Over this past week, I have been confronted with a couple of speed bumps in what should have been a happy time. Let me expand, I am a huge Red Hot Chili Peppers fan. They were the first concert I ever went to, and I have seen them every time since, when they hit Vancouver. This week tickets to their November 2012 shows went on sale. I found all the presales, and I was set. That is when the first speed bump popped up. While reviewing some comments on a Facebook post I noticed one person complaining about the paperless ticket system. I found this strange, because the opinion they have,was that the system was setup in such away that the end-user is the one truly getting screwed over and not the scalpers. I delved deeper into it and found that the person who was commenting in fact ran a ticket reseling website. He had come into the VCA territory to spread his blasphemous words and try to poison our opinions. I quickly quashed his attempts and posted this rebuttal:
“…I am in now way buying any propaganda, it is a proven method, that has kept many scalpers at bay since it’s inception. Yes, there are still scalpers that can resell if they know the system, but it does make it that much more difficult and thus reduces the number of scalpers. The secondary ticket market does in fact better represent a tickets value based on a true supply and demand environment, but what you are missing is that many artists do not want the price of their tickets dictated by the supply and demand system. They want to have the tickets at a reasonable enough price that the true fans, no matter their current economical status, can afford to come and enjoy them. There has been attempts by certain artists in the past to only offer premium area tickets in an auction style environment. This resulted in tickets going for true supply and demand value, but angered the true fans as the average person could not afford the absurd prices. It was then at the decision of those artists and their managing companies to revert back to the preset ticket pricing model.
Now looking back at the paperless ticket system, this has predominantly offered by fan driven bands. The likes of Jack White, Iron Maiden, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and so on and so forth. These artists adopt the system to better serve their fans and make sure a greater chance of them attaining premium area seating for their shows. I did mention earlier the issue with returning tickets to a show once you have dsicovered you can no longer attend. And, like I said earlier, this is a little difficult but not impossible. I have reached out to Ticketmaster in the past and advised them I was in the same circumstance. It took me 11 minutes on the phone, but in the end they offered me up a refund. So, again, it is slightly flawed but in no way terrible.
At the end of the day their are two different groups. You have the concert goers and the ticket resellers, all buying up tickets. It is a race between the two groups to acquire amazing seats. They both have different energies driving them. Concert goers want the tickets to go, because they have interest in attending the event. Ticket resellers only have an interest in making a profit. Every ticket reseller I have spoken to has a problem with paperless tickets, and other such systems. The majority, like yourself, play it off like it is a flawed system that in the end screws over the end user (concert goers). When in actuality their distaste for the paperless system is so obviously rooted in the fact that this system, makes it that much more difficult to resell tickets.
My objective was in no way to attack you, but to clarify my point. I myself have resold tickets to events, whenever I have been stuck with extra tickets. I can see the draw it has, as it is quick and easy money. But at the end of the day I am opposed to anything that makes it that much harder for fans to see their favorite artists. I hope that British Columbia adopts changes in its legal system to once again make ticket reselling illegal. Even that will not stop it, but at least it will stop being as flagrant as it is now.”
The reason this was the a speed bump, was more of a territorial defense mechanism in my brain. I infact felt this person had come along and tried to poison the well, as it were. He had not other agenda than to cross an imaginary line and complain to a group of music lovers, who in fact are his target demographic. It was a bad move. None the less I quashed it and moved on. A little steam had vacated from my RHCP excitement train, but I was no worse for wear.
The second, and last, speed bump had to do with the amount I have on plate. With an active family life, a full-time job, part-time school, a web site to run and contributors to manage, things have been hectic to say the least. On Thursday I left the house at 6:45am and got home at 10:15pm. It has been hectic. I want to iterate that this is not a negative, I think being busy is awesome, but it is a hurdle that slowed me down a bit.
Now after all is said and done, these little blips are nothing. They are just that, blips. It just happened that they bugged me enough to make mention of it. Now that the RHCP shows have gone on sale, I can sit back and comfortably say, I am going to be on the floor for both the Vancouver show and the Seattle show. Not to mention the fact that I am in communication with their management to arrange some interview time with the band. Things are great. And to add to all that the upcoming concert landscape for Vancouver is richer than it has been in a few years.
Bottom line is, don’t ever let a couple of speed bumps slow you down. Unless of course they are real speed bumps (IRL), then you need to slow down, because that shit is dangerous.