From a price standpoint it doesn\'t matter who sells the tickets. You will pay for your passion to see your favorite bands and teams. It\'s your weakness and weakness is expensive, just accept it. Until they start building 250,000 seat arenas or having concerts on NASCAR tracks, demand will always far exceed supply for big acts. You can\'t complain about the nature of fundamental economics any more than you can complain about the sky being blue, or water being bland, or gravity pulling you down when you jump. I don\'t like TM or LN, but remember that they cannot possibly be ripping people off at any show that sells out. Fork over the dough or shut up.
And here\'s a wild theory that I don\'t like to say and nobody wants to hear but it\'s probably true, think about this for a few minutes after your initial reaction passes: If there were no ticket company at all and every venue handled all their own tickets with their own rules...things would be much worse.
Yes, it hurts knowing that 18,000 people could afford the price and you couldn\'t. But do you complain that a Lexus is priced too high, or dinner at L\'Espalier? No, because we understand that these are luxury items for someone other than ourselves, yet we feel entitled to tickets. But tickets are no different. Tickets are luxury items, the playthings of the privileged so long as there is demand for them. Hey, somewhere someone is hurt knowing that you can afford food and clothing and they can\'t. Hopefully you\'re not them.
All you can do is hope that the new merged entity will have a better online system than LN did for Phish, and good customer service if you need it. As a monopolistic conglomerate, this new company is under no pressure to provide these things and thus they are unlikely to happen. Again, you will pay for your passion, this time in discomfort rather than dollars. Again, tough noogies. Suck it up or don\'t, but don\'t complain. You know what you\'re signing up for, there are no surprises. Sometimes I suck it up, sometimes I decide it\'s not worth it.
Just establish some guidelines for yourself so you never end up disappointed. Here are some of mine:
1. For the vast majority of the time, only get tickets to games or shows that you can buy with minimal effort at face value, and choose events that are easy to get to. (e.g. Umphrey\'s at House of Blues, Of Montreal at Paradise, New Britain Rock Cats, BU Hockey).
2. Be a fan of secondary leagues and bands, (e.g. The Breakfast, college or minor league sports, Major League Soccer) as they are easy to access and just as rewarding if you truly like them.
3. When going after a tough onsale, no getting disappoitned if you get shut out. (e.g. Red Sox, Phish) You can only treat it as a bonus if you get in, not as a downer when you get shut out.
4. Never pay over face unless the event fits one of the following:
A. Quite reasonably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (e.g. Patriots in the Super Bowl)
B. Monumental enough that you can reasonably assume before the event that any true fan would instantly be able to recall the details of the event for the rest of their life (e.g. Phish comeback in Hampton, any Game 7)
5. If either A or B applies and you can afford the event without incurring debt, grow a pair and fucking do it no matter what the cost.
These are just what work for me, I\'m not saying everyone should do these. I would encourage everyone to take a look at #4 and establish your own parameters, it\'s a key question for all fanatical people such as us.
