Guardian/Manchester Thursday gig...

[greenfeld69]

A 'friend' has informed me that he has Row C for Manchester. Just checked his Ebay sales and he's got two pairs, selling them for £799 each.

To say I'm disappointed is a gross understatement.

[frankiecrisp]

Ive been spoiled over the years seeing Bob Dylan in the Uk where we get a brilliant service, A fan allocation for all venues that is run brilliantly and it keeps a lot of tickets out of the hands of the pond life who make a living ripping off genuine fans on ebay and outside venues , This Guardian offer was always going to be a joke I would imagine 75% of the tickets will end up in the touts hands Ive already been offered 4 tickets at £250 each and that was at 10.05. and by now that price will have gone up to £500

[Scooby Doo]

I liked the way Queen done it. You could only buy the tickets from their web site and they did not tell you block, row or seat allocations. if your a genuine fan you will be happy that you got a ticket.

Scoobs

[terry shute]

Ive been spoiled over the years seeing Bob Dylan in the Uk where we get a brilliant service, A fan allocation for all venues that is run brilliantly and it keeps a lot of tickets out of the hands of the pond life who make a living ripping off genuine fans on ebay and outside venues , This Guardian offer was always going to be a joke I would imagine 75% of the tickets will end up in the touts hands Ive already been offered 4 tickets at £250 each and that was at 10.05. and by now that price will have gone up to £500

hear hear! this so-called 'fan allocation' has been a complete shambles, compared to the Bob operation.

[ms.blue]

Hi all... cant agree more re ticket/touts
I have been chasing tickets and getting nowhere but to be honest I will be quite relieved when the man himself has been and gone as the disappointment and stress seems to have been neverending!!! Even if I had pots of money i would not want to be sharing it with the touts!!!

We may be ugly but we have the music

[hydriot]

The seating plan attached to the Guardian offer does show a Gallery, which the one we viewed earlier in the year for the other Manchester concerts did not.

A rough count reveals just less than 1600 seats in the Stalls and Circle combined, plus approximately a further 640 seats in the Gallery. And the Manchester Opera House is advertised as a 1900 capacity venue. Curiouser and curiouser.

[coldbeer]

The seating plan attached to the Guardian offer does show a Gallery, which the one we viewed earlier in the year for the other Manchester concerts did not.

A rough count reveals just less than 1600 seats in the Stalls and Circle combined, plus approximately a further 640 seats in the Gallery. And the Manchester Opera House is advertised as a 1900 capacity venue. Curiouser and curiouser.

I've got a pdf of the complete seating plan with seating numbers.

I've been a bit geeky and counted them all up.

If my maths are correct the number of seats is as follows

Stalls - 830
Circle - 552
Gallery - 525

Giving a grand total of 1907

[John Etherington]

Hi Hydriot,

I don't think it's a case of the gallery being held back, as I was offered gallery seats but rejected them. I suspect that that the majority of best seats are either being held back or re-challened into Ticket Exchange by Ticketmaster themselves. When I really want something I usually get it, but this time I felt so ambivalent about dealing with Tcketmaster at all, that I understand why I didn't.
The whole Guardian thing was farcical...it just brought the availabilty of Leonard tickets to the attention of people who haven't bothered to look at the matter before. I agree that the Bob Dylan fans have a great arrangement...I haven't always used this, but it has been helpful on a couple of occasions. Fortunately I have got one best seat for the first Manchester show and also for London.

All the best, John E

[David Belbin]

A friend and I both got on at exactly ten and we were both offered gallery tickets - I took the best ones and he returned the others, didn't want to risk throwing them back as, last month, when the rest of the tix went on sale, the site froze us out after we'd been allocated equally bad seats. I wrote a little article about buying/seeing Leonard on my blog here: http://www.davidbelbin.com/2008_04_01_a ... 2479817709 if anyone's interested.

Dave

[greenfeld69]

Well, the only person I didn't want to get tickets got Row C. ****ing tout.

[elljay]

I phoned just on 10am and all I could be offered was Row A in the Gallery with a restricted view - how can this be possible when tickets had supposedly just gone on sale?? This was the one morning all week that I couldn't go online but hoped to get a decent ticket on the phone! Luckily I still have a Gallery, row D for the Tuesday and had simply been hoping for a change to the Thursday for family reasons though even then originally wanted the Friday - confusing I know... Can't believe the touts on eBay already - £799 for two tickets - parasite.

[sparks]

A totally stressful scramble. I was trying to get 4 tickets: for myself, my girlfriend, her sister and the sister's friend. We particularly wanted Thursday tickets as we are travelling from Scotland and going on to a friend's wedding down south that weekend and that fitted in best with our plans.

I remembered the suggestion of calling before 10am, but not too long before because they won't let you hold. Phoned at 0950 thinking 10 minutes in the queue would be about right. Got through immediately and was told to call back as it was too early. Phoned again and meanwhile tried the web site. It wasn't helped by having to enter characters from an image which were too blurry to read. At one point I had 4 tickets in the gallery, which were supposed to be held for 3 minutes but when I went to payment it said they weren't available, I don't know what happened. I had no more luck getting 4 tickets and then tried for 2 with no luck. Eventually managed to get only 2 single tickets, one in the gallery and one in the stalls. As they were booked in separate transactions it means paying Ticketmaster's rip off fees and delivery twice. Got through on the phone again at 1015, by which time all tickets were gone.

Not ideal, but at least I can go to the show with my girlfriend, although we won't be able to sit together. Being a gentleman, I offered her the better seat in the stalls.

It doesn't seem like The Guardian offer made it any easier to get hold of tickets at all.

[Bartleby]

Having tried usuccessfully to get MOH tickets three weeks ago I considered my chances of getting them today would be fairly slim. But happily I managed to get two tickets in the stalls.

Last time the (unpleasant) surprise was the code that was required which I did not have.This time, I was armed with the Guardian code but the surprise was that the online tickets actually went on sale a couple of minutes before 10 o'clock. That was something I had not expected as I sat there with my atomic clock ready to pounce at exactly 10.00 a.m.

Military precision being required Plan B was a friend obtaining tickets from the Manchester venue listed in the Guardian. That venue must have had its own allocation which I was informed ran out about 10.20 and before my friend had got to the front of the queue.

[greenfeld69]

Can't believe the touts on eBay already - £799 for two tickets - parasite.

That's a friend of mine. Total tosspot. Wouldn't even swap my tickets for them.

[fafner]

I queued outside the Palace Theatre this morning but didn't manage to get tickets. Those that did seemed to get good seats in the stalls and the Circle. Fortunately, my girlfriend got through on the phone line - five minutes before 10am - and got tickets way up in the Gallery. Not the best seats in the house - but at least we'll be there on the night.

It does seem such a terrible shame that the touts appear to have got their hands on so many of the very best tickets. Capitalism in action. Hey ho....