Arcade Fire Sold Out!
Let the Craigslist trolling begin! Tickets to Arcade Fire's five church dates in NYC sold out in less than 15 minutes (probably more like 5). Thanks, tickets.com. (We've never even heard of tickets.com before!) That Virtual Waiting Room was a poor choice. Let the scalping begin! Did anyone get? What do you want for your Win-ning ticket? (Did we mention we're cute?)
Posted at 9:46 AM
Tags: Arcade Fire
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My roommate got some, the bastard.
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There's got to be a better way. i thought ticketmaster was bad!
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I had it in my mind that tickets went on sale at noon, so I missed out on getting stuck in the virtual waiting room and not getting tickets.
I wonder how many of the potential ticket buyers hadn't seen 9am since the last time they were out all night?
You can still get your Montreal fix today (at noon) when tickets to Malajube's Feb 18 Mercury Lounge show go on sale.
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I got a couple for saturday, after waiting in the (seemingly remotely-hosted?!) virtual waiting room for about 5 minutes. I had three windows open, and it was the second one that I opened (at about 9:02) that yielded the tickets. It was a little glitchy and stalled once during the purchase process.
That site seems a little shady to me-- there was a confusing "one-time offer" misdirection ad at the end of the order process that I nearly fell for in panic.
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The 930 Club down here in DC uses tickets.com. There are always a ton of complaints about the virtual waiting room whenever anything there sells out quickly. It's kinda crappy and not a great alternative to ticketmaster. I've preferred that "musictoday" thing that alot of bands use for presales.
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that was a seriously terrible website to choose. I had two browsers open from 8:58am onward, got prompted three separate times to enter the verification code with way too many "waiting room" periods in between, and still didn't get tickets. disappointing!
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UGH!!! Virtual Waiting Room?? What was that crap? Horrible. I actually got through to select the number of tickets a couple times but then got sent back to the waiting room or it would crash. So annoyed.
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it's like the spiceworld tour all over again.
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What? you guys don't get VIP tickets for stuff like this? I thought so.
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that sucked ass.
virtual waiting rooms...and now people asking 999 for tickets.
seriously.
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That virtual waiting room was a nice simulation of Hell. C'est la vie.
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Virtual waiting room wasn't half as bad as getting multiple errors throughout the process. Arcade Fire's choice of Tickets.com was weak (Ticketmaster online process is much better, i.e. they can handle hundreds of concurrent orders). While their intentions were good, the non-transferable tickets has failed to stop scalpers / ebay / craigslist. If anything its driven up the prices. $1000 a ticket already on ebay. 1 completed auction at that price and more to come.
Nice knowing you arcade fire - hope the hedge fund managers and ibankers buy Funeral in time to bone up on your songs.
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i got tickets, no waiting room or errors or anything. looks like the odds were against me, but i guess today was my lucky day!
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got 2 for Friday! woot!
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Aw, Kevin! I'm sorry your feelings are hurt because other people like the band you like!
The kids are good for trying something different. Did it work? Nope, but it's not their fault, and it's absolutely not their fault that there may be an extremely volatile secondary market for their music. I can't understand paying a grand for any band, no matter how much I love them, but you cannot blame the band that there's rampant speculation.
Unless you want them to start playing bigger venues--then you get a sound and intimacy compromise. Is that better? Maybe.
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I dont think its the band's fault or ticket.com's fault (per se). i think its scalpers, and the allowance of scalpers in the market...those buying the $1,000 tickets are just as guilty as those selling them. there needs to be a better system.
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Tickets.com has done the impossible: they've managed to reduce my hate for Ticketmaster. Way to go virtual waiting room, you've proved there are shittier things than having to pay a service charge for an email message.
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those buying $1000 tickets aren't guilty; neither are the ones selling them: they're both simply working within (and manipulating) a free market. with that being said...people are inherently shitheads, and hopefully, their children will curse them on their deathbeds(arcade fire songs: easier to write than hold steady songs).
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Sadly my attempts were in vain this morning. I'm not too bummed though...I figured my odds of getting tickets for any of the 5 days was about 100:1 (in reality they seem to have been worse). I busted out every trick I have up my sleeve for the horror that is tickets.com and I still failed. But whatever, they'll be back in NYC soon enough. Unfortunately I don't think they'll be able to bring a church organ to Hammerstein or wherever.
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I had a group of approxmately 20 people all trying for tickets. The only person who succeeded and bought tickets is the one person who has never actually heard the Arcade Fire. What an introduction she is going to have!
I guess the rest of us will have to look forward to the Hammerstein or (god forbid) Roseland.
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Dan, their shows in May aren't at either of those 2 venues.
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Radio City?
