It will not come as a surprise to anyone to hear the ticket presales
offered by U2.com went down into something that can only be described
as possible the worst presale ever. Where initially it seemed the EU
subscribers were hit hardest, not being able to buy tickets at all, it
now becomes clear to us the US fans were treated no better.
We'd like to go back in time a bit, and sum up pretty much
everything that has happened so far, and why the official U2 website
has now been internationally dubbed "U2.con"
U2.com was
initially scheduled to launch on the first of December 2004. Prior to
this, various high profile U2 fan sites were contacted by Universal
Music to be told to take down the U2 lyrics they featured on their site
or face legal action. The initial launch deadline failed, and there
were huge problems signing up on the days after that. Some people even
resorted to buying additional things in the store to be able to sign
up, that's how devoted they were. Former Propaganda members who were
told they'd receive a 50% discount never got their discount and many
just gave up and signed up to a full $40 membership. Many, many devoted
U2 fans happily parted with their money for their promised chance to
get tickets in presales, as opposed to having to spend hours in queues
for ticket boxes, or on hold on the phone to Ticketmaster.
The first few weeks of U2.com were marked by teething problems and
poor communications. U2.com and Fanfire were force to learn rapidly and
slowly, but surely, people got some help with their problems, but many
others didn't.
There were rumours abound regarding the tour, and the U2 fan
community has been getting pretty excited about the forthcoming tour,
and nervous about being able to get tickets. Dates were published,
arranged, then recalled and rescheduled.
On Friday the 21st of January, Irish radio DJ Dave Fanning responds to an article in the Irish Mirror in his show on 2FM
and asks Sebastian Clayton (Adam's brother who has overseen the launch
of U2.com) to clarify a few things. Sebastian's response? 'We're
still providing a really good service for free for fans, they're
getting all the news, they're getting all the latest videos, audio,
that kind of stuff. But if they (fans) want extra stuff, they can pay
for it. We're not trying to rip them off. We're providing extra content
and extra stuff. There is a cost to us, and we're passing it along."
"There have been a few technical problems purely because it's
been so popular. But we do have a support team online 24 hours a day,
and we have been getting through all this backlog of problems people
have been having."
That Friday, emails were sent out to all U2.com members, to inform
them dates would be announced that following Monday, with presales
following on Tuesday the 25th of January. I remember initially thinking
what a silly thing to do on a Friday, leaving no rooms for questions to
be answered over the weekend, followed by another email that Monday,
which included the unique presale code.
In this email, it became rapidly clear U2.com's ticket presales
would be extremely limited to those who were hoping to catch more than
one show, or wanting to take their family with them. The ticket limit
was set to four tickets for any outdoor EU show, or two tickets for any
indoor US show, despite U2.com's claim Priority
Ticket Sales for the 2005 Tour // The 2005 Tour is being announced
soon. It’s no secret that U2 tickets usually sell out in hours but we
have secured agreement for U2.Com members to be provided with an
advance window when they can buy U2 tickets at all venues before they
are offered to the general public.
U2log.com had an influx of emails coming into our inbox of people
asking for more information, mostly regarding their unique codes and
what exactly "10 am local time" meant which were mentioned for the US
sales. More gems from this email include Q - Will I get better
seats than the general public? // A - U2.com have secured some of the
best available tickets for U2.Com Subscribers.
D-Day arrived on January 25 1o am GMT, with European sales going
belly up pretty much straight away. Paying u2.com members who paid $40
for their priority ticketing and "guaranteed the best seat in the
house" find out their presale codes get rendered invalid thanks to
timeouts they are experiencing on the Ticketmaster sites. Ticketmaster
initially reactivates some codes, but apparently gives up at some stage
(number of emails too overwhelming?).
6 hours later, the East Coast of the US goes on sale. This sale
initially seems to be going more smoothly, until it becomes clear there
are practically NO General Admission tickets available at all, and the
tickets that do become available are the seats that are nosebleeds, up
with the gods at about $150 or more a pop, or even situated BEHIND the
stage. Not only that but the people who desperately did sign away over
$300 for 2 of these tickets as close to the stage as possible find out
during the day that the Ticketmaster sites CHANGES THE FLOORCHART. To
their horror they now turn out to have paid over $300 for tickets in
the back of the arena, so far removed from the stage that they'll need
binoculars to even see the stage.
Each following hour is marked by U2.com downtime from there on, and
more disappointed fans around America. When the West Coast of the US
goes on sale, including the tour starter San Diego, the Ticketmaster
site goes completely belly up, and users that have placed orders get
Server Configuration errors when they want to finalise their sale.
People use their option to their selected tickets in the process and
are once again landed with nosebleeds.
The presale to the only Canadian date, Vancouver seems to have been
cancelled altogether without ANYONE getting ANY detail as to why.
