they are always one step ahead...

So remember a few posts ago when I said the tickets for the event above sold out in 20 seconds? Yeah...well that was strike 1 for me. Last night before I went to bed I decided to check my email and lo and behold -- another opportunity to purchase tickets before they go on sale! This time it's at 10:00am today through the Nazi-owned and operated Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster's style is to make you pay for the ticket and also some minor fees (that's right...minor). For example...let's say you purchase a ticket for $35. Then there's the Building Facility Charge with is about $4. Then there is the lovely Convenience Fee (Ticketmaster: "This fee covers costs that allow Ticketmaster to provide the widest range of available tickets while giving you multiple ways to purchase."). What kind of crazy world do we live in that we have to pay for convenience? I can understand it if the convenience in question provides some kind of luxury service (such as paying extra for faster delivery or paying a little extra to get your groceries delivered to your door -- Peapod). It's basically a company saying "Thanks for not going with our competitor -- now give us more money!". So anyway the "Convenience" Fee is about $10. Shipping and Handling is fun too! Ticketmaster is the only vendor I know that will force your to pay ($4) to print out your tickets instead of having them shipped to you. You could go with standard mail delivery at no additional cost (gasp!) and just pray that your tickets make it to you BEFORE the event (I've had two different times where the tickets did not come AT ALL and I had to call Ticketmaster and make them 'will call' and one time when they arrived two days before the event yet I purchased them 3 months prior). Of course the other option is to pay for UPS shipping (anywhere from $19.50 - $25). Let's say we just have our tickets printed out. So for a $35 ticket you are paying $35 + $4 + $10 + $4 = $53. Fantastic.

Anyway I really wanted the tickets so I decided to go for it. I was at the Ticketmaster site at 9:55 and they weren't on sale yet. At 10:00 they weren't on sale yet. 10:01 -- Nothing. 10:02 -- Nothing. 10:03 -- Nothing (familiar pattern developing?). 10:04 -- Tickets open for sale! Oh but wait...they are sold out. Strike 2.

Tickets go on-sale for the general public on Saturday. Third times a charm, right?