Vertigo tour ticket seekers in a dizzy dash
By Karen Lindell
April 3, 2005
"I still haven't found what I'm looking for." U2 lead singer Bono isn't the only one who's been belting out that sad tune lately.
It's also become the lament of all the U2 fans who haven't been able to get tickets for the band's 2005 Vertigo concert tour.
But you, too, can have a beautiful day and get what you desire: tickets to one of the band's sold-out concerts.
"The demand for tickets is the biggest I've seen since 1994, when the Rolling Stones were touring," said Mark Elliott, disc jockey for local radio station B95.1 and director of programming and broadcast operations for Gold Coast Broadcasting. "The only concert that would be bigger is a Beatles reunion."
Ticket hopefuls have the following five options -- all legal, but with financial, ethical or luck-of-the-draw implications (bonus: no interaction with Ticketmaster required):
1. Win tickets from a radio station.
2. Hop on an official -- and pricey -- Concert Caravan bus from Santa Barbara.
The next three involve the resale or "secondary" market.
3. Buy tickets from eBay, the online auction site, or StubHub, a similar Web site that specializes in tickets only.
4. Purchase tickets from a licensed ticket broker, either online or via phone.
5. Create a desperate "I need tickets" sign, dig into your wallet and seek out a scalper hawking tickets the day of the concert.
The Vertigo tour, launched in support of U2's new "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" album, opened Monday in San Diego. The band, which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March, will stop at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Tuesday and Wednesday, then visit other cities in North America and Europe before returning to Los Angeles Nov. 1-2.
The face-value cost for U2 concert tickets, at all venues, ranges from $49.50 for general-admission floor tickets (closest to the band) to $165 for reserved seats, plus Ticketmaster and other service charges.
Ticket prices on the secondary market are all over the place (type "U2 tickets" into any search engine and a slew of ticket broker sites will come up).
One online site, for example, listed a premier-level suite ticket at Staples Center for the Tuesday concert at $8,580. But the same site also had general-admission floor tickets for $250 each.
The prices on eBay fluctuate daily. On Wednesday, the highest starting bid for a pair of Tuesday tickets, in premier-level seating, was $749.
Other bids for the April concerts on eBay started at $375 for a pair of general-admission floor tickets.
On StubHub, prices have ranged from about $105 per pair (upper level, front view, row six) to $1,677 per pair (first level, side view, row 10) for Tuesday tickets.
Luck of the dial
Winning a radio contest is about the only option that doesn't require paying an exorbitant sum above face value for U2 tickets. It's also the biggest long shot.
Simi Valley resident Dave De Waard, who kept getting an "internal server error" from Ticketmaster during the January online presale for fan club members, had no problem snagging a set of tickets to each of U2's newly added November concerts in Los Angeles.
"The band really redeemed themselves with this second round," De Waard said.
He's not giving up on a chance to see the April L.A. shows, however.
De Waard, 27, a student at California State University, Northridge, said he's spent a lot of time in his car listening to L.A.-based radio station Arrow 93.1 FM, which has been giving away U2 concert tickets.
Ventura County radio stations promoting chances to win U2 concert tickets include B105.5 FM and B95.1 FM.
About five times each day, Gold Coast Broadcasting's B105.5 is offering listeners the opportunity to be caller No. 21, which will put their name in the running for tickets to see U2's concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York. The prize package includes airfare, hotel accommodations, $500 and the entire U2 CD catalog.
Elliott said listeners have told him they drove to Thousand Oaks from Los Angeles just to hear the station's promotion and call in.
In addition to the current New York prize package, Elliott said B105.5 will offer more chances to win U2 concert tickets, possibly at venues closer to home, although he wouldn't say where and when.
On the other end of the radio dial, B95.1 is offering two tickets and a limo ride to the Tuesday show at Staples Center. Maha Osman, marketing and promotions director at the station, said the call-in contest, already under way, will end Monday.
To qualify, listeners have to wait for the cues to call. Twenty people who are the lucky No. 10 callers will win a copy of "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" and an opportunity to win the concert tickets.