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First Radiohead, now Arcade Fire. I think I'm doomed to never get tickets to shows that go on-sale the 5th of the month.
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I disagree with the idea that the $1,000 concert tickets are an illustration of free market supply and demand. The supply and demand theories, I think, assume a transaction between those able to provide a product or service and those that need/want that product or service. The scalper throws the whole shit out of wack. The scalper adds no value to the transaction. He purchases the goods not out of demand for the goods themselves, but out of demand for profit, and adds absolutely no value to the end product. They are leeches. If those tickets really went on sale for $1,000 a pair, the demand would not be so high. I bet not one of the 5 nights would sell out, and in fact, I bet the whole tour would be cancelled because ticket sales would be too low. Anyone who you bought their ticket to sell on ebay, and is trying to hide behind some bullshit free market excuse is kidding themselves, and is doing harm to the musicians and the music-loving community. Amen.
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I guess I just get confused at their logic. I logged on at 8:55: tickets not available for sale. 8:56: same deal. 8:57: suddenly I am whisked into the virtual waiting room and endure about 14 minutes of their refreshing my browser, and am then informed the shows are sold out.
I don't mind the principle of the ranking requests in order received, but even that didn't seem to be at work.
Congrats to all for whom the system worked. I look forward to your reviews.
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Anyone know when they're playing the LA area? They don't *shock* seem to have any info on their site about an extended tour.
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selling high demand tickets thru the internet generally sucks. The only fair way is to physically sell the tickets in a physical box office. first one in line who camped overnight gets tickets. The system worked back in 1994.
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The problem here was (legitimate) large demand and a small venue. I'm sure there were people that bought tickets just to scalp them but even without those folks I probably would have been screwed this morning.
I wouldn't buy these tickets for $1,000 nor would I sell them for $1,000. I think most people would agree with that...or you can all go ahead and shatter my already fragile outlook on the humanity.
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i didnt get tickets. whatever. i saw that hyped up radiohead show at the theater and was disappointed. this will probably be no different.
i wish there were some good nyc shows coming up.
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check out www.bowerypresents.com. looks like the scalpers are out of luck, ha!
===quote===
PLEASE NOTE:
*ALL 5 ARCADE FIRE SHOWS ARE SOLD OUT*
TICKETS ARE NON-TRANSFERABLE. The ticket purchaser must enter
the venue. Copies of ID, Credit Card or Confirmation email
WILL NOT be accepted for entry. Only complete parties will be
admitted. No exceptions. Please DO NOT buy tickets on eBay,
Craig's List, etc. YOU WILL NOT BE ADMITTED!
===end quote===
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I was queued up for about 15 min before being informed the shows were sold out, and rub salt in it, actually got through at one point only to be presented with an 'error' screen. Screw that..
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haha...some of those craigslist ads are really funny. it seems this fiasco will result in some entertainment afterall.
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Rob,
Actually, this is pretty much EXACTLY the free-market at work. Are the scalpers assholes for *HORROR* knowing a quick buck when they see one? Probably, but whatever.
Say a show like this had half the tickets bought by scalpers, but no one wanted to pay those exhorbitant prices. Well then, scalpers would think twice before pulling it again. But there are people out there that will pay ludicrous amounts of money for shitty bands, so scalping continues unfettered.
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snagged 2 no problem suckas! saturday niiiite
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Yes be careful Craiglist stalkers, the tickets are non-exchangeable!
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thanks for the free market lesson adam smith asshole....
there are no exchanges so all those lovers of free market principles are gonna be crying on the fucking curb...
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I got up at 7:45 a.m. for nothing! Damn you central time zone! I tried to get tickets for Tuesday, assuming that it would be the least in demand. I got through the virtual waiting room fairly quickly, but the tickets were already sold out! Curses! I wanted to go sooo badly. Well, at least TV on the Radio are coming to me at Vassar. Good luck getting tickets to that, suckers!
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Forget free markets, and scalpers. Two tickets at $29 each plus the convience fee of $10.50 came to $68.50. It's pricey for an indie rock show at a church. It goes against the very reason to use an unconvential venue.
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But it didn't go against that very reason enough for you to not purchase the tickets.
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The ebay auctions are proof that there will be enough ignorant scalpees to make things worthwhile for the asshole scalpers. The ones who will really get screwed over are the desperate fans.
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Same thing here...
Montreal shows (3): Sold out in 10 minutes
Shit.
Missed it again.
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Same here for the 2 shows in dublin, tickets are going for as much as $600 for a pair. Apparently there was a problem with the Ticketmaster site, somehow they forgot to limit the number of tickets people could buy on the websitebuy so some of the scalpers were able to buy up to 50 tickets at a time. Both shows sold out in 2 minutes.
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