...a bit GREEDY, (what's new, I know). And Keith recently said, "you can have the money?" Give me a break, it's all about money.

A ticketmaster employee told me there were VERY few "general public" tickets available, that were released, as the promotors are trying to force people to pay the $100.00 membership over and over in order for us fans to get tickets.

Who, in there right mind, would continually pay a $100.00 a wack "extra" in addition to the ticket price, for each venue? That is just plain stupid?

Please answer.

"Fuc the Rock babe, I want the Roll." (KR)

It makes sense, not stupid at all.

It makes no sense unless you have $$$ to throw away.

"Fuc the Rock babe, I want the Roll." (KR)

Congradulations, you now know your $$$ limits.

If you want to be in a queue with 300 million people from Norh America who want to buy tickets for the Stones on tour then feel free to join the queue free of charge. If you want to narrow down this queue to say a few thousand hard core fans then all you have to pay is 100 dollars. That is 25 dollars per ticket. Tickets at the high end cost 300-400 dollars. 25% is less than 10% of that face value. And it is not the Stones who are greedy. The 100 dollars are needed to maintain and run the RollingStones.com web site and all it's systems. If you can get a staff and a web design for under $500,000 these days then you should start your own business. But it is up to you - the large queue or small queue. Very simple, and it works!

Bjornulf

They are making you buy multiple memberships for each venue Vik,

1.) that is $100 on top of the tic price, is what I am saying,

2.)they are also making it easier, for the rich and VIPs to get tickets,

3.)in other words "we don't care for the Poor fans.

That $100 only gets you to buy tickets to one venue, sure 4 tickets, but to one venue, then you pay the x-tra $100 again, not many people have that $$.


"Fuc the Rock babe, I want the Roll." (KR)

>And it is not the Stones who are greedy. The 100 dollars are needed to maintain and run the RollingStones.com web site and all it's systems.


if thats the case, then their staff are grossly overpaid. Plus the fact that it shows a 50% price increase on the last tour doesnt suggest great business sense if the increase is only due to maintenance costs

U2 managed to do it for a quarter of that fee and they dont allow multiple memberships so there wont be people helping finance it further by joining 4 or 5 times.

$500,000 to staff and run a website?? Thats bullshit. Seriously. Servers have dropped in price DRAMATICALLY. A $10 membership would be adequate. Not to mention that once a site is coded it is fairly easy to maintain and update. Bandwidth is expensive when dealing with content download, but I guarantee you its not anywhere near $500,000. Thats seriously bullshit, and so is the $100 fee.

Personally, I say @#$%& the presales. I'm getting about 6-8 of my friends together, and we're each going to be online and on our cell phones calling ticketmaster and attempting to get tickets to Detroit/Columbus/Chicago the moment they go on sale. If we cant get good seats for $160 or under then I'll just wait and scout out ebay all summer long. I paid $300 a pop last time (over $1200 total) and I will not do it again.

Drake

>> That $100 only gets you to buy tickets to one venue <<

hm. maybe part of the idea is that - eek, i'm actually afraid to say this out in public! but maybe from the point of view of the performers, the phenomenon of people attending more than a couple of shows per tour isn't necessarily a dream come true. i experience a tiny-scale version of something like that in my work, and while it's very touching when someone likes what i do enough to come back, it can be a major drag when the same faces turn up repeatedly for the same thing and then radiate disappointment that it's not all different. but it's not supposed to be all different - it's the same damn thing they've chosen to come back to see again!

reading the various Stones boards, it's hard not to notice that some people attend multiple Stones shows per tour and get great joy out of it, which is wonderful; that some people can't afford to do that, so they get great joy out of one or two gigs, which is also wonderful; and that there's also a sector of people who attend multiple shows and then complain about being bored with what the Stones do. that puzzles me a lot. it's like going to a play five times and complaining that the plot's the same each time. the Stones seemed to be going out of their way to vary the set lists on the Licks tour, and a lot of people still felt/feel it wasn't varied enough - which, if you think about it from the artists' point of view, could be a little ... tiresome. so maybe part of the message Stones Inc. is emanating is exactly what you're reading: think twice before rushing to attend so many shows.

the odd thing is that it used to be standard for set lists to remain constant, or nearly constant, throughout the whole tour, and no one complained about it. i really wonder why people's expectations have changed so much. is it that the tours now last so much longer than they used to, which means the artists start varying the set lists for their own reasons, and then the public started (as it were) demanding it? the proliferation of easily-available bootlegs contributing to the "heard it all already" syndrome? is there any way to blame it on MTV?

