The Aftermath
“dear phish lotto, I hope you die in a fire”
“Never been so stoked to see a $324 charge on his credit card!!!”
“The MO ticket goddesses rejected her…booohoooo”
“TELLURIDE!!!”
“Who’s got my extras…??? i need Phish tix”
“The Phish lottery did me right!!!”
“Phish tickets sucks…No if’s and’s or butt’s about it. It’s a scam like spam.”
“I GOT 2 TICKETS TO’RIDE!!!”
“tickets are for noobs”
“Best birthday surprise ever (revealed at dinner): we won the ticket lottery. See you at the Greek and Telluride!”
“Scored 471 Greeks and 202 Tellurides! YAY!!”
*****
"There Are Two Sides to Everything"
There are two sides of every coin. Regardless of what names one affixes to them – the good and the bad, the happy and the sad, the lightness and the darkness – all experiences are split in two, allowing for life’s peaks and valleys. Yesterday, this dichotomy became evident as as emails rolled back from Phish, pronouncing our pre-season ticket fates. Above were excerpts from my friends’ Facebook status updates, a news feed that was dominated by the swirling emotions left in the wake of the ticket lottery. In a cloud of black smoke, peoples’ dreams of stress-less Fridays were crushed, while many others sung a distinctly jovial tune. As is the aftermath of each tour’s mail order maelstrom, the community is left divided – celebratory and bitter – waiting for this weekend’s public on-sales.
And now everyone braces for a ticket barrage like none in recent memory, as the entire summer tour will drop within two days. Ticketmaster is hosting many of the shows, and everyone knows what to expect from their servers. But the biggest farce of the summer is Telluride’s chosen agent, Tickethorse, who will sell 2-day passes through one phone number and a janky website that will go down like Oceanic 815. The bottom line – get your credit cards and mouse clicking fingers ready. Or plan a stealth getaway to that outlet that you discovered last summer, because after Saturday, all the ticket will be spoken for – temporarily.
Ticket Mania - (P.Tschudy)
Through grassroots efforts, fans always seem to get tickets to other fans, and now with the Internet’s help, it’s never been easier. Between Phantasy Tour, Cash For Your Extra, Phish Thought’s very own Ticket Exchange,and other various message boards, the web is helping the community subvert scalper efforts. While stressing face-for-face exchanges, these fan-run sites do allow people to set their own bargaining chips, providing an friendly, online marketplace for fans to barter with other fans, instead of high-priced, geeked-out guidos with mullets. Since the modern era of Phish has dawned, and largely following Hampton’s (expected) debacle, fans have stepped up to facilitate a fair-trade ticket market, doing their best to intercept scalping middle-men, TicketsNow and StubHub.
But alas, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here people. Tickets haven’t even gone on sale; chill out for just a minute. Nobody is shut out of anywhere. And aside for the Greek and Telluride, any other ticket should be easily attainable for face value or under between now and then. Point being, don’t write off summer plans based on what the lottery spun your way, because aside for these western shows, tickets will be out there!
Jones Beach '09 (W.Rogell)
Regardless of anything else, the conclusion of this weekend’s “official” festivities will bring us into April, as the community shift gears with Chicago’s summer opener only two-plus months away. And that is what is important to keep in perspective. Most of these preseason ticket shenanigans are fueled by emotion in the moment, but in 2009, tickets were the last concern on anyone’s list, so in 2010, the situation should only get easier. The only stubs that should cause a stir in the scalping landscape will be The Greek and Telluride. Otherwise, they’d best be served my sticking to U2 and Hannah Montana, where the demand actually far outweighs the supply. But if not, you know they’ll always be there if you need em!
As we all embark on individual quests this weekend, just remember, everyone will be inside in the end. But, as always, the wait is a bitch.
Best of luck. And remember, all is fair in love, war and tickets. Game on.
=====
Jam of the Day:
A standout chunk from Alpine’s opening frame in ’97; another audio retrospective of an upcoming summer visit.
[audio:http://phishthoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/ph1997-08-09d1t03.mp3,http://phishthoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/ph1997-08-09d1t04.mp3]======
Download of the Day:
8.10.96 Alpine Valley, East Troy, WI < Megaupload
Continuing today’s mini-musical glimpse on Alpine history, here is a re-post of Phish initial visit to their now-staple tour stop in the Midwest. Check out the stellar versions of “Reba” in the first set and the “Hood” in the second.
