I\'m in for a 2 day pass for the Gorge. It\'s yours if you reply in 5 minutes, or else I\'m going to bail on it.

lawn or pav?

if it\'s pav grab it for me. i got 2 lawn.

i got GA. i don\'t think the whole place is GA though. but i do find this disturbing:

I couldn\'t tell until I finished my order. Looks like a GA 2 Day pass. Doh!

Any idea when those seats were put in? I don\'t recall seeing them in 2003.

Haven\'t read today\'s posts yet, but.

LIVE NATION BLOCKBUSTER OUTLETS HAVE SEVERE ISSUES. Story to come in a bit.

This might be a lengthy post, cos I have no idea what is about to be typed since I have so much **** going through my head right now. But for the sake of nothing, let\'s call this "Ant\'s Friday: A Phish Ticket Story"

I went to work this morning earlier than usual, as I did yesterday, to make sure I\'d be done with my route in time for the SPAC on sale at 1:00 (1:00 was pushing it and I knew this, seeing as yesterday I didn\'t get into my house until around 1:00). I knew I had a 0% chance of getting in front of a computer for Darien and couldn\'t count on using the phone because a) my route is in the middle of no where and cell phone service is very unpredictable and b)I couldn\'t play the waiting game while driving around delivering boxes cos the truck is too loud and I would have gotten hung up on. After an issue arises at my terminal, I am unable to leave when I wanted to, pushing myself back about an hour, meaning absolutely no shot at 1:00pm. During the drive to my first stop I made the decision to take a 20 minute detour to the closest Blockbuster Live Nation Outlet. I left for the Blockbuster at 10:15am, got there at 10:35am, and was now at least 30 minutes from my next stop.

First, there is/was no "line" at this Blockbuster. She gave me a raffle type ticket and said I was 2nd in line, there was someone else there before me. Fine, no raffle, first come first serve, awesome actually. I hang around and browse the store for a bit, go outside, have a cigarette, and am wondering where this other person was seeing as there was no one else in the store or in their car. Around 10:50am is when I said to myself, **** it, I might as well hang around for SPAC. 10:55am: Guy walks into the store, 40 something, asks if I\'m there for tickets. I say yes. He says "me too, I was here earlier, was surprised there weren\'t more people for Korn tickets". At this point I realized this fucker was not here for Phish tickets, he was here for Phi$h tickets, and was "first in line". I ask the lady working to get a ticket for the 1:00pm "line". She tells me to keep the same one since I was the last to take from the roll anyway. Cool, first in line for SPAC. Now the fun of Blockbuster Live Nation Outlet ticketing begins!

(It is worth noting that there was only one employee working inside this Blockbuster location, her name tag read "STORE MANAGER")

10:59am
Scalper guy: "One minute"
Lady: "How many are you looking for?"
SG: "What\'s the max, 4 right? 4 Seats next to each other, and after he\'s done can I go again?"
Lady: "Yea, as long as no one else comes in line, how many do you need?"
Me (not out loud): "Are you **** kidding me?"
Me (out loud): "2 Reserved if available"

11:00am
Lady: "Can\'t get 4 together, do you want me to try 2?"
SG: "Please."
Lady: "Only have a single seat, you want that and 3 lawns?"
SG: "Sure"
Lady:"You want two lawns then, actually wait, I have another seat, its yours if you want it"
Me: "Sure"
Lady: "So that seat and a lawn?"
Me: "yea, that\'s fine" (I\'m now \'done\')
Lady: "I\'ll keep trying for you" (to SG)", "Actually I have another seat, 3 rows behind your seat, you want that"
Me: "Absolutley."
SG: "I\'ll buy his lawn then"

It also must be noted that they do not take your money right there. The lady printed the tickets out, had us initial the back, and held them. She continued to refresh and print out lawn after lawn for this guy until she went 7 or 8 tries without getting any.

So I end up with two pavilions, awesome. This **** guy ends up getting one pavilion and probably about 13 or so lawns. 4 Tickets Per Person Limit? Yea, right. We walk over to the other counter and the guy is talking something along the lines of he already spent $1400 this morning. He is also trying to make me think he is not a scalper with lines like "Yea, these should be very tradeable for Hartford" and some other bull ****. He also tells me he won\'t be there for the 1:00 on sale because he has to go back to work.

More to come, I need a beer out of the fridge. The SPAC part of the story is even better, worse, more ridiculous, whichever way you want to look at it, seeing as there were 4 of us this time. I actually feel like a scumbag, but more on that in a few.

"Ant\'s Friday: A Phish Ticket Story" Part 2.

