Leonard Cohen: TOUR 2008

[James T]

I managed to get 2 in the stalls but it wouldnt take my card and they got released. What is more annoying is that when I bought a single ticket it took my card.

Ticketmaster is really really poor

[sueabbott]

Dear all

I am shattered but happy-managed to get tickets for most of the gigs.Just glad I was already a ticketmaster registered card holder but even then massively stressful-all those codes and so on.

Now its a question of relaxing and looking forward to a lovely warm(not raining) Leonard Cohen summer!!!

Thanks to all for advice and info-since last Sunday at midnight its been a week like no other...
If anyone knows anything about the Athens ticket situation please let us know-that could be amazing.

[hydriot]

So in the end I got a fine seat in the middle of the stalls for Wednesday in Manchester. Since that venue seats only 2000, it will be a lot more intimate than the 20,000 capacity O2 (the wretched Millennium Dome).

Would still be interested in attending O2, but only if I can find a seat close to the stage.

[Suemerlyn]

Well, I am at a loss to know how Ticketmaster mysteriously has no really good seats at 3 minutes past the sales beginning. I was offered 4 seats together (for me and friends) at 9.03 at O2 for block 111 (the second level) which I rejected, only to find I ended up having to buy split tickets (2 separated singles in the red blocks, and two together in the top tier) and not very good seats. And the moral is - take what you are first offered!

Maybe the thing to do for gigs in future is join their priority booking scheme (and pay them MORE money) - which I haven't done. Awful organization - the booking fee is £8.75 per ticket, on top of £75 or £60. Well, will worry about my CC next month.

Lucky enough to have a friend get me a ticket for Dublin (15th) and for Manchester (18th) too, but again not particularly good seats.

Still, hey, it's the long awaited precious tour, and I do have 3 tickets for 3 venues. In the grand scheme of things, I'll make up the money in time...and LC is worth it all.

Will reply later, hydriot, about Hydra.

Sue m

[aguycalledpad]

Anyone who is still struggling in the UK there is always The Big Chill festival. Great festival allround as well as Leonard tickets are 129

[nelsonioni]

Jarkko do you have any more information on this? Your site is saying that tickets for all 4 Manchester shows will be available from Ticketmaster today but this so-called Guardian reader only evening is not on there. I am a Guardian reader (and not ashamed to say so ) but can't find anything on http://www.guardian.co.uk/ about this.

Cheers

TC

Richard,

according to This Thread, you just need to buy the Guardian on the 4th of April.

Tim (another unashamed Guardian reader)

PS I do hope no one starts reading the Guardian that day just to apply for tickets - clearly that offer is meant to benefit long-time Guardian readers like us...

that's right - i've been reading the Guardian since I was 2 years old and deserve a crack at this, unlike these 'newbies' who come along... hello Mr Thoughtcat!

I bought the first ever copy of The Guardian in 1821 and so did my wife. I also edited The Guardian for 15 years in the early 20th century and so did my wife. Nobody deserves those tickets more than me and my wife.

[SteveKincade]

Hi,

I am just relaying what Ticket Master told me. If you are a circle of friends than I would suppose that more would be open. But it sure does not look like that from what I am reading.

Steve - that is absolutely untrue.

I got 5th row Orchestra for Friday night. I could have gotten 9th row on Saturday, but I wanted Friday instead. There are a limited number of tickets released throughout the venue for presale (and they're sold out now). The top tier of $250 is the front orchestra section. Ticketmaster has no idea where tickets are released for presales in general.

There is a chance, depending how bad you want it - if you opt to join the Circle of Friends (an extra $75 membership fee) you can get tickets in row EE - row C last I checked. Those are still available.

Some slimeballs are already on eBay posting their tickets for twice the face value.

[dharris]

I won't list the hassle and disaster of ticketmaster P'boro
But what % of tickets are sold to concert goers as viewing three sites shows any no. of GOOD seats at £145 to £250
2 hrs after sale opened. 4 mins after opening I had to take crap seats

moaning d

[hydriot]

It's even stranger than that. At 1155, suddenly a load of £75 tickets for O2 became available (mostly areas 101 and 112), and stayed that way till 1220. Unfortunately, they were all rows W to Z, so not much use to me. But it does look like the good seats are being rationed.

