Posts made by Ospreylady

I share the sentiments above. The last two times I saw paul I paid $275 and $300. Face value tickets....I am an old Beatle fan, yes I saw them in person in 1965. I so wanted to see paul in Oakland. I live in Minnesota so would have to travel to attend with my cousin. But I lost  my job during the pandemic.....and none the less I saved up so I could get a seat....but the tickets were scalped, Ticketmaster turned all the good seats into platinum, now the venue is populated with  verified resale and most tickets are over $1000, with a few over $800. Resellers have thousands of tickets at ridiculous prices. I tried at the presales and the public sale and every time I found a ticket that was less than $1000 it said another fan got the tickets. I tried and tried and tried. Got nothing. Now there are plenty of seats available at platinum or resale prices......NOT ONE FACE VALUE TICKET!  It makes me so sad that Paul allowed this. Stars like Springsteen and Adele have gone to great lengths to try to prevent this so real fans could attend. Now Paul is an elitist performer....allowing greed to rule. I too wish for a tour with lower priced seats and NO platinum seats, no reselling. 
I am so disappointed. I simply can't spend $1000 to see Paul again. And I really needed the lift that only a Beatle can provide. Sigh. I hope there is another tour, managed better, let SONGKICK manage it.....Ticketmaster is disgusting.
But Paul and his team have to decide that we are worth it....

After a week of getting skunked on tickets for Oakland.....I was told to check back as new tickets might become available....and they have....but ALL are platinum tickets, super high prices.

Yankeefan2 wrote:

Kestrel wrote:

Ospreylady wrote:

John once said Paul would always be touring. Seriously....what else would he do? Paul is also a workaholic and sitting home and relaxing is not his thing.

Well, since you asked .....how about if he spent the time writing and recording new songs instead of wasting time performing songs he's already done before? 

The post of the day -lol !!!

Well if you read enough interviews and books about Paul you will understand  that he is nourished by concerts, contacts with the fans.....he said in a Howard stern interview "it is energizing" in a way that recording isn't.  Recording is a more  solitary experience....he loves the people. Always has. That's why he is still touring....he loves it. 
when he walks onstage the response is overwhelming....I imagine it's pretty hard to let go of that!

thenightfish wrote:

Brian Sullivan wrote:

thenightfish wrote:

Maccaroni1974 wrote

How could you buy the wrong tickets?  How is this possible when it tells you the seat row price?  Then you have to go through MULTIPLE screens prior to closing the purchase. I have never seen so many confused people buying tix than on this board.  Its a a fairly simple proces.. Login to your TM account..enter the PROPER presale password...you can FILTER out the type of seats you want...and DONT WANT IE Platinum Tix, VIP TIx, etc.  Select and purchase.  DONE.  I got tix to NJ and Hollywood.  Done in 10 min..

You were lucky and you must have been first one in the queue.. I have been using TM for a very long time, for many popular artists other than Paul, and this was one of the worst presales I have ever experienced. It took 7 minutes for the idiotic queue to even let me look at tickets.  And selecting tickets is "easy" until TM pulls that phantom nonsense about "these tickets have already been selected by another fan" after clicking on a ticket that looks like it is available. I tried for 3 shows and only got tickets for one. Granted, I am extremely picky and won't buy what I don't like, but the seats I wanted never turned up.

Platinum tickets is how TM has decided to play the scalper game, those are not resales. Those are TM seats that they have priced at "market value."  Ridiculous. They have had Platinum for years, with static prices that were higher than face but not crazy, but there seem to be more of them now, and their prices are out of control. But they want you to panic-buy from them and not the secondary market.

Nightfish,

I can understand your disappointment and frustration over what I agree are eye-popping prices for "dynamically priced" platinum tickets, but I don't think TM is responsible.

