The Ticket Gods

I’ve had front row tickets twice in my life. Once was to a James Taylor concert, and those weren’t really mine. A friend had them as part of a season package and couldn’t go that night, so swapped my seventh row tickets (which were for another night.) The other time wasn’t even a concert.

Of course, these days, just getting any seat to a popular concert is a feat in itself. And new technology doesn’t help; if anything it can make for more frustration. How many times have you tried to get tickets to a popular show on the day the tickets go on sale and watch in frustration as your browser fails to connect, load or generates errors in the middle of the transaction?

I thought I had a ticket to the U2 concert this year; and then after entering all my information, and waiting ten minutes on a ‘processing’ screen, an error screen appeared. And when I tried again, there were no tickets available.

Didn’t get tickets to Bruce Springsteen or Dave Matthews Band in Connecticut this year either; though in those cases I didn’t even get to select a ticket.

So I found out that tickets were going on sale this afternoon at 5pm for a summer concert I wanted to see. I checked the accuracy of my clock and had the web page set, just waiting for 5 to roll around.

I hit refresh about ten times, and finally got the ticket screen. Selected the number of tickets, hit the Okay button and got an “index error” screen. Damn! Tried again; same message. Switched to another computer; same thing!

Tried once more on the original browser, and it worked! Entered the details, and got a ticket. Much excitement. It was for Section 2, Row A, which didn’t mean anything; I got excited about getting Row D tickets once, and then found out that the theatre had rows AA, BB etc in front of row A.

But checking the seating chart revealed - assuming that the chart is correct - Section 2 is the center of the theater, and row A is the front row.

I’m excited; even if I had to pay $12.50 in handling and postage charges.

Out of curiosity, I tried again a couple of minutes later to see what row I’d get, and it offered me row E tickets, so you have to move fast!