Wish Bubba would do what the Dead did.....

BinghamtonPH · Post by **BinghamtonPH** » November 18, 2001 8:43 pm

I am a DeadHead as well as a Parrotthead from way back. The Grateful Dead would sell half the tickets for each show directly to the fans (GDTS - Grateful Dead Ticket Sales). All fans had to do was get the order postmarked on a certain day and mail the order with a money order. Once the Dead were sure all mail arrived from that postmark date, they would start randomly drawing orders. In all the years and all the tours, I never got shut out of tickets. And, to be fair, their half of the tickets were spread out - they had half the good seats and half the bad seats - so those calling or waiting in line at ticketmaster had just as good seats available.

Just a wish I wish would come true.

Tampico · Post by **Tampico** » November 19, 2001 9:14 am

I too think this would be a great idea but one big difference between the two is the Dead had a much bigger organization than Jimmy does. This was ran by Grateful Dead Productions and it involved not only the Dead shows but also all their side projects. With the touring that they did in the 80's and early 90's this was a full time business and since the Dead pretty much was doing stadium shows the promotors could let this happen and still have enough tickets left over for their greedy little hands. On a good year Jimmy Buffett will only do 40 or so shows so I doubt if the promotors would ever bite off on it. Jimmy is at that performer pennicle where he signs on with SFX for so many shows and SFX gives him a set amount of money before the tour begins. They then set the tickets prices for how much of a profit they think they can make.

Great idea but it would be a miracle if you started seeing Margaritaville get into the ticket business. I would be happy if they would start having INTERNET pre-sales before they went on sale at the outlets. I used this option this past year and got some great seats to see Van Morrison 2 days before they went on sale.

DebSabriel · Post by **DebSabriel** » November 24, 2001 1:10 am

Longtime board readers know I've been ranting on this topic since I joined back in August, but I agree that something needs to be done.

I think that JB has a sufficient organization in place to deal with a mail order type system. He's got a mailing list already, and he could even get away with charging fans a small fee to administer the mail order program.

Absent mail order, I agree that Internet pre-sale is a good idea. Anything that spreads out traffic and reduces load factors on TicketBastard's pathetic antiquated infrastructure is a good thing. TicketBastard needs to spend some of the bucks they're raking in to improve their servers, because they just can't handle the demand.

As always, JMHO.

All the best,

Deb.

[size=-1][ This Message was edited by: DebSabriel on 2001-11-24 01:11 ][/size]

ParrotheadPeteNJ · Post by **ParrotheadPeteNJ** » November 26, 2001 2:20 am

Regarding Mail Order Sales, I politely disagree here from experience (which happens at the outdoor venues anyway) Bruce Springsteen had a mail order sale for the first shows at what is now Continental Airlines Arena (July 2,3,5, 6, 8 and 9 1981).
Mail order allows non-fans to get in on the action with little effort. Some post offices are more efficient than others. Plus one has less control of what seats one sits in. I hate upper seats but love behind the stage seats which others hate. In addition, who has the best resources/experience for a mail order sale-brokers! In the age of the Internet with tradign forums it is now more workable, though.

ParrotheadPeteNJ · Post by **ParrotheadPeteNJ** » November 26, 2001 2:26 am

Regarding Pre-Sales: I don't like as a fan (but love as a seller) because most of these presales are during working hours during weekdays. Major brokers have all the time and resources in the world for this sort of thing. And from experience (Madonna, Neil Diamond) it does little to relieve that Intenret congestion on the day of the sale. In addition, there are now less top tickets available. On the plus side it helps if you have a "bad day" (read oversleep or select bad seats).

These presales also cut availability. If AOL gets their hands on Madonna tickets like they did, you have a worse shot at tickets if you aren't an AOL subscriber simply because less are availalble.