Rolling Stones 2019 U.S. Summer Tour

NJ2 Dip was lowers about halfway back.

Philly Dip was pit...

 

Now you've hurt TonyCzar's feelings!

 

I hate this flex pricing BS as well tiered pricing as well reselling through tickemonster. This is not just for the Stones but relates to any band that has significant draw. All designed with complete greed in mind and makes for alienation between the sections before the show even starts.

Before all this computerized price gouging it was luck of the draw or first come first served by physically waiting in line and occasionally some tickets (usually good ones) were held back until near show day. .If you got good tickets you didn't necessarily feel like you had to spend like a Rockefeller to get them. Lucky Dips seem to be at least a semi answer to all this computerized robotic pilfering but that only relates to a portion of the tickets and I don't like not really knowing what I'm getting through the Lucky Dips.

Prior to all these automated algorithmic systemic price gouging techniques I got some great late release tickets to the Kinks in 85 (8th row Day of show) and Grateful Dead in 89 (about a week before the shows (3rd and 6th row respectively for the 2 shows)) all at standard ticket price. For GD I already had tickets from the day they went on sale, which I then proceeded to sell after I got the late release tickets.

 

Platinum Seating is where all the hot flexing action took place in 2019.

Pits flexed pricing in just about every market in 2019, often coming close to the nominal "face value" of scoring one through the regular inventory. Since scoring one through regular inventory carried some degree of difficulty, it was possible to shop and decide if you could swing $600 or $700. (A "discount" from the original Platinum Pit prices, and VIP package prices). It probably doesn't seem so ridiculous to people who were willing to pop for $500, but just were not quick enough on the draw during the public onsale.

(To say nothing of people who book flights and hotels to get to the venue. A PIT seat availability is where you're going to be penny wise? Really?)

I don't think I saw any Platinum Pits flex down to $500 (which, IIRC, was face value.) but I'm pretty sure several of us posted about our finds in the actual 2019 part of this same thread.

I was NOT in the market for any $500 ticket in 2019, but if I were willing to spend $500 on a single pit, the $600 or $700 offers might still catch my eye if I HAD to be there and thought there was NO OTHER WAY this was going to happen for me. Your Market May Vary.

 

Not really. My nosebleed seat at the LINC was protected from rainfall. (ObInThroughTheOutDoor).

 

Don't pretend there hasn't been decades of under handed stuff with tickets. I thinks Beatles Shea 1965 was entirely sold before the general on sale.

Before computers who took what was offered. In the past 15+ years you can search for tickets a dozen times sitting at home in your underwear before buying what you want. Plus you many times you can send a friend a bar code via phone rather than a physical ticket exchange.

 

Yea you took what was offered all at the same price regardless of location in the venue for indoor shows and maybe 2 tiers of pricing at the most at outdoor shows reserved and GA/lawn )

Taking what u got was part of the fun. Bad seats for this concert great seats for the next concert still the price didn't change.

I agree with you selling or sharing tickets now is easier. That benefit does not even come close to outweighing all the other drawbacks of the current robotic system. I forgot to mention in todays system u now only have so much time to close ur transaction or ur starting over and possibly losing ur tickets.

Of course there were shenanigans going on with tickets pre the the current fleece you system. It wasnt perfect but I didnt feel robbed or alienated when I bought my tickets like I do now. Physically camping out for tickets was a whole experience in itself (and social) which is now sadly lost.

 

I did, oddly. Under the old system (back when rock and roll was still a thing and Ticketrons dotted the landscape), there were entire sections of the arena I was never getting access to unless I paid the scalper bucks or became brother-in-law to somebody who worked in the hockey team's front office.

For "No Security" - the first tour where the Stones played with these super-high prices for every date on the itinerary - one could look down on the well-seated and instead of feeling envious know that even with connections, they paid $300 a head for the privilege.

 

As a long time veteran of Stones shows, I would say that 95% of the time, good seats will be available at or below face close to the Show date. But, around 5% of the time, there won’t be cheaper tickets. Sometime, demand just goes through the roof. It happens so infrequently that I can remember the shows. London and Newark in 2012, San Diego in 2014, the Rose Bowl last year. So usually your odds are good, but there’s some risk.