no wait - we can always blame it on the Stones. :E


"What do you want - what?!"
- Keith

BV, I cannot justify the extra $100 to the FANCLUB because it DOES NOT GUARENTEE EVERYONE A PAIR OF GREAT SEATS! I thought about joining from the stand point of getting a theatre ticket, but found out from MANY FANS that tickets procured from the fanclub were awful! So, I guess it's chosing from the worst of two evils! Do we pay $100 for basicly NOTHING, or take that extra $$ and call a broker and know where your seat will be. Plus, THE FANCLUB ONLY ALLOWS YOU TO BUY ABOUT 4 TICKETS, AT BEST, IS THAT RIGHT? Did I understand correctly? There's a limit to the number of requests you can make with the fan club?

Thanks Gaz and Drake, I agree

"Fuc the Rock babe, I want the Roll." (KR)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-05-15 21:09 by LISMM63.

That $100.00 ONLY allows you One pre-sale to ONE VENUE. Then you have to Pay another $100.00 membership to apply for another venue, (use to be, you had to change charge cards too) I bet tho this time, you can use the same card, which =GREEDY, again.

There was a penalty last tour, if you were caught buying more than one membership, you would be cancelled, but now, RS.com encourages this practice.

I have yet to get "general public tickets" and one TM rep told me to be careful, to make sure the $100.00 fee wasn't slapped onto the "general" tic price. READ CAREFULLY, before you click "finish transaction."

BTW, you will wait FOREVER for your money back thing.

"Fuc the Rock babe, I want the Roll." (KR)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-05-15 22:11 by LISMM63.

I think to be fair its a much better system than last time - especially with the 'money back' thing, but they could easily run that club for next to nothing.

Not when they release very "Few" tickets to "general public" then go back to only selling the club and Amex tic deals, that is not fair.

(I hate it when people around here change their stories, "to fit in." geez!)

"Fuc the Rock babe, I want the Roll." (KR)

100 $ devided by 4 tix is only 25$ per ticket. And in the past it worked fine.

Some people only need 1 tix, not 4, so that means each venue thru a presale is an extra $100.

Then, some people buy 4 tixs (to one show) and then become scalpers themselves and sell the extras, there is a thought.

Then, some buy for friends, family. But here, you are breaking it down, sure if it's a shared thing, $25 a piece.

I think a one time fee of $100 is enough for this deal, and then access to all presales, they would sell more tixs and have happier fans.

"Fuc the Rock babe, I want the Roll." (KR)

Seeing what tickets are going for on ebay I think I will try get them through the fan club 1st.
I am in the UK but hoping to go to somewhere in europe to see them as well.


I did not find it boring watching them more than once last time but chose different size venus so set up etc were a bit different and we managed to get FOS twice both times keefs side.

We had seated tickets that cost £150 each one night and I dont know what was so special about them ? ok they were near the small stage but I would have preferred standing.

Downside is the possible dates that have been mentioned I should be working,if I have to take them all off I will most probibly get fired.
Better start planning a new job for next year ho hum.

"If you can get a staff and a web design for under $500,000 these days then you should start your own business"
$500,000???? BV you are totally wrong...please don't confuse people with that facts!!if you still want to confuse people please give us arguments

As far as I know the RS.com servers have NEVER been down. During high-demand peaks that is. When they are most needed. And when 90% of all web servers fail. If you are a professional IT person who are in charge of a high-demand web cluster system like a band or a ticket sales or anything high on volume and bandwidth in a short time frame say 10 minutes when tickets are being released then you will understand. The U2 pre-sales was a joke as far as I know, and the U2 ticket sales in Norway crashed totally. Because they are amateurs. They don't know how complex it is to build a web system. Or may be they made it cheap. During the club show ticket sales I have never seen RS.com being down. That is the difference between a 50k and 500k system. I am not talking about exact money, and I am not saying that the Stones don't take half of the 100 dollars. What I am saying this is a professional profit-organization. And it works. If they did memberships at $25, then you would get a less reliable product.

Forget about these technicalities. It is very simple. If you don't like to pay 100 dollers extra, why don't you simply buy through Ticketmaster?

One final thing. The 100 dollars have to hurt - a bit. Otherwise everybody would buy these memberships. say at 25 dollars. And then you would be in the same queue with everybody.

Bjornulf

However painful it may be for the wallet, this thread is really interesting. Like sitting in a trial, listening to pros and cons.

