I’ve never struggled to get gig tickets before. Thanks to the wonders of O2 Priority (a ticket presale for customers on the O2 phone network for those readers outside of the UK) and fan-site presales, I’ve always been lucky.
So when my Dad asked me to help him get Adele tickets, I was ready. Two presales and two general releases, surely I would be able to get a couple of tickets, especially with over 80,000 tickets available at London’s O2 Arena?
8:45am Monday morning and I was on the computer for the first presale. The virtual doors opened at 9am, so I had the webpage up and ready and those pre-ticket-sale nerves were fluttering in my stomach (is that a thing? Please tell me that you guys get that feeling too when you’re about to buy gig tickets.).
As Effie Trinket in The Hunger Games says: “May the odds be ever in your favour.”
9am hits. The website crashes the second I refresh the page. Panic ensues.
Two minutes later and it’s back up and running and I’m sat in the virtual waiting room waiting for my chance to purchase what I hope to be decent tickets. It doesn’t take me long to get a couple in my basket (and they’re floor seats too! My Dad is recovering from a serious road traffic accident so can’t climb the mountainous steps in the arena, floor seats were what we were after,) and I hurriedly click on the checkout button.
As soon as the checkout loads, my fantastic floor tickets have been replaced with tickets up in the gods, in the section that has the disclaimer about not buying them if you’re afraid of heights or suffer from vertigo. I want to scream.
I try again and again, constantly adding tickets to my basket, only no joy. They’re all tickets far too high up and not suitable. By 9:30am, they’re sold out.
Never mind, I think. There’s always tomorrow.
I’m on the computer even earlier the next morning. The waiting room opens at 8:30am, so I’m sat in there waiting for a chance to buy tickets. O2 Priority has never let me down, it’s how I’ve managed to see Lady Gaga so many times, and so I’m feeling pretty confident.
That confidence, it seems, was misplaced though. Two hours later, I’m still in the waiting room not having a chance to even select tickets, and they’ve sold out. The same happens in the first general release sale two days later.
I’m left annoyed more than disappointed. I couldn’t understand how, if I was in the queue as soon as it opened, people were able to get tickets long after me while I was left sitting and stewing in a self-refreshing waiting room.
One more day left to try for – the additional dates added after everything else sold out. An extra 80,000 tickets to try for.
On the last general release sale, I waste three hours of my life.
It goes very much the same way as the previous two attempts. But this time some interesting facts came to light during the conversations happening between ticket service AXS and disappointed and frustrated fans over Twitter.
Apparently, the waiting room isn’t a queue. You wait in there, yes, but people are picked at random to then go on and buy tickets. It’s nothing but pure luck.
It’s a virtual, real-life, equivalent of the Reaping for The Hunger Games. Only, much like The Hunger Games, the odds are never in your favour.
Unfortunately now, if you want to see Adele in concert next year in the UK, you’re looking at between £500-£3000 per ticket through private sellers, despite them only being sold originally for £95.
So here I am, ticket-less, wondering just how this woman from London caused such a frenzy.
If I was stuck in the arena, fighting for my District, I would have been one of the first to die.