I: My Friend, My Friend, Poor Heart, AC/DC Bag, Fee, Reba, I Didn’t Know, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, Rift, Bathtub Gin, Cavern
II: Wilson, Down with Disease, Scent of a Mule, Free, Fluffhead, Hold Your Head Up > Whipping Post > Hold Your Head Up, Harry Hood, A Day in the Life
E: Contact, Fire
Source: B&K 4021 > PSP-2 > DA-P1
Tags: 2010, Summer '10, Tickets
does anyone know (and I will ask this again in the AM), once you have tickets in your ‘basket’ (or whatever), if you search again using a 2nd browser (within the time allotted of course), in hopes of landing better seats, will you lose your original pull?
nice, we need to get mitch to start a disc golf spreadsheet or something. there’s a course at the mountain village. it looks fun.
i have no luck scoring tickets, kwl. unless it’s for cobo or indio. i’ll give it the scouts try tomorrow. i don’t know about messing with two browsers.
Disc golf tourney is already on the list Robear.
Tinyurl.com/msgmeet
well good luck robear. Maybe I’ll decide to try for 2 telly’s instead of 1 tomorrow simply to help out the BB.
night folks.
and remember: do NOT turn to scalpers if you have the bad fortune of getting shut out this weekend.
@KWL
Do you mean a different tab or window of the same browser, or an actual different piece of software? The latter is a lot more likely to work than the former.
Different windows or tabs of Firefox (or IE or Safari or whatever) are all authenticated by the server as the same “session” i.e. the TM computer would know both windows are you.
But with separate browsers, like one window of IE and one of FF, they should have no way of detecting that you are the same person.
^^^ the above is an educated guess and I take no responsibility for any loss of tickets resulting from too much screwing around with multiple browsers
is there anything mitch can’t do?
hey mitch, next time i’m in the city, can you hook me up with a hetty pollack while fixing my computer while getting me baned?
cause that would be nice.
^thanks C, that is the info i was looking for.
i will have 3 browsers at my disposal (FF, IE, Chrome), but will only be turning to the next one if the one i’m on freezes out or what have you. not going to try any funny business and risk losing pav seats.
I lived in Aspen for about a year and a half. Very similar to Telluride, only a little bigger and a little less rustic. Huge demographic of service industry people/ski-bums who dig Phish but aren’t necessarily die-hards will be chomping at the bit for for those tickets. They aren’t the type to travel far for a show, and most don’t have the means, but good for them to get the opportunity to not get shut out of their own hometown show.
The way small ski-town politics work, this never would have happened if the locals didn’t get their love.
@Mitch – when are you working next week? having problems with ye olde ipode. or, we could just smoke at some point next week and perhaps u’d be able to check it out outside of work.
ur call.
you still have my email and/or phone number?
has anyone tried going to a TM outlet for one of these on sales instead of trying your luck online?
does the employee at the TM retail outlet have a faster interface for buying tickets than the normal online interface? do they have a separate allotment of tickets?
i’m trying to understand why going there in person would give me an advantage. my worry is that even if i go 2 hours early tomorrow morning and i’m the first person in line, i’m still screwed because the ticketmaster outlet opens at the same time as the onsale (10am).
any advice is appreciated, thanks!
i went to blockbuster TM outlet last year, he told me that if i wanted tickets i’d hafta show up at 3am the night before and camp out. i didnt go, but it turned out only the first few ppl in line actually got tickets. i ended up getting tickets through the regular online onsale.
i guess i cant contest to the actual event of being at the TM outlet, however, i will say that i am glad i didnt camp outside of blockbuster at 3am for freakin 6/2 tickets to jones beach last year, because the online onsale was earier (keep in mind, this was also the 2nd show of the reunion tour after hampton, so demand was even higher back then)
so if the Santa Monica outlet opens at 10am tomorrow and i was planning to go at 8am, i’d be fucked anyway? i can’t believe that many people will actually be trying this besides me… i thought everyone just does online sales now.
you might be okay at 8.. idk. this was last year when the reunion was fresh. this year its a different game. hard to guage. i dont wanna sway ur decision either way in case u dont get tickets…
alright, thanks for your input purple, i appreciate it. based on what i’ve read on pt in the past hour or so, i’m over trying to go to the outlet. there are too many ifs and maybes that i didn’t cover off ahead of time, so i’d rather try my luck with the online than waste a bunch of time and get my hopes up and then find out i never had a chance from the start. have a good night and good luck tomorrow (if you’re trying to get tickets too0!
scored 2 nights to greek and telluride, all online, and am actually USING them, and what’s more, is i’m an idealistic tour noob who’s only seen 3 shows but going to see
^^ adding to that post lol
at least 12, as many as 18 this summer
Thanks for the 8.9.97 Ghost>Taste yesterday, Miner. I was at that show and that Taste, for my money, is the best one of the year. I absolutely love it!
I haven’t posted on this site since 1/26/2009, but I thought is was my duty to let you guys know that one of the CAPTCHA’s I had to retype during today’s ticket frenzy was, and I swear on the life of my two daughters, —-Mime homosexual—-