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I was checking out U2 tickets which go onsale Sat. The prices range from 46.25 for the floor and behind the stage and 96-165 everywhere else. Is this insane to anyone else but me. Its gonna be near impossible to get floor seats so your gonna be stuck paying over 100 for a seat thats not even close. There was an article in the Boston Herald or Globe where fan club members participating in the pre-sale were getting garbage seats. One woman got stuck with seats 10 rows back in the highest section at the complete opposite end of the arena for 96 bucks! I love U2 but I am not sure if I am gonna be able to make it out to this tour.

mexcooker12 wrote:I am not sure if I am gonna be able to make out to this tour.

Got dumped again?

LIPH wrote:

mexcooker12 wrote:I am not sure if I am gonna be able to make out to this tour.

Got dumped again?

I am not sure if you caught the last tour or not but I remember during "Stuck in a Moment" looking aroudn ands eeing everyone making out.

mexcooker12 wrote:The prices range from 46.25 for the floor and behind the stage and 96-165 everywhere else.

What the?! Aww crap!! How am I gonna make any money on Ebay scalping these tickets!!

I read where a lot of members of their fan club couldn't even get through the other day because their passwords failed.

As for the ticket prices, I think I'll pass on seeing them again too. Should've seen back in the 80s when they were at the height of their game anyway. Not that they're not good now but those prices are just too much.

Here's what happened in Chicago... probably not likely that any of the GA tickets are even left...

U2's online ticket launch for fan club bollixed up
Many members who paid $40 for right to buy advance tickets frozen out
(edited)
....But this week, the most ardent of those fans may not be feeling much appreciated. An advance ticket sale to the band's fan club for U2's forthcoming North American and European tours has turned into a public-relations nightmare.

So many complaints poured into U2's management offices in Ireland and New York and to Ticketmaster during the presale Tuesday that the ticketing agency was moved to issue an apology Tuesday night. It blamed the fan-club fiasco on "an incredibly high level of demand" that resulted in "slower than normal service."

After paying $40 in membership fees to gain access to tickets this week before they're made available to the general public, fan-club members reported encountering crashed Web sites, faulty passwords and a dearth of choice seats.

Many fans were left without tickets for the 13-city North American tour, which includes concerts May 7 and May 9 at the United Center. Others reported finding that the $49.50 tickets for standing room nearest the stage were already sold out when they logged in, and that they had to settle for more expensive $95 or $165 seats farther from the stage. To add insult to injury, ticket scalpers had already swooped in and were offering choice tickets for more than $1,000 on eBay.

Count me as one of those burned.
The San Diego show went on sale Tuesday for "fan-club only", and it took me 15 minutes to then be told that my exclusive pre-sale tickets would be behind the stage,
two rows from the top of the SD Sports Arena!
All for only $98.00 each (plus an additional $16.00 each in TicketBastard fees) !!!

I passed on that, thank you very little

I'm pressing them for a refund on my "exclusive" fan-club membership

http://tinylink.com/?papXglLuW2

U2 Fans Riled Up Over Fan Club Pre-Sale

The huge demand and system glitches that marked Tuesday's (Jan. 25) pre-sale for U2's Vertigo tour left hundreds of fans with less than desirable seats or no seats at all, but tour organizers say their goal is to satisfy all fan club members, or at least as many as possible.

Disgruntled fans who paid $40 for a chance to purchase choice tickets prior to the general public have made their feelings known in postings at U2's official Web site and elsewhere, including a slew of e-mails to Billboard.com.

Referring to the on-sale issues as "Tuesday, Bloody Tuesday," one fan wrote, "What's the point of spending $40 for the membership of the site and getting a lousy seat for more than $165?"

In Europe, where problems seem to have been much worse, a U.K. fan writes, "I, like many thousands of fans, have gone through this presale in the expectation that we will get tickets for the venue of our choice. What we have got is complete ineptitude, incompetence and disregard of U2 fans by U2's management, the Web site, Ticketmaster and dare I say U2 themselves."

But U2 worldwide promoter Arthur Fogel, president of tour promoter TNA International, says the snafus and disappointed customers are systematic of an incredibly hot tour.

"These fan club pre-sales go on all the time, but they're usually under the radar," Fogel tells Billboard.com. "This one is beyond belief. There's no question there have been some technical glitches and some dissatisfied people, but the reality is people are working as best as possible to sort it all out. And I'm sure they will, eventually."

Clearly, ticket brokers or "scalpers," considered a bane to the touring industry by most, are contributing to the problem. "The reality is, there's nothing to stop a broker from joining a fan club and being part of a pre-sale," says Fogel. "But the whole notion of a fan club is rewarding hardcore, loyal fans."

Dealing with brokers on hot tours is a "chess match," Fogel points out, and a tour like Vertigo is the Super Bowl to a scalper. "As a broker, you spend every day of your life trying to figure out how to beat the system," he says.

And often, Fogel adds, even a public on-sale faces technical issues. "Sometimes you go up on sale and the system fries because of demand."

Fogel says band, management and promoter are working to sell tickets. "Ultimately, it's our job to fulfill the mandate of the fan club, and to make sure the general public also has access to tickets," he offers.

As U2 tickets begin going on sale to the general public tomorrow in Europe and on Saturday in the U.S., all involved hope the system can handle the load. "There is no question the demand, both here and in Europe, is as high as I've ever seen, and with that comes difficulties in managing that kind of volume," Fogel says.

"I know this: one thing about U2 and the U2 organization, whom I've worked with since 1980 -- they will do whatever they can to make sure people are taken care of," he concludes.

