no, don't do it. did it once, didn't get anything of the promised goodies and I would have gotten the tickets anyhow through public sale.

no save your money .

no

Ok,point well taken.I just want to thank everyone for giving me their views and experiences with RollingStones.com.The majority has spoken and I will not be getting a membership.

I joined for a couple years, got some tix so at least I knew I would be there, I did get the promo dvd, aBB poster and a BB hat..big deal, I have better connections now for tix, I'd save the $100

If you don't have any ticket connections and want primo seats at face value then it is worth it if only for the chance to have first shot at tickets.

I got 3rd row seats in front of Keef for the BBT Fenway Park opener for the $150 face value because I was able to use the Member presale. Never would have gotten such good seats if I had not been a member and had waited for the public ticket sales.

We were surrounded by people who bought the outrageous $2K ticket packages that were offered. There were some pretty pissed people when they found out I got such good seats without having to pay the crazy package price...


Other than giving you a shot at primo tickets it is not worth the $$$

BTW If you are already a memeber the fan club is extending meemberships at no cost for the coming year so if they do tour members should get first crack at the best seats,,,

in many presales hardly any of those low-priced seats in the first ten rows were available.
it isn't like the presales routinely had a better allotment of tickets than the normal sales -
the presales just gave you more timeslots to fish for the tickets you wanted.
i got brilliant seats in some presales as well as in public sales. the trick is to Just Say No until you see the tickets you want.
that really takes nerves of steel sometimes, but hey - it's the Rolling Stones :E



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-12-13 19:54 by with sssoul.

I never received the dvd, too. I am member since 205.

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with sssoul
in many presales hardly any of those low-priced seats in the first ten rows were available.
it isn't like the presales routinely had a better allotment of tickets than the normal sales -
the presales just gave you more timeslots to fish for the tickets you wanted.
i got brilliant seats in some presales as well as in public sales. the trick is to Just Say No until you see the tickets you want.
that really takes nerves of steel sometimes, but hey - it's the Rolling Stones :E

Not sure what shows you were getting 1st 9 row seats for $99 but I am holding my Fenway ticket stub as I type this and the seats cost $150 each my friend.

Also as far as I know none of the floor seats for any of the U.S. shows were less than $150 and some were $300...

You may be right about it being a crap shoot for good tickets but all I know is I was able to get 3rd row seats with my fan club membership while many of the other fans sitting around me got their seats by purchasing the $2K tour packages.......

I have walked up to the box office 5 minutes before a show and have gotten 5th row seats but if you want a pretty good chance of getting good seats I think the fan club offers you the best bet....

In any case if they do tour again I am willing to bet you will be able to wait until the day of the show and get good seats from people trying to unload them for less than face value in the parking lot...IMHO if the Stones charge the same crazy prices as the last couple of tours getting decent tickets cheap will not be a problem and there will be many empty seats.....

>> Not sure what shows you were getting 1st 9 row seats for $99 ...
Also as far as I know none of the floor seats for any of the U.S. shows were less than $150 <<

as you note i edited my post, because you're right: i don't know what the opening night tickets cost.
but the first ten rows were indeed $99 at many of the US stadium shows. 60 GBP in Britain,
and some equivalent low price in Euros at the European stadia that had reserved seating.

i'm glad you got great tickets through the fan club presales. a lot of people didn't.
rs.com in fact never promised that the presales would routinely include lots of great tickets.
some presales seemed to, others didn't, and as you see just from this thread that disappointed miles of fans.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-12-13 23:05 by with sssoul.

I joined before the last tour, thinking I could get great seats. For the show closest to hear, which was Toronto, I could get $300 tickets presale on the floor - hardly a 'deal' or a I could buy lower bowl presale for around $110 each, which I did. Though even though they were 'presale' they were maybe 25 rows up and with an obscured view of Charlie as we were almost with a side-on view of the stage.

In previous years I did get a poster and DVD. But in NO was was them membership with it. Presale tix were nothing special. DVD clips were nothing special. I tossed out the poster. Save the $100.

On the other hand, I belong to both REM' fan club and Elvis Costello's.

Elvis' is free and I have gotten GREAT presale tix. I also got free tix to a TV show taping. REM' cost $10 per year, and I get a CD or DVD every year (well worth the $10), plus GREAT presale tix when they tour.

