Ticketmaster has made us as furious as it has made many of you. We will continue to do our utmost now and in the future to make sure that these practices are permanently curtailed on our tours.

Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau and the entire Springsteen Tour Team

[JasonS]

Good on yer Brooce! A real man of the people. I like him alot.

Thanks for all your interesting info again Otyi, you completely know the score on these things as always!

and thanks Alex too..ps. i heard the Madonna afterparty is at your new place

[AlexInHelsinki]

ps. i heard the Madonna afterparty is at your new place

HA!

Yeah, but you have to get tickets for that. They're only EUR 348 including fees and surcharges. You can even get a limited edition commemorative Afterparty Programme (which I made on the office copier) for an additional EUR 40.

P.S. Madonna isn't invited.