February 14, 2006
Ticket Love
We already knew that Ben Gibbard is a romantic. Leave it up to him to open up ticket sales to Death Cab's show with Franz Ferdinand (on April 11 at DAR Constitution Hall) on Valentine's Day. I don't know about you, but I think my heart just grew three sizes. At 1 p.m. today, you can go click to click with the rest of the city's hipsters to try and snag a pair of tickets. Fellas, coupled with a nice bouquet, this could make a very nice last minute gift for your lady friend. Set those Outlook reminders and have your credit cards at the ready, tickets are sure to move quickly on this one.
XOXOXO,
DCist Music
Photo of Diego Manuel's painting, "Love"
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Ok how the f*** did this concert go from "Tickets on sale at 1 p.m." to "Presale sold out at 1:00:02 p.m."? Something's fishy.
Agreed. This is BS.
seriously. were there two tickets available?
Thanks for advertising this Amanda! I logged in at 1pm and the link instantly went from "onsale soon" to "sold out".
yeah I think something went wrong.
It's particularly fishy because, at one point, these tickets were supposed to go on sale at this same time last week, and then, all of a sudden, at around 12:55pm last Tuesday, the website changed saying they would be on sale today... if I recall correctly.
Right, because ALL of our readers are DCFC fans.
The other three shows that went on sale today still are labeled as "Tickets Available Soon" so maybe somethings up on their end?
Ergh. Something is Fishy. Within a matter of seconds this was sold out. I'm usually pretty crafty at these pre-sale thingies...Did ANYBODY get tix? Sucks too, because now I can't be a hipster :(
So so close. I keep telling myself that if I had just clicked the quick pick button I would have gotten them. This makes me sad.
Wait, scratch that. The other on sales are in different time zones.
According to master.com/event/15003C4AF1BD8DE6?artistid=1013364&majorcatid=10001&minorcatid=60">Ticketmaster, tickets go on sale to the general public this Saturday (2/18) at noon. Better luck next time?
hey folks - try again. I just got two.
no way. I actually got to the "map of the venue" screen, took half a breath because I was so excited and missed my opportunity. Did anyone get tickets?
i got nothing. it literally went from presale to sold out.
i managed to get a pair.
Nothing. I got nothing. Ah, well, I'll try again on Saturday.
I managed to go back and get tickets. I just clicked the link in my browsers history and went to the ticket selection page. Managed to get two.
It worked, I'm a believer. Thank god for the F5 key.
Orhestra, K-122 and K-124!!!!!!!!!!!
Not to be a dick here, but this is what happens when you post a link directly to the pre-sale. Everybody knows all major concerts offer pre-sale, but most of the time they are limited to fan club members. Pre-sales are designed for fans willing to go the extra mile. I applaud DCist for always being on top of things, but posting a direct link was just asking for a shutout of tickets. I personally only wanted a pair of tickets (I've been a DCFC fan since their beginning), but I had to recruit many friends to try for me. It did pay off for me. I am sorry for the true fans whose tickets undoubtedly went to the occasional DCist reader. In the future, I beg you not to make it so easy the casual hipster.
much agreed with Diego
much agreed with Diego
Much disagreed. The timely news benefitted many true fans of both bands. We're glad to be of service.
Again, not to be a dick but Jason you missed my point. I am all for the posting of timely news, but I believe having direct link to the sale just clogged that website with people who are more likely readers of DCist then fans of the bands. True fans know about the pre-sales.
DAR pre-sales usually suck, you should be able to get better tickets when it goes onsale to the "general public" ... are DCFC and franz ferdinand hipster bands?
If you assume that all of the people who clicked on that link via DCist are "true fans of both bands," you are very wrong. You may as well throw up a link to Craig's List now and tell people to go there. That would be more of a "service."
I also recall this discussion came up when a pre-sale was offered by the 9:30 Club a few months back (Foo Fighters show, I believe) and DCist provided the passcode.
Diego,
So you don't think that by recruiting your "many friends" to help you get tickets(some of whom may not have known about the pre-sale) you weren't advertising the pre-sale and doing the very thing you're getting all high and mighty on us about? How many DCFC fans that have been there "since their beginning" did you and your friends screw out of tickets?
Don't let that double standard hit you on the way out, okay?
