Applefrien wrote:And here's another question for y'all:
I ordered tickets through the fan club presale -- and have not gotten them yet.
So, will I be able to pick up tickets at the "will call" window at the Paramount?
Also, I have not received any emails regarding the change of venue.
BTW, I saw Ray Davies at the Paramount a few years ago and it's a cool place on the Asbury Park boardwalk.
P.
Was it on a Sunday night during summer? If so, how was parking? I'm VERY concerned with NJ traffic getting down there and then finding parking. I'm reading on an Asbury Park site that will call closes an hour before the show - so if I can't get down there and parked by 7, does that mean I can't even pick up tickets?
For anyone who wants to "inquire", there is the email: customerservice(at)weirdal(dot)com
I've sent an email with my concerns. They didn't seem to know anything as of yesterday (6/18) but that tickets would probably be sent directly to will call (at PNC at the time). But since everything has changed now, who knows. At least they will respond. (I didn't get any response from Paid, Inc. who are actually the ones 'in charge' of the tickets.)
gtrmu wrote:Well I'm not surprised that Ticketmaster smurfed up in a big way and decided to do this without letting people know. Let's not blame Al though *not saying anyone has, just don't want people to start to.* If I remember correctly when he played there 10 years ago he took a fall at the end of Eat It.
I was at that show in 2000. During One More Minute, one of the audience members went running up to Al as if he was going to attack him. The security guy tripped him and it caused Al to stumble a bit too.
And yes, the acoustics SUCKED at that show. I don't care how nice the theater looked, it sounded horrible. And this was the very next night after I saw them at the Bushnell in Hartford, CT, which is a GREAT theater to listen to a concert. All I can say is I'm glad I never got tickets to this one this year.
just so u know why the show got moved since i know a lot about the ticket industry and not al persee but in this case they couldnt give away the lawn seats much less they didnt sell 1/2 of the building and since LIVENATION.COM / TICKETMASTER CONTROL BOTH THE PNC ARTS CENTER AND THE PARAMOUNT AS WELL AS THE CONVENTION HALL attached to the paramount its their venue and they are the promoter of all pnc arts center shows they of course chose to move it to another one of their buildings which LIVENATION RUNS. count basie is not one of live nations shows so hence why move it to a place they have to pay to rent it out> at the paramount they run it already so its cheaper to run the show in a smaller place. i used to be friends with the former box office manager of pnc who is no longer there as i met her at a singles dance oddly enough so i learned a lot about what goes on when producing a show. my question is... why place a show when it was obvious this yr in a bad economy its too big a place for al to play?
i could have told livenation this back in march when the tours start to get announced. shame on livenation as on ticketmasters web site they still show the pnc show and no official change other than in the notes of the venues change. as of now im going to the show but if livenation pulls a fast one and moves me even 1 row further back ill ask for a 100% refund. i dont take kindly to a poorly run corrupt company like livenation screwing the fans. they do it all the time. this isnt a big deal to them but to us the fans its a huge deal. i despise ticketmaster as well as live nation and the merge was allowed by the DOJ to allow the merger which now makes livenation / TRICKYMASTER A MONOPOLY.
What I suspected, rangerbob. About a week ago most of the seats were "filled" according to the LN PNC seating chart - but yesterday a bunch of seats closer to the stage became available and the whole back section opened up. I'm suspecting tickets that were 'reserved' for other ticket outlets/promos/etc.. didn't get sold or given, so those seats became available. (Leaving much of PNC empty. )
I just noticed the Asbury Park show is now listed by TM and LN - and the prices are higher than PNC! (They haven't taken down the PNC links yet as of the time I'm writing this, but I guess they will soon.)
One thing I have noticed this year is less promotion for Al here in NJ. ALL the previous shows got advertising on the Garden State Parkway at the tolls (they would advertise all the shows at PNC weeks before and when tickets would go on sale.) This year I'm not seeing as many and haven't seen one for Al. I'm betting a lot of fans who don't visit the website or this forum don't even know Al is on tour this year. I'm up here in northern NJ, so I don't know if there were any ads in the southern parts of the state. But I know for a fact that another friend who's into song parodies had no idea Al was on tour and she bought tickets (for PNC via LiveNation) when I let her know about the show a few weeks ago. I just emailed her the news about the venue change. She's a "Jersey girl", but hates the shore (especially Asbury Park) because of traffic and "those people" (tourists) - so I'm betting she'll opt to try to get a refund. I'm going to see if I can get my schedule changed to be able to get down there earlier. But it would be a shame if many people don't find out about the venue change in time and miss the show (leaving empty seats). It makes Al look bad - even though he's not the one to blame. OK, enough of my babbles! I have a 'net radio show featuring Al's music and other parodies to prepare for!
-Bill
Oh man, this is a freaking disaster! At least we know why presale tickets have been such a pain to get ahold of, Im worried getting refund on those is going to be tough. They weren't very helpful in finding out why i hadnt gotten my tix yet when i spent all last week contacting them. I have to work until 5 and driving in from PA getting to PNC in time would hve been tight, Asbury park is going to be worse. I may take my money back and not go out of principal (sorry Al!).
