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1000 Shades of Grey
Monday, November 06, 2006
 
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The last week has seen me lose all patience with on-line ticket sales systems.

Last Friday, I attempted to buy tickets to see The Killers play live at Nottingham Ice Arena next year. According to the Ice Arena website, the only way to get tickets was via their online system. All well and good, you might think. Only when I tried to do that, their system crashed and crashed and crashed and in the end it sold out before I could even get close.

Fast forward to this morning, and I'm trying to get tickets for next summer's international cricket at Trent Bridge. Surprisingly, Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club decided today was an excellent day to introduce a new ticket sales system. Gone was the tried and trusted and in came a new system which wasn't up to the task.

Four hours later, I'm still trying to make it work. When last anything worked for me, I'd somehow managed to get ten tickets for the same day's cricket into my shopping basket. I only want two.

Having phoned the club, they suggest I pay for them all and then seek a refund. They seemed somehow reluctant for me to put the extras on ebay...

Maybe if I sell enough of them at a profit, I could buy some of the Killers tickets that appeared within seconds of them going on general sale.

Comments:
the trent bridge system is hysterical. From what I can work out, they have about 1/3 of the ground capacity still available... in single seats.

I tried coordinating with a friend, and at one point I had literally all the odd seats in a stand (about £10,000 worth) added to my basket as I worked my way back to the row he had tickets in to see if there were any spare adjacent to his seats. Stupidly, I found a pair together.

If you'll forgive the nostalgia, time was that you could ring up trent bridge and have a sane conversation with someone about where you could sit, what the view was like, if you could see the big screen etc. etc. Not any more. They should limit the number you can buy, and let you see the actual seating plan so it's not so hit and miss.

I'd say they were sorting it out for the next Ashes series, but of course the ECB has decided they're missing out.

Bastards.

I didn't even bother with the killers. Partly because I knew it would be a shambles, and partly because I'm in Ecuador! I have a colleague who goes and queues up at the arena from about 2am in the morning so he can max out his tickets in the front row. He then touts them on ebay and makes a tidy penny. He tends to avoid the gigs with a standing area though - not so profitable. He argues it's market forces. I argue that he's a tosser.

ST
(who lives within cheering distance of the bridge!)
 
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