A wheel expensive deal
When this article went to press, Entertainment Transportation System, U2's "official tour and travel operator," had nine spots left on its Concert Caravan, a chartered bus that will depart from the Radisson Hotel in Santa Barbara for the Staples Center at 1 p.m. Wednesday.
The Concert Caravan package includes round-trip transportation, a pre-event party, food, prizes and a ticket to the concert.
The fee, based on concert seat location, is $249.95 for "gold" tickets and $359.95 for "premium" tickets.
It's a reseller's market
According to a 1999 report by the Office of the New York State Attorney General, "Why Can't I Get Tickets?" the markup for tickets on the resale market varies widely, from 10 percent for less-desirable seats to more than 450 percent for premium seats.
Keir DuBois of Ventura, a bass guitar player for local rock band Honey White and a writer for
http://www.atU2.com (a U2 fan Web site), calls people who resell tickets, whether they're normal folks making extra bucks on eBay or professional brokers who make a living in the resale market, "morally reprehensible."
DuBois, 28, who didn't want to pay the $40 fee for U2 fan-club presale access, struck out with Ticketmaster and refused to deal with a secondary seller. He will, however, be attending U2's San Jose concert April 10 because a fellow atU2.com writer offered him an extra ticket.
Scalping, as repugnant as it may be to some, is perfectly legal.
No federal laws govern the resale market. Some states, like New York, have strict limitations on ticket scalping, such as the amount above face value that can be charged. In California, the only restriction is that people cannot resell tickets in or around the event venue without permission.
Some cities and venues have their own ticket-scalping regulations. In Los Angeles, for example, home of the Staples Center, professional ticket sellers can't conduct business in or on public areas, including streets, sidewalks and freeway offramps, said Alan Dahle, an assistant attorney for the city of Los Angeles.
Violators are cited for a misdemeanor, but "it's difficult to prove, especially for a one-time event like the U2 concert," Dahle said. "You have to prove the person is in the business and doing it for a profit. The vast majority of scalpers are just regular people selling tickets for one event."
Online reselling, whether on eBay or through a licensed broker's site, is legal as well.
(Note: Ticketmaster is not a ticket broker. It is an agency contracted by the concert promoter to sell tickets. Ticketmaster's service fee for processing and distributing tickets is different from the sums added by scalpers.)
According to information posted on eBay, "There are no ticket reselling restrictions for residents of California for any tickets bought or sold to events taking place in California."
Be careful, however, if you buy a ticket online to a concert that takes place in another state, because different regulations might apply.
"Peer-to-peer" or "fan-to-fan" Web sites such as eBay, which sells just about everything, and StubHub, which specializes in tickets, can offer cheaper deals than professional brokers.
EBay, however, can be risky, because you don't know if the ticket and its seller are legitimate.
StubHub is a little safer. Sellers and buyers must register and provide credit-card information. If a ticket turns out to be worthless, StubHub will try to find another ticket worth the same amount, then charge it to the seller's credit card. Sellers can auction their tickets, offer a fixed price or select a declining price option that automatically lowers the cost as the day of the event gets closer.
Where have all the tickets gone?
Don't count on snatching up unsold tickets at the last minute.
Kris Farmer, director of e-commerce at
http://www.tickco.com, said ticket brokers are in the business of acquiring what they can sell.
Any unsold tickets, he said, are donated to charity or offered to longtime loyal customers or large corporate clients.
To all the ranting, ticketless U2 fans calling the band's Web site "U2.com" and referring to the presale date, Jan. 25, as "Tuesday, Bloody Tuesday," Ventura fan DuBois replies, "If people have a vendetta against the band or anyone else, they're taking it way too seriously."
Or in U2-speak, don't succumb to the sentiment expressed in the following lyric from U2's Grammy-winning single "Vertigo": "Just give me what I want and no one gets hurt." Instead, go for these lines from U2's "Yahweh":
"Take these hands / Don't make a fist / Take this mouth / So quick to criticize / Give it a kiss."
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