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with sssoul
but the first ten rows were indeed $99 at many of the US stadium shows. 60 GBP in Britain,
and some equivalent low price in Euros at the European stadia that had reserved seating.

i'm glad you got great tickets through the fan club presales. a lot of people didn't.
the fan club in fact never promised that the presales would routinely include lots of great tickets.
some seemed to, others seemed not to, and as you see just from this thread that disappointed miles of fans.

Interesting because I went to all 4 Boston shows and all of the tickets were $150 each for my floor seats. I also was looking at seeing some shows in other cities and none of the floor tickets went for less than $150...If you can get 1st 9 rows for $99 that is a great deal.......

In any case my fan club membership has been grandfathered so unless I can get primo seats through the club I will be most likely cherry pick seats from sellers before the show. If it is anything like the BBT they will be selling for less than face......



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2009-12-13 20:36 by oldschool.

A small proportion of tickets in the first ten rows on the US shows in 2005-2006 were $99. They did the same for the UK shows in August 2006 when the tickets were £60. Other tickets in the same rows were £150, so in that sense the fan club deal gave you an advantage. There WERE £60 tickets in the public sales, but not as many - although there were ticket drops nearer showtime so it turned out that with some patience you could get £60 tickets in the front ten rows without a fan club membership.

However, by the time the next legs of the tour came along in 2007, they scrapped that system for the three 02 London shows. Of course, you didnt realise that until the tickets went on sale, and those of us who had renewed hoping we'd have a similar advantage in getting primo tickets in the first ten rows got a rude awakening when we couldnt get offered anything in the front block on the floor and could only get side view tickets. The front ten rows were reserved exclusively for brokers and Fan Asylum packages, the latter of which were going for a couple of grand apiece. I think there may have been the occasional 'hot seat' single ticket for £250 each. EVENTUALLY - months later - a few tickets popped up on Ticketmaster for £150 in the front few rows, but these were obviously unsold Fan Asylum tickets which were just being reoffered to the public because the Stones' organisation had overestimated the demand for their grand larceny.

The 'official' ticket prices for the 02 shows were £70 and £150, but this was a scam, as when the tickets went on sale to the public it was all but impossible to get anything in the front few rows without having to pay a four figure amount.

The problem is that when you buy a membership whilst you assume its going to be a level playing field and they'll have a similar % of $60/$99 seats in the front ten rows for each show, it doesnt work like that in reality. You were more likely to get them for a stadium show and if you happened to be looking for tickets for somewhere in high demand like MSG, then it became very difficult. An additional problem is that some cities (again the 'high profile' ones where theres a lot of demand for expensive tickets because there are more wealthy people in the area likely to be able to afford them) such as New York, there were going to be a very high % of tickets for the venue priced in the highest price range (eg - whilst Cohl said at the press conference that 10% of the tickets would cost $450, that may have been the case in somewhere like Missoula, but at Madison Square Garden, it was probably higher than 50%). Of course, the fan club won't tell you that - nor will they tell you that whatever way the system works for the first few months (even when done in a way which works to the fan club member's advantage), that doesnt necessarily mean it'll stay that way for the rest of the tour - and they wont tell you when and how it changes.

Its basically just a shot in the dark when you're online waiting for what tickets are available and the system is set up in a way to make you panic-buy the tickets that are the most over-priced ones (eg the ones that whilst they have a Category A price, arent in the best part of the arena/stadium - ie a side view or two thirds back on the floor) thinking that the best ones have already gone, only to find they mysteriously pop up half an hour later. The fan club allocation works in a similar way. As sssoul says, the trick is to just say no if youre offered tickets that arent as good as what you wanted - however when youve already paid $100 for a membership, its not always that easy.

Just dont give them any money. It saves a lot of gnashing of teeth later on.

Thanks Gazza, very good explaination on the whole convoluted system. Maybe they did not offer the $99 tickets in the Boston Market as that has always been a strong seller for the Stones as I never saw them offered.

Based on what you wrote and my own personal experience I may just not buy tickets using my fan club privledge unless I do get 1st nine row seats. Unless they change the rules I beleive you can only use the fan club presale for one show.

