LONDON (June 21, 2013) NOW ON SALE

[John Etherington]

They're sitting on 90 per cent of them, and offloading the crap seats first. Don't waste your time and energy thinking about it. They'll turn up sooner or later.

[hydriot]

I was offered tickets via Eventim at 0902 this morning ... but only in the top tier! Who are they kidding? So I switched to Ticketmaster, and all they would offer were tickets in the lower tier but right at the back.

However, Ticketmaster do have special categories for customers using American Express. I thought that card was defunct years ago (I tore mine up when they dared to start charging an annual fee) but I guess they are trying to attract customers back by offering good seats at concerts. That would explain the total absence of anything worth buying two minutes after sales open for ordinary fans.

Does anybody with an American Express card fancy pretending to make a purchase to test my hypothesis and report back here?

Well, I suppose the behaviour of these plonkers has now become so predictable year after year that we can all save ourselves some time and effort by cutting-and-pasting here all the complaints we posted last year, and the year before that, and the year...

[John Etherington]

Ticketmaster
don't ever **** with me
or come up to me
and punch my gut
on behalf of my theories
I am armed and mad

Meanwhile, Paris in early summer sounds nice (don't say I didn't warn ya!).

[danslenoir]

They're sitting on 90 per cent of them, and offloading the crap seats first. Don't waste your time and energy thinking about it. They'll turn up sooner or later.

Yeah, I was thinking along these lines myself.

Pretty annoying really, turns it into a complete lottery, and really not helpful when you don't have time to be checking ticket sites often.

[danslenoir]

I was offered tickets via Eventim at 0902 this morning ... but only in the top tier! Who are they kidding? So I switched to Ticketmaster, and all they would offer were tickets in the lower tier but right at the back.

However, Ticketmaster do have special categories for customers using American Express. I thought that card was defunct years ago (I tore mine up when they dared to start charging an annual fee) but I guess they are trying to attract customers back by offering good seats at concerts. That would explain the total absence of anything worth buying two minutes after sales open for ordinary fans.

Does anybody with an American Express card fancy pretending to make a purchase to test my hypothesis and report back here?

Well, I suppose the behaviour of these plonkers has now become so predictable year after year that we can all save ourselves some time and effort by cutting-and-pasting here all the complaints we posted last year, and the year before that, and the year...

I tried a mock buy with the AmEx preferred seating option at 09h05 and no floor tickets with that either.

[cohenadmirer]

They're sitting on 90 per cent of them, and offloading the crap seats first. Don't waste your time and energy thinking about it. They'll turn up sooner or later.

Yeah, I was thinking along these lines myself.

Pretty annoying really, turns it into a complete lottery, and really not helpful when you don't have time to be checking ticket sites often.

Hopefully in these financially tight times the attempt to sell seats for extortionate prices will largely fail and good seats will be released at normal prices.
At least ' normal 'prices (when available ) for good seats in the uk are reasonable compared , eg , to north america!

[Carol58]

A very few seats on ticketmaster in the lower blocks and on the floor at the back, mainly 1's and 3's, I just did a dummy run on a couple and got them but none were better than what I had already got, block 112 row N

[FOXWOOD]

Ticket master have an select your own seat seating plan.
From this you can see...

Block A1 runs from seats 1 -14
Block A2 runs from seats 15-40
Block A3 runs from seats 41-54

So alot of the presale seats are close to the centre of the stage!

11am still 10 seats in block B1 for american express card holders

[John Etherington]

"A lot of presale seats are close to the centre of the stage", eh? Which seat numbers, who has them?

[dogzero]

dogzero - I would say that 101 are the best, unless you're way back in that section. Since the floor is on the flat, block B is quite a way back in my opinion, unless you're right at the front of it. Which row you're in would be important, here. I don't have any experience of selling tickets via the internet, so others will have to advise you.

Thanks for that. I think Block 101 is going to be the better of the tickets we have (even though it is quite far back in Row Q - 44-45) as opposed to Block B1 (Row Q 11-12).

AJ.

[FOXWOOD]

This photo from the previous tour may be of some use - but I think the stage is in a slightly different position this time.
If you move your cursor over the photo some of the blocks and rows are labelled by who ever took the photo.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dorsetbays/2680029459/

[Yiannis]

So the floor blocks are indeed smaller than Wembley's. This mean that A1-A3 are a bit larger than the most central block in the previous concert

[John Etherington]

I see that few people have posted in this thread today. Presumably most people didn't get what they wanted or bought into the bullshit and made comprises? I'd be interested to know if anyone managed to get something they really wanted. Did anyone else, like me, just think "forget it!"? I'm rapidly getting tired of the whole farcical situation with agencies, and will probably only bother to go if something really good drops in my lap. I'm certainly not putting my money in Ticketmaster's pockets for six months, while they sit on the best seats. Hopefully, there will be a good presale for at least one accessible U.K. venue. I always liked the idea of seeing Leonard in Paris in spring or summer, but if it's an open air sports stadium, count me out! Amazing how things have changed since the onset of the internet. In 1993, when the tickets went on sale for the second " Future" concert at the Albert Hall (when people still went to venues to make their purchases), I was the only person on the entire planet who bothered to suss what was happening, and turn up at opening time to buy tickets!

[Vicomte]

I tried for a fair while, got timed out twice quite quickly, at one stage I got in for tickets in A2 just to see them disappear, we have written off the O2 now as a bad idea, preferring Paris anyway now that there is to be a concert there. Fingers crossed that this "seller" for the pre-sale will be OK and they have enough tickets off GDP to allow anyone trying on Monday to get good tickets .

I also went down to buy tickets at some stage for the The Future gig at the RAH in 1993 but on most occasions for buying tickets I would get on the phone direct to the box office but in the end, my Son went with Vicomtesse (and he has been a "fan" ever since) but blowed if either of us can remember it was the first or second, we do know the TV cameras were there, or rather Vicomtesse says they were there.

Anyway, I digress, Bercy is an OK place, large and similar to Wembley inside, some nice café's outside if you get there early and June will (or ought to be) a lovely time to be in Paris.

[mydoglorca]

I see that few people have posted in this thread today. Presumably most people didn't get what they wanted or bought into the bullshit and made comprises? I'd be interested to know if anyone managed to get something they really wanted. Did anyone else, like me, just think "forget it!"? I'm rapidly getting tired of the whole farcical situation with agencies, and will probably only bother to go if something really good drops in my lap. I'm certainly not putting my money in Ticketmaster's pockets for six months, while they sit on the best seats. Hopefully, there will be a good presale for at least one accessible U.K. venue. I always liked the idea of seeing Leonard in Paris in spring or summer, but if it's an open air sports stadium, count me out! Amazing how things have changed since the onset of the internet. In 1993, when the tickets went on sale for the second " Future" concert at the Albert Hall (when people still went to venues to make their purchases), I was the only person on the entire planet who bothered to suss what was happening, and turn up at opening time to buy tickets!

We got what I think are reasonable tickets in the presale just after it opened. Block A1 but near the centre aisle. Obviously would have prefered the centre block. It is a lottery and I rejected quite a few before these became available. A seating plan with seat numbers is essential. From the recent tours the presales do invariably have better seats available that direct from the agencies. So again I thank AEG and Jarrko for that. Ticketmaster et al "best available" when the sale opens are not good seats (in my experience).

Agencies are not new. For the I'm your Man tour in 88 the best available from the Albert Hall (on the phone) was the balcony. For the other concert I went to an agency (Stargreen I think) and got front seats for an extra charge of 3 quid (from memory) on a ticket price of 12.50! In those days real touts operated outside but none of them had good seats to swop for the balcony ones .

J