Tickets went on sale at ten a.m. today. On the stroke of ten, I tapped the buy tickets button and got put into the queue, whose clock animation began. And which then ran for thirty-three minutes ...
The way ticket sales are done these days is arcane. A certain number of them are sold in advance to what are essentially legal scalpers. The prices on those get jacked up PDQ. A floor ticket that goes for $125 face value -- spendy enough, thank you -- will go anywhere from ten to twenty times that much on the re-sell market. Who can spend a couple thousand bucks for a concert ticket? Not me.
The promotors are apparently required to hold onto and sell a certain number of tickets at an advertised time and for face-value, and if you can time it right, you can snag some of those. You select "best available," or however much you can afford, and wait to see if you'll make it before they run dry.
We lucked out. We got two good seats for less than an arm and a leg. Not the best seats -- there are folks who have that button click timed to the mirco-second, but not bad. Given what they are going for from the scalpers, we could already get thrice what we paid them, but we won't.
Yeah, yeah, geezer rock. But assuming the old guy survives until then (and us, too,) we'll see him live.
Layla -- you got me on my knees/
Layla -- I'm begging darlin' please ...