My Evening With Tom
Posted on 08.03.06 by Widge @ 9:35 am

Okay, to close this out…I found out who the "fucking genius" was who came up with how the tickets were handled:

The man himself. So it looks like Tabernacle's off the hook. They were probably doing the best they could given this half-assed will call idea.

Anyway, Tom admitted as such on-stage and advised us that he made us show up with ID and credit cards with everything on will call in order to keep tickets off of eBay. He was cruel only to be kind, in others.

While he's well within his rights to put whatever parameters he wants on attending his show, there are easier ways to achieve that objective that do not involve making your audience stand out in the heat for a fucking hour. Have the purchaser provide names for each of the people he's buying tickets for, have the names on the tickets, and have everybody show up with ID at the door. That would also negate the two tickets per person nonsense. Or at least do two lines: general admission and assigned seats. We were in assigned seats because we're old farts and can't stand up for two hours. But hey, we got to stand up for an hour outside. Good job.

So for anybody showing up for a Tom show, get there really fucking early–even if you're not general admission. He gives a great fucking show, no joke at all. Love him. There's nothing quite like "Goin' Out West" live. But he's no logistics expert.

Filed under: General BS
Comments: 2 Comments


Why Ticketbastard Sometimes Earns its Name
Posted on 07.08.06 by Widge @ 9:22 am

Tom Waits is touring. Tom Waits, from what I can tell, never tours. As a result, this is a cultural shockwave level event for me, since I've been dying to see Tom live ever since I bought my first live bootleg CD of his.

So tell me, Ticketbastard, why I can only buy two tickets for this? I would like to take my whole family to see Tom, since we probably won't get another chance in this lifetime. There are three people in my immediate family. You have a two ticket purchase limit.

Your reason for this is to let more people see the show. "…to provide ticket access to as many fans as possible." That is, if the fans have only themselves and one other person they want to let in. No, I don't buy that. You don't care one whit about how many fans get to see the show–you're getting paid the same amount for each seat. Same deal with Tom and the venue and Tom's management. I don't buy that it's their decision because nobody on your end or their end gets hurt if all the tickets get bought out by one person–you make the same amount of money regardless.

No, you're trying to avoid ticket scalping, because you're sick of not getting fair market price for the seats. In fact, I just heard that you're starting to auction off the best seats so you can get the fair market price.

I just wish you had started with this one. I would have paid extra to get everybody into this show, but now I'm screwed. I could dive back into the ticket buying mosh pit and buy a third ticket, but that would doubtless be not with the other two and you've already warned me that you could cancel all three tickets if I tried that.

It's your site, so you people are the ones I'm holding responsible for this. I've never minded paying your convenience fees because you're providing a service and I'm accessing that service. I've never minded whatever other fees you've charged. I didn't even mind the fact that your site is so ridiculously stupid that it only gave me "International Will Call" as a delivery method. As long as you're offering what I want, I can choose whether or not to pay and that's up to me. Nobody forces me to do business with you.

But now I have to explain to somebody in my family that they're not going to see Tom Waits. And as a result, you're bastards, the whole throbbing lot of you.

Congratulations, twits. This will probably be the one time I get out of the house to see a concert this year and you've pissed me off as a result. So just remember, assholes: customer service. It takes so very little to make us angry, and that anger only increases exponentially when you have something that we want or need and we can't get it the way we want it and/or need it. And if you've set yourself up as pretty much the end-all, be-all of providing what we want or need, you better damn well have your act together. Or we'll just bite much, much harder.

Filed under: General BS
Comments: None


Greetings, People of Los Angeles.
Posted on 04.04.06 by Widge @ 2:01 am

Oh, how I hate you.

At least though, with The Black Rider, I can get a sense of the show itself from the album. I have no clue about Franks Wild Years. Would love to see that staged. Or just the book. Or anything.

Too much cool shit and the world is still too big.

Hi, by the way. Sorry I've been away. I was bedridden for a few days by a memetic virus. How was your weekend?

Found via San Diego Serenade.

Filed under: General BS
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John Robinson is a writer of prose, poetry and comics who also writes under the pseudonym of Widgett Walls.

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