There are always a few feathers ruffled when we make announcements about ticket sales. In our defense, providing the link wasn't a direct route in -- people still had to register, obtain the passcodes, and sign in. We didn't supply any passwords this time around, and a post that said "Tickets are going on sale today... go out and find them yourselves" would have been pretty pointless. I think there are plenty of "true fans" out there who may not troll the bands' website for ticket presale information, so that's a matter of opinion I suppose. None of us got tickets either, but we're all hopeful of our chances when the tickets go on sale on Saturday, without the extremely tight restrictions that are applied to presales.
On another note, we appreciate the sentiment that DCist weilds the power to sell out a concert in 75 seconds. We're looking forward to seeing you all at Unbuckled next week!
ha! exactly, PD.
since when did "death cab fan" equate to a hipster? I would think being elevated to status of headlining the DAR kind of kills (or diminishes) your level hip-ness. is there some new sort of classification of hipsterdom that I am not aware of? Is there like a) THE Hipster b) Hipster Lite, and c) the Faux (casual) Hipster?
It's called "responsibility to the readers", alv. Regular DCist readers who come here for information on their favorite bands and their local appearances deserve our best efforts.
If it's truly a responsibility, then why do you have it in quotes?
Look, if you're going to post pre-sale ticket information, be prepared for the comments that arrive when people are upset they didn't score tickets. I don't know why the DCist folks are getting bent over this when it occurs everytime you post such information.
Because alv, you keep trying to paint it as if we were the only reason the pre-sale sold out. The ticket link was on blogs and websites far and wide but I doubt you go on those sites and complain.
You have no idea how many tickets were available in the pre-sale. Could have been 10, could have been 1000, but it doesn't matter b/c they would have sold out just as fast without us posting the info.
Newsflash: Both bands are REALLY popular. People want to go to this show. It's going to sell out no matter what.
Uhm...you can go ahead and ignore the quotation marks if it helps you feel better.
And, frankly, maybe it's incumbent on you to not get so bent out of shape yourself. You can rest assured that we will continue to provide this information to DCist readers, so consider yourself forewarned.
Kyle is right. If you're mad that other people besides you got pre-sale tickets, take it up with with the people who let the cat out of the bag: Death Cab For Cutie!
Kyle - I really find it hard to believe that you equate my friends to the many readers that DCist gets. Nice try - I'm not that popular, but keep reaching.
Sure, we have more reach, but my point is you did the same thing we did and it was OK for you to do it. But I'm sure all the people you contacted were true DCFC fans.
It's worth noting the path to becoming a true fan starts at being a casual fan. But people on high horses seem to forget this.
Both bands could sell out this venue on their own. So putting them together is going to create a ticket crunch, plain and simple.
How did this end up in a blame-DCist thread? That's ridiculous. The site is not single-handedly responsible for overwhelming a popular and well-publicized presale.
My original comment that kicked off this thread was incredulity directed toward the presale site. I don't understand how some people are able to buy tickets while others are not. It has nothing to do with the alleged powers behind DCist.
Who knew that being a "true fan" required one to be so implacably fatuous, Kyle?
Quite frankly, I think the measure of true fandom can be measured by financial commitment. Who is a bigger fan, the lucky fan whose been listening for years and got a ticket today for $35 (or whatever) or the more recent arrival who plops down $150 on Craigs List?
Who cares what your commitment level was five years ago, how much are you willing to pay now? That's the only quantifiable measure of a "true fan", if you ask me. Everything else just sounds like entitlement to me.
Look, if it's newsworthiness you are concerned about you already reported on this show last Sunday. At that point leave it up to the readers to act upon things. Why give out pre-sale ticket information for this show in particular as opposed to other shows anyway? Or for Foo Fighters? Is it because you guys are fans? That's fine. I don't think Dcist is to blame for anything much less destroying people's chances on getting tickets. Let's face it Death Cab and Franz Ferdinand are very popular bands. When I found out they were coming (weeks ago by the way from an online source other than Dcist) I was hyped to figure out what the ticket-getting situation was going to be like. Anyway, my problem seems to be with the choices you make in giving out information. You guys did the same thing by the way with the recent "The Hold Steady" show. You didn't mention it in your week in music, got chastised for it in fact, and then a few hours before the show tell everyone to head over to the Black Cat. It's just odd.
If it's popularity that's driving your posts then just admit it. But if these things are popular then people will find out anyway, right? And then don't hide behind the "people have the right to know" line.
And let's not let this devolve into a 10th grade "I'm a bigger fan than you". I don't think that was Diego's point in the first place.
