With the recent stories of multiple screens, pre-regs and so on around Taylor Swift what’s the most you’ve put yourself out for tickets. Last Friday I had to reschedule an optician check-up as it clashed with the onsale for Sasha (legendary dj) at the Hare and Hounds. I was right, hitting refresh and so on on strong wifi was vital. Sold out in about 20 seconds flat. Going back 40 years I can remember several trips to the Ardwick Apollo to queue up for tickets in the early eighties, when I possibly should have been at sixth form.
What have you done for tickets?
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In the late eighties I worked at a ticketing agency in Oxford. We had an agency line to book tickets via Keith Prowse and vividly remembered the queue out the door when Simple Minds at Wembley went onsale in 1989. We spent the whole day on the agency line to KP, before customers who had been queuing for an hour went away with a confirmation slip. Different days, several times I was instructed by the credit card merchant to cut up customers cards in front of the door.
Taken a favourite Teddy to somewhere in London, in return for a ticket to see Pretenders and Squeeze. Part of Help a London Child. Anyhoo, question for ages, without ever reaching the front. Still have the Teddy.
Took a day off work, the milk train to Cambridge, and queued from 6am to 2pm for tickets to see The Cure on the Wish tour at the Corn Exchange. Even then, I was about 1200th in a queue for 1600 tickets. The queue was >1600 long by 8am.
‘worked from home’ when the Kraftwerk tickets were on sale a few years back.
Although they were playing several dates I couldn’t get near a ticket.
I was disappointed at the time but having seen film of the concert I actually think in hindsight that I dodged a bullet.
I once dated a girl to be her spare at a David Bowie concert.
The things you had to do…
He was worth it 😉
I slept outside the Birmingham Odeon to get Live Aid tickets.
I’ve followed all the palaver for TS. Had a pre-sale code from my purchase of Midnights last year, but also registered for the general sale. Took the day off on the first pre-sale date, had my spreadsheet all prepared(oh yes!), but was getting nowhere in the queues for normal tickets, then realised that I would be eligible to apply for accessible tickets, which, for Edinburgh only, were available alongside the regular ones. I was able to bag seats that way. I continued the rigmarole for the next two pre-sale dates as Wembley was my first choice of venue anyway. Tried calling the Wembley accessibility section to pursue that route again, but was on hold literally for the whole two days. Eventually went for regular tickets somewhere in the vicinity of the roof for her last London date, as by that time the option was to grab anything for FOMO. It’s a good job I did, as I’ve been put on the waitlist for the general sale and have heard nothing since.
It looks like the complete shitshow around getting tickets for the Kylie Minogue Vegas residency is making the ‘great war’ of Taylor’s tour look smooth and efficient…🤔
On recent Word in Your Ear podcast Hepworth and Ellen suggested that if you hold your nerve and look for tickets a day or two before the gig then 9 times out of 10 you’ll get them. More will have been released, but long after the initial rush.
I don’t go to enormous shows so can’t say how true that is, and it might be of limited comfort to the parents of a 14 year old girl who is asking about Taylor Swift every hour, on the hour (quarter hours during school holidays and weekends).
Tickets are often released after the stage has been set up. When they first go on sale they can be conservative regarding sightlines and size of the pit (if there is one), so when everything is set up sometimes quite a few tickets can be found. Also hundreds of tickets are “comps” that go to band members families, celebs etc. If not all used then they may be released into ticket pool on the last day. Normally excellent seats.
No concert in a stadium is every truly sold out, and if you keep checking then something may well come up. One needs to be diligent though
That’s ok if you can drop everything and travel to the venue at short notice, but for most of us it has to be approached like a military operation, with hotels pre-booked before you even have any idea of whether you’re getting a ticket.
Or course you have to book hotel rooms (ones you can cancel without penalty) before tickets go on sale!
I had a nightmare of a job asking passing folk if they could change a tenner when I was standing at the farm gate trying to give the bloke with the satchel full of tickets and programmes my £8 to get into Glastonbury one year; he’d run out of change.
Queued outside Virgin records in Brighton to get led Zeppelin tickets in 1975. Mission accomplished: a well-spent (paging Moose) £1.50. subsequent queues by the Dome box office for a front row position to see Rory Gallagher in 1977, and , previously , 10cc on their last tour with Godley and Creme in 1976, during which on the return to school my pal and I were espied by the headmaster and had a week or detentions. In all cases, I was worth it.
I’m sure I’m not alone here in queuing outside Hammersmith Odeon for Dylan Earls Court tickets in 1978. Got there reasonably early and was horrified walking to the end of the queue which went round the corner, down the back, hang a right, keep going past Riverside Studios. Finally got tickets at 2 am. Had nowhere to stay of course but the very attractive girl behind me in the queue, whose place I had kept when she had to dip out for a while in the evening, offered me a bed at her place in South Ken. All my Christmases appeared to be coming at once until we got there, she introduced me to her boyfriend, and showed me the spare room…:Still, I had my Dylan tickets.
You’re not alone at Earls Court – including paying a bloke behind me to keep my place as I needed to get back to work to seal a very important deal I was working on (ok, I needed to clock in). As perhaps related before, the actual concert is somewhat of a blur thanks to extra-strong weed
I got up very early one Saturday morning to drive down to Wembley to queue up at the Arena box office so I could secure 6 tickets (me and 2 mates for 2 nights) to see Talking Heads. I was one of about 10 people when the box office opened. I was horrified to find out that the best seats in the house were allocated to ticket agencies so I ended up with seats half way back on the second level!
Great gigs though!
I used to absolutely love standing in the endless queue to secure tickets for a gig, before internet. I was always skipping school anyway as a teen, so nobody was surprised if I didn’t show up there!
There was always lots of fun conversations going on among the fans in the queue, someone (or two) always brought a boom box and a mix tape of the band/artist in question, and everyone brought snacks if it was a mega popular artist and you expected to be there a while… But I drew the line at camping out the night before with sleeping bags to get the best seats!
In Stockholm the place to buy tickets was located in the Concert House mid-city, in a teeny tiny record shop (that mostly sold classical music, IIRC). No regular customers could come in to buy records on the days when high demand tickets were released!
For a while my walk to work would take me past the Colston Hall and every now and again there would be a queue of people with their camping chair and sleeping bags ready for the box office to open.
The biggest queue (by quite a distance) was for Cliff Richard