Okay, I find out I don\'t have to stay there and will still be first for SPAC. Nice, I drive the FedEx truck back to North Haven to pick up my paycheck, get some lunch, and go back. I get back around 12:40ish and park my truck. Within a minute a mini-van parks next to me. Guy walks out, 40 something, bluetooth in the ear, here we go again. After finishing my cigarette, I leave the truck and walk inside. The original scalper guy is inside. Awesome, two this time, but hey, I\'m first. Another kid walks in, obviously not one these guys, someone who might actually want the tickets for himself. I bullshit with this kid for a bit outside. He\'s 4th "in line". This is where the fiasco begins.

The lady goes through the whole "what are you looking for" deal with the 4 of us. I ask for 4 tickets, but ask her to request 2 Reserved first, than 2 again, assuming one of the other people in "line" would object. No objections. Wow, shocking.

1:00pm
She can\'t access the page. She tries a few more times and gets in. Meanwhile, I am over her shoulder watching, and noticed that the Outlet sales page is basically the same as the regular Live Nation on sale page, without the scrolling, and still no "Best Available" option.

She can\'t get two reserved together. I ask for one. She can\'t get one. ****. Really. Text to davepeck: "Unreal" (1:03pm, yes, it took 3 **** minutes at an outlet, being first in line).

At this point there is no "place in line" anymore. There are only 4 of us. She just keeps refreshing and printing out whatever is available, plenty more than 16 (4 per person, 4 people in line). 1:05pm, she has a balcony, its mine if i want it. Well, what the ****, why not.

She literally keeps printing out whatever she can. I swear she was pulling tickets at 1:17 and later, I know this to be fact because I sent this to davepeck at 1:19 "She keeps spittin them out, scalpers don\'t care bout single reserves". Which was completely true. They were actually nice about it. The scalpers, nice about it, I swear, I\'m not sure if they realized we were actually going to the show or they thought we might rat out this Blockbuster location (I have a pretty good feeling that these two have been there before to buy tickets from this same lady). All 4 of us were still waiting, and they did not care if they got reserves.

I end up with two balconies, a pavilion, and a lawn. The other kid gets his two reserved and also buys two lawns, which I think was to make a point to the scalpers, the point being "**** you, I only need two tickets, but I am buying an extra two so you two **** don\'t get them, and four is the maximum I am supposed to be allowed to buy". At this point if I was reasonably intelligent I should have brought up the fact that I was "first in line" and walked out with 4 reserved tickets, and the kid one, but ****, I wasn\'t thinking straight. It was all too flabbergasting to comprehend at the moment. I\'ve never seen tickets sold like this ever.

She finally says its done, probably at almost 1:35, no joke. I can confirm this because the tickets I have were printed at 1:13, 1:13, 1:27, 1:29. At this point the other kid had already paid, and while he was doing so I went outside to talk to him on his way out. He felt the same way I did. That is was bull **** that these two guys were buying so many tickets, but hey, at least the two of us got the reserved seats.

I go back in to pay. She takes my four tickets from the top of the pile. I glance down at the pile. By my estimate there were at least 30-35 sheets of paper in the pile (think ticketfast tickets, same thing at a blockbuster outlet but with a perforated edge so the top can be removed to be the ticket). She even asks me if I want any more. Really? Then she says, I can only check out 4 at a time though. So basically, these two guys get 35 tickets, checked out 4 at a time.

Now as to why I feel like a scumbag.

I got a total of 6 tickets today, 5 of which are reserved seats. Good for me, right? My problem is I feel guilty because of how I managed to get them, by basically being a scalper waiting for the lady to find more and more, watching all the tickets the two guys were gonna be putting up on stubhub or wherever, and snatching up the reserved seats. The only good I can come up with in my own head about the turnout is if I had done it the \'right\' way, and taken my 2 tickets at 11:00 and then my 4 at 1:00, checked out and left, those two guys would have no doubt sat there until she couldn\'t print any more and gotten the reserved seats. A total of 8 reserved seats came out of this Blockbuster for both on sales, and 7 of them went to actual fans who will go to the show (5 to me, 2 to the other kid) or at least sell them for face. Did I do a disservice or a service to the Phish fans? I have no idea. ****, how shady this all was, I wish I had more money with me, I woulda let those two take their 4 each that they were entitled to, then split the rest of them 3 ways, selling all those lawns on here, PT, or eBay for what I paid, and not 2.5-3x that amount.

After experiencing today\'s Live Nation Blockbuster Outlet on sales, I really want to know how Live Nation did not give these stores and their employees specific guidelines on the selling process and consequences for not following such guidelines. As with their online sales, they obviously just threw it out there and are playing it by ear. I can\'t fault the "Store Manager", even though she knew she was only supposed to sell 4 per person, obviously she knew it wouldn\'t cost her her job by not following the rules, she has apparently done this before for other shows. I even found out she works early mornings at my FedEx terminal loading the Ground trucks, if I can manage to get there early enough Tuesday I may have to ask her about it.

Anyway, end of story/rant/whatever i just wrote in the two posts.