by I will admit I have not been a fan of Lady Gaga for that long of a time — for the longest time I thought she was less about the substance and more about the style. Then I found out she released her music on vinyl as well as other formats, and everything changed for me. I bought her album “The Fame” and got right into it.
Lady Gaga played four shows in New York City at Radio City Music Hall a while back, and the shows were long sold out by the time I found out about it. I resolved to make sure that I would get to the next show she played in New York.
It was announced a few days ago that she would be playing at Madison Square Garden — quite a leap from Radio City Music Hall. Seating capacity for Radio City Music Hall is about six thousand and Madison Square Garden is three times that. The tickets went on sale on yesterday at 10:00am Eastern Standard Time and I was on the correct TicketMaster page at exactly at that time.
I added two $54 tickets and entered the CAPTCHA code as requested, and was then advised that Ticketmaster was searching for my tickets and there would be a 10 minute wait. I noticed that the time was not at all consistent — it would drop down to seven, then six, and then jump up to fifteen. After nearly seventeen minutes, a notice popped up that no tickets were found at the price I was trying to find — the lowest price, that is.
I tried finding tickets at other price points but the only tickets that were available were the most expensive tickets and I don’t have nearly two hundred dollars to purchase a ticket to see Lady Gaga. When my one of my other favorite bands (Phish) plays at Madison Square Garden the tickets all cost the same — around sixty dollars regardless of where you are.
I checked again and again but could not find any tickets — even after another show was added. A third show was added but as I am a Shomer Shabbos Jew I cannot attend.
I looked on a few other places like eBay and Craig’s List and hundreds of people are already selling tickets to the Madison Square Garden show for nearly two hundred dollars — and those were for the $54 tickets.
Even worse, now there is a monstrous entity called “TicketsNow” which bills itself as a “resale marketplace from TicketMaster” — and so now, not only does TicketMaster rip you off with their fees, but they rip you off by charging exorbitant amounts of money through scalping.
The way Lady Gaga should sell her tickets should be more like the way that Nine Inch Nails sold their tickets. When people purchased tickets, it would have their name on it and only the person whose name would appear on the ticket would be authorized to use it — photo identification required. Goodbye, scalping.
Meanwhile, I am left with the hope that perhaps Lady Gaga will have the current tour turned into a lovely 3D Imax Experience.
I’m sorry to hear about your TicketMaster troubles, Gordon. When you have a hot concert like that — especially in NYC — you really have to know someone on the inside to get decent seats. “Selling to the public” is an absolute misnomer in that circumstance.
The Eric Clapton fans have the same experience. Being in the fan club is supposed to guarantee you PREFERRED ACCESS to buying tickets — and it works everywhere except in the USA — but here the scalpers and promoters and the record companies and radio and TV stations get all the prime seats to use and the cheap seats to re-sell.
A couple of years ago, Janna and I wanted to see Wintuk. I tried ordering via TicketMaster and only saw $400 seats left. I canceled my purchase only to find I had been charged for FOUR SEATS at that $400 per price. It took me a good hour to get everything reversed. Ugh.
http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/wintuk/default.aspx
Oh, and getting tickets to the Radio City Christmas Show was the same no-go through TicketMaster. Only the cheap, rotten, seats were left.
The best way to try to get good seats at and affordable price, I have discovered, is to stand in line at the box office showing the performance — not the TKTS line.
Wow. What a ripoff.
When I went to see Pearl Jam in 2005 I had been a member of the fan club for 5 years and bought my tickets through them — and got really great seats as a result.
I hope Lady Gaga will offer something similar in the future.