Crow's adventures in Ticket Land (long)

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

Crow’s adventures in procuring Wilco Tickets

 

After missing out on the show in Denton earlier this year (snow day…show on University Campus, Smaller venue=sellout and no attendance by Crow and D-man), I promised D-man that no matter what, we were going to the Wilco show supporting THE WHOLE LOVE in Dallas.

 

When they announced the venue at Dallas Music Hall, I was a bit surprised. This Depression era, Art Deco show place is the normal venue for touring Musicals. It’s kind of small and, well to be frank, a bit nice for the normal rock show. A BIG step up from the Palladium, that’s for sure. Plus, it’s located on the STATE FAIR OF TEXAS grounds. For those of you not familiar with Dallas, let’s just say it is in a pretty rough area (the parking lots are surrounded by wrought iron fences topped with razor wire). In my business life I refer to it as WAR ZONE B. If it's not the State Fair or a show at the outdoor arena there, the only time you see 50 year old men and 17 year old boys down there is when they are looking for crack. Even the police are a rare sight down there. However, it is a pretty nice venue. It’s a theater, so probably not much standing (no room for it really).

 

D-man was so excited about the show that he decided it was his treat. He has been working at a grocery store since June, so he has a nice chunk of change these days.

 

I checked out things pretty thoroughly for the pre-sale, setting up a Front Gate ticketing account, setting up the Front Gate login as a favorite…all the usual stuff. On Wednesday, the day of the pre-sale, I was sitting in my office and hit the site at 10:00 on the nose. The pre-sale sold out in less than two minutes…totally shut out. Was this an omen?

 

Since I have been attending rock shows (about 36 years now), I have rarely had luck at getting the good seats. It seems like “best seats available” translates to “sit this bastard on the back row. The one time I got good seats was very memorable. For the Springsteen/E-Street Band reunion, I was on the floor of Reunion Area about 20 rows back…not bad at all. For almost every other show it is Seinfeldian exercise in seat location.

This morning, I woke up and took D-man to school. He gave me his debit card, all excited about getting the tickets. I went home, and being the cool customer that I am, went back to bed and slept until about 10:00.

 

Having a premonition, I logged into the internet and checked everything out . Logged into Front Line (uh oh) and, as luck would have it, I logged into my Ticket Master account. Set up D-man’s card as a billing option on Ticket Master and examining the Front Line screen, I didn’t really see any options for billing options or any other options other than the pre-sale. This didn’t concern me too much, I was all in anticipation of the hunt and kill.

 

At noon, I hit the Front Gate site, and it quickly became apparent to me that I couldn’t get past the pre-sale screen. That’s where my login took me, and I felt I did not have the time to try and get back to the general screen. Uh oh. I hit the Wilcoworld site and went to the show screen and hit the purchase tickets tab. Luckily I had the Ticket Master info set up and hit the ‘find best ticket’ option. This has NEVER been my friend and I got no hits. NO HITS?! What the hell…? So I tried it again, allowing the TICKETMASTER DEMON WHORE to give me one more shot. I GOT A HIT! What’s this? Third Balcony Section RR, row P? Sounds like my crappy seat streak at the top of the arena. Looks like my streak of bas luck with crappy seats was going to continue. But at least they were seats in the music hall. Not wanting to risk getting shut out, I hit the purchase tickets option, went to the completion screen…

 

AND MY INTERNET CONNETION CRASHED.

 

At this point it was out 12:10 and I was a screaming, frothing lunatic. Luckily I have gotten beyond the stage of destroying stuff, but there was some usage of Adult language. Well, quite a bit of adult language.

 

I was an absolute lunatic at this point. Not just for the frustration factor, but D-man was so very excited about going. He has been listening to Wilco at full volume in his bedroom for the last couple of nights…the boy is a FAN. It has been really nice being able to share the love of this band with my only son. My wife ceased going to shows with me after seeing Springsteen on the Devils and Dust tour. She doesn’t really like music. Her favorites are Barry Manilow, the standards singing Rod Stewart and Styx. Magic Kristen (aka K-Doll) is an electronic music fan. You know...Perry Forsten, LMFMAO, Designer Drugs. THOSE kind of band. D-man shares a fandom that extends beyond the exposure he has gotten being my son.

 

It took 10 minutes for my internet connection to restore. I was well and fully resigned to my fate at this point, but I reloaded the Ticket Master website, hit the option for “best available” once again.

 

I got a hit.

 

Orchestra level, Section E, row JJ.

 

That would be on Nels’ side…where we always sit/stand. Plus…they are pretty damn good seats.

 

 

Completed sale. Got confirmation of purchase. Got an email verification.

 

 

Now, it’s a matter of counting down the days.

[bleedorange]

Glad you got tickets Crow. I managed to grab two at the presale on Wednesday. Same section as you but a little closer.