INITIAL FEELING: Couldn\'t stop smiling for 4-6 hours. Received 46 texts and sent 52 from 8am-1PM yesterday, all while at work. Told friends I would go at any cost. Totally pumped.
THE NEXT DAY:
I\'m still stoked. I hope I get tickets. But reality is setting in. I\'m only paying face value for these shows, and only if I get two shows. It\'s not worth going down for 1 out of 3. If I have two then I\'ll even pay secondary market prices for the third (over/under = $420 per ticket) but I\'m not paying $420 per show. I\'d rather listen to these shows, see where they\'re at and what they\'re playing, and then I\'ll have a much better idea of what Phish shows will be worth. Of course they\'re worth face value, but that\'s probably not an option.
I think back to the last Hampton comeback run. (1/2/03-1/4/03) What a disaster. They totally sucked. You don\'t have to take my word for it either, they admitted it later in interviews. Pec and I stood there in unspoken horror for 3 nights in a row, trying to convince each other that the shows were good, not wanting to buzzkill ourselves by walking out of a Phish show talking about how bad it was. We couldn\'t bring ourselves to talk honestly about the shows while we were down there...we could only talk honestly about those shows after we got home. To be fair, those were the only 3 bad Phish shows I ever saw out of 44, but I can\'t stop thinking about those 3 shows now.
I also can\'t stop thinking about what a freaking NIGHTMARE it could be to go to Phish shows in 03 and 04. You can\'t get a hotel within 25 miles of the venue. There\'s 5 times more cars rolling in than the lot can hold and there\'s nowhere to go. And on and on. I think we all do well to embrace it all as part of the experience, we wouldn\'t be Phish fans if we didn\'t. But everyone has a threshhold, and for me waiting in 5 hours of traffic to park for a routine mid-tour Wednesday night show in Holmdel seemed more retarded than fun.
Bottom line: I have said all along that I am satisfied with my life with Phish after 44 shows, and that is still the case. I am very lucky I had the chance to have the moments with Phish that I did. Phish is and will always be, in many ways, the best times I ever had in my life. If I get more, wow, bonus, and if not I\'m okay with that too. Face value or bust.
THE TICKET NUMBERS:
I am generally a frighteningly accurate oddsmaker/estimator. I think "mail-order" will see approximately 2 million requests per show. There are hundreds of thousands of Phish fans in this world, all filling it ou several times. Their non-Phish friends are filling it out on their behalf. The agencies each have tens of thousands of unique and valid credit card numbers and addresses that they use to bang down these things. 50-60K is not enough to even cover users of PT-Phish. Heck, just from people I know I can account for 1000 orders, and there is no way I know 1/50th of the pool. that breaks down to a Wolf Line of a 1 in 308 chance per show. So chances of getting one show when you request all three are 3 in 308 or 1 in 102.7 Not bad, especially if you have 10 friends fill out orders, you\'d have better than a 10% chance of getting into a show. Chances of getting all 3 (assuming they will do partial orders, each show with its own raffle) are 1 in 9,739,370. If they don\'t do partial orders (they fill all or nothing on each order) then odds are 1 in 2 million.
On the bright side, cosmic forces such as karma, generosity, connections, and pure chaos affect the Phish ticket market more than any other ticket market. Strange $&^% just happens all the time. For something like the Super Bowl you just run the numbers and that\'s it, that\'s what it is. But Phishenomics are a strange animal. Even in the face of such huge odds, I\'m sure many of us will get in : )
Good luck everyone!
Now then, let\'s hear some first show opener/closer/encore predictions!!!
Set I Open: Chalkdust
Set I Close: Guyute
Set II Open: Pebbles and Marbles
Set II Close: Hood
E: Squirming Coil