For this tour unless they reduce the prices I truly think fans will have good success waiting until the day of show to see if any leftover primo tickets have been released to ticketmonster. In this economy it is going to be tough for Mr Cohl or some other promoter to sell $150+ tickets in most markets.

I also was able to get 5th row seats to the 40 Licks show in Hartford by waiting until about 15 minutes before show time and trying the box office. They released the leftover prime seats just before show time. And I truly beleive good tickets will be had at bargain prices at many venues by fans who want to dump them. This may not work at a venue like MSG where demand outstrips supply but in smaller markets I bet this will be the case.

One problem with waiting is that's hard to do for people who want to travel some to see shows, since a ticket in hand is usually preferred before making travel arrangements, at least for us cautious types.

Agreed angee.... If I was spending bunch of money to travel and for Hotel I would want to know I have a ticket...Depending on the show you want to travel to I don't think you will have any problem scoring a decent seat this tour.......

>> the trick is to just say no if youre offered tickets that arent as good as what you wanted -
however when youve already paid $100 for a membership, its not always that easy. <<

well, since they refunded your membership fee if you didn't buy any tickets, that particular sense of pressure shouldn't have existed.
but yes, it required nerves of steel, as well as a lot of time hovering on line waiting for ticket drops etc,
and a good network of helpful cohorts (waving to all my helpful cohorts! :E) and an awareness of How It All Works,
including how they changed the rules on every continent.

speaking of changing the rules: i wasn't aware that the $99/£60 miracle tickets were ever available in arenas -
i thought it was strictly a stadium phenomenon. so i never looked for them in arenas, so i wasn't disappointed. :E

When the Stones used to play Wembley Stadium you could always get tickets outside from touts/scalpers for half price or less. All those shows there from 82 to 99 I got in for about £20-$40. The 02 is so much harder to do that at as they are very hot on touts there. So I really hope that they don't play the 02 again. Hate the place.

That is why I loved what Paul MacCartney did in this Euro current tour. LiveNation did sell before public sales very good seats to fans with memberships. The good thing is that the membershis were free.

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with sssoul
speaking of changing the rules: i wasn't aware that the $99/£60 miracle tickets were ever available in arenas -
i thought it was strictly a stadium phenomenon. so i never looked for them in arenas, so i wasn't disappointed. :E

You may be right. The only arenas where I saw the Stones last tour were the 02 (already mentioned THAT pre-sale farce) and Madison Square Garden (where I ignored the TM insistence that there was nothing for under $450 available for half an hour before the $160 tickets mysteriously popped up) so $99/£60 front block tickets weren't that relevant to me.

And to get back to the issue of whether the rs.com tickets gave you an advantage in presales. For the first MSG show in January 2006, as stated above, I could get nothing for $160 for half an hour on the presale until they finally released some (so even in presales they were still trying to con the fan club members into panic buying the $450 tickets). A few days later tickets went on sale for the second show. Some kind soul had passed on a sponsor/venue's password so after a few minutes of waiting I got the $160 tickets I wanted on THAT 'free' presale.

As it turned out, the rs.com tickets I got for the 1st night and the venue presale tickets I got for the second night were the same seat numbers, but one row apart. The only difference was that to access the fan club presale I had paid $100, and to access the venue presale I wasnt charged anything.

The most I've paid for a show was $45 but that was not the Stones. I saw them twice on the Voodoo tour and paid, I believe, $25 both times. I can't see paying over $50 to see the Stones. Not anymore. And giving them money for a chance at picking tickets? Wow. That's just really bad. They screw people over by reissuing the same tired material without anything extra AND make money through the fan club or whatever - for what?

No need to be harsh, skip. Apparently on rs.com you can now buy their 2007 Stones calendars for a reduced price!!

I wasn't harsh...

rs.com appropriately reflects the current state, condition and value of the band it represents. kudos to all.

I avoid the official website. It only reminds me of what I don't like about the modern Stones. Greed, greed, greed.

[thepowergoats.com]

It worked out well for me. I got seats right up front on the floor for Miami during the ABB member presale. It was awesome!!

+1 TrulyMicks...3rd row in front of Keef for the tour opener at Bostons Fenway Park...

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oldschool
+1 TrulyMicks...3rd row in front of Keef for the tour opener at Bostons Fenway Park...

Good for you! Hopefully, we'll all have good luck with seats on the upcoming tour.