"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.
1:00pmShe 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.