According to the TM website, official platinum seats are made available by artists and event organizers through TM, the goal being "to give the most passionate fans fair and safe access to the best tickets, while enabling artists and other people involved in staging live events to price tickets closer to their true market value." In other words, if someone (not me) is willing to pay $5000 to sit front row center, the performer and/or promoter have decided that they want to receive that $5000 rather than a scalper who purchases the ticket at a lower price and then resells it. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that McCartney or his promoter, AEG, would allow TM to scalp the tickets, and equally unlikely that AEG would do so without McCartney's consent.

Perhaps I am mistaken. If so, can you (or someone else) tell me why you think it is TM rather than McCartney and/or AEG that is profiting from the practice of selling "dynamically priced" platinum tickets?

Well, it is ultimately TM profiting because they and their parent company, Live Nation, don't do anything that they can't profit from. So the fact that they even offer this platinum option to artists in the first place is on them. If Paul chose to use it, then yes, he is part of the problem too, and it's disappointing.   I did find the web page where they present to artists  how profitable this option can be for them, tho I don't have the link handy just now.

Like Paul needs more money.....yes, very disappointing.

NJR wrote:

RADIANCE wrote:

Na. He'll keep going til he can't.

I agree!

Actually I think he will keep going ....he said he never  thinks of a tour as the last one. As long as he CAN tour, he will tour....he loves it. It's what he lives for.  John once said Paul would always be touring. Seriously....what else would he do? Paul is also a workaholic and sitting home and relaxing is not his thing.

I am hoping for another leg of this tour....for those of us in the Midwest. Maybe in the fall? I totally got skunked on tickets for Oakland.

I had the opposite experience...I tried all week, never got a ticket....another fan ALWAYS got the ticket....and I thought there would be some better options, more options  on the general public sale but there weren't.....all jacked up prices way in the back....after about an hour all seats were platinum at $1000 or more. It's was a deeply discouraging experience.....doubt I will ever try to see Paul again. This is only for wealthy people now.....

And there are things Paul can do to prevent the mass reselling and the platinum BS. This whole thing reeked of greed.

thenightfish wrote:

ehwalled wrote:

this was from today.  how does a fan be a fan when ticketmaster has the mononply, buys up tickets for fans (not scalpers, ticketmaster), flips them in minutes into "Platinum" and chrages $20,000?

Screen Shot 20k


It's TM trying to be its own scalper. It's outrageous and the worst Plat pricing I have ever seen from them.

For the public sale ....after about an hour ALL the tickets were platinum.....over $1000.  It is outrageous. I tried all week and failed to get a decent seat at a reasonable price. It's sad that Paul allows this. Other artists have done things to prevent it. It left me with a really bad feeling....greed rules.

he is not coming anywhere near me so I was gonna have to fly a long ways.....so there is no way I could afford that on top of a $1000 ticket. ( lost my job due to the pandemic, tough times)  It felt like a big FU to the fans.

a few years ago one of Paul's sales was managed by SONGKICK and it was so nice.....no platinum seats, everything ran well, easy, straightforward, tickets at face value.....much better than Ticketmaster. It was such a nice experience.
and now all the resellers have tons of tickets.....but I refuse to support them.

and I wish someone would explain why I clicked buy on SOOOOO many tickets and they all said another fan got the seats....and then those same seats came up again ten minutes later and the same thing would happen. I tried and tried and tried....was never able to actually buy a ticket. I have a new iPad Air.....it's not an old slow computer. WTF?

oobu24 wrote:

Kestrel wrote:

Funny to see this thread near the top again after four years? The cancelling of Paul's recent concerts due to the pandemic must at least have helped off-set the decline of his voice, which is something positive. I can't see it ever improving though as the damage has already been done. If it doesn't get any worse then at least that's fairly encouraging.

That's one way of looking at him not using singing voice this past year. But one could also say that by not using it, it may have deteriorated more. Most singers need a few songs to "warm up" & he hasn't been doing that much at all.