 

(Also, too. Now you can look at people in hotter seats, and decide you'd like to be there, but then you ask yourself, "Do I want to pay an extra $300 to go from where I am to there?". The answer depends on your circumstances, but for me, the answer is usually "No". That said, I have bitten on highest-price-in-the-house Stones tickets. Twice. It's the exception for me, not the rule.)

 

Some markets are softer than others, definitely.

 

No doubt. For last tour's final stop in Miami, cheap seats were hard to come by. It was only when they moved the concert up a day because of Hurricane Dorian did ticket prices go down and surprisingly not as much as you'd think. I was watching the Pit tickets the day before and of and once in a while you'd see a few at near face but most of the time they were considerably (i.e. $300-$500) more. I think the possibility of it being their "final" U.S. show and the considerable number of fans traveling from Latin America made it a tougher ticket.

 

Somehow I landed seats in the first 20 rows for No Security, pretty sure it was less than $100. Will dig out my stub and check.

I want to say that tour wasn't as pricy because they had just been through town for Bridges to Babylon a year or so earlier. I do remember talking to a friend who was livid that my floor seats cost less than his upper-bowl tickets.

 

Through the 1980s, you could camp out for tickets and get very good ones for face. And those tickets, even adjusted for inflation, were pretty inexpensive. Scalping was illegal in many markets, so although scalpers existed, they were usually limited to sketchy guys in front of the venue.

Today, yes, if you really have the cash, you can sit wherever you want. And for ordinary shows, being able to browse a seating chart and poke around is nice. But on these big shows, all the good seats are platinum, or put on stub hub, or whatever.

Kudos to bands and artists like Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen, and U2 who at least make some effort to get tickets to fans. Bruce's GA floors with nightly random lotteries for when you're let in is probably the best system. The Stones are all about greed. As for Lucky Dip, it's simply their way to make sure all of their last minute extras also get sold day of show.

 

I camped out for Steel Wheels tickets and got great seats... Then they announced a second show

 

Are you trying to establish them in connection?

 

Oats,
When/how do the Lucky Dips go on sale?

 

That could be Charlie on the grassy knoll...

 

after all, it was you and me

 

I paid $100 for Stones tickets ($200 total for two tickets) in the nose-bleed section of the Superdome for the New Orleans show, and was very happy with my experience, both buying the tickets (took about 5 minutes online) and the concert itself. Nose-bleed didn't bother me, I've got good eyesight so have never been a stickler for how close I am to the stage, and I hadn't seen the Stones in 30 years and figured this might be my last chance, so it was well worth the money to me to be in the arena with them.

If others got better seats at lower prices, more power to them, I don't begrudge anyone their good luck or their extra effort, whichever it was, that got them those tickets. What I worry about is what I paid, and I don't pay unless I think it is going to be worth it.

 

Yes. The first ten reserved rows on the floor for "No Security" were offered at <$100. If you could get them in the public or fan club sales. Floor behind that, and close lowers, were $300. The policy stayed in place for the next two US tours, although the number of rows offered at $100 dwindled slightly over time through "Bigger Bang", when the top price tier finally hit $450 (IIRC).

I never personally scored any "first tens" on my own in 1999, but I was lucky enough to be somebody's guest twice.

For the 2013 shows, they introduced the GA Pit down in front in US arenas. Reserved floor seats behind the pit, and good lowers, were $600 ea. A VIP Pit Package was (?) $1500 IIRC.

 

The only path to happiness.

 

The Bigger Bang shows with seated floors featured seats for $100 in the first ten rows. I have been to tons of shows and I only managed to get them once, for Twickenham, and I felt like I hit the lottery.

 

When they played East Lansing in 1994 I was a student at Michigan State University and was the first person in line at the campus ticket office. I literally got a front-row ticket. That would not happen nowadays.

 

I’m just curious where you might have seen this information ?
Here’s how the ticket process was described in
Some Fun Tonight, a book about the Beatles 1965 and 1966 tour; (My condensing)

Sid Bernstein set up a P.O. Box, lugged duffel bags of ticket requests to his home and hired eight girls to process the ticket orders, working five days a week for a few months to process the orders. (Sid had let the word out to some kids that the Beatles were coming to New York that summer and shared ticket prices with them, and the word spread and a flood of orders started coming in, bypassing Brian Epstein’s edict that Sid couldn’t start advertising the show months early)

How would 55, ooo tickets be held back in that era anyway ? How would they be sold then?