Not to be a dick, but you DCists are tools. I agree that your post wasn't the sole cause for the pre-sale to sell out in two seconds, but had you not, I may have had the 30 or so seconds I needed to get a couple tickets. This is all speculation of course, but you guys sure didn't help.
Quite frankly, I think the measure of true fandom can be measured by financial commitment. Who is a bigger fan, the lucky fan whose been listening for years and got a ticket today for $35 (or whatever) or the more recent arrival who plops down $150 on Craigs List?
Who cares what your commitment level was five years ago, how much are you willing to pay now? That's the only quantifiable measure of a "true fan", if you ask me. Everything else just sounds like entitlement to me.
Right, because I can afford to drop $150 to see a band that I heard was good makes me a bigger fan than my buddy who waits tables and has been listening to the band for five years.
Not to be a dick, but you DCists are tools. I agree that your post wasn't the sole cause for the pre-sale to sell out in two seconds, but had you not, I may have had the 30 or so seconds I needed to get a couple tickets. This is all speculation of course, but you guys sure didn't help.
This is just uninformed hatred. There was a problem with the site. Read the first five comments in this thread. Even the MOST popular concerts...like the Boss when he plays Asbury Park...don't sell out in 2 seconds. This presale was basically bogus.
Real tickets go onsale this weekend. Go to ticketmaster to find out when. If you can't get tickets at that point, then start whining. But seriously, don't be mean to DCist for this.
I'm being mean because I'm pissed off that I didn't get any tickets, and the only people I can blame right now is DCist, because they sure as hell didn't help my situation. Juvenile, I know.
Btw, I don't know why everybody thinks the pre-sale was "bogus". All the pre-sales for the other cities seem to be working fine.
Hey, you feel free to do all the speculating you want, just remember that the rest of the tickets go onsale this Saturday at noon.
I find that in these highly popular pre-sales, your best chance at tickets is to wait a minute or so. If you review the comments here, you'll see that people were able to get them after the intitial crunch. I found that to be the case with the B&S/New Pornos presale. I was locked out for the first minute or so, but then I was able to go in, not once but twice and buy four tickets. It may very well be the case that a few hundred people trying to click in at exactly the same second is enough to lock people out. I really don't know enough about servers to say.
But really, people like cali are just bitter and ignoring the basic fundamentals of the laws of probability (and supply-demand too). Instead of firing off a comment at exactly 1:00, you could have probably waited a minute or so and bought tickets as the server load leveled off.
Or you could just suck it up and demonstrate your "true fandom" and buy tickets off of Craigs List. As I said, if you're such a big fan, you should be plenty willing to pay the price. Otherwise you're just someone with an entitlement complex.
Rachel -- As we've said time and again, content for pieces such as the Weekly Music Agenda are at the discression of their authors. We work as a team and give each other suggestions and editorial support, but when it comes down to it, an article's content is the product of the work and/or opinions of the person whose name is below it. When it comes to ticket announcements, we let you all know about things that we think are interesting. Are those decisions influenced by our opinions? Of course. I like Death Cab and Franz Ferdinand. I think that show is a big deal, and that other people might want to know about it too. They fall into the category of music I'm most familiar with. To finish with a comment I've probably made 20 times on DCist, we are indeed always trying to diversify the staff and spread out our areas of expertise. If you or someone you know would be interested in helping with that effort, please let us know.
changing the subject, did you all catch DCFC and My Morning Jacket on Austin City Limits? They both had painfully short sets, but were great nonetheless.
Pre-sales are not bogus. I bought tickets for Las Vegas, St. Louis, Philly and now DC through the same pre-sale links. So, hopefully, my travel helps me measure out to be a true fan and not fatuous. I believe it boils down to luck and karma, but internet jams don't help.
Or you could just suck it up and demonstrate your "true fandom" and buy tickets off of Craigs List. As I said, if you're such a big fan, you should be plenty willing to pay the price. Otherwise you're just someone with an entitlement complex.
Again, what does "true fandom" have to do with being able to afford ridiculous scalped prices? If someone's been a DCFC die-hard fan for years, but can't afford more the $150 for a scalped ticket because they have to pay rent doesn't make them less of a fan than the jackass with tons of expendable cash to blow on shows he hears is good.
Btw, for the record, I sat on that page and hit refresh for a few minutes after the pre-sale started. I saw nothing other than "sold out".
no need to go the DCFC show now, actually. you'll find all the whining you need on this thread.... if it were only set to music...
just as a point of clarification for future articles, Death Cab for Cutie or Franz Ferdinand would not be "hipster" bands. they would be classified as indie-pop bands. thank you in advance.