Also, I applied for one seat and was rejected, but when I asked for two was offered them in that same block, so there are some interesting algorithms at work here.

[eamondonovan]

2 tickets for sale for Leonard Cohen at IMMA Kilmainham on Sunday 15th June 2008. Face value €115 each + booking charge = €242.70. The seats are in section BLKA6, row T. I bought these before I won a couple of tickets on a radio competition. Happy to sell them for cost to a genuine fan.

[John Etherington]

Here in the UK (after 40 years of ticket buying) this experience was far and away the worst I have ever had (just plain NASTY!). I got onto Ticketmaster at 9am on the dot, and was told that no best seats were available. Minutes later, they were offering hospitality packages at outrageous prices, "ticket exchange" deals at about £300 each (legalised touting?) and (wait for it) "BLUE ALERT" (!!!) Packages at £200 (which appearded to be cr@p seats). None of my Leonard friends in London (who I have spent hours phoning and advising managed to get even half decent seats).

Manchester was a nightmare too. The phone number I was given appeared to be an automated line, so I quickly pulled out. I then tried online at least a hundred times typing in mad words that they gave me such as "condog"! I alternated relentlessly
between one and two tickets for each night, and nothing....but then suddenly, miraculously out of the blue, I got one brilliant stalls seat, a few rows back for the first night! But that was it. I persisted for more than two hours in total, but nothing else came up. Rumour has it that the Guardian have grabbed all the seats for Thursday for a special promotion. I was hoping to get at least one good ticket for all of the Manchester shows and a couple for London, but it was not to be. (at least my overdraft has been spared!).This is all a million miles from the Royal Albert Hall in 1993, when I went along three days in succession to see if there was going to be a second concert, and was told on the third day that tickets had just gone on sale, and that I could have up to half a dozen seats in the first row.

That's all I've got to say!

Love, John E

[hydriot]

Curiouser and curiouser. At 1304 a £75 ticket came up, so I went for it ... but my credit card was refused in spite of my having used it at 10am to buy a seat for Manchester. Ticketmaster seems to have a weird approach to business.

[James T]

Ticketmaster refuses cards for no good reason at all, it is bizare and cost me a pair of tickets for me and my pal. I will sit alone I guess.

And anyway, why are people saying they hope people don't just start buying the guardian to try and get tickets?
OF COURSE people will do that, I will do it cause I need a pair and the idea of this Guardian promotion is outright stupid. What a load of prats they are buying all the tickets for some kind of stupid gimmick. They're no better than the touts. It's just making it harder for people to get tickets. Outrageous.

I wish a pre-sale wasn't mentioned before it was a certainty.

[the end]

I got tickets for Edinburgh through TM this morning and despite being on the site before 9 still dint get very good seats, I'm bitterly regretting not going through Tickets Scotland who had better seats on offer not to mention a more reliable service. It never ceases to amaze me that TM are such a big and profitable company yet seem to struggle with simple things such as having a decent, reliable website.

[hydriot]

I am exhausted, absolutely shattered.

I stopped going through Ticketmaster and switched to Seetickets.com, where in the late morning they suddenly started showing £75 tickets again available at O2. It looks to me as if the good seats are being rationed throughout the day and are appearing on the hour. Just after 2pm, an unspectacular £75 seat was offered to me, in a row rather far back but at least in a reasonably close block, so I went for it ... but my aged fingers were too slow with my credit-card details and I timed out.

So I tried again ... and was offered the identical seat! This time I nailed it. So don't give up, people. It is possible to get a £75 seat at 2.10pm.

I feel like I am emerging from a very stressful game of Monopoly. I landed on Mayfair and bought it at 10.10am (great seat central stalls in intimate 2000-seat Manchester Opera on Wednesday) then rolled the dice fruitlessly for nearly four hours before at last landing on Park Lane and buying it to complete the set (indifferent £75 seat in O2). Now I can build houses and hotels!

Hotels? Arghh! Anyone got any recommendations for sensibly priced hotels in Manchester?