WeirdBillWX wrote:
One thing I have noticed this year is less promotion for Al here in NJ. ALL the previous shows got advertising on the Garden State Parkway at the tolls (they would advertise all the shows at PNC weeks before and when tickets would go on sale.) This year I'm not seeing as many and haven't seen one for Al.-Bill
This is sounding like a repeat of 2003, when Al got moved a couple of times to smaller venues, and I'd be in some town, tourchasing, and mention to locals that I was here to see Al... and it was news to them. Promoters pinch pennies and only hurt themselves, because if people know Al's coming, they'll turn out. It will be interesting to see whether Al's Twitter/Facebook presence helps make up for the slacker promoters.
i got both a phone call AND EMAIL from the box office manager whose name ill email only 1 on 1 as i dont want to innundate the guys voice mail and email. anyway bottom line is this.... they will be "reassigning" seats by tuesday the latest and nowhere did he say i could have a refund if i dont get 1st row but it says so on the asbury park web site "refund if necessary or something similiar" also since i paid by amex i know they will take my side if the pnc ( live nation) box office manager refuses to give me 1st row and no refund. i know i have rights as a consumer and i will fight them tooth nail and comb. im already sitting 1st row at westbury in long island on thursday so my thinking if if i cant have the 1st row i paid for i dont want to go multiple times this yr due to how weirdal.com screwed me enough this yr. 2 yrs ago in 2008 weirdal.com was run by a different promotor and they actually assigned u seats. this yr it said 1st 5 rows and westbury they gave me 3rd row but on ticketmaster 2 WEEKS LATER 1ST ROW GOT RELEASED. ITS A JOKE HOW THEY DO BUSINESS. poor al gets the brunt of this though i know none of this is his doing. u r right though im from northern nj also and there is no advertising for weird al anywhere on the parkway like usual. the show never sold well. in fact they released more front row center seats 5 days ago and they sat there for almost 2 days. since i had my seat i didnt need any more.
anyway bottom line is im very disapointed in how this whole tour has been handled plus im not too fond of this new 1/2 an album so i can guess the set list without looking wont be like 2007 & 2008 which was great.
i will be there at westbury june 24 for anyone who wants to meet up or get a ride from jersey. as for sunday june 27 ill see what this box office manager assigns me from the PNC arts center and either keep the ticket or refund it.
also i think it takes a lot of balls to do what live nation and ticketmaster is doing which is..... they still are selling seats at the pnc arts center and when u try to buy them at the paramount the show isnton sale yet as i know once they reassign seats thatswhen they will remove the event from pnc arts center and then put whats unsold on sale at the paramount. but its appaling to me that TRICKYMASTER AS PEOPLE IN THE CONCERT INDUSTRY LIKES TO CALL THEM is still selling tickets to the "wrong venue pnc arts center" as i know the reason they are doing this is they wont want to lose a sale of even 2 seats and they cant put the other one onsale until the reassigned seats get takean care of. so rather than take the event off sale they know whatever people buy in the back of the orchestra is easily movable to asbury park. BUT unless u read up at the top of ticketmasters page u dont even see except for a blurb the show is now being moved to the paramount. its misleading advertising and if u ask me a reason why LIVE nation and ticketmaster shouldnt have been allowed to merge as they actyally scalp their tickets to big shows worse than ticket brokers do. they are much worse with vip packages for inferior seats and they fool the public for a living.
shoedogg wrote:Oh man, this is a freaking disaster! At least we know why presale tickets have been such a pain to get ahold of, Im worried getting refund on those is going to be tough. They weren't very helpful in finding out why i hadnt gotten my tix yet when i spent all last week contacting them. I have to work until 5 and driving in from PA getting to PNC in time would hve been tight, Asbury park is going to be worse. I may take my money back and not go out of principal (sorry Al!).
" if i dont go its stricktly out of principle" i HATE weirdal.com's new web tour management as they lie about how they handle ticket sales and this was long before the venue change. they screwed me over for westbury in long island. 2 yrs ago it was the same web site but a different company who let u see exact seat locations before buying. this yr it was a range of seats "1 st 5 rows" , 1st 10 rows" etc.. then i was told id get 1st row on the phone but they sent me 3rd row. i then got 1st row on ticketmaster AFTER THEY RELEASED 1ST ROW 30 DAYS AFTER THE SHOW WENT ON SALE. i know a lot about the ticket industry.
I'm guessing - and I hope I'm wrong - that many people will opt for refunds or just not show up (because of not being informed or going to PNC and finding out the show isn't there). That will suck because there could be just a small audience compared to what Al usually has here in NJ. I'm still undecided because I have to work on Sunday and it will be a longer trip to the Paramount and parking probably won't be free (and harder to find). LiveNation also seemed to have waited forever to actually put Al's show tickets on sale for PNC. (It was one of the last shows that got pre-sale and regular sale, while other venues later in the summer went on sale earlier.) If I wanted to go the conspiracy theory route, it seems like TM/LN didn't want this show to happen so they're doing everything to make it unsuccessful. Crazy. One of my friends that purchased 3 tickets directly from LN a few weeks ago emailed me back to say she is not going to Asbury Park. She's going to opt for a refund - so there's 3 seats they lose because of this last minute change. I'm bringing a friend from work who will be seeing Al for the first time - IF we can go. He needs a ride and the tickets are in my name (and will be at will call, so there's no actual ticket-in-hand yet), so if I can't make it, that will be 2 of us not going.
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