leonardcohenforum.com

I continue to be amazed at the number of people who have trouble getting tickets for this show.
All I can say is, you are definitely doing something wrong since tickets have been widely available.

For this AMEX presale, there are still tickets available if you use the Gold Card window (and no, you don't need a gold card, just the 1-800 customer service number which is the "password"). Ask your 14 yo to find it on the internet if you can't do it yourself.

The presales today and tomorrow do NOT require will call and the limit is now FOUR tickets per person.

For the public onsale Monday, the ticket limit will be SIX per person.

Look for the second show 4/14 to go onsale shortly after the 4/13 show sells out. I have seen the Paramount put the second show onsale as soon as 10:10 or 10:15 AM the same day.

Remember: the GOAL of the presales is to sell as many tickets as possible to give the promoters an idea of which markets will sell out quickly and support a second show. The SIDE EFFECT is to create a sense of anxiety in the ticket buying public and to get the sheeple to buy inferior seats thinking they will be shut out if they don't. (See Row TT in the rear Orchestra in the earlier post, YUK).

Consider all of this hassle your ticket buying lessons. Welcome to the 21st century.

I did everything you said, with Gold card even, at 10:02 a.m., and could not get anything. I do know how to use a computer. I called, too, at 10:05. I guess that was too late.

How does the KFOG presale work?

malke

At this concert, I was determined be in the first few rows. None of these were offered to me in the presale "best available" option, even when I tried again and again. I kept going back and forth between "best available" and VIP. Rows like A, B, C,D were always being offered in the VIP, but never in the best available (250) which led me to believe that much of the lower orchestra was reserved for VIP. The VIP option is what has screwed this whole thing up, imo. It's IMPOSSIBLE to know whether you can even get to be where you want by being patient and persistant. It's impossible to know which seats are VIP when we are talking about a matter of seconds to make decisions. Maybe those seats, by definition, will never be offered in "best available". If everyone (at least those willing to pay 250!) had a fair shot at a front row seat, the whole experience would be different. I know I'll forget all this when I am in that A center seat on 4/13 but I sure wish I could have gotten there on pure gumption and a quick refresh button.

The $251 seats number exactly 48. They are rows X and Y in the Orchestra pit. As far as I can tell, they have not been sold yet. Maybe someone got a couple in the AMEX gold card presale, but I don't know. (And no, you can't expect to get them at 10:02 if they went on sale at 10:00). Why don't you try the KFOG presale tomorrow and if that doesn't work, park yourself at a Ticketmaster outlet Monday morning at 10:00 exactly and hope for the best?

THE PRESALES ARE NOT THE BEST SEATS. They are a "sprinkling" of the available seats designed to give the promoters a sense of which shows are going to sell out quickly and where a second or third show can be booked. Most of the seats will be sold in the general onsale.

The VIP tickets have not "screwed up" the presales. They are just a way to maximize the money paid to the promoter.

Just an FYI: If you want to know what happens to unsold VIP tickets, they get converted to the price point that their section would be absent the VIP. For the Front Orchestra at Oakland, that is the $176 price level. I doubt this will happen, since it seems like a lot of folks want to be up close.

Geez you sure are "telling it like it is" Columbo. And, I admit, I'm old and I don't like this new fangled internet shit! Some of us, who have been fans for 35 years, and we do, speaking for myself, have a few problems with passwords and presales and all that jazz. But, hey, I can buy a three day pass for Indio and since I'm an old fart, maybe revisiting my Woodstock days would work. For $450 I can catch all three days, camp out, and live to see LC live. Might work?! (Do they still get naked at these things. har)

Dar

The implication with all the excitement and clamoring for passwords etc is that the presales ARE the best seats.

They should be.

I have the seats I wanted. Obviously I am prepared to pay the piper. I am just saying it would have been nice for everyone WILLING TO PAY FOR ORCHESTRA to have a fair shot at the front row, not just those who are willing to pay for VIP ORCHESTRA.

The language (greedy,whining) is uncalled for.

And conveniently Colombo has edited the vitriol out of his last post...

I can only say I sure hope there is more love in the room at the actual Paramount show.

So what ARE you whining about, really?

Don't you think someone who is willing to pony up $549/ticket should be sitting front row Orchestra?

Or are you pissed that you're not front row in the pit?

Or did you expect the $549/ticket to be in the last row of the front orchestra, row P?

Which is it?

Your level of self-entitlement is truly nauseating.

Come the general onsale Monday, there will be some Orchestra A seats priced at $176. Some lucky people will get them. SOME people chose not to press their luck and decided to pony up for VIP seats. That is their choice. And yours too, apparently. I just don't get the whining.

This is a beautiful theatre of around 3000 seats and there really isn't a bad seat in the house. Within each price point, some seats are better than others.

colombo wrote:So what ARE you whining about, really?

Ticketmaster. It's not a new whine. See the million other threads.

colombo wrote:Don't you think someone who is willing to pony up $549/ticket should be sitting front row Orchestra?

That is what I paid and that is where I am sitting. I would have liked to pay about $300 less, yes. Sorry if this offends you. I would have liked the whole lower orchestra to be one price, with everyone having an equal chance, during the presale, at getting "front row". If that were the case, i would have been disappointed but fine with row F, J, or P, whatever. As it were, customers had no idea what lower orchestra tickets they could even shoot for because of the sheer existence of the mysterious VIP seats. That's why I caved and bought some. I don't know how I can make my WHINE any more clear.

colombo wrote:Or did you expect the $549/ticket to be in the last row of the front orchestra, row P?

Huh?

colombo wrote:Your level of self-entitlement is truly nauseating.

Wow, nauseating? Really? I would hate to see how you react to war, famine, genocide.

You, sir, are a true champion of the (Ticketmaster) people. You should be very proud!

colombo wrote:This is a beautiful theatre of around 3000 seats and there really isn't a bad seat in the house. Within each price point, some seats are better than others.

I've been there many times. Watch out for falling chandeliers.

mnkyface,

I'm so sorry you had to go throught that .

Warmest regards,
Mary

mnkyface wrote: You, sir, are a true champion of the (Ticketmaster) people. You should be very proud!

mnkyface,
don't take the bait, this person obviously has some problems.
Even if the things indeed are the way he describes (I came to the same conclusion after observing earlier presales), there is no need for the language he uses.

Actually I took your example and bought VIP package for myself and my husband. I could pay this now and be sure I get what I want, or try hunting better tickets later. My experience with past concerts tells that I could end up spending a lot of time and energy, with unpredictable results.

After all -- how often do I get to see Leonard Cohen live ?

mirka
--

Dar--nekkid? probably not.
NAY-ked? Definitely.

Been trying since before 10; this is my first break. KFOG password: takethiswaltz. Same thing as last two days. I'm following all the advice to a tee. Some of us get lucky. Why not me? I can't spend the whole day doing this, as I work, too.

Is anyone else getting the problem where if you actually get to pull up tickets, and go to purchase them, you reach an error page?

Believe me, I am well versed in TicketMaster manipulation as I have been well trained in the frantic pandemonium of boyband ticket sales and consider myself fortunate to have been able to pull up tickets at all both yesterday and today. During today's presale I got orchestra row G, center, but stupidly let them go. And yes, I am at myself. FYI, they were at the $176 level. Even as I hit the "release these tickets", I reached an error page leading me to conclude that even if I had moved forward to purchase, I would not have been able to complete my transaction so that is my only consolation.

You can get VIP tickets right now in Row F if you can stomach the $549.

-gb