Paul also has hearing problems which may be affecting his vocals.....in some recent interview it said when Paul walked in and sat down his hearing aid fell out. He laughed as he put it back in.....but paul has access to the best vocal coaches in the world, but he doesn't use one, to our knowledge, so....he doesnt think he needs one. Sigh.

thenightfish wrote:

ehwalled wrote:

this was from today.  how does a fan be a fan when ticketmaster has the mononply, buys up tickets for fans (not scalpers, ticketmaster), flips them in minutes into "Platinum" and chrages $20,000?

Screen Shot 20k


It's TM trying to be its own scalper. It's outrageous and the worst Plat pricing I have ever seen from them.

It's bad.....

https://www.ticketnews.com/2021/07/ticketmaster-resale-returns-to-broker-focused-conferences-despite-past-controversy/

John Mackintosh wrote:

ehwalled wrote:

this was from today.  how does a fan be a fan when ticketmaster has the mononply, buys up tickets for fans (not scalpers, ticketmaster), flips them in minutes into "Platinum" and chrages $20,000?

Screen Shot 20k

That picture is shocking and looks like what I would expect Super Bowls tickets to go for.  TM needs to be investigated by government consumer protection agencies.


I agree that this needs to be investigated.....I guess people who got tickets were willing to pay the steep prices. Some of us just can't. Platinum prices are outrageous, and their "fees" are ridiculous. I, too, feel defeated.

Happy for those who got tickets and say it was easy....it wasn t for me. Platinum tickets for $2000 in the back of the arena? 
I tried multiple times to click on a ticket and it just disappeared....or they had locks and nothing I did unlocked them.....INGOLD and my Amex blue card would not open them. 
and the thousands of tickets that are available on resale sites now for jacked up prices makes me think this whole thing is illegitimate. Real people struggle to get real tickets at an affordable price. And those Ticketmaster "fees" that add $100 or more to a ticket....WTF? 
I tried for hours and got nothing....Paul is now an elitist artist, and for someone who lost her job cause of the pandemic, has struggled along, and saved up $300 so I could see Paul.....I ended up with nothing. Dont want to fly across the country for a crappy seat in the back. 
by mid afternoon all the available tickets were "platinum"......Ticketmaster's own version of the  resale game.

Paul needs to do something to stop this.

sharonla wrote:

Annika wrote:

NJR wrote:

Ospreylady wrote:

NJR wrote:

andybefc wrote:

sharonla wrote:

For people on the east coast, can you let us know, for the amex presale, if you used the phone number on the back of your card, or the word I've seen circulating? THanks!

INGOLD

I was told INGOLD was only for Gold card Amex holders.

wait what?????? Now ya have to have a gold card? I have used my regular blue Amex card in the past.....wish they would tell us this stuff ahead of time. What a racket this all is....platinum seats.....flat out price gouging.

I thought people with regular AMEX cards could use the customer service # on the back of their card. Someone on FB called AMEX and that's what they were told.

We used INGOLD with no problem, with a blue AMEX.

We tried INGOLD with our blue Amex, got bad device error

I agree with the earlier comments. In the past I paid $275 for a fourth row seat, $300 for a front row side section seat....and that won't get me anything but a nosebleed seat now . So disappointing. Platinum BS. 
so frustrating.

Prices are outrageous .....I am so disappointed. No good seats that I can afford after losing my job cause of Covid. Very few good seats offered......platinum BS. I don't have $1000 + to spend. 
will try the general public sale.

NJR wrote:

andybefc wrote:

sharonla wrote:

For people on the east coast, can you let us know, for the amex presale, if you used the phone number on the back of your card, or the word I've seen circulating? THanks!

INGOLD

I was told INGOLD was only for Gold card Amex holders.

wait what?????? Now ya have to have a gold card? I have used my regular blue Amex card in the past.....wish they would tell us this stuff ahead of time. What a racket this all is....platinum seats.....flat out price gouging.