Disappointed fans keep going back to the Ticketmaster site, wondering
if the concert will be cancelled altogether or not. They're still left
in the dark and this issue hasn't been addressed at all by
Ticketmaster, U2.com or anyone at all.
Pretty much immediately after each presale, tickets start appearing on Ebay at exuberant prices (over $1000) for all shows.
Ticketmaster Europe issues an apology to Euro fans, which can be read on U2.com.
It doesn't take away that presale GA tickets for Brussels as well as
London have now sold out, and the people whose codes became invalid
haven't even been able to go near them. Much more disappointment.
TICKETMASTER US DOES NOT HAVE SUCH DIGNITY and completely fails to
address or even acknowledge problems with US ticket sales, nor does
U2.com.
An "Open letter to U2" site is
put up within hours of the presales, addressing the complete failure of
U2.com to meet their fans demands. Fans pour out their frustration on
it, our own site U2log.com, on @U2.com,
but also on U2.com's Zootopia forums, which become available again 13
hours after presales started. It is filled with people speaking out
their disappointment and demanding their money back and even going as
far as threatening with lawsuits against U2.com for not providing
services promised.
Throughout the day we (u2log.com) have received more comments and
emails from disappointed fans. U2.com has shown to be mostly non
communicating on these issues, and fans are disappointed, angry and
left in the dark, while on EBay scalpers start offering tickets to show
that haven't even been announced yet.
Now, a number of questions arise, that unfortunately U2.com fails to address, but that really needs some answers:
* What will be done for fans that missed out on tickets?
* What will be done for tickets that were forced to either buy
crap/overly expensive tickets because they couldn't get the tickets
they wanted?
* What will be done for people who to their horror found out their
carefully selected overpriced "at least they're close to the stage"
tickets are now at the back of the arena, thanks to Ticketmaster
changing the floor plan during the day?
* How come GA tickets are offered all over the place on EBay for silly
money? How come these brokers managed to get tickets that were
completely unavailable to the fans? What will u2.com do to fight EBay
brokers?
* How come these sort of problems never occurred when the fan magazine Propaganda was still in paper form?
* How come GA tickets in the US are about $45, where they are about EUR85 in Europe and up to 85 POUNDS for the Glasgow people?
* Will a refund be available for people who have lost their trust in
the U2.com site already and want their money back to be able to spend
at least $40 more with the touts?
We're hoping U2.com will have the decency to address these questions before the General Sales start this coming Monday.
The only solution we see so far includes contacting every U2.com
member individually, ask them their ticket requirements and MEET these
requests in ticket reservations BEFORE tickets go on General Sale.
That's the only acceptable solution we can see as of yet.
At the time of writing this article, exactly 24 hours have passed
after the presales started and U2.com has been mostly uncommunicative.
We realise people behind the scenes must be tearing their hair out,
much like we, our readers and every U2.com member out there is at this
very moment. We're hoping we have addressed the problems in a
reasonable manner, and a workable solution to be found as soon as
possible.
So here's a final plea to everyone involved with U2.com. Please give
us some reassurance that something is being done to help out these
loyal fans. We are poor students, for whom every penny counts, working
professionals who have worked for weeks on end to not have to worry
about ticket prices, mothers that have promised their 13 year old
daughters their very first concert, husbands finding no understanding
with their wives over their presales frustration...
Here's a selection of quotes from emails sent to us by desperate
fans, trying to find out what's going on, or simply wanting to share
their frustration.
vik
I was a member of Propoganda since the 80's and the service they
provided was fantastic. I actually miss the paper form they sent us.
I still love U2 even though today has been a day of despair and heart break. I just hope I can get a ticket soon.
Stephen
I'm a huge fan of the band...have been for a very, very long time.
Own all the records, singles, bought the freakin' U2 iPod (when I
already owned an iPod). To not be able to get even remotely decent
seats on the paysite is nothing less than disheartening
Kaitland
I've stayed up til 4am now (Im in Japan at the moment) trying to get
tickets for the LA show and I just keep receiving a message that says
"Internal system error" when I put the request through... whats going
on??
denis
appreciate the european info, but about north america, we have been
kicked out after 3 - 15 min getting error messages: like "bad socket"
"no connection made" "internal error" since 10 am
Morgan
In our time of need us folks here in Vancouver have been left in the
dark as to when our presale has actually been slated to start. It sure
isn't 10AM local time which is at u2 have told us. Could you please
post anything you know as soon as you know it because the fan site
u2.com has left us out in the cold.
But most of all, we're U2 fans and despite everything that's what we
want to be. Please make an effort to find a workable solution for
everybody, no matter where we are.
[origineel bericht via feeds.punt.nl]
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