-- Ray Waddell, Nashville

Anyone have any luck getting tickets on sat. morn?

They went on sale to the public this morning at 9:00 ET. I was on line when the "More Info" changed to "Find Tickets". Got right in, sold out immediately for MSG.

they apparently sold out 4 shows in Chicago and there are still a lot of angry fans.

ejr wrote:they apparently sold out 4 shows in Chicago and there are still a lot of angry fans.

I didnt even try, I saw them on their last tour and were great, but I cant afford to spend 100 dollars on a garbage seat. I heard rumors they weer gonna add more dates in the fall. Thats how I saw them last time they played boston in june which i couldnt get tickets for, but they evenutally added more dates in the fall and I saw them in Providence.

http://tinylink.com/?HxmGFUnLs8

U2 Tickets Flying Fast, Edge Heads To Court

The frenzy surrounding the U2 Vertigo tour continued over the weekend with more quick sellouts, including all U.K. shows at more than 260,000 tickets, and 55,000 sold for the June 10 European opener in Brussels.

Multiple sellouts in the U.S. include four at Chicago's United Center, three at Boston's FleetCenter, two at the San Diego Sports Arena (the tour opener on March 28), two at the Compaq Center in San Jose, Calif., two at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, two at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, Calif., two at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, and one at the Pepsi Center in Denver, with another to go up Saturday (Feb. 5).

This morning, two shows at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N.J., and one at New York's Madison Square Garden also immediately sold out. The band is expected to return to MSG for at least one show on the fall leg of the tour.

In regard to the problems associated with the U2 fan club pre-sale, disappointed members who were unable to utilize their unique passwords to purchase seats will be accommodated when the bands revisits North America later this year. Members with unused passwords can also receive a full refund of the $40 buy-in fee, with further details to be announced Wednesday.

"As is now obvious from the number of tickets being re-sold at vastly inflated prices on sites such as eBay, we are currently suffering the same 'scalping' problem that accompanies every successful tour," the site said today. "U2.com in combination with the relevant authorities is doing all that it can to identify where these tickets have originated and, where it is possible, to have these sales canceled."

"Although we realized that some subscribers might be scalpers using multiple
e-mail addresses and reserved the right to cancel any ticket order, we underestimated the potential numbers of such scalpers/subscribers," the message continued.

In related news, U2 guitarist the Edge is fighting an Irish newspaper in court over its report into a relative's serious illness that it says forced changes in the Vertigo tour routing.

A High Court judge in Dublin agreed today to a two-week delay to the hearing of rival lawsuits between The Edge and the Sunday World newspaper. The Dublin-based tabloid identified the relative and condition the person was suffering in a front-page story Jan. 8, but withdrew the report from later editions when The Edge's lawyers immediately obtained a temporary injunction.

This barred the Sunday World from repeating its story and warned other Irish newspapers not to pick it up, claiming it amounted to an unwarranted invasion of privacy. The Edge wants the injunction to be strengthened into a permanent injunction against publication.

The Sunday World wants the injunction overturned. Its lawyers are arguing that the details of the relative's illness are newsworthy because they are cited as the reason why the start of the tour was moved from March 1 in Miami to March 28 in San Diego.

-- Ray Waddell, Nashville & AP

Y-NO-9-O wrote:They went on sale to the public this morning at 9:00 ET. I was on line when the "More Info" changed to "Find Tickets". Got right in, sold out immediately for MSG.

Got in right at 9:00 and got sec. 128 @ MSG, 2 levels up from the floor, for $169.50/ticket + TM extortion fees. I passed, I don't like U2 that much.

LIPH wrote:

Y-NO-9-O wrote:They went on sale to the public this morning at 9:00 ET. I was on line when the "More Info" changed to "Find Tickets". Got right in, sold out immediately for MSG.

Got in right at 9:00 and got sec. 128 @ MSG, 2 levels up from the floor, for $169.50/ticket + TM extortion fees. I passed, I don't like U2 that much.

I would have bought them from you in a heartbeat.

I went on and pulled up seats in the 400's at MSG.. But it was behind the stage so I passed... I've been kicking myself all day.. I'm not a huge U2 fan, but I do like them and it should be an AWESOME show!

http://tinylink.com/?BE9kiXvKDq

U2 Tix Snafu Angers Fans

Some fan-club members denied guaranteed seats; band apologizes

The most anticipated rock tour of the year is getting off to a rough start. First U2 postponed their U.S. dates due to family illness; now problems with pre-sale tickets have left many of the band's most devoted fans angry and confused.

More than 100,000 U2 Web-site members paid forty dollars in dues for the chance to get first dibs on seats for the band's Vertigo Tour, which launches March 28th in San Diego. But when the pre-sale began on January 25th, not enough tickets had been allotted, and the Internet message boards were deluged with reports from disappointed fans.

"There was a mess-up with the way tickets were distributed," acknowledged drummer Larry Mullen Jr. in a posting on U2.com. "Some of it was beyond our control, but some of it wasn't." The band moved swiftly to make right, offering refunds to dissatisfied fan-club members and pulling tickets from other promotions.

"Anyone who knows how U2 have treated their fans over the years can't say that the band went into this knowing, in any way, that people would end up upset," says Arthur Fogel, president of the Next Adventure, which has promoted and produced all of U2's tours since PopMart in 1997.

But many fans are still fuming. "For [the band] to keep accepting these fan-club memberships and guaranteeing tickets was ridiculous," says Matt McGee, who runs the popular site atU2.com. "I'm not nearly as excited about going to see shows as I normally would be. There's a really bad taste in my mouth."

BILL WERDE