Um. It's "discretion". Can't believe nobody corrected that already.
some people think of true fandom as paying whatever it takes to see a show. some people think of true fandom as being the only ones who know about an internet presale. that's why the whole "true fan" thing is so extraordinarily stupid. it's completely subjective and stupid. did i mention it was stupid? it's stupid. really, i could go on, but i've been here before (like, six times) and it's not that fun for anyone involved. i'm sorry for anyone who was disappointed by not getting tickets today, but try your chances saturday and i'm sure it'll come through.
Okay. I don't think hipster refers to the band. It's more of a term to refer to the people who show up time and time again at the "hottest" shows to say they were there. Maybe fans, maybe not. I don't think there is such a thing as a "hipster band". Why would anyone think that there was such a classification?
DCist Kyle, where in my comments did I blame DCist for causing the pre-sale to sell out?
I simply said that if you're going to post pre-sale information on the site to be prepared for the backlash. Any site that posts information like that gets comments from people ticked off because they didn't get tickets. Go read the 9:30 Club board after a big pre-sale occurs and see the number of new folks who pop up to register complaints.
Just for the record, I don't believe in the concept of "real fan" anyway. I just am advancing the "how much are you willing to pay" theory as the only tangible metric of somebody's desire to go to a show. Any other metric is unreliable ("I really want to go, but he really REALLY wants to go").
Certainly $150 is more significant to a busboy than a business lawyer, but thems the breaks I guess. (And really, single tickets are not going to be sold for that much money, it'll be something closer to 60-75, and if a busboy really REALLY wants to go, he can forgo a few nights out.)
Obviously the price the tickets were sold today are not market prices. The actual market prices would be higher (and will be once they hit Craig). Who says anyone is entitled to pay below market price for anything?
Okay. Consider us properly forewarned for future backlash.
I think what we have here is a dispute between those who like the band more than you and those who like the band even more than them, somewhat offset by those who like-like the band, and would like to have, like, ten thousand of Chris Walla's babies. No offense to Death Cab, but I kind of hope it ends in violence.
There's nothing particularly "hip" about either of these bands. Hello...they're gonna sell the crap outta DAR in like two seconds. There will be as many kids waiting for mommy and daddy to pick them up after this show as there will be people who can legally drink. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing. Just sayin'...
If Chris Walla's ten thousand babies failed to harmonize in the correct key, he'd disown them on the spot.
If Chris Walla's ten thousand babies could only play one instrument each, they'd still be three short of Walla himself. Also, he'd probably tell people they were Harmer's brats to avoid the embarrassment.
If you all got tickets, you wouldn't be hate posting. We're just easily accessible. What time did that post go up? A couple hours tops before the presale? If you were a true fan, you would have seen them years ago, in a much smaller venue. Save your money and go to Coachella. Now that's gansta.
Coachella? Give me a break, festivals suck ass.
"See 80 bands on 14 stages, in the mud and the freaking heat"
No thanks.
For all the people pissed at DCist, do you really think that this site sees enough traffic to sell out a presale in less than a minute? This is not a dig at DCist (a site I read frequently), but it's not like Google or WaPo posted the site on their front page.
Which makes me curious: how many visitors does DCist get each day?
RTC, that's exactly the point we've been trying to make all day.
Can you let the readers know how many hits DCist gets in one day?
THANK YOU DCist for the reminder!
Your site has become one of my favorite FREE sites for scoring pre-sale info & for determining demand for these hot hipster shows.
I was able to score a great pair of orch seats for the DCFC/FF show which I'm promptly LISTING ON EBAY! I've also noted the regular on-sale (thanks again) during which I plan to buy more to resale.
I'm very thankful that you continue to provide this service.
Oh, is that a fact, James? How "prompt" did you plan on being? Most people who aren't, you know, mentally deficient find eBay pretty easy to use. But you, on the other hand, seem to be having some trouble getting your tickets listed! Hmm. Wonder why that is?
You'll let us know, won't you, if you need help pushing the shiny buttons, okay.
just as a point of clarification for future articles, Death Cab for Cutie or Franz Ferdinand would not be "hipster" bands. they would be classified as indie-pop bands. thank you in advance.
And since DCFC's latest was on Atlantic and FF is on Sony, they're actually just pop bands.