Cashing in my Karmic chips...
It's been a strange couple of days. Found out last week that Death Cab was finally going out on tour, to promote the album coming out May 31st. Not only was it an extremely limited 13-city line up, but all the venues they were playing in were extremely small. The sort of places they might have played before their album Plans made them as popular as they currently are. The only place in all of New England they are appearing is at The Paradise Rock Club in Boston, and that holds only 850 people. So from the beginning it looked like it was going to be neigh impossible to see them like I've been waiting since 2008 to do.
Talking with my friends about the concerts, I had two friends coming to Boston to see them with me, and a friend in DC I could go with if I wanted to make the trip. I've always wanted to see the 930 Club as several NPR concerts with Ben have been taped from there, so that didn't take too much arm twisting to decide to go for it -- even if the hubby was less than pleased with my decision. So that was a total of five tickets I had to get my hands on. At the time I had no idea that this was going to be akin to the quest for the Holy Grail.
The first thing I did was rejoin their fan club. It's $30/year and the only real benefit is getting to buy tickets before they go on public sale. Not that I had $30 to spend right now, but I'm not exactly rational when it comes to the few things I'm really passionate about.
Fan presale was on Thursday. My plan was to purchase a total of three tickets; two for me on my fan club account, and one for my friend on hers as she had to work at the time tickets went on sale. I had my husband's laptop open next to mine, and both accounts were logged into and ready to go by a little after 11am. I'm nothing if not fastidiously over-prepared in my obsessions. :-)
Now I'm not very practiced in buying concert tickets. It's been a long, long time since I've camped out overnight to get tickets to see my favourite band, and of course nowadays I'd just book them online anyway. But I knew I had to be there right when the selling started, and that it might take some number of refreshes before I could get in. But I didn't expect for the tickets for the Boston show to be sold out as soon as it opened at noon! I had hit the "buy tickets" button, had two in my cart, and went to pay when it came up as an error and told me to try again. I went back to the main page, and there was the sold out message.
To saw I was shocked and bummed would be an understatement. On Twitter I updated the people I had planned on seeing the shows with. I contemplated going back to bed for the rest of my life. Clearly there was no justice in this world. I was about to close my browser, when I refreshed the ticket page. You know... Just. In. Case.
And guess what? The buy button was back!
Now the fan club offered two packages: regular tickets (which had a limit of 2 per fan club member) and the "premium" package that gave you two tickets, and for an extra $60 gave you the new cd, new dvd, a tshirt, a tote, another year's membership in the fan club, etc. I went for the regular tickets - and got the sold out message. Going back I saw the premium was still available so I just went with that. Not that I really have that additional $60, but the thought of paying extra or NOT having any tickets made the choice a no brainer. Fortunately, that process all worked out and I had my first set of tickets purchased. Hurrah!
I still needed a single for Boston, and two tickets for the DC concert. I kept refreshing my friend's screen to see if Boston would open up again, and in the meantime saw DC still seemed to have regular DC tickets available. My DC purchased went smoothly and soon I was hopped up on the idea that I had both my tickets safely purchased. I just needed that last ticket!
Unfortunately the afternoon ended on a down note because even though I refreshed like a madwoman until well after 2pm... I never got back into Boston. I felt guilty, even though I knew I had tried. I knew there was a radio presale on Ticketmaster on Friday, so I spent the afternoon trying to find the password for that sale with no luck. By Thursday night I figured I'd just have to be really on my toes and get that last ticket Saturday morning with the regular buyers.
Friday at around 11am, I received a Ticketmaster email announcing this week's sales. When I saw the four slightly-smiling faces of the men who make up Death Cab, I knew I had to look again. I took it as a sign, or a kick in the pants. Or something.
I found two sites that sell the presale codes for a nominal fee, and figured it was worth a try. The first site cost $3 for the day, but after purchase I couldn't find DCfC on their site. Figures! The other site was only a dollar (hoping, I guess, that you'd forget to cancel after 7 days and get charged $19.95 for the month..) - that one had the code.
So again, back to the ticket quest, this time at the Ticketmaster site. The presale had started at 10am, so I wasn't that surprised to be told they were out of tickets. I just settled in for the chronic refreshing.
I think it took about 15 minutes before I finally got through to purchasing a ticket, and by this time I was so used to the sold out page it almost didn't register that I'd made it through! I had a few problems getting my friends credit card processed, but eventually it all worked out and I was able to let her know we were ALL going! Yeah!
So it's after going through ALL of that I soon found out how much trouble everyone else had getting tickets -- and how many people think scalpers somehow found a way to hack into the system to get some/most/all of the tickets. I have no idea how possible that is, or if the ebay listings for DCfC tickets are even real tickets. I think it's really more due to the fact that choosing such small venues after NOT touring for so long was not the smartest marketing idea their people ever had. The one night they are in NYC it's at the Bowery -- which holds 550 people. My sister had more people than that at her wedding, and she's in no way as popular as Death Cab. ;-)
The next day Ben Gibbard tweeted something to the effect that he didn't want people freaking out, and that he promised there would be more tour dates coming in the fall. I guess we'll see.
