Toronto Tickets - did you get them?

[phat]

Seats in a closer row but more to the side might not be considered "better" by the system. Just a guess.

My tickets are row L, centre. I made out better than most, but am still very envious of some of the other posters here.

[Toronto2008]

Hallelujah - I am finally going to see Leonard Cohen - was worried he'd never tour again. I got balc2 row W 62 and 63. I can't wait...

I saw him with Philip Glass and also the concert at Indigo. But nothing will compare to a full concert. And Hummingbird is a nice location.

Thank you Jarkko! I probably wouldn't even realize he was touring if you didn't have this amazing website.

It's such a great week of Leonard Cohen action. Did everyone see Lou Reed induct Leonard Cohen into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - you can see the video on utube.

[mwaldman]

Two tickets, Row W, left of center, 6/6. On-line booking was fast and easy, and being able to print the tickets from a pdf file rather than waiting for mail delivery was a great option. Thank you Jarkko. Thank you Leonard. See you in Toronto.

[Stefanie]

Hi Everyone,

I also got tickets to see Leonard in June in T.O.!!
I truly cannot express my feelings of excited & happiness
THANK YOU to Leonard Cohen & Jarkko, as well as fate for allowing me to get GREAT seats!

Hope to see &/or meet some of the Forum members @ the concert as we all share a strong connection & love for the music/poetry of Leonard Cohen (powerful, yet an inspiring connection of work I must say!)

My feelings of being able to see him in concert cannot be written & this will be a GREAT way to spend my Birthday w/e....Thank you to all; good luck to all who are going to try & purphase tickets for upcoming shows; & I am anxiously waiting the next few months to pass quickly....hope to see some Cohen fans in June!!!

Chat with you all soon =)

[jonathon]

Good Sunday morning,

I go to alot of different shows and am extremely picky and spoiled about seating location especially when tickets are very expensive for a concert which unfortunately is becoming the norm these days. None of the seats that I saw on the presales were close enough for my liking. When the public sale began at 11 am for the three Toronto shows yesterday, I tried for the Saturday show and was offered Rear Orchestra Seats and turned them down. On my next request, the show was sold out. I immediately went to the 3rd Toronto show on Sunday June 8th and was offered ORCH2 Row FF (6th row on the side). I turned them down and was offered a number of different pairs of seats in the Front and Middle Orchestra before lucking into a pair in ORCH3 Row BB on the aisle to ORCH1. Since Row AA does not extend in front of ORCH3, they are front row seats. I have sat in the exact same seats for some other shows and they are excellent and indeed front row.

The offerings for the Sunday show which much better as there were no LC.com nor Circle of Friends presales and of course, the demand was focused on the Friday and saturday shows. There are still Orchestra seats available for the Sunday show although way too far back for my taste. lol Of course there will always be quality seats that are now being held that the promoter will eventually drop into the Ticketmaster.ca system as the shows get closer.

However, does anyone realize that there is a Ticketmaster.ca aution now on for premium seats for all three Toronto shows? Given the number of Toronto shows (3 and counting) and the number of seats up for auction for each show (50-ish), there will probably be some decent deals especially for the Sunday show. You should check it out. Go to the Ticketmaster.ca onsale page for any of the Sony Centre shows and at the top you will see a tab to click on called BID ON AUCTION. It will take you to the auction page for that particular show. You should read up on how a Ticketmaster auction works because it is quite different from eBay as it uses Ticket Groups, a one bid per e-mail address/TM account protocol and what you bid is what you ultimately pay as you don't set a maximum. Bands and Acts are using Ticketmaster auctions to sell premium seats much more now to thwart scalpers, compete with eBay and to obviously drive up revenue for themselves.

Here are the seating locations up for auction on Ticketmaster for each of the Toronto shows:

Ticket Group Description Current Minimum Bid Per Ticket
1 Orchestra Seats, Row BB Ticket Group 1Orchestra Seats, Row BB, Seats 41 - 50 CA $290.00
2 Orchestra Seats, Row DD Ticket Group 2Orchestra Seats, Row DD, Seats 41 - 50 CA $270.00
3 Orchestra Seats, Row GG Ticket Group 3Orchestra Seats, Row GG, Seats 41 - 52 CA $270.00
4 Orchestra Seats, Row B Ticket Group 4Orchestra Seats, Row B, Seats 41 - 54 CA $270.00
5 Orchestra Seats, Row C Ticket Group 5Orchestra Seats, Row C, Seats 41 - 54 CA $270.00

Right now you would have to bid $290 to qualify for seats in Orchestra Row BB but the auction does not end until March 28th at 5pm. TIP: Famous last words but the final prices for the Auction Tickets for the Sunday show will probably be reasonable since there are three shows and about 50 tickets available via auction for each show. If more shows are added, it will even get better from a pricing standpoint. For example, when The Police played Toronto last year they initially announced two shows in July and that there would be a Ticketmaster auction for the first 5 rows of seats on the Floor. Auction Tickets were terribly expensive and especially for the Front Row seats. When they announced a third show and then a fourth show in November after the auctions for the July shows had ended, you could have bid the minimum amount and scored third row centre seats which is what I did.

Good luck and all the best.

[Themuffinman]

Hi Jonathon

Thanks for informative post.

A question if I may. I have tickets for all 3 nights and Fri and Sun I am in Orch3 row JJ one night and row KK the other. However on the Sat night I have Orch8 row E which is described as left hand section but I can not make sense of it when I look at the seating plan - any ideas, it definately says row E, not row EE

Thanks

[jonathon]

Orchestra (8) Row E is 14 rows from the stage if you ignore Row AA which is only in front of Orchestra 1. I'm not sure which is considered the Left side but your seat numbers must fall between 1 & 9 or between 81 & 89. One of those sections is ORCH 7 and the other is ORCH 8. Regardless, here's a link to a detailed Seating plan for the Sony Centre and you will be able to see exactly where your seats are situated:

http://cftoronto.eservus.com/snapupload ... Centre.jpg

All the best.

Jonathon

[jonathon]

Oops... should have pointed out that the Orchestra Section Numbers (as in ORCH1, ORCH2, ORCH3, etc.) never appear on any of the seating plans as they are really used for Ticketmaster-related computer programming purposes only.

Front Orchestra:
Orch 1: Centre Section Rows AA to KK, Seats 41-53
Orch 2: Right Side Rows BB to KK, Seats 61-74
Orch 3: Left Side Rows BB to KK, Seats 1-14

For the Orchestra, I'm not sure where the regular Orchestra ends and the Rear Orchestra begins but...
Orch 4: Centre Section Rows A to ? Seats 41-56
Orch 5: Right Centre Section Rows A to ?, Seats 61-73
Orch 6: Left Centre Section Rows A to ?, Seats 21-33
Orch 7: Right Side Section Rows A to ?, Seats 81-93
Orch 8: Left Side Section Rows A to ?, Seats 1-13

Jonathon

[Themuffinman]

Thanks Jonathon very helpful and much appreciated

[dw98]

Right end of row CC (row 2 on right side). I used the "Amex Front of the Line" option, more or less as soon as they started on presale.

[Sebby]

I got my tickets last Saturday morning for the June 8th concert. I cannot wait.