TICKETLESS TICKETMASTER

This post is dedicated to all those gig goers out there who don’t have smartphones as I know you’re probably feeling the same frustration as I am with Ticketmaster & AXS’s decision to not issue print at home tickets.

I’ve dedicated a lifetime and a small fortune to going to see bands live. You can’t beat the atmosphere, excitement or thrill of seeing your musical heroes in the flesh and if I had my way, I’d squander all my time/cash just going from gig to gig on a continual lifetime album tour. However technology or more precisely APPS are now souring this dream making it harder and harder to get your hands on paper tickets.

Making life a misery

Don’t get me wrong, I may be almost 60 but I’m not a complete techno-dinosaur. I shop online, bank online, have a blog and do everything cyber via my trusty laptop but the one thing I don’t have or more importantly DON’T WANT is a smartphone. Why complicate an already complicated life with a superfluous layer of technology? I don’t need brainwashing or having all my personal data continually mined!

The real reason dinosaurs became extinct

But clearly Ticketmaster/AXS and other event organisers have automatically assumed that the entire world has a smartphone and therefore don’t need printed tickets. This would be fine if you were given the choice – print your own at home (for free) or use an e-ticket on your phone but it would seem that choice is not an option.

APPS are for SAPS

I understand they’ve probably done this to stop ticket touts or ticket fraud but hey, you’ve also alienated that small, law abiding phoneless minority in going down this road. What is also ironic is that whilst paper tickets appear to have disappeared into the technological vortex, the service charges added to ticket sales have in no way reduced. AXS added over £11 each to my Alter Bridge tickets for Monday night’s performance at the O2 but exactly what was that £22 paying for? Paper? Ink? Postage? I think not!

MacKay just about sums it up

Aside from box office anxiety, the live music experience certainly at the O2 in particular has become one big ball ache.

Great gig

Firstly, no food or drink is allowed into the arena and that includes any shopping you may have done in the new outlet mall. I appreciate punters are expected to shell out for expensive refreshments at a gig. I kid you not when I say that a small paper cup of pepsi is now almost a fiver and even a glass of still water will set you back £3.90 but I almost died at the thought of the Lindt chocolates I bought for Christmas whilst killing time before the performance being chucked into the wheelie bin by security. Surely in this sustainable day and age, free water refill stations could be provided for those of us who don’t drink alcohol or indulge in gut/tooth rotting sugary drinks.

Secondly, no bags bigger than a sheet of A4 paper are allowed into the arena thus discriminating against most women whose handbags can usually accommodate a kitchen sink. If I’d wanted to smuggle in an AK47 or a Semtex belt, I wouldn’t be doing it in a Radley would I? Once security have scanned your backpack then that should be the end of it. Security should scan ALL backpacks and handbags or better still, just install full body scanners for everyone to pass through rather than target those with big bags.

Thirdly, since Covid ticket prices have gone through the roof and for anyone who has ever sat in ‘the Gods’ at the O2, that’s pretty steep. The starting price to see a class act like Iron Maiden is now around £66 and that’s before all those mysterious service charges are piled on. It’s legalised extortion! I could buy at least 3 Maiden albums for that price or a week’s shopping at Tesco. The average gig going punter is not made of money you know.

Fourthly, merchandise. It’s now £35 for a tour shirt an almost £10 increase on pre-pandemic prices when the average concert tee retailed at around £20-25 beforehand. Ironically on Alter Bridge’s own web site you can buy a T shirt for $30 or just over £24 at today’s USD exchange rate so my advice to gig goers everywhere is to purchase your band merch online before or afterwards but not at the O2.

Cheaper to buy online

And so dear readers having got this all off my chest, it looks like my gig going days are pretty much over. I’m not going to be held to ransom by event promoters, technology giants or greedy money grabbing venues. In future, rather than go through all of the above, I’ll just invest the cost of a gig ticket in buying the band’s latest album or treating myself to a new band t-shirt via their own website.