The bottom line is that I am aware how lucky I was to get in 3 different times to get my tickets when so many people never did. Don't know why it happened, but I can assure you I'm gonna enjoy the HELL out of those shows!!
Talking with my friends about the concerts, I had two friends coming to Boston to see them with me, and a friend in DC I could go with if I wanted to make the trip. I've always wanted to see the 930 Club as several NPR concerts with Ben have been taped from there, so that didn't take too much arm twisting to decide to go for it -- even if the hubby was less than pleased with my decision. So that was a total of five tickets I had to get my hands on. At the time I had no idea that this was going to be akin to the quest for the Holy Grail.
The first thing I did was rejoin their fan club. It's $30/year and the only real benefit is getting to buy tickets before they go on public sale. Not that I had $30 to spend right now, but I'm not exactly rational when it comes to the few things I'm really passionate about.
Fan presale was on Thursday. My plan was to purchase a total of three tickets; two for me on my fan club account, and one for my friend on hers as she had to work at the time tickets went on sale. I had my husband's laptop open next to mine, and both accounts were logged into and ready to go by a little after 11am. I'm nothing if not fastidiously over-prepared in my obsessions. :-)
Now I'm not very practiced in buying concert tickets. It's been a long, long time since I've camped out overnight to get tickets to see my favourite band, and of course nowadays I'd just book them online anyway. But I knew I had to be there right when the selling started, and that it might take some number of refreshes before I could get in. But I didn't expect for the tickets for the Boston show to be sold out as soon as it opened at noon! I had hit the "buy tickets" button, had two in my cart, and went to pay when it came up as an error and told me to try again. I went back to the main page, and there was the sold out message.
To saw I was shocked and bummed would be an understatement. On Twitter I updated the people I had planned on seeing the shows with. I contemplated going back to bed for the rest of my life. Clearly there was no justice in this world. I was about to close my browser, when I refreshed the ticket page. You know... Just. In. Case.
And guess what? The buy button was back!
Now the fan club offered two packages: regular tickets (which had a limit of 2 per fan club member) and the "premium" package that gave you two tickets, and for an extra $60 gave you the new cd, new dvd, a tshirt, a tote, another year's membership in the fan club, etc. I went for the regular tickets - and got the sold out message. Going back I saw the premium was still available so I just went with that. Not that I really have that additional $60, but the thought of paying extra or NOT having any tickets made the choice a no brainer. Fortunately, that process all worked out and I had my first set of tickets purchased. Hurrah!
I still needed a single for Boston, and two tickets for the DC concert. I kept refreshing my friend's screen to see if Boston would open up again, and in the meantime saw DC still seemed to have regular DC tickets available. My DC purchased went smoothly and soon I was hopped up on the idea that I had both my tickets safely purchased. I just needed that last ticket!
Unfortunately the afternoon ended on a down note because even though I refreshed like a madwoman until well after 2pm... I never got back into Boston. I felt guilty, even though I knew I had tried. I knew there was a radio presale on Ticketmaster on Friday, so I spent the afternoon trying to find the password for that sale with no luck. By Thursday night I figured I'd just have to be really on my toes and get that last ticket Saturday morning with the regular buyers.
Friday at around 11am, I received a Ticketmaster email announcing this week's sales. When I saw the four slightly-smiling faces of the men who make up Death Cab, I knew I had to look again. I took it as a sign, or a kick in the pants. Or something.
I found two sites that sell the presale codes for a nominal fee, and figured it was worth a try. The first site cost $3 for the day, but after purchase I couldn't find DCfC on their site. Figures! The other site was only a dollar (hoping, I guess, that you'd forget to cancel after 7 days and get charged $19.95 for the month..) - that one had the code.
So again, back to the ticket quest, this time at the Ticketmaster site. The presale had started at 10am, so I wasn't that surprised to be told they were out of tickets. I just settled in for the chronic refreshing.
I think it took about 15 minutes before I finally got through to purchasing a ticket, and by this time I was so used to the sold out page it almost didn't register that I'd made it through! I had a few problems getting my friends credit card processed, but eventually it all worked out and I was able to let her know we were ALL going! Yeah!
So it's after going through ALL of that I soon found out how much trouble everyone else had getting tickets -- and how many people think scalpers somehow found a way to hack into the system to get some/most/all of the tickets. I have no idea how possible that is, or if the ebay listings for DCfC tickets are even real tickets. I think it's really more due to the fact that choosing such small venues after NOT touring for so long was not the smartest marketing idea their people ever had. The one night they are in NYC it's at the Bowery -- which holds 550 people. My sister had more people than that at her wedding, and she's in no way as popular as Death Cab. ;-)
The next day Ben Gibbard tweeted something to the effect that he didn't want people freaking out, and that he promised there would be more tour dates coming in the fall. I guess we'll see.
The bottom line is that I am aware how lucky I was to get in 3 different times to get my tickets when so many people never did. Don't know why it happened, but I can assure you I'm gonna enjoy the HELL out of those shows!!