With SSoul posted a rare, annoying, but smart remark for us hardcore fans. If the Stones were bored to see always the same faces in the front row? I know some diehard fan who even wear special hat, jackets, etc. to be RECOGNIZED by the Stones (hi, fight 505 amigo).

As for Bjorn, he has the double quality, being together an IT pro and the die-est-hard fan in the world. I believe him.

Last question to American fans. 2002 was very expensive. So you say this 2005 is much, much more expensive? Maybe because the dollar is weak. I'll carefully look the brokers price to compare with 2002.

Folks, establish a $$$ limit and your venues and don't go any further. This is discipline - very similar to buying stocks and selling a house. BTW, I do NOT have any tickets yet and two 1 July 04 - 9 May 05 Memberships. I may miss out entirely on this tour.

I don't think the 100$ (or more likely 25$/ticket) is the problem. But I hear that even the 450$ tix sometimes are very far in the back. These tix should be great. On stage.

Forgot to say $100 per venu.
For me works out at:
Club around £25 each extra.
Stadium around £12.50 each extra.
Not OTT by any means,just hope the exchange rate stays the same..
If you buy from a tout the price will be a lot more than your ticket + £12.50.

smile to The Joker: how could the Stones be bored to see fans with light in their eyes turn up time after time?! as long as people are getting off on it, they're thrilled, i'm sure! my puzzlement is over the people who (judging from their posts, anyway) go so many times that they spoil their own appetites, as it were, start feeling cranky and complain as if the problem were with the shows and not with their appetites.

plenty of people's appetites seem to do fine no matter how many shows they go to, and that's beautiful. and i didn't mean to annoy; i'm just puzzled by the major change in people's expectations. a concert used to be regarded more like a theatrical production: if you go back you expect to witness the same thing again. now a lot of people seem to treat it more like a TV series that's supposed to be different every week. i wonder where this change came from, and what the new expectations feel like to the performers.


"What do you want - what?!"
- Keith



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2005-05-16 00:26 by with sssoul.

LISMM63 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not when they release very "Few" tickets to
> "general public" then go back to only selling the
> club and Amex tic deals, that is not fair.
>
> (I hate it when people around here change their
> stories, "to fit in." geez!)
>

youre accusing me of changing my story/opinion to "fit in" ?

You must be kidding

Reading those posts, I will think twice before investing in US leg. Yet, things may not be so worse as they seem. Deborah paid 450$ for a far row in a stadium, but I just found 2 minutes ago for a try 400$ public price (no presale) for Miami Arena, level 1.

A good option would be to go in Asian arena, if they are Asian arena. There is no buzz there, no brokers... I have a wonderful memory of Stones in Hong Kong. With one front row sold by a broker at Giants, around 4,000$ - you have 4 to 6 airplanes tickets to Singapore or Beijing. Plus, one of the trip of your life.

Hey Joker, I am waiting also for the Asian area...and Latin America before I spend any more money. But then I have already spent a lot...and still have a platinummport legacy code left.

There are two sides to this coin, and there will never be a good answer to the dilemma. Part of this is hard for us all to accept is that this is ALL BUSINESS. WE WANT IT TO BE TIED UP TO ROCK AND ROLL, and whatever vagabond concept that supposedly represents. At times I too think that this is just a shade shy of ridiculous with prices that are now racing to the sky. But I pay them when i have to.

I also realize that in the last two years I have seen my salary increase by two raises that break into the five digit zone when put together. At no point did I say no. I do not want to get into that BS arguement that will, I am sure, surface in a while that I CANNOT BE A TRUE FAN because I am on occasion willing to spend whatever I can afford, but I have never turned down a raise. In fact, I have sought them out. Who here complaning about the prices does not want to make more money than they did three years ago? I am sure none of us that are making more than we did three years ago feels like we are raping whoever has to pay more for the product or service that we provide.

It is the nature of capitalism. Thirty years ago is was anoounced with a shout, " But what can a poor boy do...", it has always been about the show, the money, singing in a Rock and Roll band. Yes, others do it cheaper. It is questionable, but others may do it better at this point in time. The hard pill to swallow is that no one is forcing any one of us to pay these prices, it is a matter of choice, pay up or buy the DVD afterward.

Gaz wrote: "youre accusing me of changing my story/opinion to "fit in" ?

Not a'toil, got guilty conscience,...gaz?

"Girl from the North Country,""On the road again,..."


"Fuc the Rock babe, I want the Roll." (KR)

very!