Anyone else having trouble accessing anything on this site on their iPad? I click on the menu icon and get a list,but everything I try to open won’t work.....maccaboard, tour, music, store.....nothing will open. Cant figure out what to do. No place to log on either. And yet it all works fine on my laptop. WTF? I just googled maccaboard and was able to get here that way, but not thru the regular website! Help!

the website doesnt work on my ipad, but it does on my laptop!?!? on ipad i get the home page but cant pull up anything else on the menu....maccaboard, tour info etc. nothing works. cant figure out where to log in or anything. whats going on?????

it all seems to be fine on my laptop except that i have to sign in twice to get on. many others have complained about this. cmon paul....you have a popular website, make sure it works and is accessable to everyone.

I have been trying for several days, when I have time, to look for decent tickets that I can afford. Suddenly it is telling me that PAULFRESHENUPGREENBAY  is not the correct password. It worked earlier. Is there another password to use?????

synchronicityx wrote:

Ospreylady wrote:

Don’t know how anyone got tickets for Madison....I have done presales and regular sales successfully for years and was not able to get anything. All VIP prices....started at $432, after I waited in line for 25 minutes. I could not pay for anything beyond $273 and we got screwed.

SAME FOR LEXINGTON MY FRIEND! I thought Nashville this past May for U2 was bad, this is a whole new level of BS. Ticketmaster buying them up and scalping them as "Official Plat. Seats" isn't helping. The whole waiting in line thing DOES NOT WORK! Make all tickets will call at the entrance, you have to have your photo id and credit / debit card to get in with your whole party. That's the ONLY WAY to stop this. Garth Brooks did it here in Charleston, WV. Sold out 7 shows, every single last one of them in the arena were fans that paid FACE VALUE for tickets... Just annoying for fans. The Fan Club presale was trash, the Arena presale was trash, this whole experience was trash. Sad thing is, and I pray that people DO NOT pay scalper prices for these tickets. We need to show these jerks that this is unacceptable. I could never in good conscious rip you guys off on tickets...

Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor did the same thing that Garth brooks did......I got a fan presale ticket but had to show up the day of the concert at will call with a printed copy of my confirmation, my photo ID and the credit card that I used to pay. No scalping was possible. It can be done .

Nancy R wrote:

thenightfish wrote:

Nancy R wrote:

The registration period is closed now, but when you went to register for verified fan (for the latest 3 concerts) it asked for a code?  The reason nightfish and I said the # on the back of your AMEX card was because that’s what it was in the past. I have no idea wtf is going on with these asinine verified fan presales.

Verified Fan requires registration and then waiting until the night before the presale to see if you will be granted a code which allows you to unlock the presale and purchase.  If you get put on the waitlist, there is no guarantee you will get a code and therefore you will not be able to participate.  The codes get texted in the morning on the day of the presale. I hate this system because TM is deciding who gets to shop and it has nothing to do with what kind of "fan" you are.

Most Amex presales on TM have two kinds of tickets - "regular" ones which can usually be purchased without any kind of code, just by selecting that ticket type in the dropdown. - or "premium" ones which need to be unlocked, and that's always the 800 # on the back of the higher level cards - Gold and up.  This time, for Paul, ALL Amex tickets required the 800 number to unlock them, didn't matter what kind of card you had.

Perhaps Amex and PM.com and TM all assumed that Amex cardholders already know about the 800 number unlock and so they didn't bother posting details about it, I guess.

I know everything you said in your first paragraph already, however, your 2nd paragraph was not true for Greenville. I needed no code at all. Just an AMEX card (since the pm.com code thing -PAULFRESHENUP1 was not working for about 5 hours!)  I bought Gold VIP without a problem.

The original poster (ospreylady) is the one who is confused. I’m not sure if she already registered for verified fan. I hope so, because it’s too late now. She hasn’t come back since 8 hours ago. The New Orleans presale is tomorrow at 10 am local time right? So people should be receiving their verified fan codes tonight or tomorrow early morning? What happened the last time they did verified fan?

I am not confused.....I have done many presales in the past, but never this verified fan thing...it’s just that nothing works like it used to. I have an amex card and did not sign up for this verified fan BS....in the past any Amex card holder had access to presale tickets....that’s the only reason I GOT an amex card and  That’s how I have gotten my tickets. Guess it’s all different now.