It also sucks because as great as it sounds, it's hard for someone like me who lives 1-1.5 hour away from every major venue and I can't take off work to buy tickets AND go to the show, y'know?
See, that Hot Mulligan tour is another solid sweet spot for me. Adore the opener (Anxious) and direct support (Drug Church) with a middle act I've checked out and kinda dig but wouldn't mind checking out (Arm's Length) and a headliner I truly do not care much about... But wouldn't mind seeing live and am maybe kinda hoping that seeing them might get them to finally "click" for me? But if I feel like leaving early I'll feel like I've got plenty out of the evening because I've already seen the two bands I love, y'know?
When I was 16 my friend and I got to a record store at 3am with her mom for *NSYNC tickets. We were second in line. The record store came out an hour before tickets went onsale and made everyone take a slip with a random number, no advance notice or anything that they’d be doing this, and then re-lineup in that order. We ended up way the hell back and got screwed out of anything remotely decent. I refuse to go back to that lmao
Yeah also in those days you might get stuck with someone who barely knows how to use a computer trying to work a system they have no experience with. Definitely worse than today.
I had way better luck scoring tickets during the refresh spam days. The lottery system behind the virtual queues make them a crapshoot. Fortunately, the vast majority of shows that I attend aren't ones that require a queue.
I also had better luck during the old days but I think that's more due to the fact that the general public has become much more hip to the ticketing on sale process coupled with streaming democratizing the whole music consumption market.
Honestly I think most problems would be solved if secondary market sites made it impossible to charge an absurd amount over face value. Cap it at 10-15% more (to make back the service charge maybe) and I think you'd see the scalper market online die down quite a bit. But I know that'll likely never happen and is probably more idealistic than it sounds.
I wish that were the case too but it seems the industry has caught up and most shows are priced at market rate.
The trick is to go to smaller shows with less demand. And if you’re feeling real crazy you can even check out some new music!
Reminds me of the time my wife asked me if i knew any tips to get cheap tickets for artists like Pink or Kesha. I had to explain that I mostly see artists who work full time at Subway or FedEx